OKay, so if you can post trip reports to walmart....

I, your erstwhile editor type person, have spent the past couple days in Hawaii. We got here Wednesday afternoon after driving *all* night to get to Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. We didn't sleep till Wednesday night. Thanks to the time zone switches that really was 48 hours. And well, that means I don't remember much of the first day I was here.

Regardless, Hawaii is pretty, but if you ever come here I recommend only hitting Honolulu for a day or two. I'm here for a conference and can't stray much, but if you ever thought that theme park merchandising was cheesy and overpriced you ain't seen nothing yet.

We're right on the beach in Waikiki, so naturally that's the first place I went. There's a wildlife park and a waterpark in town that we may hit tomorrow. There's also some nifty thrillseeking stuff around htat I sadly enough don't have much time to do (diving, swimming with sharks, parasailing, what have you).

Anywho...

On Monday we're flying back, getting in at 6am and hitting Valleyfair and the Mall of America.

Of note:

You know you're a coaster enthusiast when you're on a plane and you loosen your seatbelt in hopes of getting better airtime in the turbulence.

You know you're a coaster enthusiast when you're on a plane and go to sit down and shove you seatbelt to other side like you do when boarding a coaster train to get on as quickly as possible.

You know you're a coaster enthusiast when somebody goes down a slide, cracks their head on the side, and you refer to it as headbanging and "just as bad as Vekoma."

when.... you refer to the waves lifting you up in the pacific as airtime, only to have your best friend look at you and say "don't you mean watertime???"

And um, more complete happier trip report to be posted *after* I give my presentation at the scary national conference I'm at without making a fool of myself... later this afternoon, deal?


~Jill

I assume you're back now.

So how was your trip to Valleyfair and Mall of America?

What did you like best/worst about Hawaii?

The water park "Hawaiian Waters" (I think that's what it's called) is a nice waterpark. Part of it is on a hill, so they use the terrain kinda. It doesn't have anything super huge or anything, but it's a very nice fun little park.

I highly recommend going to Pearl Harbor is you haven't. It's a very cool place. I went on an actual battleship (the Missouri) and also went to see the wreck of the Arizona. Pearl Harbor is a very very cool place and it's alot bigger then I imagined. It was the highlight of my school trip this spring break.

Seeing the mountains is very nice also, they filmed Jurassic Park there. I'm not sure where it's at, but they have a natural wind tunnel nestled in the mountains somewhere and the wind in it is like at least 90 all of the time. Whenever you jump into the air, you fly backwards about two feet, and get this, it rained UP a 300ft cliff!

Anyways Diamondhead crater is also a cool little 15 minute hike, you can see lots of nice scenary ontop of the mountain.

Have a wonderful time, Hawaii is the most beautiful place in the world.

yeah we hit diamondhead, but coudln't get to a lot of other stuff 'cause I was there for work. Might go back someday when I'm less rushed though.
Anyway, Valleyfair is likely going to be written up as a special feature so you guys will just have to wait. There was a contest going on and I got about 70 pictures. I will say I still call Cedar Point my homepark even if it's 5 more hours away.
As for the Mall of America, the spinning gerstauler coaster ain't spinning so fast these days. Definitely was more exciting when it first opened, but is still a fun little ride. The effect with the "Kite eating tree" running is a kick. I also finally did the spongebob ride, and even without being much of a spongebob fan (though I do like his snail gary, though that's not enough to watch for... lol) it was one of the best simulators I've been on in a while. Kicks the heck out of that bermuda triangle thing at geauga lake.
I'd like to see some better simulator theaters around. I remember the Excalibur in Vegas had 2-3 good theaters and movies a long time ago, I liked their collosus one. And the Luxor had a really good one too. Why can't parks get these? Why do we just have to have silly little bump along sims?
Okay, enough griping for now.

~me.