June 25 & 26 - Good times & Arcade Issues

Arrived Friday night about 5:30pm. Rode a lot of flat rides, starting with Troika and working our way around to the Magnum. The lines for Maggie were mostly short, with a 10-12 minute wait for the front seat, and maybe a 2-train wait for the middle. The later it got, the better it was. Gemini was a walk-on. Back down to the Magnum at 9:15pm for several walk-on rides.

Saturday early morning my daughter got 2 front-seat Joe Cool rides on the Force in under 15 minutes. I rode Maggie 5 times in less than 1/2 hour. More Gemini walk-ons. White Water Landing was a fun walk-on diversion. Mean Streak had a train full of people stuck mid-course for a while, with employees up there to comfort them, so I'm glad we decided not to try and ride it. We took a trip on the CP & LE with Myron. I thought I saw Judy K under steam early in the day also. Got to the midway about 12:00 noon, and the crowds had started to thicken up. Cattle pens were in use for Iron Dragon, and Wildcat had the typical 2-or-3 pens in use. Dodgem was busy, so we hit the arcade for a while.

The arcade needs some attention, in my opinion. There weren't enough employees around, and the game machines are starting to suffer a bit. It was hard to find change for big bills. There are an increasing number of machines eating money and just plain non-functional, especially in the area I call the "Dead Zone". That is the area with a lot of older mechanical-electrical machines like Sea Wolf. Skee-Ball was eating quarters, and a lot of the machines were reluctant to give up tickets to winners. Grandma isn't giving out fortune cards, or at least she wasn't yesterday, and the sole employee I found kind of shrugged it off when I brought it to her attention.

After the arcade we wandered down to Corkscrew, and had about a 10 minute total wait. I have figured out how to ride it without too many neck problems, so I will be adding that to my list of semi-regulars. As we worked our way to the Magnum gate to leave the park, about 1:00 pm, Dragster was down, and they were emptying the line, and bringing a large truck with a crane mounted on it down the Dragster midway through the crowd. What ever went wrong, it must have been serious for them to bring a truck into the park at that time. They were lining up to back it into the building where the speed display is mounted.

A good couple of days for coasters for us. Bad for the arcade. Great, absolutely fabulous weather for being in the park. Next trip 4th of July weekend, hopefully with my official PointBuzz shirt in my Magnum on-ride picture.

Sounds like you had fun, except for the arcade experience. How do you ride without hurting your neck on the corkscrew. I'm tall, and I always hurt my neck. To add to that, while going over the midway I always turn my head to wave at my mom, or see ongoing people, just by habit I guess. Hopefully, 4th of July weekend won't be crowded, either.

-Eagle-

If I sit in the front seat of the front car of the Corkscrew, there is enough leg room for me to scrunch my body down. My head is still above the neck rest, but concentrating on holding my head in position helps a lot. My neck still gave a "snap" between the first drop and the second hill, so I will need to work on that. But the loop and inversions gave me no trouble at all. I forced my back and shoulders against the seat back, and held my head as straight as possible during the ride. It will take some more practice, and I probably won't ride it all the time, but I like the loop and inversions, and I can't ride the Raptor or Mantis, so I need to do what I can.

I hear ya. I can only sit in the front, it has the most leg room as you said. I'll try what you said, but the problem doesn't bother me that much because for me corkscrew usually a walk-on.

-Eagle-