So we left Uniontown Ohio at about 7:00 and headed to Sandusky. We ended up taking my way, not Jason's and paid the extra dollar to ride the turnpike to exit 118. We got on Rye Beach Road and took the old causeway. I almost peed my pants so I got dropped off a little early in the parking lot after some harassment. We found a more economical way on the trip home. But about the trip.
68ยบ not a cloud in the sky - no rain in the forecast
At 10 til 9 I was running through the parking lot like a mad man. Jason parked in the back of the first row and hardly anyone was there yet. I processed my pass after waiting at the wrong door for a while. Beware, you go in the back door of the building this year, they mixed it up from last year some. I was an idiot for a little while and waited with a group of people waiting on their 'processed' pass. Anyhow, got the pass during the National Anthem and proceeded into the park right at 9:00. While we were waiting outside we saw rollback #1 on Dragster. Not a good sign. We got to the checkpoint and showed our pass. Everyone was now coming from the other direction. They wanted to get to MF because TTD didn't look too promising. We decided to give it a whirl. At about 9:10 we got a Freeway for TTD. Thrill 1-2. We were surprised these were given before the gates actually opened. Strange. Well we didn't argue and we got in line for TTD. 6 trains on TTD! About 150 people were in front of us so we were in awesome position if that thing opened. At about 9:25 the gates opened and we were on the 4th train of the day. It was amazing all the people that waited for the front seat. We rode 4:1 as they were not filling the farthest back seats. Awesome ride. I missed this ride so much. The acceleration was great. Our speed said we were doing 123, I believe it. We were launched over that hill. This was quite a different story from later in the day.
From Dragster we went to Maggie at about 9:30. The gates were now open but no one else had got that deep into the park. (We both have Joe Cool by the way). We got some awesome rides on this coaster. Airtime galore! No TRIMS! They turned them on later in the day, but not in the morning. There were about 8 people per train and they were hauling in that station. Hardly any stacking at all. We went 6:2, 1:3, and 1:1. I got my first front seat Maggie ride ever. I still like the ejector seat more. Gotta love those seatbelts, if they weren't there your legs would be bruised forever.
Moving on we discovered a new coaster at CP - Mean Streak. What happened to this coaster? I saw a few pieces of new wood through the course of the ride, but that is expected. The green train (which we insisted on riding, not the yellow train) gave some awesome rides. They were running 3 by the way. I felt like this entire coaster got retracked or something (I better say this now, I know it didn't but it's running awesome). We went 1:1, 1:2, 1:1. This ride was literally a walk-on-and-have-4-people-on-your-train situation all day. I LOVE IT! Well since White Water Landing is right there and I'd never been on it, Jason showed me the ropes. I had been on a ride similar at SFGAdv (with the large turntable and all). We didn't wait at all and the ride was awesome. Didn't get too wet either. While we were in the area we had to catch a ride on Cedar Creek Mine Ride. They were running 2 trains and stacking them quite a bit. Oh well, no line so I guess they were just bored. Time to head over to Mantis and get our freeway because that line is usually unbearable.
Mantis & Millie. Hmm... both freeways distributed at 11:00. Before Dragster I would stamp them both, but I just couldn't. We had to decide. We saw 2 trains on MF and an hour line so we decided to get a stamp for that and ride Mantis now while the line was just down the steps. Mill 2-3. Big mistake. We didn't notice there was only one train on Mantis. Once we were in line it dawned on us. It took us about a half hour to get on what should have taken us 5 minutes. Oh well, we rode in row 5 and got a nice ride without the trims. They just DIDN'T GRAB! I've never been to the park in May. Is it common to get a bunch of trimless rides? I guess it could have something to do with the coasters warming up and the wind. After our Mantis ride it was nearly 11:30 and we were starving. The Wildcat and ID lines were short so we hopped on. Still the same rides, just a little bit differently colored than a few years back. I don't mind ID's as much as I thought I would, I'm just a little overcritical on the places they missed! We waited 5 minutes for the skyride and went out to the truck to eat lunch. Park food is too expensive!
After lunch was when we thought the day was going to start to take a nose dive. We figured people would start coming to the park. Well, they didn't. The park never got packed and the parking lot was still only about 1/4 of the way full. I guess a Sunday in May, on Mother's Day is the way to go. Once back in the park we went straight to DT. We got a front seat ride and only waited about 5 minutes. It was worth it for the short ride. I would love to see that layout. Didn't do the glasses thing. I found a pair on the floor last year and decided it wasn't worth it. From DT we went to tear apart Raptor. The line - hah, non existent. This ride would have been a walk on if we didn't wait the extra five for the front seat. I saw Jes, but we didn't win a prize. Instead he said he would stamp out one of our Freeways for us. Nah, didn't want to waste one of those valuable stamps. The crew on Raptor. Amazing! The best in the park probably. They are so fast and enthusiastic. If I get a job there next year that's where I want to be. The ride was awesome by the way. We rode first row and then back row. Big difference. You're either hanging there or getting yanked out of the inversions. The MCBR was open and we got an extra intense second half! I love Raptor. We would return later in the day. Since BS was in the neighborhood we got a ride there. 2:1. Plenty of airtime. Only one train was running and we had to wait about 10 or so minutes so we weren't going to power ride. It was about time for our TTD stamps. We hadn't seen it running so we were scared.
Once we got to TTD it was up but we had to go all the way back to the grandstands to wait through a filtering line to get into line. They separated those that had freeway, regulars and people that couldn't ride. So obviously we used the freeway and bypassed a good 30-45 minute line and got on in about 20 minutes. Not too shabby. Saw a kid with SFA opening day Shirt on and heard some comments from other obvious enthusiasts. "I wouldn't stick around there at night!" The ride was great and we went 3:2. Very powerful again, no chance of a rollback. It was about 2:00 now so we went to MF. Freeway time. I felt like a celebrity. Actually the stamp didn't help us that much and the line was only about 25 minutes or so. It had really died down despite the 2 trains. It's amazing that they were stacking those. Good backseat ride. Still my favorite seat on the ride.
On to the middle of the park. Corkscrew. The air on this ride is incredible. I love this Arrow and it looks extra good with its new coat of paint. Thank you CP for not changing its color! I would have cried. There wasn't a line and we walked right on. The crew was handling her pretty good. On to Maggie again. The line was about 5 minutes now and it wasn't a straight walk on. we went 5:3 to wait just one train and then 1:3 again for the ejector air. The trims were now on, oh well. Still it's a great ride. The only coaster ahead of this on my list is S:RoS SFNE. From Maggie we went past Gemini and realized it wasn't racing, so we didn't want to waste our time. On to MS. We rode in the green train again front seat, three times. The second ride the trims on the drop were off and it was AWESOME! I know why people say this ride tears itself apart now. No wait at all on the platform. We got off and ran around. From there we went to Gemini and got a nice ride in 5:2. I won on the Blue side. I don't like the airgates. They are confusing with the employee gates and I saw numerous people confuse the two and stand in line for an employee gate. (Jason?)
Quick ride on Power Tower up. Someone in our group couldn't handle the down so I didn't want to be a jerk so we went up. Walkon, literally. We got the gate and were strapped in in less than 15 secs. Quick thrill and we were off to the front of the park again. BS in 2:1, still 1 train. Raptor in the front row and last row again. We were starving so it was time for dinner.
On the way back in a group of strippers stopped us and we took their picture, then we proceeded to Demon Drop where we walked on. I love that ride. It's so much better than Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall. Maybe CF can do something to that ride for me. Well we needed to close out the night because it was 5:00 and the park was done at 8. We got 2 awesome Ejector seat rides on Maggie, about one train wait. I talked to Rideman briefly. Gemini we went in 6:1. The middle of the trains were taped off. NO TRIMS! I love this ride trimless. So much power in the helices. We got our final ride of the night on TTD. 3:2. It broke down or E-Stopped or something. The lights went out on the tree and they reset stuff while we were in the seats. Out of nowhere the train in lauch position launched and it BARELY cleared the hill. We knew we were in for a possible rollback. We launched and it seemed like we were up there forever. It was really windy and we only launched at 120. Ah... close call, but we made it over. We were very lucky to get 3 rides on TTD. That was enough, we didn't want to get greedy!
On to the grand finale of the trip. We were going to get in line for MF at 7:30 but we decided to get some rides in first and then come back. We went 2 on BS, and 2 on Raptor, both of which were walkons. At about 3 til we got in line for MF. We got the last ride of the night on the blue train. It was about 8:30 when we finally got on, no plunge into the black abyss. Oh well. All in all it was an awesome trip and we left on a sweet MF ride. I can't wait to get back to the PO!NT and ride Wicked Twister on a day that it's up. I'm yet to get on an impulse!
*Edit* On our last trip on MF they forced a girl into the seat. After all that has happend I am surprised they pushed the limits. They could barely get the seatbelt to lock in and it took two people. I know when I worked for SF only one person was allowed to push and try to lock something in place. This girl was too big but she got a ride. I think Intamin and Cedar Fair would have a heart attack if they knew that something like this was let slide after the catastrophe on S:RoS. I just want to make sure something is done about this, I don't want any more casualties on coasters.
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