July 29th - Visiting with a first timer!

I've posted plenty of Trip Reports on this site, but it's been 2 years since I've been in the park for something other than a commercial shoot or Coasting for Kids, so I figured I would write another. In addition, this trip I got to bring along my new girlfriend who has never been to the park before. She loves amusement parks and has been to Kennywood, Waldameer, Busch Gardens, etc.., but never CP. I was anxious to see what the park looks like through a first-timer's eyes.

Initially, we weren't even planning on visiting the park. We were heading to Port Clinton for a relaxing beach weekend, but while eating at Damon's in Battery Park, I caught my girlfriend constantly staring across the bay at the park. I contacted a friend of mine who works in the park and found out that the crowds were quite low. This was a surprise to me, as normally I would never visit on a Friday afternoon/evening in July.

We finished our late lunch and headed to the park. I was happy to see that the lot was barely past the tower in the lot. In the 6 hours we were in the park we were able to ride all of the following, do a bit of shopping, and sit down to eat:

Skyscraper
Magnum
Gemini
Skyhawk
Maverick
Millennium Force
Windseeker
maXair
Wicked Twister
Raptor
Power Tower (Shot)
Dragster (front row)

Millennium and Maverick had the longest lines of the evening (around 40 minutes). Here were some observations from both myself and my girlfriend from the evening:

Windseeker: This was obviously my girlfriend's first time riding Windseeker, and it was also mine. The area around the ride looks great. It was only a 2 cycle wait so we got on pretty quickly. The ride itself was decent. The music was a nice touch, and the view is great. I can't see myself riding it much, but its a decent addition for the park. Riders getting off the ride didn't seem too enthused, but the ride hosts were pretty funny ("If you enjoyed your ride, stomp your feet!")

New signage: I noticed the various new signs around the park and thought they looked great. I especially enjoy the new digital display near the tollbooths. The signage and area around the new Pinks looks great as well.

Food: Bring out the dead horse, so I can give it a few more hits. It's just ridiculous. During our visit, we stopped for lemonade at the stand near Shoot The Rapids. The service was EXTREMELY slow, and the worker commented that she didn't have much citrus left for the lemonade. Despite this, she charged us 4 dollars for a small plastic cup of what basically tasted like ice water, with a squeeze of lemon in it. Later we got a corn dog and a cheese on a stick. The food was fair, but the service was still incredibly slow. This seems unacceptable for the service to still be so slow midseason. I was hoping to try Pinks, but didn't get a chance to, so I can't give an opinion on that. Anyhow... that's enough of my food rant.

Park Atmosphere: I didn't see a lot of changes, but I was anxious to hear what my girlfriend thought of the park. She said it had nice areas, but in general was pretty stale and bland. She absolutely loves Kennywood and said that CP was really missing any kind of "charm"... One odd thing I noticed was various random parts of the Starlight Experience were on at 6:30 PM or so... even the snow machine near Fort Sandusky was running. It looked pretty tacky.

Rides: Every ride we went on was great. I had heard some people saying that Magnum was running poorly this year, but we had a great ride. Nothing else seemed to be running any differently than I remember. I was really looking forward to trying Blue Streak, as I hear it has received some loving, but for some reason, at 8PM they were only running 1 train, making the line not worth waiting in. My girlfriend enjoyed every ride we went on, and said overall it was the best collection of rides she has been on. For the record, the scariest ride for her was Skyscraper, and her favorite was Dragster (by far).

We left the park shortly before 10 to head to our hotel in Port Clinton, and I only caught a glimpse of the new nighttime show. I haven't heard much about it, but from what I saw, it didn't seem to be too much different from Hot Summer Lights.

All in all it was a great trip for being a spur of the moment decision! My girlfriend enjoyed it, and we are already looking forward to spending a weekend at the park for Halloweekends in September!