Another Opening Weekend Report (Fri-Mon)

There is no lack of Trip Reports on PB right now, so I will try to split this out by category to make it easier to read:

Challenge Park (Friday):
Skyscraper is still in pieces, clearly they are waiting on a piece or 5...
Ripcord was a lot of fun (Platinum Pass gives you 10 dollars of the total flight price, not per person)
New Challenge Golf greens seemed very slow (perhaps I'm too used to flattened Putt-Putt greens.) But the course was very fun!

Weather:
Friday Night was cold and had some sprinkles
Saturday was absolutely gorgeous!
Sunday was rainy, cold and miserable up until around 1:00 PM, then it actually cleared for the rest of the day
Monday had some drizzle in the morning, but was mostly dry... very cold though.

Planet Snoopy:
I thought that PS looked very nice with all the pavers, and bright colors... Kids definitely seemed to love it. On Saturday it was packed with families, as well as Lauren and Uno, as well as all the Peanuts characters. I saw nearly all the marketing full timers walking around on Saturday as well. Sunday and Monday it was pretty dead, but so was the rest of the park. I think this will be a nice addition to the "family package" offered at the park.

Ride Hosts:
I was very happy to see that the ride hosts seemed to go out of their way to be friendly this weekend, despite the new "check" rule. As we exited the CP&LE, the ride host at the gate made sure to tell us to have a fantastic day, and thank you for riding. This happened multiple times with multiple hosts. We also noticed a lot of spielers pumping up the trains, or asking who hasn't rode the ride before. On Magnum, one host even led us in singing Happy Birthday to someone on the platform. Some crews even allowed re-rides on Sunday and Monday when the crowds were low. Also, except for a few exceptions, crews seemed to really be hustling to keep the lines moving. On Monday, TTD was up and down for the morning because of the cold, but once it got going in the afternoon the crew was amazing. Trains were being cleared as the second train at launch cleared the tophat. Great to see!

Ride Maintenence/Operations:
A sore spot of the weekend. Rides seemed to be hit or miss as far as uptime. Dragster was actually one of the more reliable rides this weekend ;) Maverick and Skyhawk seemed to have a lot of problems throughout the weekend, and Raptor had quite a few problems on Monday. Add to this the typical closed off seats on many coasters, and the situation can get rather frustrating. One nice thing was the loosened rain policy. Many more rides were running in the rain on Sunday, as opposed to last year where all the coasters were going down in the rain. This was a huge relief! The new seatbelts on Mean Streak and Blue Streak seem to work well, and it is such a relief to have belts on Skyhawk as opposed to the stupid carabiners. Gemini has some VERY short belts on some seats, but from what we hear, this will be fixed. Millennium's belts are now all new, and seem to be a bit more accommodating. The new "check" policy is not hurting anything, but I really don't see it helping either... I still had a ride this weekend where my harness was not checked at all. I had especially good rides on Blue Streak and Gemini this weekend. Magnum seems a bit more rough than last season, but it was trimless for most of the weekend, which makes up for it :) Most coasters were running a bit slow due to the cold temps. On one last maintence note, on Monday Chaos broke down while several of us were on it, and we had to be lowered manually... that was fun.

Wait Times:
On Saturday the park was completely swamped. I have never seen so many buses at the park in my entire life. I believe Music in the Park was going on Saturday, so I'm sure that added to it. Waits for the coasters were at summer weekend levels. Sunday and Monday were a completely different story. Sunday was one of the slowest days I have ever seen, and Monday was only a bit more busy. Nearly every ride in the park was a walk on, other than Maverick and Dragster, and even those were typically under 20 minutes. On several occasions we were some of the only people on rides. In the 3 days I was there I got around 40 coaster rides, and 20 flat rides!

Food Service:
As Jeff stated in his report, counter service is absolutely atrocious. Getting an order of fries from Happy Friar for 4 of us took over 30 minutes... not to mention the outrageous prices. Subway seemed to have a moderate line on Saturday, but I'm sure the prices kept some from eating there. I was impressed by the new Toft's building, but very let down by the service. I ordered an Ice Cream Soda off the menu (40 cents more than the floats), and was given a small scoop of chocolate ice cream, filled halfway up with Sierra Mist, and the other half was foam and carbonation. I complained to both the register worker, and the blue tag, and neither of them seemed to really know what the soda was supposed to be. Another person in my party ordered a Root Beer float, and got a large scoop of ice cream, with Root Beer, and whipped cream and a cherry on top, while mine looked like dirty dishwater with foam on top. I asked the blue tag what the difference was between the Ice Cream Soda and the Ice Cream Float, and he seemed confused. I finally just asked for a float, and went on my way. I know it was a new crew, new location, and opening day, but as a new featured food location, I hope the crew recieves more training on their menu items. On a brighter note, our service at Friday's on the Beach was excellent on Friday night... This was very refereshing given the problems some of the sit down locations have had in Opening Weekends past...

Accommodations (Bayshore Campground):
I was very happy with what we got for the money at Bayshore. We had a 2 bedroom cabin, and it had more amenities than LHP at about a third of the price (Our cabin was 150 for 3 nights). This will be my new place to stay during the season for sure! It may not have the view and cosmetic features of LHP, but it is more than adequate for a weekend stay, and the employees were incredibly friendly and accomodating! Plus it is now a KOA Campground so you can get discounts through AAA or KOA. As long as you can sleep through many trains passing by, you should be just fine!

Final Thoughts:
I could go on and on about the funny stories, and great memories that I will have from this weekend, but it would be more than anyone would like to read. After a concerning start to the weekend with the heavy crowds on Saturday, and the rain on Sunday morning, it turned out to be an amazing weekend. 60 rides in 3 days is more than I ever expected. The park has made a lot of nice cosmetic upgrades with signage and such, and it looks very nice, I just wish the food prices didn't have to be so high. Also, I think the park could benefit greatly from starting ride testing a bit earlier to try to work out some of the kinks that were evident this weekend. Thanks to everyone who I hung out with this weekend (Adam, Mark, Bryan, Jess, Rob, Kevin, Paul, Dvo, etc...), and a big thanks to Bryan, Jess (and Melvin) for the great cookout on Monday night! It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait for the next trip!

PS -- I love (Sky)hawk ;)

Melvin says, "you're welcome, any time!" ;)

And I love (Sky)hawk also.