Hydra Video, Dorney Park Pictures
May 24, 2005Big update this time. But first I have to hit you with the bad news before whipping the crowd into an uncontrolable frenzy. The bad news is that we never got to Six Flags Great Adventure or their new world record breaking coaster. We hit Jersey around midnight on Thursday night passing though lots of rain on the PA turnpike. Friday moring in Jackson, NJ saw rain just pouring from the sky. A quick check of the weather revealed it wasn’t ending anytime soon. We ended up cutting our losses and moving on to Allentown to regroup, make a new plan and get our Dorney Passes. Turned out to be a good move as from what I understand Kingda Ka never opened last Friday. We decided to backtrack on Sunday Morning spending just a little time at Six Flags before moving on our already tight schedule back home. Well, after a long day at Dorney ending with serious ERT, we got back to the room and I quickly scoured the net looking for info on the Six Flags and Kingda Ka. Turns out that while we were getting consecutive laps on Dorney’s coasters, the poor saps in Jersey were waiting as long as 6 or 7 hours for one lap on Kingda Ka. Uh-uh. I don’t wait that long for anything. I’ve done Top Thrill Dragster and knew basically what this was all about and waiting that long for this ride was insane. On top of that we just didn’t have that kind of time. Instead, we cut our losses again and headed home first thing Sunday morning loaded down with stuff from Dorney.
Now here’s the good news. I have a whole assload of new stuff for you! (ok, it’s a metric assload, but still…) First off there’s the new Hydra Video. Over 2 minutes long and in the new larger format just waiting to be downloaded. There’s also 25 new Hydra photos in our Dorney Park Gallery. In fact, there’s a grand total of 45 new photos in that gallery, so look around. On top of this I tossed together two new wallpapers - one of Hydra and another Talon offering based on a great shot of the ride. This officialy puts our Dorney Gallery at more than 300 photos and brings the total number of pictures on the site over 3500.
This weekend we’ll be at Kennywood so expect an updated gallery and a new 2005 Kennywood video sometime in the next week or so. After that it’s Kings Island then the big two week trip. (details coming soon on that)
Wyandot Lake Pictures
May 18, 2005The 2005 season has finally begun for us! It’s about damn time. We headed over to Columbus and stopped by Wyandot Lake to pick up our Six Flags Passes. The weather was on the cool side and being primarily a water park meant that Wyandot was downright empty. Check out the new Wyandot Lake Pictures.
We leave tomorrow for New Jersey and if rumor has it correct, Kingda Ka should open to the public on Friday. Good news for us (and you) as this means pics and video of the world’s tallest and fastest coaster. On Saturday we’ll be at Dorney checking out their new for 2005 offering, Hydra. Expect pics and video of that one too. In fact, I’d say you can look forward to more new stuff next Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Should be nothing but rapid fire updates for the next 6 weeks or so starting right now. You know this is the place to be. Don’t forget it.
Also, I was asked if I would pass the following along and being the helpful guy I am, I gladly obliged. It seems the Coaster Alley Convergence event is returning at Silverwood this year on Spetember 24th with a full two hours of ERT, a buffet dinner and all-u-can-drink Pepsi products (mmmm..Mountain Dew) - from what I understand the Silverwood coasters give some tremedous after dark rides. I doubt you can go wrong with this one. Check here for more details.
That’s it for now. Check back early next week for the new videos and pics.
Busch Gardens Commercial, New Camera, Zoo Pictures
May 2, 2005Just another small update. I was hoping to put something together to kill the time between finishing off last year’s photos and our first trips this year. I contemplated a few ideas and in the end realized anything I had was just going to be filler. Instead, I’ve been spending the time transferring old coaster shows from VHS to DVD. I have a ridiculous amount of shows on tape (around 40 or 50) that I’ve amassed over the years and tranferring them is mind numbing at best. I did find an old commercial for Busch Gardens Williamsburg that ran in 1998. I’m not going to keep it on the site permanently, so this is the only place to get it. You’ll note the new larger size of the videos (That will be a standard from this day forward for the large videos, the small ones will remain the size they are) and the debut of the 2005 coasterimage.com video intro - I do a different one every season.
I also like to keep everyone updated as to what’s going on with the site and the keyword right now is preparation. We’ve almost finished booking up our early season trips. We’ll be at Wyandot Lake on May 15 and I’m going to turn those pictures around fast because we hit Six Flags Great Adventure on the 20th and then Dorney Park on the 21st for CoasterBuzzCon. I’ll have pics and video of both park’s new coasters and I need to turn those around pretty quick too because we’ll be stopping by Kennywood in one of the next two weekends following the trip east. The weekend following that (June 11th) we’ll be at Kings Island for Beastbuzz and I’ll have pics and video of their new coaster to get online. The next weekend sees us leaving for two weeks on a huge park trip that will have us hitting as many as 10 to 15 new parks in 7 states! We should easily break the 75 park & 5000 photo plateau by mid-summer and we’ll be stopping by no less than 4 ‘new for 2005′ coasters along the way. We have you covered in 2005.
In semi-related news, I finally got a chance to try out the new camera. We blew a day at the zoo a week or so ago and I figured they have a carousel and a train so it might be a little warm up to learning the camera and taking a few test shots and see what I’m working with. It turns out the train was closed and the carousel was nothing special so I spent the day taking pics of the animals. I snagged some cool shots:
Bear - Lion - Elephant - Sea Dragon - Jellyfish - This Thing
I was more than pleased with the results. I know it’s hard to judge without a comparison, so take a look at this. The shot on the left was taken with the new camera and the one on the right was taken at the zoo last September with the camera I was previously using (since June 2003). There is no comparison, really. You can clearly see the difference in quality and I had so much more fun using a ‘real’ camera instead of a little old boring point and shoot. I have to admit the little camera was convenient but it also made me very lazy. It’s been a while since I’ve taken a photo that ‘wowed’ me, but this should easily solidify our spot as the place to come for the best amusement park photography around.
So be sure to check back in two weeks as we kick off our biggest year yet in 2005. The Wyandot Lake pics will be online either the 16th, 17th or 18th and then the next week I’ll be getting photos and videos of both Dorney’s new coaster, Hydra, and Great Adventure’s world record breaking coaster, Kingda Ka. (assuming it’s up and running by then) - in short, the lull is over in 2 weeks and then things are going to get real crazy, real fast. Stick with us and enjoy the ride.
