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THE Trip: East Coast Parks and Sights

Antinos

Slut for Spinners
Day 1:

Our plane arrived, we drove to Monticello, ate great southern food, and that's about it. Nothing special.

Day 2:

We left Richmond and saw Jamestown, Yorktown, and colonial Williamsburg. After a seafood dinner, we went swimming. Here's a photo of some oysters:

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And a photo of something I saw on a sign on how to eat crawfish:

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Enjoy!

Busch Gardens tomorrow. I'm psyched!
 
^ Haha that last picture looks wrong.. And those oysters look yucky. Then again, so do crab legs and those are delicious.

Have fun tomorrow!
 
^ I think I use to catch them in a pond when I was little, if it's the same thing I am thinking of.

They look creepy though.. It sucks that things like crablegs and lobsters taste so good but they look so scary. I like, freaked out the first time I had to crack open a crab leg :p .
 
Busch Gardens Europe <3

I'll try not to bore you guys, but...EVERYTHING about this park is absolutely WONDERFUL! The landscaping, the food, the theming, the friendliness of the staff. Everything is as good as it can get. The park is absolutely gorgeous and all the rides fit in with the terrain and landscaping well.

Pics are from my phone...

We got to the park at around 9:30. We entered, and waited. Off to Griffon we went. We ended up getting on in like five minutes, and ended up riding three times to start off the day. Griffon is one of the coolest experiences you could ever experience. After going up the lift, you get a great view of the bay and the beer factory, but then you're hanging 200 feet above the ground. Straight down you go, and into the immelmann. The forces and airtime of the ride took me by surprise. The ride has insane positive Gs all the way up to the mid course brakes. Down the second drop and into the second immelmann. The hill after provides some decent airtime and the water splash is just cool. Griffon fell in at number 3 in my top. The only buff I have with the ride is that it's just a bit short, but that's not too big of a deal.

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Next was Alpengeist. We got on quickly, and were thrown into submission. The ride was much better than I thought. The drop was fast and the immelmann had good forces. The loop intensified those, and the cobra roll put you through a centrifuge. After the mid course brakes, you dive down into a 0-g roll and then a corkscrew. The final turns make you nice and dizzy before heading into the brakes. We heard that the ride was one of the most intense out there, and it sure was. Alpengeist was number 10 for me, but was short lived when we rode Apollo. We got in line again for a front row ride.

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Since we were in the area, we went to Darkastle, which was an interesting ride, but not much to talk about. The A/C felt nice after being in the 90+ temperatures all day. We skipped Big Bad Wolf for now due to the long line.

Apollo's Chariot was the surprise of the day. I wasn't expecting anything special from this, but I was blown away by the airtime that the ride was hiding. For those who say that there is no ejector on it, they're on cocaine. I left about four inches inbetween my lapbar, and I was off my seat over every hill, especially in back. The terrain interaction was great, and made for some awesome drops with insane airtime. It's enough to make it my number 6. We got a reride right away.

Lunch was a cheese steak and fries for me. We ate right under Apollo's lifthill.

Loch Ness Monster was next. I thought it was a cool ride, but nothing special, other than the interlocking loops and the triple helix.

Finally, we headed back to Big Bad Wolf. The wait wasn't too bad now, so we did it. We waited for front row, and once again, were surprised. The first few turns were great and pulled great forces. The second lifthill was good suspense for the final drop and turns, which were almost too intense for us. It'll definitely be a loss to the area when this ride closes.

We headed back to Apollo's Chariot next for another ride, and then went to Grover's Alpine Express so we could ride it. We then took the sky ride to France and then went to Griffon and Alpengeist again. We then went to Trappers Smokehouse for dinner. We got a ton of food and couldn't finish it, and it was delicious...with a capital D.

Two more rides on Griffon, and one more ride on Alpengeist, Big Bad Wolf, and two rides on Apollo's Chariot were enough for us. We headed home after having a great day, and we look forward to Thursday.

Ride count:

Griffon x6
Apollo's Chariot x5
Alpengeist x4
Big Bad Wolf x2
Loch Ness Monster x1
Grover's Alpine Express x1
Darkastle x1

King's Dominion is next!
 
Ooo, I like your trip report Marcywarcy!

Sounds like you enjoyed every aspect of the park, and I can definitely say I am jealous that you got to go there. I knew you'd probably love Griffon since everyone else did, and you definitely made Alpy sound like it's SUPER INTENSE! As for Apollo, I've heard mixed things about it so it's good that you liked it so much. Nice that you got to ride Big Bad Wolf as well since it will be gone :( .

Lookin forward to the next installment of the report!
 
We went into King's Dominion for a few hours tonight, and we'll be heading back tomorrow. I'm sure Marc will go more in depth, but here's our ride count for the night:

Dominator: 3
Volcano: 1
Avalanche: 1
Flight of Fear: 1
Anaconda: 1
Ghoster Coaster: 1
 
Ok, we got to sleep in today, so that was a plus. We hit the road and drove around East Virginia. One of the coolest things we saw today was the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, the worlds largest air craft carrier:

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after seeing that monster, we drove over some bridges and saw Virginia Beach. We then drove through three or four rain storms. It was nuts. Visibility got down to probably 200 feet. We then arrived in Ashland. Since we had so much time to kill, we decided to get dropped off at King's Dominion.

We entered at 6:00 PM and headed for Dominator. The first thing I noticed is how you can walk under it. It looks so nice in it's new area. We got on it, and climbed the lifthill. Down the first drop and into the loop. The loop has nice hangtime and the following turns have nice forces. The cobra roll is decent as well. The trims don't bite as much as I remember and the corkscrews are taken at a decent speed. Dominator has definitely moved up in my list.


Scooby's Ghoster Coaster is really ugly, but probably the smoothest out of the four clones I've been on. Nothing else to say.

Avalanche came next. It's nothing special, but it was a fun ride. There was a bit of a vibration, but I think that's because the sled I was in was covered with large Canada stickers.

Volcano was next. It was our longest wait at 15 minutes. We waited for the front row, and everything was awesome. The launch is pretty intense and the immelmann pulls some nice forces. the heartline rolls have nice hangtime as well. If only the ride was longer.

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We hit flight of fear quickly. There's nothing special to say, since we rode it's clone at KI a month and a half ago. It was fun, and these rides are underrated in my opinion.

Anaconda was our last credit tonight. We both agree that it looks just like a ride taken out of RCT and it sure rode like it. It wasn't terrible, but we're definitely not riding it again tomorrow.

We ate, and then got one more ride on Dominator in the front row before calling it a night to come waste a few hours on the laptops...how sad...We ended up getting half the park's coasters done in 2 and 1/2 hours. I'll leave you guys with a pic of Dominator at dusk:

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More King's Dominion and Washington DC tomorrow!
 
Oo, it's awesome that you guys got an extra little visit to Kings Dominion and ended up getting half the rides done! Volcano looks pretty sweet, does it dive into the Volcano, or come out of it? And yes, Dommy is a fantabulous ride.

P.S.- cool boat.
 
Man I wish I could go back. Volcano is probably #3 on mine and Dominator is #1. I wish I would've got on Flight of Fear one more time before I left though. :(

P.S. D.C. will be fun I guarantee.
 
LiveForTheLaunch said:
Oo, it's awesome that you guys got an extra little visit to Kings Dominion and ended up getting half the rides done! Volcano looks pretty sweet, does it dive into the Volcano, or come out of it? And yes, Dommy is a fantabulous ride.

Dives into it. That, like, 100ft diving curve is great... right up until the point it hits the brakes at the bottom of it and you realise the ride is over :p
 
Hahaha! Taylor! The station is in the volcano, turn into the launch is ouside, launch run is in the volcano, comes out for that big turn, goes back in with the second launch, then up and out the top of it. Then it goes through the 3 turns and rolls, and dives down in a turning drop back into the volcano and hits the brakes.
 
LiveForTheLaunch said:
^ Are you being sarcastic? Because I watched a POV and it appears the train comes out of the volcano :p .

OH

You confused me.

No, it does come out at the top, you're right, haha.
 
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