Closing Day 2005: A Veteran & Rookie

This summer was a return to the Point after not being able to attend in my usual several trips/year fashion. Before I get into my closing day TR, let me preface it with a tiny bit of background:

I took my girlfriend, Tracy, to CP earlier this summer, and it was her first trip to any amusement park and was her first experience with coasters. That trip was Sunday July 3rd, and anyone there on that day knows about the heat, humidity and crowds we had to deal with. That trip was good nonetheless, and she really loved the trip.

So, fast-forward to Sunday October 30th:

We arrived at the park just before 10:00am, and saw that the crowd levels were light so far. We took a pretty leisurely pace, more concerned with enjoying ourselves than with quantity of rides. That said, we were still able to get in rides on Raptor, Mantis, MF, Maggie, Gemini and Power Tower(dn) all before noon, and without rushing. We had a little snack from Hot Potato, and relaxed in the shade before heading toward FT, hitting WildCat and Iron Dragon along the way. Even though there wasn't any "scary" activity back there, it was still neat to see all the decorations and what-not. Once in FT, we took a not-so-quick ride on CCMR, which always surprises me with how much fun it can be, with the right sort of expectations. Once finished there, took a walk over to WWL and watched it for a while. I tried convincing Tracy that we wouldn't get too wet, but she was hesitant, so (since these trips were more about her, since I've been countless times) we just watched for a while, then moved along.

We decided it was time for dinner, so we started toward the Creepy Kooky Castle Cafe (sp?), hitting Gemini and Power Tower(up) on the way. As for dinner, I was unimpressed, considering the buffet at MM is $8, as opposed to $11 at CKCC. The food was generally decent, the service about average and the atmosphere was great. Really lives up to its name.

Once we got finished with dinner, we had about 2 hours left and wanted to get a couple more rides before heading home. So we made our way to Mantis, where we got the front row and had an awesome night ride - fast and furious. The ride ops here were doing a pretty good job and the line moved fairly quickly.

After Mantis, we headed to MF, where the wait was said to be 1 hour. The ride (at first) moved pretty quickly. Once we got up close to the unloading station, it was evident that the ride ops were NOT having a good day. Dispatching was taking several minutes, and it seemed to get worse as time went on. Finally, we made it into the 2nd car, 1st row and had an excellent night ride that was truly worthy of being our last (and one of the most memorable for us) ride of the season.

Tracy really enjoyed CP, from the atmosphere to the coasters and even most of the food. She had a little trouble toward the end of the day as all the walking was pretty tiring, but she was a champ - and is already talking about next year's trip.

Overall, the day was good, the weather was fantastic, the crowds were heavy-ish at times and the rides and people were a blast. As Jeff mentioned is his TR, it truly is the people (or in my case, person) you're with that make the trip great. It was a good year for CP, and we're anxiously awaiting May, as I'm sure so many of you are!

:) Thanks for reading! :)

An addendum:

One thing that I wanted to mention about our experience was with the station management. Magnum was (as always) a complete disaster. As were most rides, except MF of course. It seems that they just don't care about keeping order within the stations. Being a veteran helps in maneuvering the situation, but for families and the like, it can't be too much fun.