OH Thomas

I guess I haven't seen ALL of the episodes of Thomas the train. Somewhere along the line I missed the episode called 'Heat stroke island.' The bus ride over was pleasant and fooled us...air conditioning and a video of Thomas playing on the overhead tv's. Once we arrived on death island, the heat hit us right away. We couldn't wait to get onto the train, there was still about 45min we had to kill before we could board. We wandered around as best we could, grabbed some water and finally it was time to get into a long line. Luckily someone told us there were two other boarding areas, so we rushed over there. Good thing too because the train we got onto had air conditioner, unlike the one the other load of people were waiting for. Once we got on, this clown, yes, I know I hate clowns, but this one was helpful (she must have been a human in clown clothing) she told us that the next one down was cooler, so we got onto that one...oooohhh aaaahhh, I know it wasn't THAT much cooler, but compared to outside it was heavenly. I didn't care if the train wasn't moving, I would have stayed on that all day! The trainride was supposed to be 25min. That must have included the boarding and deboarding time, because we were only on that train about 15min. While we were deboarding the train we saw Mr Topem hats (I know I spelled that wrong) and he was being escorted to a cooler area (the staff were nearly carrying him...reminds me never to work for Thomas, I'm sure they have bad benefits if they treat their employees like that). The somewhat cool train was enough to give us the next boost to keep going. So we went over and got the kids some tattoos since that was shaded. Smart Ame kept asking for more tats, which gave us more time in the 500 degree (as compared to outside which was about a million and 3 degrees). Each kid got a balloon animal, Ame got a lady bug and Nicky got a turtle. Same shape, one had spots the other had lines. I'm thinking she needs to go back to balloon school and learn some new animals. We attempted to go into the bounce house, but the outside plastic felt like molten lava and we didn't want our kids bursting into flames out of our reach. The next stop was the cycle mini trains, there were about 6 trains, but only 2 were working, so you can imagine the wait for this ride. They did have fun on their little ride around though. I noticed that there was a tent for nursing mothers and diaper changing, a nice touch. I found it interesting that they didn't allow parking at the actual site, once there I discovered why...they drop you off and once we have neared death we have to wait in the longest line on the earth to leave the island. In the blazing sun, with NO shade (unless you use one of the certificates given out). The only nearby shade is the gift shop, you lure these poor people into the minimal shade and sucker them into buying your overly expensive junk that I'm quite sure either contains led and/or was made by small children in China getting paid one grain of rice per hour. Good sales technique. All in all it was decent, it would have been nice had they scheduled this at a different time of year. I would consider going again, but I will not if they hold it same time next time. A few suggestions for Thomas and his friends: more tents (why not just hold this in a air conditioned building?), schedule this at a different time of year (or at least make the hotter cities first on the list during the year), more water and less sugary drinks, more than 2 fraking buses that have a turn around time of a half hour, more water misters and just overall better planning. I would bet my left boob that at least someone did actually have some sort of heat exhaustion or something along those lines. I did gain a good farms tan out of the deal though, real cute. At least Nicky is now Jr. Engineer. Seriously, the adults were not the only ones suffering. The kids looked like zombies walking around, some were screaming while walking. Here are the pics, these are the ones that they weren't absolutely frowing in.

(Couldn't get any closer, the crowd was swarming around it)

(Looks like this train was too lazy to make an actual appearance)
(A ladybug)

(A turtle, see the resemblance? I didn't know turtles and lady bugs were related)
(Think I could put this baby to work?)

(Very smart to put the LOUD speakers right near the photo op)

(I crack up each time I look at this one...LOL...she just pulled on her hair due to frustration)

(This one was taken about 5min after I asked him if he was tired, he tells me NO! LOL!)