CoasterEXT '06-Saturday June 3rd

CoasterEXT ‘06
After being one of the mere 90 who attended last season was hoping more people would take advantage of this event and was happy to see that 150 more people did!! :)

After being totally wiped out after CM, hubby and I headed to Aurora Saturday morning. We were anxious to arrive at the park as early as possible to be sure we got our CoasterEXT shirts since we were forewarned there was a limited supply. Got our EXT ID’s, shirts, and then jumped on Dominator for a couple spins. We needed some breakfast and ended up finding this little Greek restaurant on the way to the hotel called “Nick and Smittys.” The place was spotless, the service was great and the food--OMG! Forget the quickie breakfasts at McD’s, this is officially our must have breakfast stops when we go to GL! For anyone who loves huge yummy breakfast’s at pretty reasonable prices, this is the place!

After pigging out, we headed to the Geauga Lake Hotel to check in. Let me 1 say here that it cost us the same amount of $$ for ONE night at this hotel as it cost us for two nights at our Sandusky hotel. If you’re one of those people who want a fancy room with all the bells and whistles then it was great, the free breakfast buffet was a nice touch but personally I think it would be a nice thing to have other closer, cheaper hotels in the area. Maybe that was my mistake for not looking around before booking the room. If anyone can suggest a cheaper (yet clean) hotel please lmk!

Back to GL to ride some rides and then head for lunch. Lunch was yummy,and the Q&A with Bill Spehn was great too. Unlike the “we’ll look into it” generic answer to most of the ??s at the CM Q&A, Bill goes out of his way to answer each and every question with as much detail as he could possibly release. Despite him making it perfectly clear that GL has proved to be in the negative figures for the past 2 years and that NO capital would be spent on the ride side there just had to be the 5 or 6 people who asked for specific coasters, specific rides and suggestions on what coaster or ride GL should build *sigh*

Bill did ask us to get the word out about GL which I have and will continue to do such. For a family looking for fun and an awesome water park at a great price you really can not beat GL.

We were shown the huge sign which had all the names of the attendants from last seasons Cext on it, which will be hung in the guest services office. It looked great! :)

We all took a group photo together too which I can't wait to see!

Mother Nature wasn’t being very considerate about allowing enough sunshine to take advantage of WWK during the day, you could tell there were quite a few guests who had planned on heading there and didn‘t. It may also explain the lack of crowd too. The sun made an occasional appearance here and there. There was one good rain during the late evening but clear skies till after midnight, so I suppose it could have been far worse.

Things noticed about the park:
The floating bridge is now in the middle of the lake. It is still possible to get to WWK next to RWB, there is a path and a shuttle that goes back and forth. The ferries are no longer being used. The new tidal wave pool looks great, as does all of WWK side. All the retracking on RWB is done and the ride is awesome. We sat in the last car, and even that was a great (and pain free) ride!! The shipwrecked boat at “Shipwreck Falls” is gone. I found that depressing cause I always thought that was kind of cool, the shark is still there though.

Fortunately Hurricane Hannah’s is officially closed, unfortunately the aged slide is still there and a lot of the water is still sitting in the wave pool, which now is beyond nasty. Blech!! :(
The Big Dipper was kicking butt and Villain was killing people. There is a photo montage called “Freedom” at the front gate shortly before closing.

Met up with (Millennium) Tony, Greg and Mike at the Jukebox Café before ERT and did nothing more than have a great time talking about all the Cedar Fair changes and a lot of the people we all know. I really am blessed by all the great CP friends I have. I often forget how much their friendships mean to me.

GL’s ERT consisted of Big Dipper, X-Flight, Villain and Dominator. There was no doubt we would be heading right for Dominator and that is exactly what we did. We ended up getting a total of 17 ERT rides, 16 of which were re-rides. Mere words can not explain the enthusiasm the crew gave us every time we came back to the station. It got to the part where the person on controls would just ask “is anyone getting off?” when we got back to the station :)

The high point of these rides was when our train simply stopped on the lift. I have to say that it was the most fun I had all day. If it had been a train full of GP you know people would have been freaking out. Instead we were all saying some of the funniest stuff! The first person to say something was Tony who was like 4 or 5 rows behind me screaming “what did you do Jo?” and then went on to say that his Intamin was better than B&M which in turn caused many slams back to him about his beloved Intamin, and not just from me!!
I can honestly say that was the most fun I have EVER had being stuck! We later found out that someone on the other train had lost something and they had to get it? That sounded odd to me since on Raptor we would have to stack to retrieve something, but who cares, it was still so much fun!! Despite being frozen to death, we were all cracking up! :)

ERT ended and the entire event ended way too soon for all I am sure.

Despite a VERY long day for the ride crew they did a wonderful job keeping us pumped. My thanks to them and all the employees, to Lexi, Bill and the rest of the staff for making CoasterEXT such a great time for all!
Thank you to all the fellow Dominator riders too who made the rides so much fun!! :)

Can’t wait till the GOCC Fall Freak Out and CoasterEXT ‘07! :)

Btw-I don’t suppose the coaster going in at CP could possibly be a B&M floorless could it? ;)
Don’t I wish!!

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1113 :)

Yeah, getting stuck on that lift was a great time, especially with you and Tony yelling back and forth about B&M vs. Intamin. :) *** Edited 6/5/2006 3:13:46 AM UTC by Coasterfan***

I really wish I would have been able to make it. I had plans, had a hotel and everything, then my friend had to give in to his employer's request to work on Saturday. :( Oh well, maybe next year will be the year.

I really wish I would have been there. What a bummer it was to have to work. :(

I was in the station while the train on the lift was stuck. I guess the object that was lost was on the block brake, thats why the train had to be stopped on the lift.

Jo,

Something in my heart told me you were on that train on the lift as I climbed the block brake. I just knew it.. hehehe

Rob,

Ya should have climbed the lift hill and said hello, we were there for a while! HA HA HA

LuvRaptor said:
Despite him making it perfectly clear that GL has proved to be in the negative figures for the past 2 years and that NO capital would be spent on the ride side

Very nice report, great to see the park in such great shape. But this qoute puzzles me. Since the Six Flags' last addition, X-Flight, there has been nothing new on the rides side. There has actually been THREE rides removed (Muzik Express, Silver Bullet, Mr. Hydes). One of which being a crowd favorite (Muzik Express). So not only has there not been anything new for 5 years, but we have lost a number of rides in the timeframe. Then on top of all that, there is a good chunk of the park sitting unused. And it even could be considered an eyesore.

I just think that if Cedar Fair's plans are to wait to add something to the rides side, it is a big mistake. Most of the trip reports I read state that while WWK is packed, there are still minimal waits on the rides side. Bottom line is, it needs something new to bring people over there. *** Edited 6/8/2006 3:04:58 PM UTC by VGplay***

That doesn't seem to be their focus, though. They're looking to be a water park first, and a ride park second. This is probably as smart a plan as any, when you consider the proximity of CP. 5 or 10 years down the road, I'd think there would be a couple new rides (a new coaster and a new flat perhaps), with considerably massive additions to the water park.

Let's face it. Six Flags ran the ride side into the ground, and CF is in the recovery process. Rather than let the public completely see this recovery, why not draw their attention somewhere else, like WildWater Kingdom?

It was truly a great time. Too bad my wife pooped out after CM and I ended up going to GL alone. It was nice to hook up with you guys. The lift hill was definitely the high-point of the night.

For my first time to GL since CF bought it, I was very impressed. The park itself just seemed upbeat, and the ride-ops were even more up beat. I definitely will be there again next year for EXT, and will definitely be making more trips there this summer.

^^no pun intended right? ;)

Does anyone know when/where they are going to post the coaster ext photo that they took?

I thought they said last week, but I cant find it anywhere on the geauga lake website.