Cedar Point announces TT2 will be operational!

I still think "Polaris", with a similar theme to Orion would've been brilliant. Oh well.

Good news that it's testing again, though.

In good news I was watching the webcams for a bit at lunch here and it looks like the SIlver train has all its regular seats/covers/whatever they were back on as well. Don't think I've seen the blue or black train go through yet.

I think of a shopping mall when i hear the word Polaris. Doesn't exactly entice fear like the name STEEL VENGEANCE. How many star/constellation names can we have in one state anyways: Orion, Gemini?

I do agree thought, they missed out on a killer space/rocket launch theme. The F1/car racing theme doesn't make sense. I don't drive my car up a wall to the sky. A name like Orbital Velocity would have been better, with Nasa JPL type theming.

Learn how to drive!

Okay, a nite glow lighting system would've been amazing, though...

Somehow the layout of my track back in the day was an oval at best, with the cheap set from Uncle Bills. Mine more resembled this Camp Snoopy ride.......

I loved Uncle Bill's. It was the Walmart of its time. You could buy anything there. I even worked at the North Randall store a few summers.

I haven't thought about that store in decades. Next you'll start talking about Zayre.

How about Gold Circle? We got our Atari 2600 with Space invaders there wayyyyy back in the day. That place was pretty awesome! :)

Zayre > Gold Circle > RRR

Don't forget Ames and Best. I worked at Ames when it went out of business, in Brunswick, Ohio.

Ames actually bought Zayre in the late 80's and converted all of their stores.

Yes, every now and then we'd find some piece of paper with the logo.

Where I am from (NW Ohio) the big player was a store called "Hills"...no idea what happened to that chain.

^Same here in Pittsburgh. Hills was everywhere. Last year someone actually opened up a mobile "Hills Snack Bar" food truck, with the popcorn, hot dogs, and Icees that they used to sell in their little snack bar section of stores. It was a big hit for a while with the nostalgia crowd.

I worked at Rink's Bargain City in Marion, OH. There was also Conley's. And there was Miracle Mart in Bucyrus, OH.

You are all forgetting about Uncle Bills. This was the store before Hills replaced it in NE Ohio.

Kevin

Hills had several locations in NE Ohio years ago. I miss walking past the snack bar entering and existing the store. The smell of that popcorn! Several Hills Dept Stores in my neck of the woods were eventually taken over by Ames by the late 1990s. There was a Murphy's Mart near my house growing up, which eventually became Ames.

And went bankrupt in 1990 and closed most of their stores. There were some survivors, but I didn't think any were in Ohio

The Good:

I'm happy to report that on this Father's Day I did indeed get my first ride on TT2, and it was everything it was cracked up to be. I was expecting launches 2 and 3 to be like launch 1 (which, as others have noted, looks much slower than it is as it builds to a nice speed gradually). But no; you really feel that burst on the backwards run, and that launch up the spike was just...well....in the words of Tommy...

Then you feel yet another burst of acceleration on the third launch, and it really hauled over the top-hat.

We waited about an hour, but the line kept moving steadily (even with 2 train operation...Silver was being dissected), and the anticipation prevented that from being boring. I like the new covered queue (and so does my male-pattern-baldness head).

Everything about it feels clean, sleek, and modern; I really dig that low bass sound that kicks in just before the lights signal your launch. The seats were really comfortable, and the ride felt really smooth. That backwards spike is just roller coaster heaven.

The Weird:

That said, more weird news later in the day. I'm glad we got our one ride in (we are here for two days).

We were actually going to make it our last ride for tonight when they temporarily stopped operations. Almost immediately there was about 6-7 workers under the spike...2 of them had binoculars looking up into the heavens. They sent an empty train with them under there and as soon as it cycled they announced it was done for the day.

So I'm not holding out hope it will be open for us tomorrow. Just so odd to me that there could be a spike issue. It just.....stands there.

Weird

Happy Father's Day.