Well, I just got back last night from a six-day jaunt from Kansas City to Ohio and back, so I figured I'd share my experiences at the Point. I ended up getting two days in at the Point, and they were two days well spent. Allow me to digress....
Sunday, 6/25/00, 11:30pm: Finally reached the causeway tool booth after a 14-hour drive. Headed on back to the Hotel Breakers, driving by that imposing first hill of MF on the way. One thing I have to say right off is that the professionality of the hotel staff wholly impressed me, especially considering that it's primarily seasonal employees. For a moment I thought I was getting into a five-star establishment (and if you're a coaster fanatic, maybe it is :) They were very helpful getting everything up to the room (and I had two women with me, so there was a lot to get up there :) We checked in and got into the room, which turned out to be on the private top floor of the tower section (something I didn't specifically ask for). Now for what may perhaps be the only disappointment of the whole trip: the room, considering the price (about $270 a night!!!), was nothing to write home about. I'd consider it average size at best, the size of room I'd expect to pay about $80 for at a Super 8. Being on the concierge floor, I expected a few more perks. But, at least it had a nice view of the park, particularly MF. And I didn't get much more being on the "club floor" at the Wyndham in downtown Chicago the week before, at about the same price per night. We got over it eventually :) In the end I probably would have paid any ridiculous amount just to be on the park and not have to drive anywhere for a couple days, so I'm not sure why I'm even diving into this rant, but if anyone from CP is listening, the rooms really need a bit more to be worth their purchase price (of ourse, no $200+ hotel room is ever worth its purchase price, but you can get it close). Anyway, on to more exciting things....
Monday, 6/26/00: First day at the park. We were wore out from yesterday's drive, so we actually didn't get in until about 11am. Hit Magnum first, since it's nice and close to the resort gate. Rode the ejector seat (actually something I hadn't done before, at least not intentionally). This is still as fun a ride as ever, and still one of my favorites. From there we walked to the midway split, took the Sky Ride up to the front, and grabbed some food, then hit Raptor.
My experience on Raptor was, shall we say, disappointing, since I've put on enough pounds to render myself unable to fit into the ride :) Now I understand why they have the test seat out front....
Now we decided it was time to take a look at the Holy Mother, Millennium Force. At about 2pm we got to the line, only to find that all the TTR tickets were gone for the day and we'd have to wait until the queue reopened at 8pm. We decided to just skip MF for the day and get up early tomorrow to ride it. The rest of the day was filled with old standbys...Iron Dragon, Blue Streak, Gemini. I deliberately skipped Mantis this visit since I don't really like stand-up coasters, and Mean Streak since...well, it's Mean Streak. We also went back to the hotel around dinner time and got dinner at Friday's. Finally turned in for the day at about 10pm.
Tuesday, 6/27/00: Or as I like to call it, "MF Day" :) Got up a little later than we wanted, finally got into the park at about 9:45am and raced to get over to MF. They had let some people in but had closed off the queue for some reason and they were letting the line just pile up outside. We finally found the end of the line in front of the Thunder Canyon entrance (!) and got in. Then the bad news came: MF was down due to mechanical problems. By this time we had already moved halfway up Frontier Trail just from people giving up and getting out of line. The line got a little shorted after the news came, but we waited it out. The ride finally started running at about 10:45am, and we were quickly filed into the queue. We had expected to get a ticket to ride, but we were shuttled into the queue instead. The wait from there was about an hour, but we actually got on. I'll reserve the MF review for a moment, since I want to sum the entire experience up. After getting off the ride, we immediately got in line again and got a TTR for the 2:00 hour, the wait was once again about an hour. Those ended up being our only two rides for the day, but it was all we needed.
This trip ended way too soon, but the good news is, I'm already working on plans for my entire company to go up at the end of August. And just maybe I'll once again be able to fit into Raptor by then :P
And now, for the MF review:
One word: WOW. Ladies and gentlemen, there IS a God, and He has blessed us with this. Hands down, my new favorite coaster. A remarkable piece of work from start to finish.
I'll start at the beginning...my first favorable impression on MF came before the train even left the station: the seats. Compared to some other rides at CP, the MF seats are friggin' Barcaloungers. After my experience at Raptor, I took advantage of the test seat in front of MF :) And it was surprising. Given my build, it may have been the only ride I was truly comfortable in. The lap bar fits comfortably between your legs, and the design is intuitive enough that I wonder why more coasters don't do it that way (as opposed to, say, Magnum, where I had to squeeze my legs between that inverted-U bar). The seat belt was tight, but I'm also close to the maximum build it's designed to hold (and thankfully, it got around me, or else I would have been SEVERELY disappointed with my trip :) The Intamin seats are downright cushy.
Now for the actual ride...the lift is a ride in itself! It simply screams up the first hill. I enjoyed the view (especially over the edge of those open-air Intamin cars :), but you simply don't get enough time to enjoy it. You're literally thrown over the top of the hill. Now let me say, even though it's been said several times before on this board: NOTHING can quite prepare you for your first time on that first drop. It actually freaked me out, something that almost never happens! But after surviving that and the ensuing pull-out, the rest of the ride is pure, smooth, uadulterated speed. And by smooth, I mean SMOOTH. There isn't so much as a bump on this ride. It runs like silk. It runs FAST. The airtime on the hills is wonderful. It's an incredibly fun ride, and one I'd have trouble getting sick of. Even my 53-year-old mom thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now, I mentioned I got to ride it twice...well, in an amazing display of providence, on the second ride I actually managed to get THE FRONT SEAT. Now, ladies and gentlemen, THAT is a totally different experience, when you can actually see the true horror that lies ahead :) The first hill is steep enough that you get the optical illusion and the sensation of it curving underneath itself (I can only imagine if this had been my very first ride, it's very possible I would have wet myself :) It's fast enough that I was crying from my eyes being dried out. It's fun enough that I'd do it again and again.
So, short summary: this thing is an adrenaline junkie's wet dream. If it was possible I'd pay to just rent the ride for a day and stay on it non-stop. It was enough that I actually requested another night at Hotel Breakers, but unfortunately, it wasn't available, and I had gotten a call from the office anyway asking me to come back ASAP.
It was a trip to the Point that I considered far too short. But, I'll hopefully be able to do it again at the end of August. I can't wait :)
Complaints:
TTR...no good or bad opinions, it just doesn't really seem to help much, they could probably do without the added hassle. Especially on a day like Monday, when they ran out of tickets very early. If I hadn't planned more than one day, I probably would have been livid and marching somewhere to beat up some high-ranking CP executive. And the park really wasn't very busy both days we were there, I've been there on truly busy holidays and weekends where you needed lubricant to move around the main midway. I can only imagine the rampant anger on a day like that...I understand it's experimental, but I kinda hope they see the experiment as a failure and either just open the queue, or revamp the system to make it work better. Maybe they should just close the line early or something, so the wait isn't ridiculous at the end of the day and the employees can get out at a reasonable hour (as I understood it from the employees I talked to, that's part of why the system came about in the first place).
The Breakers rooms are not quite worth their weight in gold, although that's the amount of cash you seem to shell out for them.
The hotel also lacks data ports and/or Net access in the rooms. Very bad for road warriors like myself who occasionally need to hop on. The only available data port (according to the lobby, anyway) is in the concierge lounge on the 10th floor of the tower, but that doesn't do much good if you're not staying on the 10th floor, since it's private. I never was able to get online, but that was MSN's fault more than anything...no local access number in Sandusky, and me without a calling card. Next time I'll take my Nextel data kit with me. At least my Nextel phone worked throughout the park (and the entire Ohio lakeshore, for that matter).
Why does TGI Friday's lack a full menu? Most of my favorite stuff was a no-show. At least they had the Jack Daniel's Grill menu, but it seems like they could have more.
General consensus: GREAT trip. Can't wait until the end of August!