155 days till Halloweekends!

Ralph Wiggum said:
Easy for you to say Adam, you didn't have boots full of gravel and red bruises on the bottom of your feet every night. :)

Now Ralph, you know darn well that being a Screamster isn't easy! It takes blood, guts and a lot motivation to be a good Screamster, you know that!!! :)

We will be going for our first Halloweekend in September. SO excited. Our 5 year old is obsessed with Halloween. I know some of the stuff may be too scary for her, but I think she will really have a great time. Not to mention it will be her first time to CP ever! Can't wait!!

So I need some advice. The hubs and I are coming up from SC in Sept - the first weekend of Halloweekends - to visit family and have some fun. He gets an Indians game and a Browns game, I get Cedar Point. I've been once before, about 10 years ago...and it'll probably be another 10 years before I make it back, so I want to make sure I max out my Point experience!

So here's my question...(a) with it being the first weekend of Halloweekends and (b) given that that Sat (9/18) is the Christian concert day, would it be better for us to go Friday or Saturday? I read that not all rides are open on Fridays, and I'm OK with that as long as the BEST ones are! Given the short hours on Friday, would we be able to ride everything? Given that all the churchies will be there Sat (coming from the Bible Belt, I'd rather NOT deal with all that) will it just be PACKED?

Any input is helpful - thanks!

Friday is the best day to go for Halloweekends. All the big coasters are open with the exception of maybe Gemini or Mine Ride (but nothing really too bad). The crowds should be small* and pretty much all the rides open can be riden.

Saturday will be crowded more than likely, but shouldn't be packed like columbus day weekend or the fourth*. I think last year the concerts didn't really effect crowds too much. I read a few reports saying a lot of the concert goers didn't even go to the park. The first weekend shouldnt be too bad because it will still be early in the Halloween season.

Halloweekends is the one time of year where crowd size is drasticly effected by the weather. Guest don't mind the cold but if there is a chance of rain and cold a lot of guest hold off.

Ridelist from www.halloweekends.com

Maverick, Chaos, Troika, Blue Streak, Midway Carrousel, Raptor, Cedar Downs, Dodgem, Planet Spooky, Cadillac Cars, Matterhorn, Scrambler, Skyhawk, Wave Swinger, WildCat, maXair, Iron Dragon, Top Thrill Dragster, Wicked Twister, Magnum XL-200, Power Tower and Millennium Force.

Notably missing from the ride list are Disaster Transport, Corkscrew, Gemini, Mean Streak and Mantis.

All of Camp Snoopy is closed due to CarnEvil.

Snake River Falls and Thunder Canyon are closed for the season at Labor Day. TC re-opens as CornStalkers, SRF has some Halloweeny stuff added to it, but is not open for anything specific.

^ That's interesting that Wildcat runs but Corkscrew, Mean Streak and Mantis don't.

Its a trade-off between staffing and a couple horribly inefficient rides.

Operations on Mantis and Corkscrew have made them all but unrideable. Wildcat on the other hand still does pretty good capacity and hasn't yet been ruined by lawyers.

Plus, being right next to the big screen I think helps draw attention to it, whereas Mantis and Mean Streak are somewhat back in corners and "blend in" even when not running.

Thanks for the input! Looks like we'll shoot for Saturday. I can do without Mean Streak and the water rides, but I'd hate to miss out on the others! I had a feeling weather would play a significant role in the size of the crowd. Being from the South, I'm just the opposite - rain I can handle, but if it drops below 60 I'll need my Snuggie :)

^^ Well made points. And I'm not complaining that Wildcat will be open. I'm happy that I won't have to go learn another ride just for Halloweekends and can just stay at Wildcat.

I just thought it was interesting that they would keep it up when those two were down.

RockStar21 said:

Now Ralph, you know darn well that being a Screamster isn't easy! It takes blood, guts and a lot motivation to be a good Screamster, you know that!!! :)

Haha, true. You've got me there.

As for Fridays vs. Saturdays, on the first weekend Saturday should be manageable based on the past. Are you going more for the rides or the Halloween stuff? If you're there for rides, and the Friday night ride list works for you, Friday is definitely what you want. If you're there for both, either day should work. Plus on Saturday you get the parade in addition to all the other Halloweekends activities.

Very nice Rockstar.....spoken like a true screamster. ;)

Ralph Wiggum said:

RockStar21 said:

Now Ralph, you know darn well that being a Screamster isn't easy! It takes blood, guts and a lot motivation to be a good Screamster, you know that!!! :)

Haha, true. You've got me there.

As for Fridays vs. Saturdays, on the first weekend Saturday should be manageable based on the past. Are you going more for the rides or the Halloween stuff? If you're there for rides, and the Friday night ride list works for you, Friday is definitely what you want. If you're there for both, either day should work. Plus on Saturday you get the parade in addition to all the other Halloweekends activities.

Nothing beats seeing Ralph dance around with a giant pumpkin on his head.

true, that was one of the reason I made sure to catch the parade as often as I do on sundays. Less of that this year though with us working a few more sundays than usual.

You mean the pumpkin head isn't terrifying? I feel like everything I've ever known is now wrong.

Oh, and Zeek, only one of us looked good enough in a pumpkin head to appear on a park brochure, and it wasn't me. :)

And I think we all know who that would be.

What is it now, 119 days? haha. :)

^ so close yet so far away, and in less than 3 months we'll be processing in and going through orientation

Zeek said:

Nothing beats seeing Ralph dance around with a giant pumpkin on his head.

The pumpkin heads rock!

Way back and such but anybody who hated this topic was probably someone we scared the **** out of, literally...we all know it happens.

As for counting down the days as of Nov. 2nd, last year was my first year, I took the job very seriously (in context) and absolutely loved it, didn't believe in the "withdrawel" I heard about, until it hit a few minutes after we closed down and I realized I had to wait another year to do it again.

As for zone stuff, techies have informed me that U.U. is being remodeled by the guy who did Toy Factory/Eerie, and Terror Islands new path looks to be pretty hot! I will be returning to my beloved Fear Faire I really enjoyed working in there and look forward to having veterans in it aside from 90% Newbs (Me last year!)

I saw the work that was done on the island from MF today and I am very excited for Halloweekends. That new path for Terror Island looks great.