Rollercoaster Mania

(warning this is a long entry)

We haven't been to every amusement park in the United States, but we continue to work on it. Camping and amusement parks have been a staple of this Thomas family for the last 30 years. For fun I've included our short list here...

Cedar Point, Ohio

Kings Island, Ohio

California Great America, California

Six Flags Magic Mountain, California

Disneyland, California

California Adventure, California

Knott's Berry Farm, California

Universal Studios, California

SeaWorld, California

Disney Magic Mountain, Florida

Epcot Center, Florida

Disney Hollywood Studios, Florida

Universal Studios, Florida

Islands of Adventure, Florida

SeaWorld, Florida

Silverwood Theme Park, Idaho

Stratosphere, Las Vegas

Hershey Park, Pennsylvania

Dollywood, Tennessee

Pleasure Pier, Texas

Schlitterbahn, Texas

Kings Dominion, Virginia

Galaxyland Edmonton, Alberta

Best pure coasters I've ridden?

Top Thrill Dragster, Cedar Point

Raptor, Cedar Point

Wicked Twister, Cedar Point

Top Gun, Kings Island (name has been changed)

Firehawk, Kings Island

Diamondback, Kings Island

Manta, SeaWorld Florida

Volcano, Kings Dominion

Best ride ever?

That's a tough one. Top Thrill Dragster, Cedar Point is a pretty amazing rollecoaster. And I think the first time I ever really stopped breathing for a second...or two. But I have to say the new "Transformers The Ride" in 4D at Islands of Adventure, Florida is overall a pretty outstanding ride. Not a real rollercoaster, but a visual eye-popper that's comfortable to ride, especially at my age. I was in complete amazement. So, both these rides I guess. Is that cheating? : )

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So on with the fun already!

Of the six days Shelby was visiting in Orlando, five of them were spent in amusement parks. : )

First up was SeaWorld. Now I already addressed my thoughts around animal entertainment venues in my last post, so let's move past that. Shelby has been an Orca fan all her life. (Thank you Free Willy). She also loves animals of all kinds. I will say seeing the orca's up close without having to watch them perform was a plus on this visit to Seaworld.

My favorite part of SeaWorld was the new Antarctic Adventure area.

The artificial environments these parks create are amazing and beautiful.

 One of my top rollercoasters now resides at SeaWorld. The Manta.

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  Next up was Universal Studios and Universals Islands of Adventure.

Shelby has been waiting to see the Harry Potter area ever since Sheila and I went a few years back. Again, what these guys do with creating environments is unreal.

Sheila's favorites? Why Minions of course!

I'm not a Transformers fan. I don't even think I've watched a complete movie.

But the ride...best of all time! If you've never been on one of these newer 3D rides, go find one!

The technology is really advanced. The ride moves you through a series of "sets" on kind of a mild coaster while interacting with 3D elements. (you wear the glasses) The 3D is amazing.

We were extremely fortunate with ride wait times while visiting Universal Studios. Transformers was a brand new ride and by far the most popular, but as you can see the wait time was only 15 minutes : )

Dr. Suess was the kids area here, but we enjoyed the break from the bigger, badder rides : )

One movie Shelby and I have always shared a love for is Jurassic Park. She has always been as much a Disney fan as a Dinosaur fan. This was a chilly day and this ride is a water, log ride : ( We debated riding at all as we saw many unhappy, shivering people exiting. But, this was one of Shelby's favorites when we visited the first time...about 10-12 years ago.

I loved the huge gate entry.

And the re-creation of the dinosaur building from the movie.

The best area to just walk around and interact was the comic book/super hero section.

I guess one blessing on this amusement park blitz, was the operating hours. Because this was their off-season, the parks closed around 7-8 pm., instead of the summer hours of midnight to 1am. We were exhausted at the end of each day. And the accumulation of back-to-back-to-back days was even more exhausting. Of course, you don't really notice until it's time to walk all the way back to the parking garage.

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There was also time for the traditional Waffle House breakfast stop to load up on the carbs.

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So next up was Disney. Technically, Disney World has four parks and we had park hopper passes for the final two days. For the three of us, total admission costs for SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and Disney World were about $1,500. A VERY BIG NUMBER! But, compared to the cost of entertainment on an average one week vacation, probably not so bad.

Our most difficult decision? Which combination of the four Disney parks to visit. Disney Hollywood had the best adult rides, so that was our first day.

And hands down, our favorite ride was the Tower of Terror. Basically your worst hotel elevator nightmare.

Then there was me trying to outrun a storm trooper...

They did have a new ride based on the music of Aerosmith. A backstage rock and roll coaster. To be honest it was pretty mild. The theme and entry design was the best part. This was a great example of a huge build up, for a let down on the actual ride.

The toy story ride was our last one for this park, and the longest lines. 90 minutes. But, probably one of the best experiences. This was a 3D shooting ride, with really fun visuals.

The final day came very early, and as luck would have it, the Magic Kingdom was open till 10pm. This of course, was where Shelby gets her Disney Princess on. There was an added twist to this day however. Sheila had waited all week for a visit to Epcot as well. So we set out to conquer both in a single day ; )

Epcot was first up. And our goal was to travel around the world in half a day, hit the tram and head over to the Magic Kingdom.

 Epcot was very new to us. We spent very little time here on our first visit many years ago. They have a very cool ride called Test Track. Basically you design the car you will eventually ride. A very unique idea, and a lot of fun. Our final car design...

Ok. so here we go round the world and first up was CANADA...

then the UNITED KINGDOM

FRANCE

MOROCCO

JAPAN

AMERICA

ITALY

GERMANY

CHINA

NORWAY

and finally MEXICO

Phew...we really wish we had more time in Epcot. There was so much to explore and learn about these countries. Exhibits, museums, food tasting etc. But the time had come head over to the capitol of all things Disney...the Magic Kingdom.

I'm thinking we are all pretty familiar with this park, so not a lot of pictures to show plus we were moving around pretty fast. Also it was Friday...and all the lines were longer. Disney does do a great job with their "Fast Pass" program that they currently do not charge extra for like most amusement parks. You basically pick your top three rides when you enter and get passes for the front of those lines. The Pirate, Haunted House and Space Mountain rides were standing favorites here.

The very last ride. Always the saddest. Especially after the week we had. It all came to an end on the Thunder Mountain Railroad. (Much more fun to ride at night by the way).

So we say goodnight here, until next time.

And I'll leave you with my two favorite girls in the entire world.

Thanks for reading!