Aug 6 - 9 (long)

I have been a long time lurker for around 4 years. In these years I have seen many opinions that I agree and disagree with, but remained unregistered for comment. However, I would like to give my three day experience this year. Many of these seem to be hot topics on the direction of the park and I usually stay there three days a year with my family. Anyways, enough with the formalities and now the details broken down by area of policies, lodging, rides, food and overall experience.

Policies:

This is mainly the smoking policy being pretty pathetic on informing the guests. First off I unfortunately am a smoker (trying to quit) and do not like to smoke around anyone that does not smoke. The locations for smoking are not clearly marked and in strange places (such as the entrance of Camp Snoopy, the worst place for this in my opinion). My opinion is basically based of my home parks policy and informant, which is Kennywood. Kennywood has handouts as you enter and the spots are clearly marked throughout the park. At CP, I mentioned a few times that I was going to go to a smoking section to my family. The surprise I had when I actually heard a few people that I thought were being ignorant and ignoring the policy actually asked me about the smoking sections. They seemed to have no idea of the policy and I showed them the smoking area and they went with me. Although, you will still a hand full of people that just do not care at any park. This is where the CP police should come in. However that was not going to happen, thus the only time I smoked outside of the areas was behind the main midways arcade men’s room were CP police are and actually left my cig butt there in front of their front door (I usually never throw these on the ground and always try to extinguish them an place in the proper trash).

Lodging:

Three nights at Hotel Breakers. The room was a Lake View Suite on the fourth floor of Breakers East. The room was nice overall and accommodated my immediate family nicely. The price however is high, for what I could also get in a top resort in Florida, Arizona or the Caribbean (which I do travel to each on business and pleasure and stay at some nice Lowes based resorts in the US). I justify this to myself as I love the park, Breakers and Soak City and just stomach a room that should be a little less than $200 for $300 a night (plus multiple taxes)

I also got my parents a night in the Bon-Air section. They came up to help with our two year old for one day and then take her home, since three days is much for her. My dad complained about the room some, which was mainly about the lack of a frig, coffee machine, and hair dryer in the room. I somewhat agree on this. Christ, a cheap coffee machine and hair dryer are a $30 max investment for these rooms to make it a little nicer for customer.

Rides:

Here is a breakdown rides and comments

Maverick x 1: Great ride as it was last year. Wish they could have the Heart-Line Roll.

Millennium Force x 1: Great as always.

Raptor x 1: Second row and seemed a little rough this year, however still a great ride.

Thank god I have been reading here and learned to lean into the turns to get no head banging (Still trying to teach my wife and daughter this though). We were also in the front row with no trim.

Wildcat x 1: Always an nice little coaster with great turns. I am however sure it is only there for its footprint and coaster count. I could be wrong though.

Blue Streak x 4: Hell, I needed to actually ride a wooden coaster during my trip. Too bad there are no others worth riding. This is great airtime machine though.

Gemini x 4: Great ride as always.

Magnum x 1: Really smooth this year.

Corkscrew x 1: It is what it is.

Cedar Creek Mine Ride x 3: I like the ride at night, but this was really my wife wanting to ride it twice and not mine.

Disaster Transport x 2: Theme sucks now a days, but I still like the Bobs style ride. Many other threads on this topic though and I have mixed feelings about this ride, since I was there when it was Avalanche Run and the year they made it DT.

Mean Streak x 0: After last year with my family, I will probably never board this POS again. I actually know how to ride with my back being a few inches from the seat. However, I should not need to put that much effort into ride and that has no real elements and a trim on the first hill.

Dragster x 0: I have been on this a few times and my oldest daughter is not ready for it yet. I can easily skip this ride each trip without missing it.

Iron Dragon x 1: After MF ERT, nice ride in the front and the mist seemed to be in full.

Snake River Falls x 1: I love this ride and only did it once, due to temp being around the low eighties.

Thunder Canyon x 0: This was down when were there and not sure why. However I like raft rides and just wished they would have spent the extra few bucks to not have the water source in the bay. I hate smelling like dead fish after riding. I however, usually spray off on Snake River Falls.

Other: Matterhorn, MaxAir, Monster, Calyspso, Turnpike, Cadilac Cars, Cedar Downs, Troika and multiple Kiddy Rides.

Food:

Well here is a hot topic. I did Famous Dave’s one day and it was good and almost priced right to my Famous Dave’s at home. I was going to try Bay Harbor in another night, but did Midway Market Buffet instead. I did not want to experiment paying $23 for eight fried shrimp. I think I made a good decision, since the cost was under for one person what I spent for one person earlier in the day at “The Roundup” for a burger that seemed like it was a day old with no onions or pickle slices as options (For Christ sakes, if you are going to rape me for a hamburger, at least give me some onions, pickles and lettuces to help add to the dry bun). I ended up by a pickle for $2.

The overall staff service was not bad for me for the most part. I liked the attention we got in the Breakers Coffee Shop, Dave’s and Market. I left a nice tip, since the buffet people are only getting 50% of minimum wage. I have to say there service was good to us.

Other food opinions vary, we did the Breakers East Deli for pastries one day (which was good) and some fast counter places could need some help. I have much patience for the foreign employees in this area, since this is not their native language. I would give a 50/50 for US employees stepping up to help them.

Other stuff:

Did 36 holes on mini golf and it was great as always.

Did Soak City both days, even though it was cool out. I love this place and so does my family. I only wish they would update the old side a little. We got a Village Suite this past winter at Kalahari and loved some of the larger Pro-Slide tubes. I think Proslide could help fit the most in the space if they would remodel. However, this is targeted to the resort guests and as long as admissions is up we may not see much new.

Sorry for the long read, I could probably go on for a few more pages.

Bill

I usually ride Raptor in the middle of the train. I want to ride it fronte seat next time. Is it more rough in the fronte seat than it is in the middle? I know it is rough in the back. But I thought if it were smoothe in the middle, then it would be the same in the fronte.

I actually find it smooth in the 2nd to last seat.

Raptor is pure amazement in the front row! I used to think Raptor was a so so ride because I'm not a huge fan of upside down rides, but when I rode in the front it moved Raptor right up my list! The line for the front always goes by quick too because of the 4 seats per row.

Just noticed that part of my original post was cut off, onlythe closing section though.

Here is the cut report

Enjoyed my stay and looking forward to next if we decide to go back. I am actually thinking of doing six nights in Breakers with a balcony. I will then get my parents their spot in the Camper Village and help them with setup. This will allows us to ease on the food cost in the long run. This was our plan for this year, but I had to cut the trip short for a beach front condo we got in Ft Myers Beach for the whole family over Labor Day for 4 nights and an upcoming Cayman Island trip for the wife and I in early November.

End cut report.

Anyway, Raptor may have been rough only since I was alreadyin some pain prior to my trip and this was the last coaster we did on the lastday. I was not in the best physical condition at the start of the trip andactually thought I was going to spend the whole trip in the hotel. I had somefoot and neck pains that did go away by time we got there. However after a fewdays walking around and riding I think I was a little beaten by the end.

The front seat on Raptor is absolutely fantastic. That's one of the few rides that I'll wait for the front row on a regular basis. And I don't think it's that rough either. That last jerk going into the final brakes is still a little rough, but that's rough in any seat.

I could not agree more on the awesomeness of the front seat of Raptor; I did this once in my life and loved it. If I ever get the opportunity to ride a B&M Flyer, I will be planning on waiting for the front seat. However, I do not see any parks with one of these in my immediate future. I did the Vekoma equivalent a few years back at GL, however this was not in the front.

Posh, the back row of Raptor is where the action is, especially the far right seat. You will get some crazy air on the first drop, and the forces can not be beat. The only rides worth a front row seat at CP are the Intamin Coasters.

^ No way. One year my boyfriend and I waited almost 2 hours in the hot sun for our ride on Raptor. We chose the back, and it was the worst ride of my life. It was extremely rough. Definately a head banger.

^ - I think you rode Corkscrew by mistake. ;)

Raptor in the back is the only way to ride it, getting whipped up and over the crest of the lift is the best part.