August 23-24 TR

Another trip report. I made my 3rd trip of the year this weekend, coming from Chicago. I got out to my friend's place near Toledo on Friday and woke up early to get to CP in time for opening. I got the first train on MF, and then rode it 2 more times during early entry. Then I hit Maverick (which was already over an hour long wait, even before the general public got in... :( ) After that, the crowd came. It was pretty crowded, but not too terrible for a saturday. And TTD was having some bad problems. I got in line for it at about 11:00, and it broke down about an hour into the line. But they got it back up for about 10 minutes, and it broke down again. A lot of people left the line, so I got all the way up into the station, and then they announced that it would be down for at least another hour. So after waiting for 2.5 hours, I sadly left the line. I think it was down from about 2:00 until around 7:00. So I'm thinking if TTD had been running, the lines would have been even better. I managed to get on almost everything I wanted to, including night rides on maverick and millennium 2x! So Saturday was a great day, even with the TTD debaucle.

Sunday I got the first train on MF again! I met "single rider Bob" since I've seen him doing MF marathons all 3 trips I've made this year. I got one more ride on Millie, and decided to try to beat the crowd back to Maverick, so I was back there at about 9:20, and the line was about 1/2 hour. I got the ride on that, and ran over to TTD since I missed out on that on Saturday. This time it ran beautifully and I got to ride with "single rider 2," the other guy who wears those shirts. Again, I've seen him there every visit as well. After TTD I went to Magnum and got a trimless ride, and coincedentally, met up with Mark Small and others. They informed me that today was the last day of operation for Paddlewheel Excursions, so we went to Gemini real quick, then hit Paddlewheel. Those are some AWFUL puns, haha. After that we went around to Millennium again, and then we split up. I went to the front of the park, knocked out everything I missed on Saturday, and then got a few more Millie laps before leaving for the long drive back to Chicago.

An interesting thing we noticed while on Millie... They're working on some construction on Millennium Island. There are some wooden boards piled up near the 2nd turn-around, and there's also a clear path leading around the island. If you look straight down when you're going over the camelback going from the island back toward the station, you can see the makings of a bridge leading onto the island. Something is brewing for Halloweekends! And it really makes me want to make another trip..... Darn you CP and your temptations!

I hope I see the park again this season, but it's a long shot. If not, I think that this weekend is a good finish to my visits. Good times.

How were the crowds on Sunday?

^Very small. Everything (except Maverick) had under 1/2 hour waits.

That bridge you saw is always there. It's a moveable bridge for maintenance trucks to drive over when they need to go to the island. When the paddlewheel boat comes through there, it is moved out of the way in the lagoon.