I had planned to be on the road to the park at 4:30pm, but last minute complications at work conspired to keep me until around 5:00, so I only hit the park at 6:30 - it's pretty consistently an hour and a half from Akron.
Once I was in the park, I immediately got two almost-walk-on laps on the Raptor, both times on my favourite seat - back right. A quick detour via Blue Streak, which is a "must" for any trip to the park, and then off to MF to see what the line was like there.
One of the greatest things about the walk from Blue Streak to Millie was when I nearly got mowed down by a 5 or 6 year old girl charging along carrying two stuffed toys that were almost her size. She looked like she had never had so much fun in her life.
Millie...not much of a line! Being a single rider has serious advantages...I noticed there were only 9 people in line for the front seat, so worst case I would have to wait 5 trains. It turned out that the 3rd train :) had only one front seat rider, so I finally got to my very first front seat ride ever on Millie (on Blue Train too :)) It was a blast! Man, that first drop ROCKS from the front seat....I've got a life-time total of 37 for Millie without ever having sat in the front row, so it's been a long time coming. WOW....
A pretty cool thing that night was when that tornado-like cloud appeared over the park. Going up the first camel-back hill, it looked as if the train was going to go straight into the middle of the spiral! Four rides on Millie before they closed the park made a total of 7 rides in an hour and a half, which is nothing to complain about :)
After I left the park I headed for the Bayshore Estates Campground, to pitch my tent and spend the night. I have to say that spiral cloud thing did make me a little nervous about the prospect of spending the night in a tent, but when I checked in, the TV at the office was tuned to the Weather Channel and there was no sign of a tornado warning, as far as I could see. I pitched my tent, ate some supper, and was asleep by about 9:30.
Friday 30th
I woke up early, around 6-ish. While I was eating breakfast-by-sunrise, two deer wandered through the camp grounds, and a couple of rabbits chased each other across the road from my tent. Idyllic stuff. I packed up and was out of the campground by about 7:15. I have to say that the place is neat & tidy, there was hot water when I showered in the morning, the bathrooms were clean: all in all, it looked like a well run outfit, and I will definitely stay there again (like Thursday and Friday for Coastermania :))
Since I had an hour or so to kill before I could get into the park, I headed for downtown Sandusky, since I had never seen it. Some of the old buildings are just stunning. I also found Battery Park, and spent some time right on the end of the breakwater, just watching the fish jump - nice and relaxing. What was pretty cool was suddenly hearing two loud coaster-roar-type noises, spaced about a second apart, but not seeing anything at the park. So...I kept a close eye on TTD, and watched a train go up, over, and down, and then heard the sound of it, after it was onto the brake run. Amazing that you can hear it at all at that distance.
I must have hit the parking lot at around 8:30 or so, and there were only about 6 other cars. Wandered over to the JCC entrances, and saw the sign that "TTD will open later today". Ho-hum, there are other things to do! Once the gates opened, I ran all the way back to Millie, and got to ride the back seat on the first train of the day :). A real bonus was that the guy sitting next to me was from the UK, and had come to the USA for a week to ride coasters all over the Midwest. We basically hung out for the rest of the day, and swapped ride-stories. Three rides on Millie before 10.00am (thanks, Joe Cool :)) is a great way to start any day, and from there it just seemed to get better. We rode Wicked Twister, Disastor Transport and Blue Streak, and then headed for Freeway stamps for Raptor (3-4) and Millie (4-5). After a relatively smooth front seat ride on Mean Streak we headed for the Mine Ride. We were actually on the platform when we saw the first train go over Dragster, so we left the line and ran to the new toy.
The posted wait was about 2 hours. Once we got in line, it seemed like the crew were really starting to get it together. The time between launches was down significantly from my previous trip on the 18th. Once the reliability is there, this ride will pack 'em through. The ride broke down 3 times while we waited, although the downtime was not all that long each time. It was interesting to me how quiet the ride is when there are no sound effects - on a couple of test launches the speakers weren't in action, and from the platform you would not know that the train had launched unless you saw it.
:) CP Moment: When we were almost on the station, we had the delightful experience of watching a front-row-seat blond girl in a green top re-adjust her bra & contents at the end of the brake run, to cheers from all those who saw it :)
Once we hit the station we opted for the front seat, which was a first for me. By the time we actually rode, we had waited almost 3 hours, BUT....the front seat on TTD is an unbeatable experience, and our on-ride photos were priceless. By this time we were pretty hungry, so after using our Freeway Raptor passes, we headed for some lunch.
Another Freeway ride on Millie (back seat), and then we tried to mop up all the other coasters, so it was CCMR, Woodstock Express, Gemini, and Magnum. While we were in line for Magnum it was disconcerting to see how much movement there is on the TTD tower. The pull-up/pull-out track really sways a lot, and it looked to us as if the top of tower rotates back and forth as a whole. As long as its DESIGNED to to that, I don't mind....
After Magnum, which proved again that its a rough ride no matter where you sit, we headed for TTD. It was down - they need to have a button that that ride-op can push that says "Ride Down!....Ride Down!" We hung out on the bleachers for a while, and watched a few test launches. I went to get some fries, and missed seeing the green train roll back :( The line didn't look all that bad, so after the next train went over with people on, we headed straight for it. If all had gone well, we should have been out by about 7.30 - 7:45, which would have given us time for some Joe Cool ERT on the other coasters. A couple of breakdowns, and then we were on the station, where we again opted for front-row. BAD IDEA. The rain came, and they shut down the ride :(. Then the rain stopped, they launched a couple of trains over the hill (the water spray behind them was awesome) and the ride broke down :(. In the meantime, Mantis had started running for the first time that day, and there were people riding Millie....what to do? Only 5 trains away from another front-row on TTD, or go and ride some other rides? We decided to wait it out.
I have to say that the only thing that beats the front row of TTD, is the front row of TTD at night :) :) I'm still pulling the bugs out from between my teeth! By the time we got off it was about 9:15, and I needed to head home. I had originally planned to camp over on Friday night, but regrettably there are other forces at work in the world that eventually bring one back to reality.
Which brings me to close with one of the cool things about Cedar Point: for a day, I can feel the same excitement as that 6-year old with her two stuffed toys.
See y'all at Coaster Mania!
Steve
'03 counts: TTD : 04 MF : 17 Raptor : 13 Total rides : 58 in 4 visits
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