First, this was my first coastermania weekend despite having a platinum pass last year at the time. I was previously unaware of the coaster club membership restriction. Fail!
This year I made sure to join coasterbuzz in time to qualify. We arrived Thursday afternoon and, after quickly setting up in Camper Village, bolted into the park to find almost no lines at all. Got a few rides in and had to put the kiddies to bed.
Friday I skipped early entry in anticipation of a late night's ERT. The park was considerably more crowded, but still reasonable and nothing like mid-summer weekend or HW levels. I rode some stuff in the morning, then went to Soak City, but it was too cool when you combined the temp, water, and breeze. Back to the park, and waited in the SHORT line for appetizers. Food was decent, especially considering the price.
Dick Kinzel's speech was cool to attend, and I made sure to be right up front. Most revealing was the Son of Beast discussion, which has been absent from any official CF statements to date, as I am aware. They are considering the texas giant treatment, depending on how it holds up over the next year or two, and what happens with the price of steel and the euro, etc. Good to know they are not just going to let it sit there in perpetuity. I also read from one of Dick's comments that we are going to see another coaster possibly in 2013, and the announcement would be coming next year about this time. Did anyone else pick that up?
Anyway, back to the park and ERT at 10:45. Started with one run on Dragster, but after that the line was too long so we hit Mean Streak x2, Skyhawk x2, and then back to TTD which was up and down during ERT, but we were fortunate to get 3 more rides before closing out with Magnum and asleep in the camper by 1:30.
Unfortunately, my 35 year old body would not cooperate with getting up for 5:30 ERT on MF and Maverick. I slept in and spent most of the HOT day at Soak City which had short lines and was a lot of fun. Back to the park after dinner, and got more rides in before ERT, during which we hit Raptor, DT, and Blue Streak before finding out that MF was the replacement ERT for Windseeker which obviously was not open. 4x on that (transfer gate open!) and it was time for bed again.
This morning (Sunday) I made it to Maverick for first train and rode that 3x, and then TTD once (which, BTW, seemed to open BEFORE 10AM) as SR2 Chris was on at least his second ride by 9:59AM. What's up with that?
Lots more rides today, crowd levels at least equal to Saturday, then back to the water park for a few hours before catching All Wheels Extreme (which rocked!) and then headed home.
A fantastic trip to start the year at CP not soon to be forgotten. Coastermania was awesome especially considering it was free. Here's a couple of final random observations before my ride count:
1. Kiddie dodgem cars were all brand new and very cool, LED headlights!
2. Blue streak was 1000x better, the refurbishment jobs on the trains is nothing short of amazing. They look brand new.
3. Mean streak is actually tolerable now. The green train has been reassmbled and is on the transfer track, though it did not run this weekend.
4. Employee training is lacking, many did not know their way around the park and could not answer even the most basic questions. Others were fantastic. Crew from TTD excepted. They annoy like no other.
5. Soak city staffing levels still terrible. There's no reason they can't have all the kids slides open. My 4 yr old gets bored going on the same two slides over and over. At least rotate the lifeguards between the slides! Same goes for the family raft ride which only had 3 or so tubes running most of the time, creating a longer line. Unnecessary.
6. Last but not least, the unlimited soda wristbands worked all day today (Sunday), though I found out after that they were only supposed to be for Fri/Sat. A great value, as I must have taken down 25 sodas over 3 days.
7. Body slide #1 at Soak City is no longer tolerable for me. I dang near break something I get so much airtime. Normally I like airtime but when it lacks control or a soft ending, I have to say no. Slide #2 is much better.
8. The new rule that you cannot park RV's in the Soak City parking lot is a little silly. I have 5th wheel and truck that, combined, are 60+ feet. I cannot park in the tiny camper village departure lot. They let me do it "just this once" but I can see this is going to be a problem on departure day all summer long.
Raptor - 2
Magnum -9
TTD - 8
MF - 5
Maverick - 4
STR - 1
Mean Streak - 3
Skyhawk - 6
BS - 4
Iron Dragon - 6 (my son just hit 46" and was so excited, which actually made this ride a LOT more fun than usual)
Wildcat, WT, Maxair, Mantis - ZERO
Various soak city slides - too many to count
Fennel bugs on my RV- 2,345,633, give or take a couple
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