Even though we were talking about the end of summer in our last post… well we added two weeks of summer by taking a well earned vacation in the south, just as the weather forecast predicted the first snow for Minneapolis. We looked at the map of the Amtrak train system and picked the location furthest south, that we can possibly reach with it: Miami.
We bought a USA Rail Pass that similarly to Interrail lets you take 10 rides within 30 days for 499$ (not too bad, compared to the prices for single fares on some of those lines). On most lines there is only one train per day and if you are unlucky, it leaves or arrives at some random time in the middle of the night. Since we were traveling between major cities it wasn’t that bad for us. Amtrak is also notoriously famous for being late. And this is exactly how our trip started: with notifications of delays for our first train heading to Chicago, due to construction. Ultimately, the train was 7.5h late. Not ideal with only 2 hours to switch trains. Good that Amtrak provided a replacement bus that took us to Chicago on time.
We spent the three hours (the bus was actually faster then the train so we gained one additional hour) in Chicago walking around in downtown between all the skyscrapers and shopping dinner for the overnight train ride to Washington DC. It was already a fair bit warmer than Minneapolis.
So, then finally, we took our first real train, the 18h Capitol Limited from Chicago to Washington DC. What an experience: The seats are as big as first class seats in SBB trains. Leg space is spacious and they are ok for sleeping (but as usual, tall people and small people might disagree on how comfortable). We had great conductors who assigned seats, enforced rules, such as no calls on speakers and woke up people who had stops in the middle of the night. Many of the passengers were Amish people, who stand out with their traditional clothes and hairstyles. The discussions of our seat neighbors sounded very German, which is not surprising, as many Amish people are of German or Swiss origin. Still, we hardly understood more than a few words and maybe the general topic of a discussion.
And again, the train got delayed, this time because of people on the tracks.
We stayed two days in Washington DC. We spent one day looking at the Capitol, the white house and many of the monuments and memorials in downtown. We probably saw more police cars than summed over the entire time in the US before, even though president Biden was out of town (in fact he was in Minneapolis) this day. The second day we went to Georgetown, the oldest neighborhood in Washington. There was no need for a jacket anymore, except for the AC indoors in restaurants.
After relaxing the back in a hotel bed for two nights, we took the 18h ride to Miami. The ride was less pleasant than the previous one, mostly due to passengers which were noisy during the night. One interesting seat neighbor somehow ended up reading the bible to Jérôme (sidenote: he had alreadz drunk one bottle of wine with another one to go). But we eventually arrived in Miami without major issues. At this point, there was no real need for a sweater anymore, except for the AC indoors in restaurants. Summer was back :).
In Miami, we rented a car and started a nine day road trip through Florida, with a drive all the way out to key west, the southernmost point in the US. The drive from Miami was an exhausting 4h, how nice would it have been by train. The train line out to the keys was unfortunately destroyed by a hurricane in 1935 and there are only remnants of the old train bridges left that are now crumbling away. On the way we stopped for a little hike in Long Key State Park. A small paradise where the coastal ecosystem of the keys still exists. Parts of the hiking trail were flooded and we had to walk barefoot. Everything on the keys is at a very low elevation and exposed to storms and raising sea levels. Many of the houses along the way were built on stilts to cope with this.
The next day we visited Miami Beach. Especially for Jérôme, this was kind of surreal due to Miami Beach’s appearance in popular movies and games.
The following days we toured through the Everglades National Park, the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. The mangrove forests, freshwater marshes, cypress swamps and hardwood hammocks are inhabited by a stunning diversity of plants and wildlife. We saw manatees chilling in the marina next to the visitors center, alligators all over the place, a young crocodile, many different species of herons and egrets, turtles, many dragon- and damselflies and a lot more. What we didn’t see, were mammals. Apparently small mammals used to be very abundant, but invasive pythons decimated their populations, so that they are hardly spotted by visitors anymore.
From here we drove “north” to Tampa. And on the way, there was Jerome.
There we visited the Caladesi Island and Honeymoon Island state parks. Well actually, both of us visited Caladesi Island and Seraina visited Honeymoon Island while Jérôme went to an amusement park, but more about amusement parks further down. The islands are beautiful with their white beaches, sand dunes, palm trees and pine flatwoods. The beaches are shared with lots of birds, including the laughing gulls that tried to steal Serainas hairpin. In the forests we saw an armadillo, many ospreys and on Honeymoon Island there was bald eagle nest. Oh and mosquitos. Many mosquitos. We paid for the armadillo picture with 20 1500 mosquito bites. Each. Unfortunately without picture: we also saw dolphins and sharks. At least their fins.
Another day we visited Mike, one of Jérômes colleagues from work and Mikes two pigs and two goats. The pigs and goats live on a small farm that Mike is slowly turning into a little paradise with an Australian tree garden and a tropical greenhouse. He showed us a great vegan restaurant and we spent the lovely afternoon with cocktails on St. Pete Pier.
And of course, no holidays for Jérôme without an amusement park or two. The below pictures show what Seraina was interested in, especially the butterbeer. More nerdtalk later.
And then it was time to catch train again. From Jacksonville to New York. We had planned lunch with Olivia, Serainas cousin , right after arriving. This felt like a gamble after all the delays and cancelled train, especially since Olivia only had time until mid afternoon. But we made it! We had great Sushi together, caught up with things happening in our lives and started to make plans for her to visit us in Minneapolis. Knowing we had only one day in New York, we started the tourist tour right after dropping off our luggage in the hotel. Flat Iron Building, Empire State Building, a little walk in Central Park, Metro, Ground Zero, China Town and dinner in Little Italy. The next day continued like this, with a ferry ride to Staten Island and back to see the Statue of Liberty and a walk on the High Line Park, which is a park established on a bridge on which a metro line used to run above the normal streets. A little highlight on the way: we found a bakery that sold really good bread.
And then train again, back to Chicago overnight and after a few hours in Chicago the last train back home. Which got delayed a few hours again, but we eventually made it back home, with lots of beautiful memories and sunshine in the luggage. We were mentally prepared for piles of snow and cold. But we got back to some more sunshine and beautiful fall. Lovely, but winter is coming… Eh and btw. the sour dough did not like being without attention for two weeks. We are back to brick bread.
Nerdtalk
I had to wait for quite some time to write these lines, but finally, it is time again for Nerdtalk :). This time I am going to write about 3 parks at once! I was lucky enough to visit all of them in a window of only two weeks. The best part is that these three parks must belong to the best of the best in the United States, so stay tuned for the final rating! As stated in the last post, I sadly was not able to visit Cedar Point for longer than an hour, so this review is sadly postponed…
Busch Gardens Tampa
The first park that I visited was Busch Gardens Tampa (the second in the chain of Busch Gardens parks, there are only two but additional water parks). As with the first park, the Busch Gardens parks are known for their theming and attention to detail. And I am happy to say that Busch Gardens Tampa did not dissapoint! While the park in Virginia has a European country based theming, this park uses its environment (Florida) and is a jungle. There is a big savanna inside the park where animals can free-roam, and safari tours can be booked to see those animals. There is also a train that runs through this savanna – which also I took to see all the animals. While the other Busch Gardens Park in Virginia also displays animals, they seem to have a lot more space here and while I was unhappy about the situation in VA, here the enclosures are OK.
With regards to rides: The park is home to some famous attractions. Starting with Iron Gwazi, an RMC hybrid coaster (steel track on wooden scafolding). This is also a converted coaster, previously the ride was called just “Gwazi” and was a fully wooden coaster. Built by GCI, the ride was previously a dueling coaster (meaning two stations). Iron Gwazi is no longer dueling, but now features inversions and overhead elements. It only opened in 2022. The ride itself is very smooth and a lot of fun. As with most RMCs, the ride is very fast with seemingly unhealthy sharp turns. I really liked this ride, must be up there with my other most favorites…
Three more rides I want to mention here. Cheetah Hunt is an Intamin launch coaster. It has a very uncommon layout, in which it first climbs into a “crown” of a tree, resembling a cheetah climbing a tree. After some turns in that “tree”, the ride drops down to ground level, resembling a fast running cheetah through the savanna. While some parts of the ride in the back feature near miss elements such as rocks and a water stream that you canter upwords, some of the parts that connect this back part of the ride with the station building are a bit slow and uneventful.
A very famous ride is Kumba, one of the first Bollinger & Mabillard sitting coasters. From 1993, this coaster is especially well known for its intertwining corkscrews (see picture below) and a loop that wraps around the lift hill. While the ride is older and one can feel its age (vibrations), its still a very nice ride. When I arrived, the station building was empty, and I was able to stay seated in the train after the first ride.
Busch Gardens is also home to SheiKra, the first dive coaster in the US (also a Bollinger & Mabillard coaster, you might see a pattern here). The ride itself is not that special, but it is embedded in the park very nicely and features a splashdown.
Finally, some other rides of the park include a drop tower called Falcons Fury, where you actually drop face down. Less intense that you would believe it to be. Cobras Curse, a fun Mack spinning coaster with a vertical lift and backwards sections, and finally Scorpion, an old Schwarzkopf Silverarrow ride. Very high G’s on that one! All in all, a very nice park, would definitely go again. Much less people than the other park that I will talk about below (longest wait was maybe 10 minutes?). 9.5/11.
Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure
Universal Studios is plural for a reason, there is a total of 3 parks (soon 4!) in the same resort. The overall area of the resort is huge, it contains also themed hotels, waterways with boats that bring you to the entrance of the respective parks, and such a hotel stay includes also a pre-opening (1h earlier access than the masses). Universal is very close to Disneyland Florida resort, and this is why Orlando is called the amusement / theme park capital of the world. From the 3 Universal Studio parks one is a waterpark, and the others are Islands of Adventure and “Universal Studios Florida”. We visited only Islands of Adventure.
First and foremost, these parks (Universal parks and Disney) are among the best amusement parks worldwide. This is undisputed. The level of detail in these parks is absolutely stunning. Universal is rightsholder of many franchises, and the parks are themed accordingly. Islands of Adventure contains “Marvel Super Hero Island”, “Jurassic Park” and “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade” to mention the most well known ones. The park is built around a lake, so you walk around it throughout the day. Especially in the Marvel and Toons sections, children can meet their idols which is really cool. These characters are roaming the park the whole day. Things that also stand out: Going on a coaster requires you to empty your pockets, and they will even make you go through a metal detector! Lockers are free. Lines can become very long however, and people are not used to wait without their phones…
This park has three major roller coasters that I should mention here. The first is “Incredible Hulk”, a Bollinger & Mabillard coaster that has been refurbished recently and rides pretty well. Its a sit down coaster, with a tire propelled launch and after that multiple inversions. The ride was OK, but the over shoulder restraints hurt if you are not as tall as me… Theming etc. is on a very high level. You are basically an experiment and you mutate the same way as Hulk did.
Next up is Velocicoaster, a Jurrasic Park themed coaster. The story here is that you are being hunted by VelociRaptors. We were unfortunate enough that the ride would break down just when we were about to board our train. This was a blessing in disguise however – we waited for the ride to reopen, but it did not until later that day. So we got one fast pass that would work on any ride in the park. And this was a big deal, you can read more about that in the next paragraph. The theming of the queue was amazing, the Velociraptos looked very real. We were able to ride later that day, and the ride was really good! Two forceful launches and great views over the whole park.
Finally, the most important ride: Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. There are no pictures of this ride here, as they take all your stuff away from you at the entrance. This ride is notorious for its long lines. We were at Universal on a slow day. The line was 120mins. This is simply insane. Also, we booked fast passes (each ride you can skip the line once) for the day, and this ride is NOT included. This is why the above mentioned one time fast pass we received was as important – we were able to skip the line at this ride!
This ride has been voted the best roller coaster in the world on multiple occasions. The concept of the ride is that you ride on Hagrids motorbike (the trains consists of multiple rows of bike and sidewagon) and get into trouble while doing so. The area of the ride itself is mostly enclosed, so it is hard to see inside and take pictures. However, most of the area looks like you would imagine a castle with a big garden and you zooming around and over castle walls, over and in between hedges. The ride has 7 (!!) LSM launches. The ride vehicles are breaked multiple times throughout the ride to tell more of the story. There is a vertical rollback piece, where you ride over a switch track, then you are accelerated upward a spike, to then regress through over the now switched track from which point onwards you are riding the coaster backwards. This ends in a tunnel with a drop track (where the track all of a sudden drops multiple meters), and which the ride vehicles face forwards again.
This ride is intense, fast paced, and you can see Fluffy, a unicorn and a hippogriff. You also drive into the black forest, which of course you should not do as it is dangerous! All in all, a must see for any Potter fan. Would I line up again for 2 hours to ride? Most likely yes.
This park is well known for its dark rides. A dark ride is not necessarily a roller coaster, but a thrill ride that is heavily themed. Three of them I want to mention here that are up there with the best I have ever been on: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-man, Jurassic Park the ride and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
The Spiderman ride uses 3D glasses and a pod-like vehicle that drives you through multiple scenes. The 3D effects are very well done and blend over into real life occurances extremely fluently. The pod is not only able to move 2D, but can also tilt, which results in a real life feeling of acceleration / falling etc.. Very cool ride!
The Harry Potter ride vehicle is different – it uses a track based system with a big robotic arm attached to it. Your seat can therefore be moved into all possible directions (even overhead!). They tell a story about you flying on your broom with Harry and Ron, getting lost in the forbidden forest, and then backtracking out of there again. Up there with the best dark rides I have ever been on!
Finally, the Jurassic Park ride is a boat ride that ships you into Jurassic Park, you are then attacked by multiple dinosaurs, and you can barely escape a big T-Rex (see picture above of the splashdown). The animatronics are amazing, I loved this ride as well.
So much text, now to the final verdict. This park is definitely up there with the best parks I have ever been to. However, while the theming and the rides themselves are awesome, this park has taken it too far with the amount of people that are admitted. We were there on a slow day, and crowds were OK. But if you want to ride all here mentioned rides in one day you will still need a fast-pass with high likelyhood. And this I believe is just not OK. Universal as Disney have perfected the science of how to get as much money as possible from all the people that visit. One day at this park has cost us 510$ in tickets for two alone (including one time fast passes). This is insane! Finally, there were a lot of rides that were not running on the day we were there: One water ride was closed for the rest of the season, and the King Kong ride only opened late at night when we already left.
For these prices, I would expect all rides to be open. 10/11. -0.5 because of the price, and another -0.5 because of that capitalist feeling throughout the whole day, that smell of big cooperation…
Silver Dollar City
Final park in the list: Silver Dollar City. Located in Branson Misouri, this park is also well known for its theming and attention to detail. This is also the favourite park of Molly, who was sadly not able to join me as I was in northwest Arkansas and Misouri as part of a work trip I had to take. What I did not know is that Branson itself is known as a family vacation destination with many theatres and shows, so would maybe also be worth checking out!
The park is built on a hill, with pathways going down one side of that hill. Under the entrance building, there is a cave which can be visited through a non-complementary tour – something I will for sure have to do next time I go there. Silver Dollar City is in fact a small city, all western stile (the italo kind that we all know and love). This western city is actually pretty hard to navigate. You get many pathways and alleyways, so you can get yourself lost quickly.
I was there in late autumn, and this did the park so good. The trees had already lost their leaves, but they were still scattered everywhere – this gave this town a spooky look. But combined with 2 million christmas lights (again, the italian way, “sigh”) in all colors, this gives a nice christmas feeling. The colors were sometimes a bit much though, and at night some of these lights get so bright that its unpleasant :D.
With this park, it was again hard to take pictures of some rides, as they would leave the parks premises and you would not be able to see where they go. I tried to capture what I could.
Time Traveller is the ride that the park gets media attention for right now, and I think this is for a good reason. It is a Mack Rides free spinning coaster (Euromir, but free spinning through the whole layout, with launches!). Very smooth and intense ride, the spinning is random and therefore every ride is different! The back of the ride vehicle for sure is most fun with the highest G-forces, and the more I rode it, the more I loved it! Two launches propell you through the entire layout, including inversions.
Next up in the list is “Powder Keg: A Blast in the Wilderness”. This ride is special. Its a Premier Rides water coaster which was rebuilt by S&S into a normal roller coaster (?), the ride received new trains and a new layout. There is an air launch at the beginning of the ride and a chain lift in the middle of the layout. Yes, this sounds confusing and it is! First, there is an intense air launch. In earlier years, there was even a flame show on launch, but they seem to have removed that… After the first section of the ride, you are taken up the chain lift for the second portion of the ride. The ride itself is very fast paced, and that mixture of air launch and chain lift hill makes it something special. And it also rides well!
An oldie but goldie about to close for good this year is “Fire In The Hole”, which is a ride built by the park itself. It opened in 1972 and will be replaced by a ride with the same name next year. This ride is more of a dark ride than a coaster, the trains move through multiple scenes and then, finally, you drop down into darkness. Cool concept, gave me some sweaty hands due to the raw nature of the ride :D.
The park also features a B&M sitdown coaster with inversions called Wildfire. Nice layout, fast paced and still smooth. They also have an RMC called “Outlaw Run”. This ride actually surprized through its roughness, especially after the first drop. I then read up on it – this ride has not yet received the T-box track treatment, which means that it does not (yet) have the newest track that other RMC coasters have… The layout would be awesome if it would not break your neck! There is also no way of seeing the coaster besides its lifthill – it disappears in the forest…
The park also features a dark ride called “Flooded mine” from 1968, which is so well done and themed, I loved the concept and the animatronics. Two water rides were not running due to cold temperatures. Finally, there was Thunderation, an Arrow Dynamics mine train coaster and the “Giant Barn Swing”, and S&S giant swing.
The food was really good. I had a portion of skillet (sausage, potato, corn – fried in a huge pan), delicious!, plus for my ride home I got a cinamon bread, it was extremely good. Have never eaten that well in an amusement park. 🙂 This park overall has the right “vibes”. It ticks all the boxes (ride selection is very good, food is awesome, theming is on a very high level…). 10/11!
Its a bit weird that the last three parks I visited now sit at the top of the leaderboard. Maybe this is because I was missing amusement parks a lot. Or I just got lucky and visited the best parks all at once!
- Silver Dollar City, Branson MO, 10/11
- Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Orlando FL, 10/11
- Busch Gardens, Tampa FL, 9.5/11
- Busch Gardens, Williamsburg VA, 9/11
- Six Flags Great America, Chicago IL, 8/11
- Kings Dominion, Richmond VA, 8/11
- Carowinds, Charlotte NC/SC, 7.5/11
- Six Flags St. Louis, St. Louis MO, 6/11
- Valleyfair!, Minneapolis MN, 5/11
- Nickelodeon Universe, Minneapolis MN, 3/11
See you all very soon! Best, S&J <3.