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Your Year in Review: 2019 edition on page 5

We rode on the front but I was riding with someone considerably larger so the restraint did nothing (which could be a good thing depending on who you are). Just found it to be far too uncomfortable to warrant rerides.
The back has airtime to rival the Intamin ejector machines, that's all I'm saying.
 
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 300ish
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 405
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 100ish
  • New parks visited in 2018: 10
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: 24 (3x DisneyWorld, 3x Universal Studios Orlando, 1x Seaworld Orlando, 1x Busch Gardens Tampa, 1x Legoland Florida, 3x Alton Towers, 1x Phantasialand, 1x Movie Park Germany, 3x Cedar Point, 1x Kings Island, 3x Alton Towers, 1x Dollywood, 1x Carowinds, 1x Port Aventura)
  • Favourite new ride of 2018: Steel Vengeance
  • Favourite new park of 2018: Dollywood
  • Highlight of 2018: either Steel Vengeance somehow being even better than expected, or reaching the 400 milestone (Afterburn at Carrowinds)
  • Biggest Surprise of 2018: Actually really enjoy Wickerman despite its short length and fairly tame layout
  • Low point of 2018: missing out on Lightning Run at Dollywood
It’s been a pretty good year overall, there’s been lots of fantastic new rides this year, think it’s been one of the strongest years for new rides in a long time.
 
My 2018 season has officially concluded so here are my final tallies:
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 386
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 425
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 39
  • New parks visited in 2018: 10 (Fun Spot Kissimmee, Canobie Lake Park, Palace Playland, Funtown, Story Land, The Great Escape, Sylvan Beach, Conneaut Lake Park, Craig's Cruisers, and I guess Kokomo's counts despite the spite)
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: 27 (Busch Gardens Tampa, Both Fun Spots, Sea World x2, Cedar Point x6, Canobie, Palace Playland/Funtown, Story Land, TGG/SB/Seabreeze, Darien Lake, Conneaut Lake Park, Animal Kingdom/Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom/Epcot, Craig's Cruisers, Michigan's Adventure, Kokomo's x2, Holiday World, Six Flags Great America, Dollywood, and Six Flags Over Georgia)
  • Favourite new ride of 2018: Steel Vengeance
  • Favourite new park of 2018: Canobie Lake Park
  • Highlight of 2018: This is a tough one. The few days of the US Live where we all got to hang out at Conneaut, Cleveland, and CP probably tops everything else.
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: Again, a tough one...Steel Vengeance was a bit of a surprise, as was Canobie as a whole and also Roar-o-saurus and Mako. I think I'm going to go with Expedition Everest - it was SO good.

It was a decent year for me - not my best but by no means was it my worst. At one point I was hoping to bump my count up to 432 with various +1s and Camden Park, but it just didn't work out this year. Looking forward to next year already!
 
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 135
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 302
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 167
  • New parks visited in 2018: 19 (Dorney Park, Knoebels, Hershey Park, Kennywood, Waldameer, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World, Dollywood, Carowinds, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Kings Dominion, Six Flags America, Six Flags Great Adventure, Quassy, Six Flags New England, Lake Compounce, Liseberg)
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: Hmm somewhere between 30-35. Above parks plus multiple trips to Thorpe Park, Alton towers, CWoA and BPB.
  • Favourite new ride of 2018: Steel Vengeance
  • Favourite new park of 2018: Tough one but it’s got to be Cedar Point!
  • Highlight of 2018: 3 weeks of coasters in the US - CP, Kings Island, Knoebels, Hershey, Dollywood all highlights.
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: Lightning Rod was open! And amazing. Also completely taken by surprise by Phoenix at Knoebels!
  • Spite of the 2018: Volcano at KD, it’s been on the bucket list for years and I hope it’s still there when I make it back in the future!
 
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 135
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 302
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 167
  • New parks visited in 2018: 19 (Dorney Park, Knoebels, Hershey Park, Kennywood, Waldameer, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World, Dollywood, Carowinds, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Kings Dominion, Six Flags America, Six Flags Great Adventure, Quassy, Six Flags New England, Lake Compounce, Liseberg)
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: Hmm somewhere between 30-35. Above parks plus multiple trips to Thorpe Park, Alton towers, CWoA and BPB.
  • Favourite new ride of 2018: Steel Vengeance
  • Favourite new park of 2018: Tough one but it’s got to be Cedar Point!
  • Highlight of 2018: 3 weeks of coasters in the US - CP, Kings Island, Knoebels, Hershey, Dollywood all highlights.
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: Lightning Rod was open! And amazing. Also completely taken by surprise by Phoenix at Knoebels!
  • Spite of the 2018: Volcano at KD, it’s been on the bucket list for years and I hope it’s still there when I make it back in the future!
Impressive! Also what is your opinion on Apollo's Chariot?
 
Well my season is over! Full recap below:
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 336
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 350
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 14
  • New parks visited in 2018: 3
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: 12 with maybe 10 later this year (4x Cedar Point, 1x Conneaut Lake Park, 1x Indiana Beach, 1x Kings Island, 1x Holiday World, 1x Dollywood, 3x Orlando parks (Fun Spots, SWO)
  • Favorite new ride of 2018: Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point
  • Favorite new park of 2018: Fun Spot Kissemmee
  • Highlight of 2018: Steel Vengeance obviously
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: Steel Vengeance. It's very tough to beat tbh.
 
A couple of you have said this now, and I'm curious.
Biggest Surprise: Steel Vengeance
Was that really a surprise, though? Of course it's amazing, but none of it took my by surprise...
 
A couple of you have said this now, and I'm curious.

Was that really a surprise, though? Of course it's amazing, but none of it took my by surprise...

It took me by surprise to be fair. Like... I knew it was gonna be good, but I did have some reservations beforehand. I thought the MCBR might ruin the 'flow', I thought the second half looked a bit repetitive, I thought the bunny-hop finalé might be more annoying than exciting... I was wrong on all 3 counts!
I just wasn't expecting it to be that good. Even after riding 3 other RMC's in the days leading up to it, good old SteVe still had a massive impact on me after 1 ride. "Have that, puny human!"
So yeah.
 
A couple of you have said this now, and I'm curious.

Was that really a surprise, though? Of course it's amazing, but none of it took my by surprise...
@Howie summed it up perfectly. I don't think anybody questioned that the first half would be as good as good as it is, but I was certainly nervous about the second half. The Iron Horses tend to meander towards the end and that was certainly on a lot of people's minds in the weeks leading up to opening. Not only did the second half deliver, but it was even better than the first half. The areas of the ride that I least expected to be excellent were actually the best parts of the ride. Howie mentioned the last few bunny hops, which provide the strongest airtime on the ride. The three hills immediately following the mid course brakes were surprisingly good as well.
 
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Good points, well made, by both of you.

I still can't say it was the biggest surprise of the year, though - maybe because I'd heard enough about it before I went. It was better than I thought, but I thought it was going to be incredible.

I was more surprised by things like Jungle Trailblazer (Wuhu), Soaring with Dragon, Goliath (La Ronde), Dragon Mountain (Marineland), etc. I wasn't expecting them to be that good, but they were brilliant. The 'surprise factor' was much higher. For me, at least.
 
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I was hoping to have added a few more creds in December but it didn't work out.

Went to Chile at the start of the month to drive the Carretera Austral (oft cited as the best road trip in the world, and with good reason). But it turned out the theme park in the middle of Santiago (Fantasilandia) is only open at weekends, even in the height of summer. Ah well, when the highlights are a boomerang and an SLC I guess we didn't miss much.

This next one really sucked though. We were planning to spend Christmas in Australia and hit the parks around Brisbane. Got to Heathrow and we were denied boarding because Mrs. Flavors' passport expires in less than six months.

Now, I'd checked that you don't need six months on a passport to visit Australia, but what I didn't know was that you need six months if you're transiting Singapore. Yup, even if you have no intention whatsoever of leaving the airport.

Bummer.

So my 2018 turned out like this...
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 320
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 390
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 70
  • New parks visited in 2018: 14
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: 11
  • Favorite new ride of 2018: Taron
  • Favorite new park of 2018: Phantasialand. What a wonderful park.
  • Highlight of 2018: See above
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: A tie between how awful Ultimate was and the extreme chaviness of Brean. Felt like I needed a shower afterwards.
 
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 34
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 40
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 6
  • New parks visited in 2018: 0
  • Visited at theme parks in 2018: 4 (1x Chessington, 1x Thorpe Park, 1x Alton Towers and 1x Winter Wonderland
  • Favourite new ride of 2018: Wicker Man
  • Favourite new park of 2018: N.A
  • Highlight of 2018: finally watching an Alton Towers fireworks display and having Thorpe park absolutely dead during Love Island Lates (managed over 20 rides in 4 hours)
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: finding out there would be a summer late opening at Thorpe park on a Sunday and then the awful weather earlier on in the say causing the park to be absolutely dead
 
I had a really good 2018 trip-wise. I more than doubled my cred count which I don't think will be possible ever again! I have added some more sections after looking at last year's one.
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 207
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 431
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 224
  • New parks visited in 2018: 35 (+1 new fair)
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: ~31 (+ 2 fairs)
  • Number of new top 10s: 7
  • Favourite new cred of 2018: Beast!
  • Worst new cred of 2018: The Joker clones (SFGadv +SFNE) ewwwwww
  • Worse spite: probably Sky Rocket at Kennywood, could have been worse.
  • Favourite new park of 2018: This is a really hard one. It's tied between like 4, BGW, KI, CP and Hershey.
  • Highlight of 2018: America trip in general really, ghosterforce was great too.
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: That steel vengeance didn't go in my top 10 after many people told me it would without question.
  • Biggest Achievement: Kingda Ka/Zumanjaro. Used to watch the pov of KK and think I'd never ever get on it (or ever get to the park anyway) so that was a really cool moment. BGW had also been on my bucket list as my top want-to-go-to park for years as I love Tampa so getting to finally go there was awesome too. Having to re-jig my enthusiast bucket list now as I did so many things on it this year!
  • Best CF live moment: I only went on GF this year so probably the spooky boat ride at Hellendoorn and the scary crocodile/"The Ring" tent or Troy at night.
I found my post from last year for reference:
I've had a really good year credwise. I've had a few years where I've not done much but this year I did a whole bunch of great trips. :)
New Creds: 100 (final one on NYE ;))
New Parks: 17 + Oktoberfest and Bremen Fair.
Total Different Parks: 20 + Winter Wonderland and the above two fairs.
Number of fresh top tens: 7, pretty much redid my top 10 completely. Just a couple of B&Ms and Olympia that remained.
Favourite New Cred: Taron, new number 1! :D
Least Favorite New Cred: Bandit, so rough.
Favourite Moment: Taron ERT night rides with CF people on the pre-ghosterforce visit. Everyone was loving it!
Worst Spite: Colossos on the live! Boo. A predicted spite but still spiteful.
Favorite New Flat: Talocan!
Least Favorite new flat: The huss frisbee at movie park.
Surprise new cred: Black Mamba. Had heard people say it was one of the worst B&M inverts so had low expectations and it turned out great, especially in the front!
Favourite park of the season: Phantasialand. Was skeptical about the hype before I went but it lived up to and exceeded it.
Best trip of the season: So hard to choose but maybe Ghosterforce?
Best people you met: Lots of new cf people. :D
Worst travel moment: The hotel on the plopsterix live that we dodged.
Favourite memory: Collective fear before Karnan then everyone coming off it (mostly) amazed! Like a collective emotional experience haha. Also being so relieved when I heard that everyone else was bricking it too!

Funny live moments: Sue displacing children on the kiddie cred at asterix, Chris' lap of shame on the washing machine cred, go-bros, Rachel and Serena getting wet foot spite at Hansa, Shell-fish on the rapids at Heide, "No-photo" at Flug at Heide, tall people at Parc Saint Paul, barbie girl at Hansa and the dolphin and many more!
 
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* Coaster count at start of 2018: 38
* Coaster count at end of 2018: 43
* New credits obtained in 2018: 5
* New parks visited in 2018: 2 (Flambards, Winter Wonderland)
* Days spent in a theme park in 2018: 7 (4x Alton Towers, 1x Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 1x Flambards, 1x Winter Wonderland)
* Favourite new ride of 2018: Icon
* Favourite new park of 2018: Winter Wonderland
* Highlight of 2018: Getting a nice +2 at Winter Wonderland on the last day of the year
* Biggest surprise of 2018: The Hornet at Flambards, a surprisingly good family coaster & much better than I expected it to be

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Coaster Count at the start of 2018: 66
Coaster Count at the end of 2018: 84
Creds obtained in 2018: 18
New Parks Visited: Paultons Fantasy Island and Bottons.
Days Spent in a Theme Park: Blackpool Pleasure Beach 3 Alton Towers 3 Thorpe 6 Adventure Island 1 Chessington 3 Legoland 1 Paultons 1 Bottons 1 and Fantasy Island 1.
Favourite New Ride of 2018: Icon
Favourite New Park of 2018: It's not a New Park per se but I fell in love with Blackpool properly this time.
Highlight of 2018: The day we went Alton Towers in September and the place was empty and it was fab.
Biggest Surprise of 2018: Probably Wicker Man first go I'd waited 5 and a half hours and didn't expect it to be as good.
 
At this point in the year, I've usually got something planned for parks, but at the moment I've got nothing. I still need to get my arse into gear for a Guangzhou cred mop up, which could really be done on any weekend, so that might still happen, but I just can't be bothered at the moment.
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 1368
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 1523
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 155
  • New parks visited in 2018: 54 (technically 56, but one was closed and one had their cred removed)
  • Days spent in a theme park in 2018: At a rough guess, 35.
  • Favorite new ride of 2018: Tough one, but probably Flying Aces. Other highlights would be Formula Rossa, Twisted Cyclone, Medusa Steel Coaster, Goliath (SFOG), Superman (SF Mexico), Iron Rattler
  • Favorite new park of 2018: Possibly Motiongate? Others would be Ferrari World, Six Flags Over Georgia, Colourful Yunnan Paradise
  • Highlight of 2018: New Zealand - absolutely loved it - followed by Mexico
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: Six Flags Over Georgia not being dreadful. Bana Hills being utterly ridiculous.
  • Low points of 2018: Doing a Griswold at Victory Kingdom, Guilin, even though there was nothing special there.

Now that the year is defintitely over, I can finalise some numbers. The favourites and highlights haven't really changed though, so I'll leave that.
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 1368
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 1545
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 177
  • New parks visited in 2018: 63 (technically 65, but one was closed and one had their cred removed)
 
  • Coaster count at start of 2018: 402
  • Coaster count at end of 2018: 443
  • New credits obtained in 2018: 41
  • New parks visited in 2018: 12
  • Favourite new cred of 2018: Hyperion!
  • Worst new cred of 2018: None really stand out
  • Worse spite: Tornado at Legnedia
  • Favourite new park of 2018: DLP
  • Highlight of 2018: The Poland Live. Didn't stop laughing the whole time!
  • Biggest surprise of 2018: How bad Lech Coaster is.
  • Best CF live moment: The whole Poland Live, especially the BBQ
 
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