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Best of the Best Amusement Parks and Rides

Last week the Golden Ticket awards were released announcing the "Best of the Best" for the year throughout the amusement industry.  The awards are now in their tenth year.  Below are some of the highlights from this year's contest-

• Best Amusement Park - Cedar Point, Ohio
• Best Waterpark - Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort, Texas
• Best Children's Park - Legoland California, California
• Best Marine Life Park - SeaWorld Orlando, Florida
• Best Seaside Park - Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, California

• Best Wooden Coaster - The Voyage at Holiday World, Indiana
• Best Steel Coaster - Superman Ride of Steel - Six Flags New England, Massachusetts
• Best Kids' Area - King Island, Ohio
• Friendliest Staff - Holiday World, Indiana
• Cleanest Park - Holiday World, Indiana

Holiday World rocked it this year and Disney just managed to scrounge up a single award for best night show.

Top 10 Amusement Parks (Outside of Orlando)

Here's another top 10 list we missed while we were away on vacation.  TripAdvisor asked their 15 billion users for their favorite amusement park outside the confines of Orlando and they came up with the following list-

1. Hersheypark - Hershey, Pennsylvania
2. Busch Gardens - Tampa, Florida
3. Cedar Point - Sandusky, Ohio
4. Six Flags Fiesta Texas - San Antonio, Texas
5. Family Kingdom Amusement Park - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
6. Six Flags Great Adventure - Jackson, New Jersey
7. Kings Island - Kings Mills, Ohio
8. Ober Gaitlinburg Ski Resort and Amusement Park - Gaitlinburg, Tennessee
9. Coney Island Park - Coney Island, New York
10. Carowinds - Charlotte, North Carolina

It seems to us that Tampa is basically Orlando so it's kind of cheating that Busch Gardens made the cut.  Also, where the hell is Disneyland?

(thanks thrillnetwork)

Girl Loses Legs at Six Flags

In a grisly, freak accident on Thursday, a 13 year-old girl lost her legs when the Superman: Tower of Power ride she was on had a cable snap, whipping in the air and severing the child's legs.  According to WLKY-

“As the ride came down, the wire swung left, struck the young lady on the back side of my children,” Williams said. Williams’ daughter Amber said she gave up her seat to the 13-year-old and was sitting on the other side of the ride. Williams rushed toward the ride to find his daughter. As Smith raced to find members of her group, she said she made a gruesome discovery. “When I got up there, the lady, she was just sitting there and she didn’t have no legs,” Smith said. “She didn’t have no legs at all. She was just calm, probably in shock from everything.”

So far there is no word on the girl's condition.  The ride has been shutdown pending a full investigation and has also been removed from the Six Flags website.

(thanks reddit )

Related posts: Top 10 Amusement Parks (Outside of Orlando) • Best of the Best Amusement Parks and Rides • Stairway to Heaven Leads to Myrtle Beach? • Superman - Ride of Steel • Cedar Point's Millenium Force • Say Goodbye to Flipflop Tanlines

Related travel guides: • Texas family vacation ideas • Virginia Beach Tours • Washington, DC places to visit • Boston, MA family vacation • fun things to do in salt lake city, Utah • fun things to do in San Diego & LA

Cedar Point's Millenium Force

The video above is a POV from the Millenium Force in Cedar Point, Ohio.  This bad boy is over a mile long, over 30-stories high, and hits speeds of over 90 miles per hour.  It opened in 2000 and has since had over 12 million butts in its seats.  If you like riding the best and you're going to be in the Midwest between May and October, this is definitely worth a stop.  For now, you can ride vicariously through Eddie and Sarah.

Picture of the Day (01/10/07) - From TripCart

wallyg says:

Navy Pier's most visible attraction, a 150-foot-high Ferris wheel presented by McDonald's was modeled after the very first Ferris wheel, which was built for Chicago's 1893 World Colombian Exposition. The Navy Pier Ferris wheel provides unparalleled views of the skyline and lakefront. with 40 gondolas seating six passengers each. In the evening, the Ferris wheel's 40 spokes, spanning a diameter of 140 feet, are illuminated by thousands of sparkling lights.

The 'Wave Swinger" towers nearly forty feet over a pond of water. This exhilarating forty-eight seat swing ride lifts visitors fourteen feet in the air, and whisks them around for a thrill that shows guests a view of the lakeside never before seen.

Tigger Takes it Out on Teen at Disney Orlando

Tigger just couldn't take it anymore, the heat, the bad food, the little girls pulling his tail, the constant photo ops; he finally lost it and apparently accosted the Monaco's son on Friday.  Jerry Junior was posing next to Tigger with the rest of the family when Tigger (the man in the big orange suit's name is Michael J. Fedelem) lashed out.  However, Tigger's union rep. claims that Jerry Junior was pulling and choking him and that he took a swipe at the boy in an effort to escape the assault.  The lawyers are already licking their chops like Pooh over a pot of honey.

(thanks jaunted)

Related posts: Best of the Best Amusement Parks and Rides • Top 10 Labor Day Destinations • Top 10 Places to Cool Off This Weekend • Stairway to Heaven Leads to Myrtle Beach?

Related travel guides: Theme Parks in Orlando, Tampa, Disneyworld and Central Florida • Kids and family in Orlando • Romantic vacations in Orlando • Luxury vacations in Orlando • Hotels in Orlando • Spas in Orlando

Picture of the Day (12/29/06) - From TripCart

At the local amusement park in Denver, Colorado.

(thanks ishrona)

Halloween Horror Nights

Universal is at it again this year, for the 16th time they'll be putting on their annual Halloween Horror Nights. From the end of September until the end of October, you can get the beejeezus scared out of you after the park's regular hours are over. They've built seven different haunted houses with names like Screamhouse - Resurrection (walk around a gothic mortuary) and Psychoscarepy - Maximum Madness ("If you think you know insane you don't know Jack"). There are also a couple of shows including Bill and Ted's that is a perennial favorite among fright fans.

related travel guides: southern california, central florida

(thanks theme parks insider)

Top 10 Places to Cool Off This Weekend

Need a way to cool down this Labor Day? Want to head one of the best waterparks in the country? You've got a lot of options but CNN picked their ten most favoritest. Below is a roundup of the waterparks along with their best features-

 

• Schlitterbahn (Texas) - the 1,000-foot-long Master Blaster water coaster and the natural spring that keeps the water from reeking of chlorine are the two big highlights
• Wet N' Wild (Florida) - this park's been around since the Carter Administration and is packed with slides
• Noah's Ark (Wisconsin) - this is the biggest park in America and it also has a water coaster that reaches speeds of 30 m.p.h.
• Splashin' Safari (Indiana) - crammed with stuff for kids as well as a 10-story enclosed slide that's the highest in the world
• Water World (Colorado) - this park attempts to meld water with kitsch and usually succeeds except when it's too cold to get in
• Blizzard Beach (Florida) - Disney went overboard with this one, a 120-foot nearly vertical slide that will have you begging for a wedgie
• Water Country USA (Virginia) -  this place has a sort of 1950s style, and we can't really figure out why it's on the list
• Kalahari Water Park (Wisconsin) - this place might not be as impressive as it's neighbors but it is the country's first indoor water park
• Typhoon Lagoon (Florida) - Disney's sister water park is more family oriented (big surprise) than Blizzard Beach and has a 360k-gallon Shark Reef to snorkel in
• Wild Rivers (California) - Wild Rivers isn't afraid of a lawsuit and you can see it in their rides that take some adventurous risks that other corporate parks might not have the cajones to take

My personal choice would be going to Nevada's Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert, where every year, thousands of participants gather to celebrate the coolest / craziest Theme Park of them all - Burning Man.

Related posts: Top 10 Labor Day Destinations • Top 10 Amusement Parks (Outside of Orlando) • Top 10 Tips to Travel in a Post-9/11 World • Burning Man Trip

Related travel guides: Theme Parks in Central Florida • Theme Parks in Southeastern Texas • Theme Parks in Nevada • Theme Parks in Southern California • Theme Parks in Colorado • Theme Parks in Virginia