This past weekend my wife and I made our third annual trip to CP for the Run and Ride weekend. We continue to make this our weekend to visit because the price is insanely low and we don't live close enough to make season passes an option. We paid $65 each and that got us 3 days in the park with free parking and early entry. That also includes a 5k with all the swag and post-race food. This year it was much busier than it's been the two years prior. Some highlights, etc.:
Rides:
- We splurged on FL+ for Saturday and it was SO worth it. The wait for SV got up to 3 hours. We got 7 rides in on Saturday and 10 total for the weekend. This is easily the best coaster I've been on and it's not close.
- We rode Maverick a bunch as well. It's nice to have the best two rides right next to each other.
- We rode MF probably 4 times total but skipped it Saturday. The FL wait was 45 minutes. I still love MF and the drop is amazing but the rest of the ride underwhelms in comparison to Maverick and SV. In the giga discussion, Fury is superior.
- Valravn is a really fun ride due to the first drop, but it's not generally one we're willing to wait very long for. We usually hit it first thing from the marina entrance during early entry when it's a walk on. We'd rather wait longer for the best rides.The view and the freefall are awesome, especially from the first row on the outside.
- Magnum still kicks butt. The airtime is still so good, and the fun relative to the usual wait time is possibly the best in the park.
- We had some back luck with TTD. We got on a train after a very short wait because it had just opened back up. We were the next train up when they shut it back down for high winds. This was Saturday when we had FL+ and it never opened back up that we could see, so we never got a ride in all weekend. It's another one we're not willing to wait very long for because it's so short.
- Skyhawk is a blast. I wish it lasted longer but it's such a fun ride between dangling over nothing 100+ feet up and feeling like you're getting thrown up into the sky on the upswing.
- We rode Gatekeeper just once and skipped Raptor. They're just not our cup of tea.
Food:
- We went out to the car to eat Friday and Sunday but had the All-Day Dining Plan on Saturday (as well as the drink wristband). We ate at both of the new restaurants. The pulled pork and mac and cheese at Backbeat were really good, especially the pork. We had the calzone at Hugo's and were extremely disappointed to discover it was full of ricotta and not mozzarella cheese. I'm sure it would be great for people who don't find ricotta disgusting.
- The chicken tenders at Roundup were extremely bland. BBQ sauce was essential for any flavor at all. The fries were great though. The Blackjack burger at Stockade was good. We had it at Roundup last year as well.
- It was unfortunate that they moved the pulled pork to Backbeat from Miss Keats. It would've been nice to have that option in the back of the park where we spent most of our time. (We did not participate in the festival)
Other:
- We skipped Forbidden Frontier. I was tempted to go in there and just look around, but when we only go for 3 days a year all I want to do is ride coasters as much as possible. In a few years when our kids are old enough to accompany us I'm sure we'll spend plenty of time on the island.
- We finally won a tweet-up! It was really lucky timing for us. Our first ride on SV was after about a 2 hour wait on Friday including some downtime when we were in the "tunnel" portion of the queue. As we were on the platform awaiting our train I saw none other than Tony Clark on the train that was pulling in. After we got off the ride I had a notification that TC was at the Jitney Arcade that was luckily so close by. My wife and I were both able to get exit passes that we used for SV.
If anybody else was there for the Run and Ride I'd love to hear your observations as well. It was a great weekend!
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