So, to begin again.
I woke up a tad late though it really didnt matter this day as I had orignally had planned on having a tour of the Gerstlauer Facilities however right before the trip I got an email from Gerstlauer letting me know there was a trade show they were obligated to attend and that no one would be around to conduct my tour, leaving this morning open, though it was still a very busy day, on tap for me today was driving from my hotel in Stuttgart to Skyline park which was about 2 hours away and roughly halfway in between Stuttgart and Munich, spend a short time there, drive the rest of the way to Munich to the Airport, drop off my car, get a ride to the airport (car rental was off site), take a train to Munich, transfer to another train and head out of Munich to Harr where my hotel was, walk a mile or so with my luggage, check into the hotel get somewhat settled, walk the mile back to the train and take it into the city to Oktoberfest (with a transfer along the way), so it was going to be rather hectic but nothing to awful.
So I ended up leaving Stuttgart around 11 which was a hair later than I wanted to but still good, got to Skyline around 1:30 and paid my admission and went in to have a look around, even though there really isnt much to look at there
Main reason I was there was cause of SkyWheel the first Maurer Soehne X Coaster, and Gyroflyer a spinning Caripro Batflyer coaster. http://www.rcdb.com/qs.htm?quicksearch=skyline+park
Info and pics can be found there for both, also at the park was a Schwarzkopf Wildcat and some rather unremarkable flats, although admission was like €11 and that included unlimited rides on a Sky Scraper and Ejection seat, more on those later. So I headed in and took a ride on the Wildcat which looked rather decrepit though the cars seemed brand new and themed to American cars from around the 50's. After that I went around to the GyroFlyer and got a ride on that, ended up riding it solo, and with a rather unbalanced car and nothing to grab onto really to manually spin the car, spinning was kept to a minimum though I really did like the concept, though the Elevator lift is freaky, was the same lift the Scooby Doo coaster had at PKI til it was torn out, last year I believe. The park has pretty much the standard assortment of flat rides with nothing being remarkable, they had a fabbri frog hopper type ride but with seats that tilt forwards like 15 or so degrees, but it was down with people working on it, also I saw something different, there were some kids rides, basically ones that spin just in a circle with various cars, and next to a ride was a stationary bicycle which was geared up to run the ride, so if a kid wants to ride, the parent (or both it was a double seater bike) have to get on and start pedaling, I guess that's a neat idea until the kids start screaming "faster daddy, faster!" and that's when daddy lets his kids down by saying F this, I'm having a beer
So, onto the SkyWheel, if I can find it, it's an oddly laid out park, there are 2 ovals seperated by a farm field, and the enterance to the back oval where Sky Wheel and the Skyscraper are is at the front gate where you have to walk around the entire park, over a narrow bridge over farmland and down into the other section, it took me a while to find it and it was eating up valuable time. so I get there, head up to the SkyWheel station where I'm the only one there, so I get in the front seat, close the OTSR, ride op and computer seem to take no issue with this arrangement and I am dispatched with 11 other empty seats, I found it to be a neat ride but that's about it, nothing to write home about and hanging upsidedown for an extended time with a skinny lapbar and nothing else got a tad harsh on the hips for a larger person such as myself. So after that front seat ride I went to the back seat for another solo ride, alittle more airtime on the downside of the loop, but still nothing to write home about, with time short I departed the ride for the Sky Scraper where when I get in line the ride op runs out of the resteraunt fair circuit but in the summer it's parked at the park, was given a fairly generous ride and he even stopped me at the top for a while even though there was no one to load on the other side after that ride I was going to try to get back to the ejection seat for a quick ride so I get back to the bridge, run across the park to the front, then go back around to the back of the front oval and as I was approaching the ejection seat I see 4 people in line, not to bad, like 5-10 mins, but as I get closer one of the 2 riders seemed to be overwhelmed by the ride (maybe free isnt such a good idea) and she proceeded to rain vomit down upon the landing pad, queue roof, midway, the car, herself and very nearly the unsuspecting ride op, he's lets them off and starts a cleanup effort of herculean porportions which I know is going to take longer than I have at the park, but I guess nothing I can do about it, so I opted to ride the ferris wheel instead where I got some pics, though it was a cloudy nasty day again, was a spinning ferris wheel, but the bearing on my car seemed to be sticky, so no spinning but still a ferris wheel none the less, after that I made a B line for my car passing by the sling shot where that poor ride op was still scrubbing away.
So I get to my car and move the car to the nearest garbage can and I scooped out 2 weeks of crap that had collected inside, and also got all my personal belongings and put it all back in my bag and made sure A. nothing was left behind, B. no trash for the car place to complain about and C. no damage to the car inside and out, all 3 checked out and I started on the hour and a half drive to the Munich Airport, when I got to the airport I tracked down an overpriced gas station and filled up with most of what little money I had left. And I proceeded to track down the car rental place a few miles away and went though the whole car return process they came to the same conclusion that I came to with no trash, personal belongs or damage and cleared me to go and they gave me a ride back to the airport. Where I caught the S Bahn train to the nearest stop where I could transfer, also I bought a 3 day Munich City Ticket for all transportation, so I wouldnt have to worry about that. Anyways I do my thing and end up in Harr, and I follow my map to get to the hotel, though the map was terribly inaccurate though a friendly english speaking local saw me wandering in a circle looking confused and he pointed me in the right direction (on the map it was a solid street going to the hotel, when in real life the street ends in a cul de sac then a new one starts on the other side, and that threw me all off), so I check in, throw my crap in the room and make a B line for the train station and got on the first train I could, they run every 20 mins, and I waited 19 mins for it, worked that way every single damn time. But Anyways....
Took the train into the city center where I transferred to the subway which goes right into the Fairgrounds. Was a busy train, though I hadnt seen anything yet, anyways made it to the fairgrounds where there were literally 10's of thousands of people crammed into the place, it was a zoo, but I start making my way around taking pics, but at this point I had one objective, Olympia Looping, it was there, I could see it and it was running and I had €30 left and there was no way I was leaving Europe without riding it
It was only running 2 trains (I really wish I could have seen it with 5), but I paid my €5 got my token and headed up the ramp up to one of the more storied Schwarzkopf Coasters in existance, where I made it up to the station with a minimal line and I stood in line for the back seat much to the dismay of the grouper, though I negioated and moved into the next to back seat as not to block the enterance and get into a fistfight with the grouper
So I get in, sit down, pull down OTSR thing and Lapbar and after about 10 seconds of sitting in the station, off we go and I am on Olympia Looping, wont go into play by play but what followed was hands down the smoothest, most intense most top 10 worthy looper I've ever ridden in my life. Also of note, all year Olympia runs 5 car trains, but for Oktoberfest they run 7 car trains, and I was in the 7'th car. So I got off with a feeling of accomplishment, and I headed to my next coaster, the famed Eurostar inverted coaster, it's an inverted coaster approx the size of Batman, runs 4- 4 across trains of 7 seats and travels on 130+ trailers, it's absolutely massive, and it has a reputation of being one of the most violent coasters in the world.
So I pay my €5 (yeah, the coasters aint cheap), and I get into the back seat, and I'll put it this way When I got off I was pissed, way pissed, and not cause it was rough but because it was so smooth, I spent the whole damn ride bracing for intolerable roughness and crappiness and there was not one headbang or jerk the entire ride, turns out the ride recently got new wider Harnesses that really reduce headbanging and also Gerstlauer refurbished the coaster the previous year, so I paid €5 to sit there and brace and pay no attention to the ride and end up having a great ride but no memory of it due to that, but I'd ride it twice more in the coming days, but I was short on $$ or I should say €€ today.
After that I went to the nearby flat ride which I have had unbelievable interest in since the day I first saw it in pictures. It's the one and only Flying Circus which I heard was an awful ride and I have all sorts of video making it look awful. http://wipeout.free.fr/step3/43.htm
Pics there, but basically the premis is the main arm does loops while the small arm loops and the gondola spins, but for about a minute and a half both arms sync keeping the gondola perfectly upsidedown the entire time, which sounds awful but really isnt. Again wont go into much detail but I found it to be a perfectly enjoyable ride that had some really unique sensations. After that I walked around, or at least tried to for alittle bit and I came around to a brand new ride that I'd never seen before, was called Wild N Wet and it was a portable spinning rapids ride, but what made it unique besides the insane spinning it does, is the high speed rotating vertical lift for the boat, basically a boat rolls onto a platform, several safety devices engauge and it starts to lift you vertically pretty fast and at the same time it's going up a tower that rotates 180 degrees with another platform going down the other side, was really really neat and was a good ride. After that I was pretty broke, so I walked around and took in the sights and sounds and whatnot then I went back to the hotel shortly before closing, but the train ride back was something else. at the subway stop at the fairground it was literally thousands of people wanting to use the subway at the same time, so what you do is when you get do the platform and a train pulls in everybody pushes and shoves til the car is full, and I mean full, then a subway worker stands at every door and when it comes time for the doors to close he will actually stand there and forcefully push people into the car so the doors can close, just like you see on TV like what they do in Japan subways, luckily I only take it one stop (actually most people only go one stop) to the main train station where I transfer back onto the train for Harr which is much less crowded, so after that I walk back to the hotel, unpack, marvel at how small my nearly $100 room is, then I take a shower and go to sleep.
Next up: Day 15 Oktoberfest (more in Depth) and Moneygram
