Benin

Well after a rather epic week away, I’m back with tanned arms and tales to tell of B&M awesomeness, so why waste any time chatting when we can get down to business... Letsa go!Day 1 – Flight to RomeAn early 4am wake up call produced 4 tired heads as my Dad gave us a lift to Gatwick, where at check-in we were greeted with our first queue of the trip, which moved slowly and annoyingly as it got closer and closer to the flight time... After eventually bursting through into security, the unexperienced flyer amongst us didn’t know about the liquid/cream regulations in hand luggage, and provided even more faff and forced us to run to the plane once we eventually got through the checkpoint...A 2 hour flight later and some relatively simple passport control and baggage reclaim, we attempted our first conversation in Italian to get our hire car... It eventually worked, and we walked over to find our chariot for the week... Car achieved, we drove off to our hotel, encountering the craziness of the Italian road users... Indeed, signs and cars mean nothing to them, moving lanes and places without warning or anything, it’s mental and will really sharpen driver’s senses when you’re over there... Fortunately Mark was really up for this and whilst it took time to gain confidence, by the end of the week he was driving like a proper Italian... Another thing I discovered is that the roads in Italy are really confusing, two different exits for one junction on the motorway, the road names were hidden away in the traffic lights and could only have a worse font if they had used Comic Sans... We got lost practically every drive on this trip, so advice here is a Sat-Nav... Get one...Regardless, we (eventually) found the hidden hotel, and after some chillage we walked to the Metro station nearby to begin the trip proper, with some sight-seeing in the rather beautiful Rome... And after a quick journey in the lovely airy trains, we were greeted by this...Absolutely stunning, this really epitomises Rome in itself, brilliantly sized buildings that might be in ruin, but are still amazing to look at and wonder about how they were actually built... Quite a cool thing was that in the Forums they were openly doing digging and other work, which was interesting to watch and provided some real care to the history of the place... Tbh, I could probably fill an entire page of posts of Rome alone, the place is THAT nice to photograph... So many buildings to look at is just amazing...

Whilst I'm not adding a post of any substance now (that will happen tomorrow), I'm going to forewarn people that there will be LOTS of images in this topic... Especially of B&Ms... Cos they're sexy... <3

See you soon Raptor babes

Would love to have this on my MP3 ready for riding this next week

Don't care about the double post here, but this needs a bit more attention...Due to Hurricane/Storm Irene, two parks have been flooded in America, Knoebels and Hersheypark... It's quite bad...Scary stuff... Hopefully these two will bounce back once it's sorted, so much damage can be caused by flooding...

Trying to think which Florida park would build one... It's tricky when only 4 parks would build a ride like that, it wouldn't fit into the Studios, so maybe Gringotts themed Indoor Wing-Rider?Busch or Sea-World could build one as well... Those would be my favourites...EDIT - It seems Warner Brothers Movie World Aussieland is getting an El Loco from S&S...http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=3444http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=3445

I highly doubt Towers didn't know their own height limits...It was most likely a bulk order, like with the spinners and the recent B&M boom...

Won't take two weeks to do... Will take a tad longer than that...

Euro Montu of JOY!

Nick Varney after the press release...

Going East now it seems... Rather unmined resources atm so potential is around... Source

Agree on the vile tent sentiment... Even if they bodged together a story to make it fit into the maze's theme... But even Universal use tents in some of their mazes, so it's not the be all or end all...

MOVE OUT THE WAY! IT'S THE MOTHER FUDGING BIRTHDAY BOAT!

Any MS Spinner is good with two people though...When it's battering me about, I couldn't care less how much it spins... Awful ride... I hope it burns...

Nah, there's a massive difference between Tonnerre/Megaphobia/Beast/Thunderhead and a few others and Colossus...Mean Streak is the only wooden coaster worst than Colossus for roughness...Nothing wrong with a bit of rough, but Colossus goes over the line if you have any height on you...

Under-rated?It's rough as hell, you have to sit in specific seats to not have your legs crushed (if you're tall), it's aged poorly, the train design is terrible, the bars are perhaps the heaviest ones I've ever encountered...Last time I rode it I had a massive headache as a reward... Just have complete contempt towards that ride... I do to any ride where I have to sit in any particular row or seat to get a 'good' ride... That's not the mark of a good ride at all...It WAS good 9 years ago, but now, whilst not my least favourite coaster, it's certainly in the bottom half of my list...

INCOMING!

Aside from the Spider Crabs replacing the Rays this year.Worst decision ever in my opinion.

Life is easier said than done though.And sometimes your friends can be your worst enemies... Food for thought.@Will, people are just strange. Especially ones who say you are friends but often it doesn't feel that way. Hard to say what to do because all I do is have unrequited rage or confusion over the whole deal.

Thorpe need to do more groundwork than other parks anyway, otherwise the thing would sink and then what?It'll be open (for 5 minutes) in March as it's meant to... No need for twisted knickers...

^Pfft, last time I went, Augustus, Violet AND Veruca were all broken...It's kinda harmless, but it just looks worse and worse every time I go on it...

Geek out time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPCG-NcfCr0

I was just telling you why the height thing is slightly all over the place. Hills and valleys are everywhere in Dollywood. Hilliest park in the world it is.It does indeed share similarities with B&M Sit-Downs, but I'ven ever met one of them I didn't like. And for Dollywood it's hard to judge how much the ride will be hidden by trees until it gets built.It's all rather exciting for B&M this year. Great to see a ride type of their's become really popular in only two years of it's existence. And each one seems to bring it's own individual thing to the table. Brilliant.