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Elissa Alvey von Theme Park Review

She is the most famous female fan of amusements parks in the world, Elissa Alvey born in 1976, living in California near Six Flags Magic Mountain ( http://www.elissaalvey.com ). Together with her partner Robb Alvey she manages Theme Park Review, the largest amusement park fan community on this planet. Thousands of TPR members created the most extensive collection of amusement park and roller coaster videos, which are now also available on http://www.coastertube.com . In many forums, reports and photographic material have been published from parks around the whole world. TPR is also famous in particular for their own video productions, some large parks even order these films. Robb and Elissa can also be seen in various documentaries on TV, Elissa, for example, often in the repeated documentary “the craziest roller coasters”. And finally since a number of years, they organize several tours of themeparks on all continents. During winter break they often hold special cruises, as you can see on the following picture of Elissa. We see her in Labadee on Haiti at the top of a giant zip line, 2.633 feet long and 500 feet above sea level.

Elissa Alvey in abadee auf Haiti
Elissa Alvey in Labadee on Haiti

Interview

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: How are you feeling right now, while answering our crazy “amusement park world-questions”?

Elissa Alvey: I needed a break from all the preparation of this summers “Theme Park Review Trips”, so I'm excited to answer the questions! Also, I was very flattered that it was all questions for me! Usually I'm just the second half of “Robb & Elissa” or “the brains” behind Theme Park Review!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: You’ve been loving Disney’s Chip and Chap for a long time. They were even guests of your wedding party in Disney World Florida. Could you please try do describe your feelings about Chip and Chap, because we’d like to share your passion.

Elissa Alvey: I have a love/hate relationship with Chip and Dale. Is Dale called Chap in Germany? I know that in France Chip and Dale are called “Tic and Tac”. In Japan and Hong Kong they were just normal Chip and Dale. I really like Chip and Dale, they are tiny, cute, they balance each other well since Chip is the smart responsible one and Dale is the more goofy care free one. My problem with them is that I have to buy DOUBLE the merchandise because if there is a stuffed animal of Chip and one of Dale, I can't choose one over the other, so I end up spending way too much money on the little rodents! I also never liked Donald Duck much growing up and Chip and Dale always harassed him in the cartoons so I was on their side!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Which cool and amazing TPR-Trips are you planning for European member-freaks this season?

Elissa Alvey: We have Europeans on ALL of our TPR Trips this summer! The most are on the West Coast USA Trip, but we also have a ton on the Scandinavia Trip. There are even a few going with us to China, the Deep South and Texas Trips! If there's one thing I want our European Coaster Friends to know the most about us and our trips is that we VERY much cater to all of our international participants. The groups are always very diverse and we're not your “stereotypical terrible ugly Americans”! We work with any language barriers, we make sure to make you feel welcome, we help you with travel arrangements, etc. Most of us also prefer the European parks to the American parks so you'll see we're very respectful! When we do come to Europe, we always welcome the chance for local Europeans to meet up with us at parks. While we can't always invite you into ERT, we would love to meet you and have you meet the group and for you to show us around your “home parks” and give us the inside information!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: What would you do with your daughter “KidTums”, if she skipped school to visit an amusement park instead?

Elissa Alvey: I have a feeling that by the time poor KidTums is in school she'll already be burned out for Amusement Parks and will actually enjoy the break from them! If she did skip school when older to visit a park, I would be angry, but secretly proud! =) Heck, I did it as a kid, how could I fault her for it! School will come first though as I feel education is VERY important. Once she's in school full time, we will either cut back TPR Trips to only her school vacation, or perhaps dump her with the Grand Parents!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Please name your favourite ride and park with a short lovely comment if possible.

Elissa Alvey:

Europa-Park Atlantica
Atlantica at Europa-Park
Favourite park:
This is such a tough question! And I get asked this all the time, you would think I'd have a better answer by now! Ok, first off the Disney parks are VERY hard to compete with as a whole, but individually they don't stand up to my favorite park Europa Park! If that sounds confusing, let me try and explain.Walt Disney World or Tokyo Disney Resort would be my favorite “parks”. But if I had to choose one individual park, it wouldn't be one of the Disney Parks, it would be Europa Park. I just get such a calm laid back feeling when visiting Europa Park, and their food is soooo good! That says a lot for me too because I'm a very picky eater! Most of their rides are pretty unique, and until last year they didn't even have a coaster that went upside down and it didn't bother me! It seems like one of those parks where you can discover something totally new every time you go, even if you go a lot!

Favourite Ride:
“Journey to the Center of the Earth” at Tokyo DisneySea. This ride is just so amazing, it's hard to explain to others who haven't been on it. But from the queue, to the preshow, to the ride, to the theming, it's just amazing! Truly Disney at their best.

Favourite Coaster:
It's no secret that I LOVE Intamin rides. I think they really push the envelope, they're smooth, and just the kind of rides I really like! Right now, my favorite Steel would probably be Expedition Ge Force or Kawasemi. I know that a lot of the Europeans don't like Ge Force as much anymore, but I've been there about 5 times in the last 7 years and it's only given me a bad ride on one visit. Kawasemi (or any of the “Intamin Megalites”) was simply amazing, and proves you can't judge a ride by its size! As far as wood coasters go, it's hard to decide between El Toro, Balder, and T Express. They're all just amazing and full of my favorite ejector air!

Expedition GeForce im Holiday Park
Expedition GeForce at Holiday Park

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: How did you succeed in conquering the heart of one of the most amazing rollercoaster freaks in this galaxy?

Elissa Alvey: Are you talking about Robb?!?! =) He's a nice guy, but that's quite a description! We met online in 2001, then started hanging out at various coaster events and parks and it just kind of went from there! I was still in University at the time so we did the “long distance relationship” thing until I graduated in 2003 and drove across the country (stopping at many amusement parks along the way of course!) Looking back it turned out that we had actually been at some of the same roller coaster events in the 90's! Of course then we had the Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, and KidTums a few years after that! I'm just pretty awesome...Robb was lucky to get me! =)

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Please describe one of your funniest experiences in an amusement park.

Elissa Alvey: There are two. One that was funny to me, and one that happened to me and was funny to everyone but me!
a) Farup Sommerland has lots of big inflatable's to play on and injure yourself with. Joey and Robb went running into one and as Joey pushed passed this giant inflatable tree (which we thought looked a lot like broccoli) it came back and slammed into Robb so hard that he fell backwards. It was amazing!
b) Lotte World has the famous Aqua Trax roller coaster and as we were waiting in line the very first time we noticed that there was a spot on the ride that if you were on the right side you could dip your hand in the water at about 35mph and create this wall of water! Well, some terrible Korean teenage boy in front of me did it and it left me SOAKED. Everyone laughed at me for a long time, I was not amused!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Your Theme Park Review symbol is a goofy donkey. Imagine you are given three wishes by a donkey with magical forces. What are your wishes?

Elissa Alvey: Do I have to do nice wishes, or can I do selfish wishes!??!
Nice - World Peace, End Hunger, Cure All Diseases
Selfish - Unlimited Money, Invention of a teleportation device, ability to fly

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: You have already visited the most famous amusement parks all over the world, what a wonderful dream! How can you finance this, do you have a secret money printing machine in your cellar?

Elissa Alvey: Oh crap you're on to us!
Seriously though, we just are very careful with what we buy and spend money on so we can do what we want. For example, we live in a very small two bedroom apartment. We also have two small cars, we don't really go out to the movies, we don't buy music, we pretty much only wear TPR Clothes, etc. I have actually helped some of my friends with their household budgets and they have been able to afford a lot more stuff!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Male rollercoaster-fans see you as one of the dream girls in the world. How do you like it?

Elissa Alvey: That's nice to hear! I kind of feel that since I had the baby that I have passed my “hot coaster chick” title on to the new generation. But I don't mind it at all! I'm a lot of fun to hang out with and I love meeting new people, plus I'm in the minority of the coaster enthusiasts since I'm a girl, so a lot of people liked me! Once they all get over that I have a husband and won't be running away with them we still end up good friends. Because of this, the vast majority of my friends are all guys! I have more in common with an 18 year old coaster boy then any of the mom's at Kristen's Gymboree classes so I'm just kind of weird like that I guess!

Freizeitpark-Welt.de: Thank you Elissa!

Related Links

» Theme Park Review

» Elissa's Website

» Coastertube.com