June 5th, 6th, and 7th. (long)

This is my first trip report, so I apologize if it isn't great.

On June 5th, we arrived at the park around 1:30 PM. It was dark and cloudy, and I don't think the temperature exceeded 60 degrees all day. We started out with a front seat, trimless ride on Magnum. We only waited about five minutes despite the two train operation. The crew was efficient and pleasant. We then walked on Gemini and CCMR, then headed back to take a look at Maverick. The line was about an hour long, so we decided to wait until later, since most of the rides around it were walk on. We took a lap on Mean Streak since we were back there. It's a painful ride, but I think it's better than it was last year. Our next ride was Iron Dragon. This crew impressed me. They were probably the best crew I saw all day. Wildcat was next, then Wicked Twister, then Raptor, then Blue Streak which gave great airtime. All four of them were smooth and fun, and our longest wait was 15 minutes for Raptor.

Despite the ominous sky, we didn't get any rain until around 7 PM while we were in line for MF. It was barely drizzling, but all of the coasters I could see shut down. I know there wasn't a storm, because Power Tower continued to run throughout the whole sprinkle. I could see Iron Dragon and Wildcat were down completely. MF was back up soon, but only with two train operation. It wasn't a bad ride once we got on, but I still find it a bit lackluster. We went back to the hotel (Breakers) after this.

When this rain hit, Mantis transferred to one train operation. A second train was sitting on the transfer track. But the third train was not on the track, rather sitting underneath the transfer track in pieces. Doesn't Mantis usually have all three on? Does anyone know why it was off?

We were in line at 8:30 AM Wednesday morning to get in the gates. Once they opened, we dashed to Maverick, only to find that it was down for technical difficulties. Great. We were so far up at the front of the line that we decided to wait out the breakdown. It was down for an hour and a half. When it finally opened, we were in the second seat of the first train of the day. I liked Maverick a lot, but I had my head bashed hard against the restraints more than once. Though it was a good ride, I can't say I like it as much as Raptor and Magnum. After this, we did Corkscrew (ouch), Gemini and Magnum again, then headed over to WT, only to find it down and deserted. It remained this way all day as well as all day Thursday.

At this point, the park was getting packed, so we headed back to the hotel. We came back around 3 to ride some, but it was hard to find a line less than an hour long, I'm guessing because it was such a gorgeous day. We waited almost 45 minutes to ride DT. What a waste of time. We hit Cedar Downs (love that ride) then went for dinner. By 7 or so the park began to clear out. We went over to TTD to see a very welcoming "1/2 Wait" on the sign. We got in line and rode in the second seat. I like that ride a lot. Too bad it's so short. We then went over to Mantis (seriously, who's idea was it to put stand-up trains on that thing?). After, we rode the Sky Ride and got on Demon Drop. It's really getting (more) rickety and uncomfortable. I can't say I'd be disappointed to see it go at this point. We made our way up the midway and finished off the day with two front seat rides on Magnum, which broke down after our second ride. This was the second time it was down while we were there, and it wouldn't be the last.

By Thursday, we were exhausted but still somehow made it for our ERT. They told us at the gate that Maverick would not be open for ERT, and TTD would be taking its place. This changed our initial plans, so we headed down for two laps on Raptor. As we were making our way to Skyhawk, Magnum was just opening and we jumped on the first train of the day, second seat, great ride. We then headed to Maverick, which was already open even though it was still before 10 at this point. We waited about 20 minutes and got a back seat ride. It was more intense this time. I have a nice bruise on the right side of my head from the headbanging this time. I didn't enjoy it very much.

The temperatures were climbing now so we spent the afternoon at Soak City. We came back to the park around 5, and it was already starting to clear out. We hit DT to get out of the sun for a while. We did Wildcat, Iron Dragon, CCMR, MS, and Gemini all before 8:30 PM. We spent an hour riding Magnum four times, then went over to see the Hot Summer Lights show. It was a pretty pathetic attempt at entertainment. I thought it was much better a few years back.

Trip positives: nice and quiet hotel room, trim-less Magnum rides, short lines for the most part, Soak City, overall park cleanliness, Iron Dragon crew, the employees and other people we were talking to at Maverick while we waited for it to open, TTD running efficiently all three days, baby seagulls on Breakers roofs.

Trip negatives: WT being down, Mantis existing at all, terrible service at The Dragon's Inn, food prices through the roof, DT theming, bathrooms dirty, Hot Summer Lights.

Ride count:
MXL: 10
Raptor: 3
Gemini: 3
CCMR: 2
Mean Streak: 2
Iron Dragon: 2
Cedar Downs: 2
DT: 2

Mantis, Corkscrew, BS, Skyhawk, Demon Drop, Power Tower (SS), Sky Ride, WT, MF, TTD, Wildcat: 1

A few other things:
I'm sure others here have noticed this error before, but it amused me.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/DragonSong392/SignError.jpg
Guess they can't even spell their own coaster names right!

I heard rumors that Skyhawk had been hit by lightning Monday evening. Can anybody verify?

Thank you for reading!

Edit: corrected spelling. *** Edited 6/8/2007 8:01:54 PM UTC by Jamie the Crazy***

Great Report!! That was really interesting! I can't believe they actually spelled that wrong lol! You'd think they would have it down by now!! I can't wait to ride maverick, and it sounds like a great ride!

thanks!

Nice Trip Report.

Wicked Twister was the one to be rumored to be hit by lightning.

A year or two after it opened, seatbelts were added to Mantis. This made it take longer to get each train ready, resulting in constant stacking with 3 trains. As a result, the 3rd train was removed a few years ago (I think 3 or 4) and was shrinkwrapped and put beneath the transfer area.

It's possible that they are either rotating the trains in usage each year, or just using train 3 for parts.

Thanks! :)

^^ When was this? WT was definitely open on Tuesday, and there were no storms that I recall on Tuesday evening/night.

^ Oh, okay. That makes sense. That train has probably been there for a long time, I just never noticed it before. I try not to pay much attention to anything about that coaster.

Where exactly is that sign located in the park?

About your negatives:

WT was down due to wind, so can't complain about that, DT theming honestly isn't that bad if you ask me, and about the bathrooms I also have to disagree. Everytime I am there the bathrooms are very picked up and tidy. Just my opinion.

The signs are at all of the park gates, the ones that tell you what rides you can ride if you are however many inches tall (obviously the error is on the 52" one). The one I have a picture of is from the Magnum gate. Yes, I did check the other signs at the WT gate and the marina gate and they also had the error.

About WT, I understand that, and I wasn't really complaining. I just wish I could have gotten to ride it more than once.

DT's theming is so completely random that it doesn't even have a theme. What, exactly, is the theme supposed to be? Multicolored hand prints, blacklights, whatever the second queue room is supposed to be, and the "Welcome to Alaska" sign left at the end... they just don't seem to add up to me.

And as for the bathrooms, this is the first time I've ever thought the bathrooms at CP were a little dirty. In recent years they've been very tidy, I agree, at least compared to most other amusement parks. But for some reason they were a little out of order this time around. They weren't repulsive by any means, but they could have taken the time to clean whatever it was that was all over the backs of the stall doors in the bathroom by Magnum.

Thanks for your input anyways. :)