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Rhein Airtime (Germany Live) Trip reports!

I've written up trispdrill, and should hopefully be posting it later tonight. I want to start seeing videos soon. :p

I don't think we're going to make to 50 pages within 2 weeks that Mark wanted. :wink:
 
So yes, Day 3 and it was time for Holiday Park.

It was a bit of a strange park - in the middle of nowhere, very spread out and full of greenery, with little in the way of theming or quality building going on (e.g. the toilets were temporary structures). It had a quite a nice relaxed atmosphere though.

Naturally we headed straight for EGF :p. I was pretty damned excited by the time we got on (front row with Peter), and I reckon the first half of the layout is superb, but after that it struggles with a lack of speed. My new favourite first drop though!

After some shop whorage we sacrificed our vertebrae to the Super Gerbil corkscrew, the mad people did the giant chair swings, and then we laughed at the unfortunates on the amazingly stacked-up log flume:-

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Yes that goes right into the station!

Another EGF session, over to the drop tower (classic Intamin but I enjoyed it, myself and Marc screamed all the way down :p - ORP to come), toyed with the rapids but decided to head back to the EGF area ready for some food and ERT.

That's when the rain started. And when I say rain, I mean amazonian:-

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Obviously EGF stopped running (we thought for a while that Leighton had drowned), they shut the queue, and as the minutes ticked closer to the ERT I was starting to panic and everyone was getting more despondent. I went over to chat to the staff, but they couldn't really comment on when it would be re-open. It was looking dire.

And then it just stopped! With about a minute to spare, and then the lovely Katrin came into view, bang on time, had a quick chat with us, went off to speak to the engineers, and came back with a big smile and a thumbs-up. It was on! Cue much happiness :D.

By now there was a big queue at the entrance, but they were all held back as the group was led up the exit and onto the station. We were so happy to be on it, yes, we cheered :p.

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Although it was quite short it didn't matter, the ERT was fantastic and we loved it! And seeing the GP having to wait for CF was fun too :p.

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When it was over we said goodbye to Katrin, raided the shop and left for Tripsdrill on a massive high.
 
17th July – Tripsdrill

The idea was to leave Holiday Park around 2:30pm after our ERT, then head over to Trispdrill, which was open until 6pm for a few extra credits.

We left Holiday Park bang on time, and began our journey to Tripsdrill. The first part of the journey went fine, but as soon as we left the motorway, we all got completely lost! :p Signposts to the park were contradictory and the sat navs wanted us to take different routes completely! In the end it resulted in dropping the maps and signposts, and let the sat navs take us there, with Marc’s car close behind, and Mushy’s car having to make an emergency dive to a petrol station.

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We arrived at about 3:50pm, with the 3rd car about 15 minutes behind us. Whilst getting the tickets, we noticed a board with the words “Mammut” and “4:00pm” written on, with the rest being in German. We assumed that Mammut was closing at 4:00pm, giving us only 5 minutes to get into the park and into the queue! Slade was great and told those of us who were there to run to Mammut whilst he was still sorting out the tickets (there weren’t any barriers to stop you going in, so we just ran through!)

Finding Mammut was just as hard as finding the park itself! We ran right to the back, then to the front, then to the back of the park again, getting completely lost and out of breath. We finally got to Mammut dead on 4pm, and the queue line was roped off, but trains were still running to clear the queue. The 4 of us jumped the ropes blocking off the queue, ran to the station where the ride op was telling us in German to turn around. We acted all out of breath, said we came from England to ride it, and pointed out that there were still about 10 people in the queue, and eventually he gave in and let us on for a back row ride!

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The ride itself is a good family ride, but nothing stunning. The first drop is alright, and you get the occasional pop of airtime, but it’s quite clearly aimed at families, offering a very smooth ride.

As we entered the break run, Slayed was running up to the ride. We shouted at him to get in the queue, he played the same trick with the ride op and we got a second go, this time with Slayed onboard too! By the time we got back to the station, the people in Marc’s car had arrived at Mammut, and the ride op kept the ride open for them too!

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I got off after that ride to get a drink, and when I walked back to the exit to meet up with people, I found that everyone (including those in Mushy’s car) were all on the ride for another go, besides Anthony who didn’t quite make it for some reason. Me an Anthony went up the exit ramp, and walked onto the station where the 2nd empty train was waiting. We asked the ride op if we could go on, he let us and me and Anthony got a front row ride, with the train to ourselves!

It’s worth noting that Mammut is still far from finished. They were still working on the station, transfer track shed, exit paths and so on. All of the paths around the area were just dirt, but hopefully in a years or so time, it will all be looking nice and fit in with the rest of the park.

Mammut was supposed to close at 4:00, but we managed to keep it running until about 4:30pm! Big thumbs up for that ride op!

Someone then discovered that most of the rides were closing at 4:30pm, so we rushed over to G'sengte Sau, the Gerstlauer Bobsled coaster, which has the same layout as Cobra at Paultons, besides an extra helix. The themeing on this coaster was pretty impressive and I liked the way it interacted with the log flume. Shame the ride wasn’t as good as Cobra.

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A run round to the kiddie coaster, Rasender Tausendfüßler, a clone of the Treetops coaster at Oakwood. We entered the station to find it deserted. Control booth was left open with keys in, but no ride op in sight. Turns out the ride op was operating 2 rides at the same time, and so we had to wait 5 minutes for a ride op to turn up before we could get on.

We wanted to get the rapids and log flume in next, since they are supposed to be quite impressive, but they had already closed. Feeling rather down, we stopped at the local sweetshop for some sugar and drinks. We ended up waiting next to a weird spinny ride that was on a track. I’ve no idea what it is, what it was called, or what it was even supposed to do, but it was still open, so we gave it a go!

We walked back to Mammut for a group photo, and discovered that G'sengte Sau was running until 6pm. Only when I got on for a re-ride did I realised that no where in this park were they checking your restraints, and in the end we decided to see how far they would let you go. It started with a circuit on 3 clicks on the restrains, then next lap was 2 clicks, and finally we managed 1 click on the restraint, and boy did you go flying over those airtime hills! Stone Cold won though, managing to trick the ride op, and getting dispatched with his restraint still fully open!

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Lookie! 1 click restraint! Thats loads of room. :eek:

Finally it was time to head back towards the entrance. On the way a bee flew down the back of my T-Shirt, and stung me, which wasn’t very nice of it. We mucked around in the little play areas and slide for half an hour, which was quite fun and full of antics. Hopefully some people have got some good video of all that.

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In the evening we had a little adventure into Stuttgart city centre, which was fun. We seemed to walk miles, past most of the city, just to find a McDonalds. :p On the way back, Joey stole my camera for a bit and started taking random photos of everything he saw…

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Zomg! Random evil tram thing.

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Random trippy Joey.

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This is what looked like the city centre. Something important anyway...

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Look! Its Lain under some sort of wierd statue thingy

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w00t! Me! Looking rather wasted although i've had nothing to drink! I like the way Joey always had to look up to people. :p

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The rest of a rather nackered CF group



Ride Count

Mammut
Mammut
Mammut
G'sengte Sau
Rasender Tausendfüßler
Weird Spinny Thing
G'sengte Sau
G'sengte Sau
G'sengte Sau
 
Divv said:
Group psychology maybe goes a long way towards it. For instance Winjas was by far the favourite ride of the majority of the TPR group in Phantasialand whereas with CF it seems like it was a bit of an afterthought.

I haven't been on either, but perhaps Winjas offers more opportunity for staged "crazy antics" photos, which can later be hilariously captioned? Are there more stalls nearby selling food that can be posed with?
 
Oh yea, I made an exciting POV of one of the coasters at Movie Park.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzZNqhHLtM[/youtube]

It's not very good, which is why I haven't uploaded it to the site, but if someone with greater authority watches it and thinks otherwise, let me know!
 
Tim I dont think the link has worked :(

Edit, it works now what a great coaster :) good pov.

Stone Cold made me laugh seeing him bouncing up and down saying "again again, again I want to go again"
 
southend_marc said:
Stone Cold made me laugh seeing him bouncing up and down saying "again again, again I want to go again"
Classic, and I have no idea what I'm doing behind him, I was in ecstasy XD.

Not started my vids yet so I'll finish off my trip reports. However, it's clear from my vids that Leighton is scared of Euromir :p:-

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So we made our way out of Holiday Park, right past Hockenheim and over towards Stuttgart.

Tripsdrill is buried deep in the countryside, and like Peter said the signs, maps and satnavs were pointing different ways, so with Marc behind me and a really slow lorry in front I took the decision to follow the satnav, knowing it would get there eventually!

Little did we know that Mammut was shutting at 4...honestly if they'd told me that previously we probably wouldn't have tried squeezing the park in, but the drama was amazing :lol:.

I was busy arguing with the old guy at the ticket desk, who was the only service person we met all week with no English. He was confused about the booking and couldn't find it, whereas I could see it written on a print-out, so I was trying to signal to him where it was.

And then someone said, "Mammut shuts at 4." I looked at my watch, it was 3:53. Everyone was just milling around the entrance waiting for me, and I thought "there's no way I'm going to make this", so I just shouted, "RUN! RUN NOW!" You all kind of looked blank at me, then got the idea and legged it!

Eventually I got the old geezer to see the booking and paid, got the maps and tickets, and he said something like, "you can bring the rest of your group through now", and looked very confused when no-one was there XD.

By this point Mushy's car had yet to arrive, since they'd had to stop for petrol. I had to make an instant decision whether to wait at the entrance for them, or run to Mammut and try to keep it open (since by now it was 4 already). I chose the latter, since it would help more people, and it was likely that Mushy's car would miss it anyway.

At which point I sprinted. Tried to follow the map. Got lost. Ran into the Mark/Marc/Joey. Read map again. Sprinted. Could see the lift hill through the trees. Got lost again. Saw staff member, bellowed "MAMMUT????" at her, still got lost until she pointed and we realised we had to basically run around the entire park. I just kept going.

Got to Mammut in a right state, could see it was roped off. Ducked under the ropes, ran through to the station to see a big group of CFers already on it. Relief. At that point I thought the best way to keep this open is to stay on it and they'd have to drag me off until everyone got there, and I was shagged anyway.

But you know what? After copious begging we all managed it, even Mushy's car, even poor Anthony who looked like he'd missed the last train but him and Peter grabbed one to themselves. I was elated, and we so need to buy that ride-op a beer...

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The ride? Pretty damn good for a family coaster, it's not "mammoth" but it has an interesting layout, a mist-filled tunnel, craftmanship in its (not yet complete) construction and is a great addition to the park.

There was a mild panic after we were done with Mammut in case the other coaster nearby, G'sengte Sau, shut:-

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But it was actually open until 6 and it was the flume and rapids that closed earlier, so we missed them instead.

So we ambled around the park taking in the really nice scenery, riding weird spinny rides, getting thorned in the derriere, almost breaking rope bridges, whoring G'sengte Sau on death levels of lapbar, and following Tim and Anthony over to a mad section of slides, until they basically threw us out of the park.

Tripsdrill is a strange place, very unlike most parks, with unusual rides and lots of nooks and crannies to discover.

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It has some wonderful scenery, and is probably a great place to spend a nice relaxing day wandering around and discovering things - but not for sprinting to coasters :p.

After a relatively uneventful drive into Stuttgart (thanks for the entertainment Harvey :p), we got the U-Bahn into the centre and had a good look at the place while we found some food.

In all, with so much going on, and such highs and lows, Thursday was my favourite day of the trip by far, it was fantastic to experience it all with everyone and I'll never forget it :D.
 
Hahaha, I could feel the tension with the ticket faff!
 
And you missed the part that made you laugh, me falling into the bush and pulling a thorn out my bum lol. Sorry just read it again and you did mention it, if I remember right you even took a picture.

I remember the panic in our car following you, one minute it said 80 miles of fuel the next 30. But we decided that we would get the fuel after the park which was ok as we only had to travel a few miles.

The run to the coaster taught me one thing, how unfit I am!
 
Day One

Park: Movie Park
Arrived: 10:45*
Departed: 17:30*
*according to camera
Weather: Sunny

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After a little wait outside the Groups office we entered the park and walked over to Jimmy Neutron which had the longest queue in the park. So it was decided that we should go to the other-side of the park and ride there woody Bandit.

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This is where met up with costar (Other Harvey). In my opinion bandit was too ruff considering this a family park. Next was a Standard SLC called MP-Express.

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This wasn't the worst SLC I have been on but comes fairly close. After that some of the group rode a spinny flat ride...

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while other took photos and sat in the shade. Time for Lunch at Subway where I had a sandwich ;)

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After our lunch we walk over to do the other coasters starting with there wild mouse called Ghost Bomber (why?).

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Which was ok but nothing special. So on we went to a Rollerskate coaster called Backyardigans: Mission to Mars.

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Once again this was ok but nothing special. The more rides you go on in this park the more it makes you think its not an enthusiasts park but a family park. Next was Jimmy Neutron the ride we decided to miss earlier.

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By far the best coaster in the park, would have been worth the earlier queue. After that we over to the 4D Cinema and queue up for a German sitting. Unfortunately we couldn't all get in so we decided to come back when there was an english sitting. So we went over to the strange water ride called Alien Encounter.

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which was surprisingly good even though we couldn't understand the plot (and no that wasn't problems with language as there were subtitles) after that we went back to the 4D Cinema which was Playing Shrek and it was really quite good. And last but not least we walk over to the extended disco with a random airtime hill.

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Other Random picts

http://gallery.me.com/wshippin/100163
http://gallery.me.com/wshippin/100170

Final thought
Park: 6/10 - Fun for families but not so good for enthusiasts.
Best ride: Jimmy Neutron (6/10)
Worst ride: Bandit (4/10)
 
Gotta agree with William regarding the Jimmy Neutrons Ride being the best coaster in the park, I really think they should consider applying those trains to any future suspended swinging coasters, unlikely those might be these days, they really are excellent trains.
 
Harvey said:
Well Mark, as discussed the cat decided to play with the cable today and paid the price! :D

Oh dear god.... did it land on the head?

Our cat went near the cable, sniffed a little and then moved when I yelled at her. She hasn't been near it since...
 
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