Could they really retire the Paddlewheel Excursions?

This has been a Cedar Point staple for years. It's a good ride for people not into coasters and families looking for something that everyone can ride together. I would think they would get a lot of flak for removing it.

It would free up a lot of room however.

We were going to ride yesterday but forgot that it was an attraction that opens at 11am. Oh well, next time. Hopefully whatever they add in the future can accomodate the boat travelling underneath.

I don't understand why everyone is in such a hurry to retire this ride. Iron Dragon, Mantis, Millennium Force and Dragster were all built in ways that materially affected the lagoons. It's still around.

I still ride this once in a while. Its definitely a good tranquil ride for the whole family. Something I remember riding as a kid. Ridership has dropped from 848,588 in 1996 to 256,917 in 2008. That is a pretty healthy decrease. Im sure the powers that be know if the ridership supports the operational cost and the long range plans for the area.

But Jeff - It is a shadow of its old self. Much more modification and it will not be much more than the pirate ride or earthquake.

Retire Paddlewheel Excursions? Are you kidding me? Maybe you missed the clearing on the island where they are going to replace the beaver gnawing down the tree with a new state of the art animatronics exhibit for PWE? This is a clear sign that PWE is going nowhere.

Let me frame the issue in a different way then. If they kill the ride, it will be for a lack of popularity and/or the cost per rider expense will be too high. Every year the attendance keeps going lower and lower. It won't be because they're building things around it.

If it is ever announced that it will be going, I will head up the "Save Trapper Dan" (or whatever they call him now) committee to have him relocated so he can continue to warn us of dangers ahead.

Jeff, you forgot one possibility. Playing devil's advocate here -- it is quite possible that the ridership could be dropping and cost per rider climbing because of all those other rides invading the lagoon. You have to admit that between the halving of the ride circuit and all those steel monsters hanging over the course, the Paddlewheel experience isn't what it used to be. I would expect that the re-ride factor has shrunk considerably because of that very thing.

So all those rolly coasters could indeed be one, indirect cause of PWE's hypothetical demise.

Looking at the ridership numbers I'm curious to wonder what happened during the off season of 1996/1997 that would cause 848,588 riders for 1996 to become 507,333 riders for the 1997 season. Other than that the ridership drop has been pretty steady as with most other attractions. Considering more family friendly things like Camp Snoopy, Ice Skating Show, and Planet Snoopy came about to spread out the ones more likely to ride.

I certainly hope that PWE stays, despite the changes we've seen over the last decade.

~Rob

The ride was never Jungle Cruise, and I never thought much of it even as a kid in its former "glory." If I had to peg its declining popularity on anything, it would be on changing tastes.

I think the captain makes or breaks the ride. No amount of atmosphere will help if the captain lacks personality and rushes around the island.

The Skipper certainly turned that three hour tour into quite the funfest . . .

Even during Halloweekends, I had a lot of guests say they didn't think Terror Island was actually back here because they thought Paddlewheel was gone and thought the area had been blocked off. If the ride was a little longer it would be better and nicer to have, but like was said earlier, times have changed and so have the tastes of riders, and a ride like that just can't compete with the technology and availabilty of the abundance of different rides that are out there.It will be sad to see if the ride does dissapear within the next couple years, but if it does go it will most likely be for the better.

I wonder how much it would cost to add in some artificial "cover" to the parts of the boat path that aren't as scenic anymore.

When I finally rode Jungle Cruise, I noticed it had a lot of greenery that kind of isolates the ride from the rest of the park. I assume at least some of it is artificial.

How about giving PWE the Starlight Experience treatment? Music and light show on a quiet cruise? I hope they make LED buglights....

and/or add a tunnel, so the lights can be seen in the day.

It would be nice, but given CF's history of adding/maintaining theming on...well, anything. I'd say it's more likely they just use the boats as future Halloweekends props.

I'd peg the declining popularity of Paddlewheel on a couple of things...

Fist, when they retired the Western Cruise (to make room for Iron Dragon) they put Paddlewheel in a really out of the way place. Camp Snoopy has helped that situation a bit, but it still lacks a bit in midway visibility. The raging political correctness (which started by taking all the indians out of the ride with the Western Cruise makeover) has spoiled a good portion of the ride, and the new scenes and jokes aren't that great.

Retiring the old boats was also rather sad. The new boats are much smaller, which means they don't need a crane to haul them out of the water anymore (said crane was removed to make room for Top Thrill Dragster) but the engines on them are unbelievably noisy, which means if you aren't sitting up front, the Captain's spiel is almost completely drowned out by the engine noise.

But perhaps the biggest problem facing the ride today is that for whatever reason, they've decided to rush around the island at what can most readily be described as "breakneck speed". The last couple of times I have ridden (most recently last Sunday) the Captain was forced to drop about half of the spiel, and even at that couldn't keep up with the scenes because the boat was being driven around the island at full throttle. What used to be about a ten minute ride now takes about three, which severely curtails the enjoyment for a lot of people. What used to be a relaxing cruise around the island has become more of a race. It wouldn't take much to fix that.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Rapids 77-78 said:
If it is ever announced that it will be going, I will head up the "Save Trapper Dan" (or whatever they call him now) committee to have him relocated so he can continue to warn us of dangers ahead.

Buck Skinner???

I echo RideMan's comments about the breakneck speed in recent years. I see no reason to run that ride at full throttle.

I suppose my screen name here says it all. The ride has become such an empty shell of its former glory. As Dave notes, much of that could be fixed relatively easily (and cheaply).

IMHO, the Iron Dragon was the beginning of the end. (Most on this board are likely too young to remember the glorious, quiet, and wood-lined Western Cruise.) But if Bucky the Beaver is gone, that's the last nail in the coffin from my perspective.

(For those who -are- old enough to remember, I can still hear the lone cry of the wolf/coyote halfway through the ride that used to pierce the still of the evening and could be heard throughout the western end of the peninsula. I can hear him wailing at the loss of this ride.)

CP, if you're listening and this ride stays, -please- bring back vegetation -and- Bucky the Beaver.

That sounded almost like a Ted Nugent song. :)