Woke up vaguely on time, collected my belongings and checked out and headed to Holiday Park. I got there like 5 mins after they opened parked in their free lot and got in line for a ticket, this was a Saturday so I was expecting a bit of a croud which was there, however what I wasnt expecting was a closed Expedetion GeForce according to the ticket window. So I step back and think to myself and after some debate I decide to go in the park anyways with the hopes that ExGe would open and also I'd have enough time in the park unlike the ACE ECO trip where we got about 3 hours at the park. So I head in and start wandering towards ExGe and I stop at the Freefall Tower on the way that being a 3 car Intamin Giant drop which was running one car.
Now for the other 2 cars, one track had the car at the bottom with the catch car on top of it, however both cables that should attach to the catch car were blowing in the breeze, and the other car was about halfway up the tower and 2 OTSR's were open and there were alot of tire tracks on the ground and a cherry picker parked nearby, probably a good story behind that, but I didnt bother to ask as people in this part of germany dont speak much english, but anyways figuring a giant drop running only one car the line was going to get long fast so I jumped in line which ended up being about a half hour and none of the 3 preshows were running cause of that (huge bummer, they are hilarious and breast enabled), but the line moved fairly well for being one car as the 2 guys running the ride were crazed on moving people though, they made sure it was filled up with 4 people every single ride and they made sure everyone got on and off in a timely manner, even if it meant grabbing you by the throat and slamming you into the seat, luckily it didnt come down to that, but i saw probably 50-75 cycles and not once was the car not ready to go by the time the catchcar made it back to the bottom of the tower, and frequently they waited on the catchcar, so it was sitting on the ground for literally 30 seconds at most, so I'll give them credit there as they are dealing with an Intamin and making the best of it.
Speaking of Intamin I finished my walk over to Expedetion GeForce and it was definately closed, however it was swarming with maintenance people working feverishly. The person manning the enterance said they werent sure if it'd open today but they were trying very hard to get it going that it was affected by power issues in the area during the week (was on the radio, some sort of transformer problem destroyed like millions of Euros worth of electronic devices all over the mannheim area with a power spike of some sort and alot of people with broken DVD Players and computers were pretty pissed), so I take it the possibility is there for the ride to open and I move on with a stop for some mini doughnuts with strawberry sauce on them. After eating that meal consisting of about 17 lbs of raw sugar, I went on to the Vekoma Corkscrew sporting a 20 or so min line and rode. Unlike most of you may think Vekoma Corkscrew's are actually pretty good rides, fairly smooth and entertaining. But one ride with a line was enough so I took pics and moved on to the new ride this year Lighthouse Tower which is a Funtime Star Flyer though it was run quite a bit lamer than Wiener Praters, and it featured only double seats so I ended up riding with someone else, though it was a decent looking girl she spoke basically no english (damn), but I guess it was decent, nice view at least, after that I went onto ride pretty much all the parks major flat rides including but not limited to a Condor, Waltzer, Dancing Pavillion, Breakdance, Dancing Pavillion, Balloon Race, so on and so forth, after all that riding I look at my watch and the time is noon (they opened at 10), so I wandered around the park and noticed lines were groing and there were no signs of life coming from ExGe quite yet, so I walked around and took pics and complentated leaving and expressing regret for paying to get in.
So I walk around in circles for quite a while reriding various flats til I end up sitting at ExGe next to the PiPi station and resteraunt which is basically under the lifthill and I could see maintenance doing their thing. Time is now like 1:30 so I sit for a while, then do a few more laps of the park and check back at ExGe same story from the person at the enterance and now there is lots of banging coming from inside the lift motor house, so it's getting to be like 3pm, I had expected to leave by this time and head to a carnival, but I figured I'd give it another half hour cause I really wanted to ride and I figured if the ride didnt open by 4 it probably wouldnt open at all with a 6pm close for the park. So I sit down again under the lift and at like 3:20 I see a guy climbing the lifthill, wasnt sure weather I should take that as a good or a bad sign, but he walks to the top, stands for a while then slowly walks back down followed by like 5 mins of nothing, then I hear a familiar click coming from the lift motor house ollowed by that high pitched motor noise(think giant Drop) then another click, brake had released moved and engauged and I noticed the cable was shaking vertically like it had just done something, was just the sign of life I needed to get hope again.
So another few mins pass and then I hear click again and I hear the motor running and I look up on the lift and dont see anything until after a min or so I see the catch wagon very slowing climbing the lift in it's little trough, and believe it or not I wasnt the only one to see this nearly invisible happening, so it climbed the lift for about 5-7 mins at it's creeping speed til it stopped, then a few more mins pass (all these mins were adding up and I was getting anxious) but then it starts heading backwards down the lift at full speed back to the station and after about 5 mins a retna buring yellow train starts going up the lift only to stop halfway and have a bunch of maintenance people run up the lift to have a look, but after a quick check they start it on it's way again and it goes over and does it's thing it gets back to the station and then I notice a blindingly neon orange train start heading up the lift (score, 2 train operation if it does open), so I get in line with a bunch of other people who were most anxious to ride and after probably 6-7 tests the drop the rope and complete chaos breaks out and the whole line pushes forwards and lots of people fall over and get stepped on, but that seemed common in Germany so no one took note and finally I was in line to ride ExGe after my herculean display of patience
Wont bore people with the details but I ended up riding about 7-8 times in the course of nearly 2 hours once in front and once cheated out of the front (last ride of the night, was pissed, but wont go into it), but on the way out I bought a unique souvinear at the ExGe Gift Shop, but for the low low price of €xx,xx I bought a about 10 inch section of the lift cable from it's opening year neatly displayed in a display thingie and it's numbered, I have Nr. 55 (no idea how many were made, but it's still neat), I have lots of pics of it, but more on those later.
After being cheated out of my final front seat ride I wasnt in much of a mood to go to the carnival plus it was getting quite late and the only coaster there was a wild mouse and notable flats that I knew of was a SBF/Visa Frisbee and a Huss Top Spin 2, never ridden a top spin 2 but didnt think it'd be worth it, however I found out when I got back to the states one of the most amazing looking Breakdances ended up being there, Bayern Breaker and I was a tad pissed over missing it, but I guess i've ridden my fair share of Breakdances so it wasnt really a big loss, and I will ride a Top Spin 2 next summer at Astroland, so I guess it's good.
So I went straight to my next hotel which was another Etap this one being not far from Europa Park, was a bit tricky to find, and the parking lot was way to small and presenting a problem finding a spot, though I eventually got lucky, went and checked in, this one had a cleark which was good as I cancelled the second of 2 nights I was spending there in an effort to save $$, or should I say €€'s
But it was equivlent to my other Etap so not much to be said, watched some CNN and went to sleep.
Next up Day 10, Europa Park
And RE: all the pics I took, I've decided that sometime this week rather than find a place to put nearly 2gb of pics up, I have resized all my pics and will be putting them in a ZIP file later this week, and I will send them out to anyone interested. Send me a PM if you'd like the ZIP file, and specify if you want resized or full size pics (I expect there to be a huge size difference in the file though) if I get enough requests for full size I will zip them up also. But yeah PM if you want them and how you would like to recieve them, I can do AIM, Email or send a SASE and I can get CD(s) out.
and lastly I will try to get these TR's done faster, as it gets longer since the trip I'm bound to remember less, though I think I did pretty good for details on this TR, was a memorable day
and there are still 6-7 TR's left to write
