I'll put more effort into a TR when I get home tonight, but we bid farewell to Cypress Gardens last weekend. Bubba came down on Friday and a few other Florida friends met up with me on Sunday to enjoy the last rides on Starliner. We ended up getting the final 2 laps sent out to general public, the employees had their way with the ride after we left. What a hell of a coaster, though. Insane airtime on 3 or 4 hills... and just a nice relaxing woodie the rest of the way.
A friend of mine, Gary, took a video of the final 2 laps and posted on Youtube..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGZ812vtp08&eurl=http://funfactoriesii.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=8823&page=5Enjoy, and I'll have pictures later on.
Updated:
So as most of you know, I've been living in Orlando for about a month now, and I'm loving almost every second of it... Between working, trying to move everything in, and taking advantage of where I live every time I have a day off, I've been pretty much non stop since I got down here. First I'll start off with a little bit about where I'm living. The complex is called The Arbors at Lee Vista, located off of Semoran Blvd.
I'm literally 6 minutes to the terminals at Orlando Int'l Airport (MCO) and it isn't as bad as it sounds. The planes that do actually fly over my apartment don't make too much of a racket. The apartment is a 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom 1096 square foot place with a screened in porch overlooking the lake in center of the complex.
I don't really need to give you a play by play on what the apartment has and doesn't have, so I'll just show some before and after pictures from before I got here as compared to where I am now.
You can view the rest of the apartment pics here...
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/568834476udoFpZ^ That's a direct link to photo's with furniture.
Since I've been down here, I've visited Sea World with Dan for his first time there... Disney World Parks 2 times, Downtown Disney 3 times, Disney's Boardwalk once, Busch Gardens Tampa once and Cypress Gardens twice. Disney is offering something called "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party" through the months of November and December. Basically what it is, the Magic Kingdom closes at 7 p.m. and who ever signed up for this event get the entire MK to themselves from 7 to midnight. For $55 bucks, its well worth it. Free Hot Chocolate, Apple Juice, Apple Slices and Christmas cookies.... plus ERT... it's like heaven.
When Dan and I went to Seaworld, we had a good time for only being there for about 2 hours. Living 13 minutes from the front gate certainly makes it easy to make an impromptu visit to the park. Manta is looking better and better each day. At first I wasn't too impressed or excited about it, but so far, it looks as if B&M and Busch have made a "good" flying coaster layout. My only complaint now is that it blocks off the entire front left section of the park, forcing you to take an extremely long walk to Kraken. We first hopped on JTA to get Dan his credit, and we walked on to the front row. It wasn't hot out, but its was around 65, so riding a water ride was bearable. We loved it, then went over to Kraken to see a 15-20 minute wait and opted for the back row. Dan found a new favorite floorless coaster, and I rode one that I've been on numerous times. If you know Dan, you know he's not the biggest fan of floorless coasters... so to see him smiling coming off of Kraken, I knew we had struck gold. We meandered over to the kiddie coaster, stopping at the Penguins and Wild Arctic. It was a really fun 2 hours to say the least...
I had plans to get to Cypress Gardens before I even moved down here. I'd heard nothing but good things about Starliner and was itching to ride their "TechnoJump" again since it was the best one I'd been on to date. Once I heard they were closing, I knew I had to get there sooner. Bubba had flown down for the day on Friday of their closing weekend and once I picked him up at the airport around 9, we jetted over to Winter Haven to get him some credits. First stop was the Starliner, since we heard it'd been closed for about 2 weeks and noticed people waiting in line, we didn't want to miss it. We had to wait about 20 minutes before they opened it and while waiting I noticed a couple of people at the top of the stairs that I know. My buddy Mark had asked us if we were going to Disney's Xmas party, which at the time, I had no idea what it was. Many many thanks to him for telling us about it because I've never gotten that much riding done in so little time at any Disney park...
Anyway, we are still at Cypress... Starliner was really kick ass. Not every hill had monster airtime, but the 3 or 4 that did make the ride an 8 out of 10 for me.
There is one hill in particular that stands out to me. It's after the 2nd "large" drop and before the turnaround. It seriously doesn't even look like it fits there, but it does. It was later named the "Ouch Hill"
The ride was so much fun and it's a shame we wont be going on it again anytime soon.
The rest of the trip at Cypress that day consisted of snaggin credits. We got them all and went off to Disney. Bubba needed a couple of credits, Everest being one of them, so we went to Animal Kingdom first and rode Everest and Dinosaur in less than an hour.
MGM - Hollywood Studios was our next stop and we waited about 45 minutes for Toy Story Midway Mania, which in my opinion, is EASILY the best interactive dark ride ever. ToT was also a main reason for going to MGM and that didn't disappoint as usual, especially since it was a walk-on.
We stopped at Epcot last before going to the "party" and rode Test Track and tried to ride Mission Space, but gave up on MS. Test Track was awesome as usual. Off to the MK. First stop when we got there was The new Laugh Floor from Monsters INC which is really fun and cute. Space Mountain was ridden about 8 or 9 times through the night and we basically just hopped around the park riding rides we usually don't get the opportunity to ride. 11:30 rolled around and we were pretty tired and Bubba had a 7 am flight home and I had work at 8 am so we drove back to the apartment and crashed. T'was a fun filled day and I can't wait for another Disney Party on the 7th when my friends from CT come down!
Sunday had then rolled around and I went to Cypress again with Gator and eventually met up with Gary. This was their official closing day, and I really think they reached their highest attendance figure ever. I don't really need to explain much so I'll let the pictures do talking...
^Forgot to mention we ran into these 2 as well...
^Snap 'em!!!
I also forgot to mention that their "TechnoJump" was gone. They replaced it with a picnic pavilion.
We ended the day with the 2 final laps given to the GP, possibly ever, on StarLiner. Gary posted his video already so no need to add that to here. It was a fun/sad day... the park will be missed.
To see the rest of the Cypress Closign Weekend pics, click this...
http://family.webshots.com/album/568853486rtMNFBSo my last "section" of this report is my solo visit to BGA. It took me about an hour or so to get out there, parked in the preferred lot and made my way in the park. It was a really fun day with about 12 rides on Gwazi (both sides) total for the day, not all in a row, 9 on Kumba, in a row, and 1 Sheikra ride. I tried to get on Montu, waited 4-6 trains for the back and then someone spewed all over the train so I just went back over to Gwazi for a bit. The park was pretty as always and the rides were all running great. I even like Sheikra a little now that I've ridden the back row in the "big boy" seat. Here's some pictures from the day...
^I'll get you next time...
^Still there...
Best GCI ever.
^That's what I look like when I'm at a park by myself
^My favorite B&M!
Ghost Train.
And that concludes my "park escapades" and "moving in" process. The other night I went to House of Blues with a friend, Matt, for "Hospitality/Club night" and that was insane to say the least... many more of those to come
I hope you enjoyed reading/viewing my life as of recent.
http://community.webshots.com/user/frissbeking^That's the rest of my stuff incase you wanted to check it out.
Thanks!
Rob.
Topic: My move to Orlando/Cypress Gardens Closing Weekend updated. (Read 2512 times)