Since I am bored as hell I will do a little review of last year.
As seen in
this thread I was quite the optimist at this time last year, and believe it or not I hit most of the parks I planned, but fell short of my goal of 500. I hit 98 new coasters 57 of them being Wacky Worms (
) to get to 480. I also only went to Carowinds twice, and didn't make it to any of the nearby parks like Dollywood, Kings Dominion, Ghost Town in the Sky, or Hard Rock Park (RIP).
In June we decided it would be a great idea to go ride some rollercoasters in the middle of the
one of the worst floods in the history of several states. Parks visited: Kiddieland, Six Flags Great America, Dells area, Nick Universe, Valleyfair, Arnolds Park, Adventureland. Missed out on Little Ammericka as it was right in the middle of the flooding, and also had to sleep a night in the car after a multi-hour detour around Iowa City.
In July I was sick and tired of saying for the past few years that "one day I am going to go to Lake Winnie and Visionland" and on the July 4th weekend I took off on a trip I planned in less than 3 days. I also discovered that the best time to lock your keys in your car for the first time in your life, is when you are over 4 hours from home at a little FEC. And that if you visit a certain park in Alabama despite them saying the park is full to capacity and initially denying you entry, there will only be a 1-2 train wait for the coasters and a walk on for everything else. Perseverance always pays off.
Parks visited: Adventure Crossing, Dixieland Fun Park, Six Flags Over Georgia, Alabama Adventure, Lake Winnie.
In August I took a week and finally visited many of the parks east of the Mississippi I was missing including New York, Canada, Pennsylvania, and the Jersey and Maryland Shores. Lessons learned here, always book hotels in advance, and if you have 8 amazing days in a row expect the 9th to be complete crap in every way. Parks visited: Seabreeze, Darien Lake, Martin's Fantasy Island, Canada's Wonderland, Marineland, Waldameer, Six Flags Great Adventure, Morey's Piers, Trimper's Rides, Hersheypark, among others.
And that was my 2008 coastering year in a nutshell, despite riding 98 new coasters I had the lowest number of days coastering in over 5 years.
Best New (to me) Steel:
1) Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland (the new trains DO make a difference)
2) Ride of Steel at Darien Lake (I actually much preferred Predator right next to it...)
3) Pepsi Orange Streak at Nick Universe (MOAR CUSTOM TIVOLIS PLZ <3<3<3)
4) Fairly Odd Coaster at Nick Universe (Perhaps best non-Dragons Fury non-Winjas Spinner ever)
5) Avatar Airbender at Nick Universe (These Half-Pipe coasters don't look like much but they are tons of fun)
Dishonorable Mention:
1) Orange County Choppers MotoCoaster at Darien Lake (this is the 3rd 'motor' coaster I've been on.. and they all suck)
2) Pirates Hideaway at Casino Pier (wat?)
3) Dragon Mountain at Marineland (It's like Beast.. but steel.. and just as terrible)
4) Fahrenheit at Hersheypark (Not sure what I expected, but this met none of them)
5) Fly the Great Nor'Easter at Morey's Piers (Yes, its an SLC, but with the new restraints.. and is still by far the roughest SLC ever, it just doesn't hurt)
Best New (to me) Wood:
1) El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure (BELIEVE THE HYPE. The airtime on this thing is ridiculous)
2) Renegade at Valleyfair! (The speed and curves on this new GCI are so delicious...)
3) Silver Comet at Martin's Fantasy Island (Great 'forgotten' CCI with amazing laterals)
4) Rampage at Alabama Adventure (Another great CCI too bad its in such a crappy park)
5) Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer (Imagine if GCI tried to make an aggressive ride with lots of airtime.. this is what come out)
Dishonorable Mention:
1a) Mighty Canadian Minebuster 1b) Wild Beast (Only Canada's Wonderland can provide one woodie that jackhammers up and down while the other shuffles side to side so severely you'd think you were on Earthquake: The Ride)
3) Great White at Morey's Piers (I don't know if its being near the Ocean or the complete lack of maintenance, but this newish CCI was a lot rougher than it needed to be, had great airtime though)
4a and 4b) BOTH sides of Lightning Racer (I rode both of these in 2004 and they were both great, but I never thought I would see the day where a Millennium Flyer train jackhammered)
Best New (to me) Park:
1) Nick Universe (From the outset one would not think this would be a 'great' place.. but everything here is just so much fun for ANY age.. wish it was close to me I would love a 365-day-a-year park)
2) Canada's Wonderland (Sure at least 12 of the 15 coasters are clones, but the park is so pretty with a large amount of flats and great operations)
3a) Adventureland 3b) Lake Winnie 3c) Waldameer (All 3 of these parks are great old school traditional parks with great woodies and tons of flats, my kind of places)
Dishonorable Mention:
1) Hersheypark (Again I had been in 2004 and it was one of my favorite parks at the time, but we definitely hit it on a bad day where the GCI's were running terribly and the other operations were less than stellar, not to mention the addition of Fahrenheit left a bad taste in my mouth)
2) Marineland (Sea World you are not. Walking 3 miles to get from one crappy ride to the next crappy ride is not my idea of fun..)
3) Alabama Adventure (My slogan for this park is "Alabama Adventure: It's the best Alabama could do")
Over 5600 pics from last year as well as many more from other years:
www.flickr.com/photos/jamminj</END THREAD HIJACK>**2009 Wishlist**
1a) Kings Dominion
1b) Busch Gardens Europe
1c) Ghost Town in the Sky?
2) Canobie Lake Park and Funtown/Splashtown USA
3) Six Flags St. Louis and Worlds of Fun
4) Kings Island, Stricker's Grove, Coney Island
5) Texas
