(by MTV News Production Manager Adam Stewart)

Earlier this week, Sway, producer Nick Neofitidis and myself journeyed down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for the grand opening of Hard Rock Park the world’s first rock-and-roll-themed theme park! One thing we didn’t know before we went on our trip was that Sway and thrill rides mix about as well as oil and water. Here’s what happened …

Hard Rock features a smooth steel coaster called “Led Zeppelin: The Ride,” and I can truly say that this ride ROCKS — literally. Each seat on the coaster is equipped with a thumping 12-inch woofer and 2-inch tweeter wailing out “Whole Lotta Love” as the ride swoops, twists and inverts six times after its initial 155-foot, white-knuckle drop, topping out at 65 mph — all choreographed to the wailing tones of Zeppelin! It was intense, but surely not too intense for Sway — right?

Well, Sway did graciously pass the face-time over to super-producer Nick to boldly go where no MTV’er had gone before (on the job, anyway). After coordinating with the ride technicians to mount a special camera to the coaster (and getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the bowels of a thrill ride — VERY cool!), Nick was ready to go. After a test run and two actual runs with the cameras rolling, Nick was about ready to lose his lunch (which I believe was a park hamburger and fries). Anyway, I finally joined the fun and gave it a whirl myself, and did it ever live up to expectations! We both waved to (well, taunted, actually) Sway as he sat on the sidelines and watched. We rode again and even purchased the screaming face on the ride picture in the gift shop, which I’m sure will be my new default Facebook picture within the next week.

Later that day, during a behind-the-scenes tour of the park by Steve Goodwin (although his last name should be GREATwin — he was really born for this kind of thing). This Brit eats, sleeps and drinks everything that is rock and roll. You should have seen his face when we gave him an MTV T-shirt — he later confessed that it has always been his dream to be an MTV VJ!

He even managed to get Sway to finally get over his apprehension and hop on a rollercoaster — well, sort of: it was a kiddie choo-choo train ride that went about 6.2107 miles per hour on a track that was no larger than half a regulation basketball court.

But to Sway’s credit, he did look cool riding it!

(We’ll have more on our visit to Hard Rock Park soon!)