June 21 - Maverick ERT and More! (long)

After feeling the urge to get back to the park after my slightly rain soaked trip with my girlfriend, I decided to take a half day off work and head to the park on Thursday to get some rides and enjoy the bliss of Joe Cool Maverick ERT. I arrived at the park around 2 and saw dark clouds looming over the bay... Great.

I pulled out my trusty personal radar (aka Cell Phone), and sure enough, a nice big cell was heading right for Sandusky. I booked it into the park, hoping to get one ride in before the rain hit. Magnum was running 3 trains, and I knew I could get right on. A one train wait, and I was in good old 6-2. As we crested the top I saw lightning, and knew I had made it just in time. My first ride of the day was going great, as I celebrated Magnum's return to being a people eater, and then we hit the trims after hill 3....

That was the hardest trimming I have ever felt on Magnum. Even with it being 83 degrees, and a full train we crawled through the pretzel turn. Even some couple who sounded like they had never rode Magnum said "wow, this is slow." And it never got its speed back. I didn't even leave my seat till the bunny hill before the On-Ride photo. As Matt (MDOMnis) mentioned there was an additional set of brakes outside of the final tunnel as well. The normal guest won't notice them, but I knew they were there.

After feeling completely let down by my ride on Magnum, I saw the train ahead of us going out empty so I knew that they were going down for weather. Since I didn't eat on my way to the park , I decided to use the rain delay for food. I went to the Roundup, so I could get in line for Maverick right after the storm. I was very happy to find out that, although not listed on the menu board, you can actually get the burgers or chicken fingers WITHOUT the fries. It makes a good difference in price as well. With the fries, the chicken fingers are 8.99. By themselves they are only 5.99. Still a ripoff, but a bit more acceptable.

The storm only lasted about 35 minutes, and as the rain turned to a sprinkle, I went and lined up at Maverick's entrance. Amazingly, even as the rain was still lightly falling, trains began to cycle. But something was different... there were only 4. The ride opened, and the line was only in the queue house. As I made my first few steps into the queue house I saw a Ride Op and asked him why they were running 4 trains. He said that as of Today (Thursday), they were now allowed to run 4 trains in a light rain. He then asked me if I was a single rider. When I said yes, he took me past the WHOLE queue house and sent me up the right side of the stairs. 5 minutes later I was on the ride.... I love this coaster more and more each time I ride it. As we pulled into the tunnel, I noticed a haze... could it be? The mist is back! And it was thick and damp... I loved it! Even in the daytime you can not see the end of the tunnel until you are outside. It really adds to the excitement.

After Maverick, I hit Skyhawk and Gemini, and although I wanted to give Magnum another shot there was a line in the queues, and I didn't feel like waiting. However they were not flooding the station, so that was nice to see. Regardless, I next went to Power Tower which was a walk on both sides. Bear in mind at this point I didn't know about the SFKK incident. I decided to drop, and while this ride normally still gives me butterflies, I had an even more frightening experience. As we sat at the top and waited to drop, we fell about 8-10 inches and then stuttered to a stop again. I have never felt this on PT before, but before I could start to get nervous we fell and completed our ride cycle. Has anyone else ever had this happen?

After getting off PT, I headed to the front of the park and hit WT (which has also stopped flooding the station), maXair, and Blue Streak. Blue Streak continues to impress me this year, and I believe second to back row is my new favorite. The second half of the ride is great! As I got off BS, I saw a train stopped on Raptor's lift, and so I headed over there to check it out. By the time I got there it was running again, so I got in line and got some "single rider luck" scoring a single front row seat. Had a good ride, but got beat up a bit more than I remember. When we hit the final brake I noticed we stopped in the back section of the brakes instead of rolling up behind the train in the station. I look over, and sure enough, another train is stopped on the lift. We sit waiting for about 10 minutes, and then finally roll in and get off. I don't know what was going on, but by the time I got off there were supervisors and full timers up on platform.

After Raptor, I headed out to my car to take a bit of a rest, since I knew I would be in for a long evening, and a long drive home. After 20 minutes or so, I got a call from Mark (Mark Small), and he was just getting to the park. I grabbed a quick spin on Witches Wheel (I love Huss), and then waited on Mark. We hit Dragster, and then hit some of the rides in the front of the park again. Next we went to MF, but decided to pass on the hour long line. By this time it was around 8:30 and I hadn't eaten dinner, so we stopped by Panda Express to get myself a tasty Panda Bowl with some Orange Chicken. Until I found out they were out of Orange Chicken, and that they weren't making more... because the kitchen was closed... I settled for Teriyaki, and as I left the restaurant I saw them lock the doors behind me. While I ate my food we saw at least 10 people try to go to the restaurant, only to be turned away. I was very surprised that they closed so early, when it was clear that people were still wanting to eat there...

After dinner, we got 2 more walk-on rides on Skyhawk, and then headed to Maverick to get one ride before ERT. As we passed Chick-Fil-A, I noticed that they were still open, and it was almost 9:30. It made me wonder more about what happened at Panda. Oh well, we went to Maverick and waited about 45 minutes for another ride. By the time we got off, it was after 10, and there was a decent line of Joe Cool members waiting to ride. By the time the GP had cleared out it was 10:45. We began our ERT and were pleased to see that despite the long-looking line we went straight up to the station. This ride is even better at night. As is the case with most coasters, the darkness adds more of a feeling of speed. After this trip it has solidified itself as my favorite coaster in the park....hands down. We were a bit disappointed that they didn't have a way to let us get back into the queue house directly after riding, but instead we had to run all the way around to the entrance each time. This slowed things down a bit, but we still managed 4 rides during the hour. As many people have said already, the crowd was rowdy, and so were the Ride Hosts. It was a great time!

By the time we got off the ride, the reality set in that I was exhausted, and I still had to drive 3 hours back to South Bend. In addition, I knew I had to be up at 7 AM to go to work. I stopped to get gas and Mountain Dew in Sandusky, and then off I went. I rolled into my apartments just after 3:15 and was asleep before I knew it. This was another great trip to the park, and I can't wait to head back July 11th for some more Maverick rides :)

Ride Summary:
Maverick - 6
Skyhawk - 3
Blue Streak -3
Wicked Twister - 2
maXair - 2
Gemini - 1
Magnum - 1
Raptor - 1
TTD - 1
Power Tower Drop - 1
Witches Wheel - 1
Sky Ride

Total Hours in Park: 9
Total Rides: 22

Wow, sounds like you had a great trip, despite the rain!

Enjoyed reading it. :)

As fot your PT drop, I never ride this because it scares the crap out of me (once was enough). My boyfriend had the same thing happen to him last October. I'm not sure if it happens a lot though because he usually skips it since I wont ride it.