Day 1

Day 1 would see us leave our hotel near Dulles Airport making a quick trip to the National Air & Space Museum before heading through the state to Maryland visiting 5 parks: Adventure Park USA near the city of Frederick and 4 other parks on the coast; not a very gentle introduction at all with quite a bit of driving through the state before then driving all the way back to DC. To break up the return leg I thought we could stop at the state capitol building in Annapolis (a theme that would run through the trip). Those in the theme park community will probably be asking why we didn't stop at Six Flags America, which is also found in the Annapolis area; it just never came up in the planning. All four of us have been there in the past and it's definitely not known for being a stand out park in the chain despite it having an OK Superman coaster (which had a great ride ops team the last time I went there). The bigger attraction on this day was going to be 2 of the 4 Schwarzkopf coasters, both Wildcats, located at Adventure Park and Jolly Rogers park, and that would take priority.

However...

For all of the planning to play out into an actual happening, we had to be in the country. One of the group was unfortunately a victim of mechanical failure with their plane which meant they were unable to arrive until the next day, completely missing all of this...and yes, it was me who was the unlucky one. A little depressing as all of this would have been new to me and a fifth of all my new rollercoasters from the trip would have been ridden on this day. So unfortunately my day 1 report is mostly airport-based.

In the airport the Hamley's concession have a selection of toys you don't want to endure on an aeroplane. Boomerangs? Bowling? who's bright idea was this?

This is our plane, which we did get to board and then sit in for an hour before the captain decided we should evacuate. It's great when you're evacuated from a rollercoaster, not so much fun when it's your plane. We were told a pump was missing (fuel I guess) and that a replacement part was on its way. 

A queue of rather concerned Iceland Air passengers trying to plan how they'll rework their trip. To their credit they did try to fix the issue, telling us to just watch the information boards for updates and rescheduling my second flight to the next day automatically. However we were then told it couldn't be fixed and they were looking to see if they could fly us to Iceland via another plane and put us up in hotels there. That couldn't be done either so we'd be spending our night around Gatwick.

As per policy we were given vouchers for food. The dinner one barely covered the cost of a sandwich and drink such are the prices in airports. I missed the handing out of the breakfast voucher the next day though.

Jamie's Kitchen were somehow managing to show a world cup game on a day no games were taking place.

The young lad on the right was the poor soul left to deal with us on the first day and he did a great job but seemed to be left on his own for most of his shift, all of it being done on overtime. A little tip for the organisation here. Don't sit the Easy Jet rep under the Iceland Air sign and vice versa. Most of their queries were answered with "That's not my airline. You need to speak to them over there". A simple desk swap would have made things so much less stressful for all.

Things did get a little confusing when we were told to follow the guy back through immigration so that we could collect our bags and be taken to the hotel. He went through a gate we were denied entry to, so we had to clear immigration despite never leaving the country and then try to find him in the baggage hall. He then walked us around the airport for a bit trying to find the coach. All a bit unfortunate but I did make sure he knew we were appreciative of his assistance.

The hotel was a good drive from the airport, I remember seeing a sign for Tulley's Farm, a scare maze location on the way. Other coaches went out as far as South Croydon. I'm intrigued as to how this part of the planning works whether they keep rooms around just in case or if they scrabble to find lots of room at short notice. We were given dinner and drinks, all complimentary, which wasn't too bad. I guess the last thing an inconvenienced passenger should have to do is fork out more money.

My room came with a Despacio toilet. Bonus!

The next day I nearly missed the coach back to the airport. We were never told what time we'd be picked up and I didn't think to check. It was good luck I happened to wake up when I did.

The second morning was a little more stressful with no staff in to assist us. The flight to take us to Iceland was specially arranged (it was actually the fixed plane from the day before I think) and earlier than usual. It did mean however when our plane wasn't getting updates that we started to collar some airport staff who did try to help us. Eventually with 5 minutes notice our plane changed to boarding and our gate was publicised. A lot of relieved passengers then made their way to the plane.

The people who were sat next to me before we had to disembark must have made other plans as they were missing on day 2, leaving me with my own exclusive ride session to Iceland.

The in-flight entertainment featured a good selection of films and across the 2 flights I watched The Greatest Showman, The Prestige and an odd Jackie Chan film. The rest of the flight was spent watching Thora Karitas' Icelandic documentaries. 

Her accent...

At the airport I didn't have much time to risk heading into Reykjavijk so time was spent in the small terminal pigging out on skyr and dried fish. 

I also gave this a try just because of its name. It didn't taste Kropp at all!

I did bump into a couple of American friends who were returning home from a coaster trip to Scandinavia, which I would have gone on had we not already committed this trip. They seemed to have a great time, which to be honest is a given for that part of the world. Hi Steve and Dan!

The second flight passed with no issues and I was finally on US soil. Immigration went extremely quickly with me being put through in 15 minutes and with fewer questions asked than usual. The others had encountered a longer time with their flights. My next hurdle was that my hotel failed to pick up the phone so I was unable to arrange the free shuttle to come and collect me. I ended up getting a $50 taxi instead but I was eventually where I needed to be and my holiday could start properly.

Whilst the others were driving back I grabbed dinner at a wings place near the hotel. I had one of their hottest sauces coating the wings and handled them like a champ! Soon after the rest of the group arrived and it sounded like they had had a great, if very tiring day. They had dropped the space museum and the state capitol but had made it to all the parks and got most of the rollercoasters, with a kids coaster being the only one that eluded them.

In chatting we had realised that the only boomerang coaster on the trip was on this day and I'd missed it so we had a theory that all of this had been an elaborate plot to get out of riding it. 

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