Closing times

99er said:

Millennium Mania was great! Talk about an event I wish kept coming back each year.

^Oh, boy, I'm going to sound incredibly young if I ask this, even if I'm only 21...But what was Millennium Mania? From what I'm reading here it sounded like either a fad/trend or an awesome ERT for the Original Giga coaster. What was Millennium Mania Like? When was it? What did it entail for the event itself? What were the lines like? Did you have to queue for 4-5 hours like when Steel Vengeance was opened? What kind of exclusive merchandise did they have for the event?

Millennium Mania was an exclusive ride night event offered on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays of the first two weeks in September in 2000 (Sept. 6-8 and 13-15) from 4-10p. Here is an archived CP press release describing the event. For $19 (no passes honored), you got the four big coasters at the time (Millennium Force, Magnum XL-200, Raptor, and Mantis), along with the biggest non-coaster ride at the time, Power Tower. No other rides were open, and a limited selection of food/games/shops were available (the press release mentions Coasters and Park Plaza were open). Considering how brutal MF's wait time was in 2000, this event sounds like it was an absolute dream!

To demonstrate MF's wait times in 2000, if you look at the end of MF's queue line, there is a large empty concrete pad behind the final overbanked turn that used to hold another queue corral, and there is even still a set of queue rails that used to lead to/from the old corral. In this video from June 1st, 2000, you can see this whole additional corral is filled. CP actually started an access pass system in 2000 known as Ticket to Ride to try and reduce the number of people waiting upwards of 3 hours in line for MF. From what I understand, the 2020 access pass systems we saw on MF/TTD/Maverick/SV were just like Ticket to Ride (e.g., access passes only from 12-8p, distribution early in the day, etc.), but the 2020 version had much less capacity/availability, of course. (No idea how well TTR worked in 2000, but considering the results/effects of the access pass systems we saw in 2020, my guess is it was not too well received.)

Imagine how bad those MF queue waits would be now, with CP's comically poor dispatches that makes Six Flags dispatches look like a Taiwanese factory making iPhones.

Millennium Mania was the time I learned that Raptor is not a ride that you can sit on indefinitely, even in your 20's. It was also the first time I was ever able to re-ride anything at the park without getting out of the seat, though they initially insisted that the two dozen of us there go around. But I think I got to six laps and was like, yeah, need a little break.

Lol! I marathoned MF for 2 1/2 hrs in a very hard rain on one night and got 10 rides in on Vertigo another evening when it replaced the event's namesake due to a broken lift cable, not to mention God knows how many rides on Magnum. Went to Cabela's and bought a Gore-Tex shell and pants after the MF marathon. Good Times!

Couple times I never had to get off a ride, I went to a TTD ride night once and my sister and I were riding Skyhawk while we waited for the park to close, no one was on it and we rode it twelve times in a row without getting off! Skyhawk that is, one could only wish to do that on TTD!

Other time was on Witches' Wheel back in the day. Cool night no one on it and they let us stay on it, after six times straight I wanted off and the ride op grab my cabin and tilted it up and said, no you stay. I quickly replied, let me off unless you want something to clean up! He obliged. :)

Ah yes, Millennium Mania. Those were good times. I went to one night in 2000. I was able to ride Millennium Force somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 times in those 6 hours. They’re were so few in attendance (on purpose I believe), that operations allowed us to renter the station using the special access gate at the unload platform.

I went to a couple in 2001 as well. I do remember VertiGo being substituted for Millennium. I think I was able to ride it somewhere around 30 times between the two days I attended. I miss that ride.

Those were all fun times but I know for a fact my body couldn’t handle anything close to that now.

I attended Millennium Mania both summers and we had a blast. I had a friend come from out of state and it was ideal for him. we rode over and over.
If I recall correctly the downside to the event was there was absolutely nothing to eat or drink. It was restroom drinking fountains only.
As for Raptor, Jeff’s experience brought back a memory. I went to CP for a few days the first week of business during the rides inaugural season. The crowd over opening weekend was huge but that week provided walk on rides. On the particularly dead Wednesday of that week I managed 24 rides on Raptor, could’ve had 24 more, and couldn’t believe my good fortune. That was until the next morning when I woke up in the hotel and couldn’t raise my head off the pillow. I had vertigo so bad that it was impossible for me to walk a straight line. My Thursday at the park started much later only when I began to feel a little better, but you should believe I took it easy.

^Oof, haha. I couldn't imagine 24 rides on Raptor. One year at CoasterMania my friend and I sat on it for 7 rides in a row, and had to tap out. My wildest experience was probably at BooBuzz, when CoasterBuzz was still holding it. I got 17 rides on Maverick in an hour. I think my body was ready to leave after about 10 laps, but I figured it was such a golden opportunity I couldn't let it go to waste.

Well, I didn’t ride them all at once. I’m sure I had repeat rides, but I also had all day to spread them out. And it was almost 30 years ago…

^^You did better than we did on Maverick at BooBuzz. I think we got maybe 6 or 7 uninterrupted laps before we had to call it quits.

Back in 2015, at the young age of 47, I did 43 repeat rides on Raptor. Loved every minute of it.

My maximum number of rides on any coaster is 37.

In a row?

Max number of rides for me in a row on any ride, 42. Gemini back in the six (6) car operations days.

Wow .... I like Gemini, but, damn if that hard stop doesn't get me more and more every year. 42 of those would probably just kill me ...

Yep, 43 in a row. 42 were in the same seat (far seat, row 7). Had to go to row 6 for 1 ride because someone had the nerve to want to ride in "my" row. That was the only time my butt left the seat. The operators thought I was nuts. I loved it. Ended up with 57 total for the day on Raptor, 92 total coasters for the day.

djDaemon said:

In a row?

"Hey, try not to ride anymore coasters in the parking lot!"

Love Gemini, still to this day. It was a day when Magnum was the big dog in town, it was a saturday and every ride was busy except Gemini, so my buddy and I just decided let's ride this as much as we can and see what we can do. So easy when they had the six (6) train operation and no line.

Other than riding Gemini 15 times on an 8th grade trip (when it was the new coaster in the park), I didn't power ride until I was in my 40s. Son is a huge coaster fan so events were of interest. Couple BooBuzz events and Coastermania events (first was 2-day event in 2011 or 2012 maybe? with 75 rides over the 2 days). Couple Fridays after Labor Day (talked with someone who rode Dragster one year 50 times -- they were begging for people to re-ride most of the night to balance trains -- but we rode other rides that night so rode it "only" 15 or so times). I enjoy Raptor now more than I did when I was younger. Really like the snap of its turns and loops (Banshee is less intense). Often times mini-power rode it when I would come back to the park to pick up my son and his friends at the end of the night.