Dvo's 3-Day TR

Advance warning, this is pretty long. And I left out a lot of details.. Sorry!

Saturday
I arrived at the marina entrance at about 7:00 in hopes of getting the first ride on Millie. At 9 am they let us go in, and I ran faster than I've ran in a very long time. But it was worth it, and I got on the first train of the season. I rode it again right after I got off, because the line was short. Then after the 2nd ride, I met up with some others from PointBuzz, and I did a 3rd ride :). The ride was still warming up at this point though, so there wasn't much airtime, even in the back seat.

I hung out with Alan, Josh M. and his wife, Rob, Brian, Mark Small, Adam, and Paul for most of the weekend. Pause to say thanks to all of you for an awesome time.

We went back to Skyhawk after Millie. So I sit in seat 15 on the red side, and the ride op comes and pushes my restraint down to a comfortable position; but then for some reason my seat didn't check, so the ride-op had to come back and push it in farther. And boy did she push it in. I've never been stapled so badly in my life. Needless to say it was a very uncomfortable ride and I was just glad to get off when it was over.

After that we headed toward Magnum. By this time the celebration was nearing its end and the line was forming at the entrance. After a short wait we got on, I was in 2-2. Easily the best ride of opening day. Trimless and tasty.

After that we hit some more rides before taking a break. I went to Bayshore to set up my tent, and when I came back to the park I got in line for Mantis because no one else wanted to ride it and I was by myself. Unfortunately, that's when the rain started. And it was just one of those mocking rains, that's really light, but just heavy enough to keep the rides closed. So after 2.5 hours (not a typo), I got on the front seat on Mantis. And it was actually a really good ride. Not rough at all.

As the day progressed I met up with everyone again and we got some more good rides in. But there was a lot of downtime (more on that later), that made the crowd larger on the rides that were working.

Sunday

Got to the marina entrance right at 9 am this time. Unfortunately Millie's yellow train was still stuck at the top of the lift from the previous night, so I headed back to Maverick. I waited about 15 minutes for it and met up with some of the guys again at the exit. We then went toward Magnum only to find that stuck on the lift, and TTD was of course not running again, so we headed to Power Tower for a walk-on, and then met up with everyone else at the front of the park.

Sunday was another decent day, but was much more crowded than I had anticipated. It was chilly, but sunny. We still got a good amount of riding in, including almost everything that we missed on Saturday. We got another trimless ride on Magnum after some serious station-flooding issues. Speaking of, that was really bad this weekend. Magnum had horrible flooding, and at Millennium there was an attendant, but they weren't doing anything. I hope they get some control on that...

Anyway, Raptor was a long wait all weekend, but we braved it out. I had to split up from the group to get my rides on Demon Drop and Chaos, but it was well worth it ;). I also rode Mantis again, but this time it was trimless so it was horribly painful! Blue Streak was also a walk-on on Sunday, and I had 2 great rides in the 2nd last seat. And at the end of the day, Millie was back up and the line was very short, so I got 2 laps in to close the day, including 2nd last train.

Monday

Ugh. I was really looking forward to today because I assumed it was going to be empty. Wrong! Millie was closed for ERT (yet again), so I headed to Maverick for 2 quick rides. Glad I did it when I did. Then I saw TTD running, so I ran over there and got there just before 10 am. Adam met me in the queue, and we made it all the way to the front, and got in the train at load 1. And then it failed. No rollback, but the ride went down mechanical for about 30-45 minutes. So by this time the park was good and crowded.

After TTD I checked the Magnum line to find it pretty long, so I headed over to Millie (while in line for TTD I saw it running). But it was down mechanical again! I headed to the front of the park hoping that something had a decent line. Lo and behold, Blue Streak had a one-train wait. Or so I thought.

They were sending empty trains, testing it. After about 6 empty trains, they opened the gates at last. So the first riders got on, and I was next to go. And guess what... fail. The train got stuck on the lift and it went down mechanical. By this point I was just frustrated. So I walked back toward the middle of the park, and Millie was running again. I decided to get a few rides on it and just get out of there.

Sadly the line for Millie was behind the vending machines by about 2 queues. About an hour later I was off and decided to just endure the line one more time. This time it was even longer, about 6 queues behind the vending machines. When I got to the ramp on the 2nd time, I looked back and I think they were opening some of the switchbacks in the final set of queues. I can't remember the last time I saw those open. Needless to say it was a pretty upsetting Monday, but I still got some riding in.

Now for the downtime summary...
Saturday: Millennium down from late afternoon till close.
TTD down the entire morning, and ran 2-row trains all day (with rollbacks almost every time). I still don't know why they bothered.
Wicked Twister down a lot.
Raptor was down for a short time.

Sunday: Millie and TTD down in the morning/early afternoon.
Magnum down in the morning.
Wicked Twister down for short periods of time.

Monday: Millie down in the morning.
Blue Streak down on first loaded train.
TTD down in the morning for about 40 minutes.

Highlights: Magnum ran trimless all weekend, and Maverick was running like a gem!

So yes, it was a rough weekend with the crowds, the downtime, and the rain on Saturday. But all in all, it was still a fantastic time at my favorite place on earth. Thanks again to everyone I saw, hope to see you all at Coaster Mania!

Good TR! It was nice to see you this weekend. Sorry to hear about today! Adam told me that Maverick's line was 2.5 hours today... If that is true... that is crazy!

That's kind of weird that it was more crowded today than the weekend. I wonder if it was a lot of schools going or what, because I thought that weekdays weren't crowded at all.

Edit: I guess its because of Math and Science week. Oh great. Im sick of these school field trips lol.

dang! sounds like alot of "stuck" stuff! if i want to see "stuck",i will go hang out in traffic around here,lol! hope u had a fun time regardless.

Thanks for the TR Dvo.

Yeah Monday was a bit crazy. Saw LOTS of teens wearing Matching school shirts and others not wearing matching shirts but hanging in packs and carrying around calculators and such.

I tried twice to get on BS. BOTH times it broke as I was walking toward the entrance! I guess it wasn't meant to be today.

Maggie was really flying! Probably my favorite in the park. Though we'll see how I feel when I'm small enough to ride Raptor, Millie and TTD.

Well, even with all the problems, it was alot better weekend than mine! I was trying to find someone to go with Sunday but kept getting the usual excuses. I should have tried the whole going solo thing, and maybe I could have met up with you or someone from these boards.

From experience though, if it's difficult getting to CP being in Chicago, opening weekend usually has higher crowds and more ride problems; this is why I tend to avoid it. You might have better luck going 2nd or 3rd weekend they're open for the season (and avoid any holidays) in the future. The best days in my 20+ years of CP have always been Tues-Thurs (but recent years CP has been far more crowded than they used to be because of the growing popularity of physics trips). Monday usually is pretty bad, as alot of people take Monday off to give them an extended weekend (same for Friday), and alot of schools like to extend students' weekends.

I'm still surprised by all the Millie downtime though, as I consider it very stable. Hopefully all of the bugs are worked out when I go sometime after Memorial Day.

^Last season's opening day weekend was incredible. That's why I did it again this year. And I'm also moving the next 2 weekends, so this was really the only time I could do it before Coaster Mania. But it was still a great trip.

And the Millie down time really surprised me too. I couldn't figure out why it was down on Monday morning. It was running perfectly on Sunday night. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get some serious riding in during the coaster mania ERT. Until then! :)

I heard they had to replace all the wheels on wicked twister yesterday i asked the worker at the entrance and said they put the wheels on wrong and tore them all up.

^A little punctuation never hurt anyone... That being said I hope this isn't true.

^I just noticed that sorry.

Man, it sounds like opening weekend was a disaster! I'm so glad we didn't plan to go out for it. We only get one shot every couple years and it would have been a total bummer to experience all the downtime and mechanical failures. Hopefully they can get everything ironed out in the next couple of weeks!

actually, it's impressive that the park kept trying to get TTD to open instead of closing the ride down entirely. Persistence....

I was there yesterday too and was really disappointed by the crowds. The days of 'walk on May weekdays' are over, I think. With two weeks fewer of early May operating days (compared to three of four years ago) school trips have fewer operating days to go. I saw that Blue Streak was sending empty trains throughout the afternoon and when we left it sat empty.

We waited a usual 1 hour for Maverick in the morning but were very surprised to see 1 hour wait for Raptor, 1 3/4 wait for MF, and 2+ hours for Dragster. The most devastating part of the day was when we went to ride Skyscraper and it was closed. It was a fun and beautiful day, but not as good as years past. Coastermania should be a good time though.

pjp593 said:
That's kind of weird that it was more crowded today than the weekend. I wonder if it was a lot of schools going or what, because I thought that weekdays weren't crowded at all.

Edit: I guess its because of Math and Science week. Oh great. Im sick of these school field trips lol.

No on Tuesday it was all less than an hour.....it was probably because most thought that monday would be less crowded so it ended up being packed

It was a Canadian Holiday too, I went a few years ago on Victory day it was a lot more crowded than I would have expected. The following day was much better.

I've been going to the park on Victoria Day for 6 years. This year was the busiest I've ever seen. I'll have to make sure I go on the Tuesday next year instead of Monday.