Halloweekend 9/24 - 9/26/10

Our first Halloweekend trip for the year. I always stay in camper village and arrived right at 3PM opening check-in only to find about 50 units already in their campsites. I guess check-in started early.

The resort entrance near magnum was moving very slowly for early entry, so much that I was not through the gate until 5:02. Still, I took down every last pansy ahead of me and made first train on Maverick. Got 3 more rides in, for a total of four rides in 26 minutes! I did not think this was possible based on past experience. Twice I ran around from the exit to entrance like a Kenyan on sterioids. The last time, I did a pump-fake to the loose article bin and then found an empty seat on a train, nobody noticed with all the commotion. There is something wrong with train 5, sounds like a bad wheel in the rear. I told them this a few weeks ago and obviously nobody took it seriously. It's getting quite bad now. They were only running four trains on Maverick, which helped improve the cycle time, less waiting to get back into the station.

At breakneck speed, I raced to MF. Rode that four times in short order, including a very special ride with Single Rider Bob. This was shaping up to be a magical evening. A few more rides, Skyhawk, Magnum, all walk on, and I was getting tired. Time to hit a couple haunted houses. I had friends coming down on Saturday so I promised to save most of that stuff for them. The park started to get crowded later in the evening, but I would later be reminded of the saying, everything is relative...

Saturday morning I was at the marina entrance for some MF ERT. As I expected, the ride was not ready to go until about 9:15 when I boarded, you guessed it, first train of the day. Man nothing beats car 6 back seat on MF. Perfect zero-G airtime! Due to the delay in getting the ride going, I only rode once more before there was a monster line.

Rode a couple other rides but it became apparent very quickly that this was going to be a BUSY day. Left around 1PM, went into town for beer, came back and drank some, followed by challenge golf, beer, go-karts, beer, and dinner at the campsite. More beer. Then into the park. I'm not one to ever drink in the park, or while at CP in general, as it doesn't allow me to ride as much and constantly in the bathroom. Today we made an exception. The park was incredibly crowded at night. 1hr wait for Magnum. Long line for Iron Dragon. Everything had lines. Even the MENS bathroom. Yeah, I'm serious. This was as crowded as I have ever seen the park in my life, including a couple fourth of July trips in years past, and previous HW Saturdays. So we just drank and did haunted stuff, and had an absolutely awesome time. My face hurt from laughing so much. Great CP memories made!

Sunday, I was feeling a little sluggish and didn't make it to ERT. I made it to Maverick at 12:05 only to discover the place was DEAD. Nobody there. Rode that twice, then to MF and got on that in about 15 minutes. At 1PM. Great stuff. Went over to Dragster to get in line but it broke. Kyle, working the gate, would not give me an estimate. We chatted for quite a while, a pretty decent guy. He hinted that something really bad happened to MS which is closed for the season. But he wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Around 2:30 we headed out to the parking lot to send off my wife and kids who were headed home early, but the key wouldn't turn when inserted into our buick rendezvous. Making a really long story short, I couldn't get it to turn, despite taking apart the affected area, and beating the living &^#&$ out of it with the many tools in my RV. When I finally broke off part of a leatherman tool in the ignition, I knew I was out of luck. Locksmiths wouldn't come out because they said I needed dealer parts replaced. So, we took the RV and left the car in the magnum lot around 7PM. CP gave me assurances I could pick it up next weekend and not be towed. We will see. If anyone wants a Buick Rendezvous, please come steal mine. I would love the insurance money. What a POS.

I hated to miss out on such a great day at the park, but on the bright side it looks like I'll be spending next weekend their too. When I left the park there was only about a 10 minute wait at MF, this was at 7PM. Perfect weather, too. What a shame.

Anyone here know how to change out an ignition lock cylinder? Free beer and a day pass to CP for anyone who can help me out!

Nice trip report. I imagine it was very crowded on Saturday. Halloweekends seems to be getting really popular again after its slight downfall the past 2 years. I like the creative ride again idea on Maverick. Did you mean 11:15 on your Saturday trip? I don't remember seeing Cedar Point opening that early for ERT.

Sorry, yes I meant 11:15. The earlier time was in my head, as a few other passholders and I lamented that each day over the summer it seemed like the ride was never ready till 9:15 (the days the park opens at 10 to the public.

Not sure what locksmiths you talked to, but I'll throw out a plug for Hobbs Lock and Key since my friend works for them.

MagnumFan said:
He hinted that something really bad happened to MS which is closed for the season. But he wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Would catching on fire constitute "something really bad"?

I called Hobbs. They didn't answer their phone, but the voicemail gave a cell phone number to contact for emergency service. I called that number, left two messages, but never got a call back. Must have had something better to do.

Apparently there are only two locksmiths in the Sandusky area. One was answered by a lady who yelled "we're retired and out of business". That leaves just Hobbs.

HEY!

we love our Rendezvous. ;)

and

I enjoyed reading your report.

Man I had yesterday off work and wanted to go to CP so bad because I figured it wouldn't be busy but none of my friends wanted to go. Sounds like I missed out on an awesome day.

I took my daughter yesterday, and the park was quite dead. Our longest wait was about ten minutes, for Gemini (and only because they added second trains while we were in line). We rode almost every major coaster, at least once, with multiple flats, a show, the parade, and sit down lunch in less than five hours. It was practically perfect.

Added second trains? You mean they were actually running it as a racer?

Yep. They were running two when we got in line, and we were held up on the stairs, and then again in the station, while they pulled the sandbags out of the second set of trains. This must've been around 1:00 or so.

Not exactly sure why they chose to ramp up to four train operation, but they did. (In comparison, CCMR was running two, partially roped-off trains, and Raptor was also running two. Wicked Twister, still, just the one.)

Ensign Smith said:
Yep. They were running two when we got in line, and we were held up on the stairs, and then again in the station, while they pulled the sandbags out of the second set of trains. This must've been around 1:00 or so.

Not exactly sure why they chose to ramp up to four train operation, but they did. (In comparison, CCMR was running two, partially roped-off trains, and Raptor was also running two. Wicked Twister, still, just the one.)

I've been frustrated all year by this kind of stuff. Friday for example, park not really crowded, so only one side of power tower (one up, one down) was running. This leads to a 20-25min wait for going on the blue side. Gemini, just one side running. I witnessed this every time I went to the park on days that it was not "supposed" to be crowded. Sunday, maybe they figured it would be crowded, because we had the full power tower, both sides Gemini, and 3 trains on Magnum. Friday had only 2 trains, which led to waits at the end of the night.

Late in the summer, we ran into problems with some of the slides being closed at Soak City. Reason: Not enough employees working, according to the employees there. Now I have an issue with this, because I plan all my trips for low traffic days, and you almost get penalized for being flexible enough to go on these dates, so you don't have to wait in line. It's almost like lightening in a bottle, to get low crowd volume, on a day when there is high ANTICIPATED crowd volume, so there is an abundance of employees to run all the rides properly?

word.

The Power Tower thing bothers me the most. It seriously increases the wait time. Gemini isn't so bad because it still runs 2 trains even when running one side, but Power Tower with 1 operating cart per side is annoying. Magnum hits this snag when it does run in the rain with only 1 train.

Earlier this year I went to Michigan's Adventure and waited during 1 train operation on Wolverine Wildcat in perfect weather and it was semi busy. 1/2 hour from the entrance of the platform in the station.

Its not beneficial to anyone except the company bookkeeper.

Prawo - admittedly I haven't been to MiAdv in a couple years, but WW only has 1 train, there isn't another one to add.

In fact, the only coaster there that has more than one is Shivering Timbers.

Juggalotus is right. WW has only one train. That is one SLOW moving line. Thunderhawk is the only other ride with two trains, besides Shivering Timbers.

Did not know that. Thanks.

Kind of lame, they should fix that. I timed it and there was time to load a train while another is on the course.

Either way... 1 vehicle operation on a ride that can run 2 (Power Tower) is really dumb. There are days when its warranted, but others where it is not.

I don't think they can.

If there are only 2 blocks on the ride, the lift and the station. Adding another train would require adding an additional block. I don't think there is a holding block outside the station, but like I said, it has been a couple years since I've been there.

Ensign Smith said:
....Not exactly sure why they chose to ramp up to four train operation, but they did. (In comparison, CCMR was running two, partially roped-off trains, and Raptor was also running two. Wicked Twister, still, just the one.)

What bother's me the most out of those coasters is that they won't add another train to Wicked Twister. I know it isn't always busy, but it could really help to improve capacity. ;)

Now if they could just fix that whole 'valleying' issue...