Last visit for the year: 7-8-13

I never thought I'd try and spend an entire day at Cedar Point in July. I also didn't expect it to potentially be my last visit for the season, but life finds ways of surprising you. Team Puzzoni is moving to Orlando, so this was our last big hurrah for awhile. We also haven't done much in the way of adult rides this year, which is totally fine, but we definitely wanted to knock a few out while we could.

We started the day at Chet & Matt's for lunch, and it was delicious as always. The buffet is such a stupid good deal. We were first in, so everything was super fresh. I was skeptical of the "hot wing and cheddar" pizza, but it's delicious.

We arrived at the park a little after noon, and scored our Fast Lane+ bands. After a ride on the "buckets" (Skyride), I went to Raptor while Diana started Simon on the Midway Carousel and trucks in Kiddy Kingdom. It was my first time this year, and the intensity was somewhat surprising to me. I can definitely agree with the position that it's more intense than GateKeeper. It's still my favorite inverted B&M, no contest.

After parent swapping, I took Simon on the Kiddy Kingdom Carousel and Sir Rub-a-Dub's Tubs. I love the enthusiasm he has for these rides. From there, Diana took Simon to Giant Wheel, where they didn't care that he did not have Fast Lane (more on that in a minute), and I went to GateKeeper.

I've been on GateKeeper just once since the TV shoots and media day, and that was a short wait. This one would have been tolerable even without Fast Lane. I sat in row 4, outside left, and the vibration was a little more pronounced this time. I suppose I have all kinds of theories about why this might be, but wheel condition seems to have a much greater, more amplified impact on ride smoothness in the outside seats. It's still not a problem to the point of discomfort (most wood coasters will beat you up more), but I'm surprised that B&M didn't totally eliminate the problem. Regardless, it's such a great ride.

The switch from Pepsi to Coke has been a huge win, not just because I like Coke, but also the boatload of fresh signage around the park. It wears Coke well. Unfortunately, I don't think Coke is keeping up with demand. Almost every visit, we find some problem, like empty CO2 tanks, or a park-wide outage of iced tea or lemonade. On this day, Diana had to go to two stands for lemonade, after paying at one, then having to wait in line at another to get filled. We've taken advantage of the refill cups, but not without this peril.

I had a short wait for Wicked Twister. I'm not positive, but I'm inclined to believe that it was operating at full, opening-year speed. They have neutered that ride on and off, but the forward launches in particular felt full strength. I didn't think to look from the ground to see how far they were climbing. That's such a great ride, and completely underrated. I've grown indifferent about the standard impulse model, but this one still wows me.

From there, Diana did Windseeker, but I did not, as Simon needed a timeout. :) Ah, the problems of parenthood. We did ride a few things in Planet Snoopy right after that. While in the neighborhood, we backtracked toward Blue Streak. Diana went first, and I took Simon to the Cadillac Cars.

This is where the park has a big box of stupid to address. As I said, they weren't looking for a Fast Lane band on a 3-year-old at Giant Wheel, so I expected they wouldn't care at the cars either. Well, they said, sorry, you have to wait in the regular line. Let's explore why this is stupid. First, by my count, there are four rides a tiny person like Simon can ride. No one in their right mind is going to buy him a Fast Lane pass. Second, if I get on the car alone, the car is in use, whether it's me or four people. I wasn't going to let it piss me off, but I was certainly annoyed.

So let's talk about Blue Streak. It's no secret that since the big rehab several years ago, it has been running like a champ. This is still the case. The trains looked very shiny, and I seem to recall them going to PTC for refurb last winter. In any case, the ride is balls-out nuts right now. You can feel the upstop wheels hammer the bottom of the rails. The turn around felt like a bit of a mess though. The best moment is stopping in the brakes, and hearing the upstop wheel whirling under the train. Good times.

Watching the radar, we saw a downpour coming, so we ducked into the Jack Centennial Theater for their Broadway revue show. A friend of mine complains about recycled choreography, but I think from a vocal standpoint, it's a really ambitious show that delivers. It's a good example, too, of how casting makes a difference. The woman who was in Luminosity last year didn't seem well-suited to that show, but she's fantastic in this one. I mean really good. Two of the male leads are also fantastic. The ensemble of "One Day More" from Les Miserables is surprisingly good, even without Wolverine.

The rain stopped by the time we left the show, and we headed back for some laps on Simon's beloved Jr. Gemini. What a transformation for him. At the end of last season, he reluctantly went on, but wouldn't do the second lap. Now, he cheers for the second lap, and asks almost every day if he can ride. He's only been on Woodstock Express twice, and doesn't quite embrace it just yet. With the rain, it was down for the count, so we didn't get to ride.

Next we did a full lap on the train, then the Antique Cars, where they didn't care that Simon was without Fast Lane. The sky opened up again at that point, and we left the park to meet friends at Buffalo Wild Wings. Timmay, Lois and Tony were there to share stories and sauce. Good times.

Despite Simon being suboptimal in terms of behavior, we decided to go back to the park. It was definitely going to be a touch-and-go time, but most importantly for Simon, we did get on Jr. Gemini again. He is going to miss that ride!

Headed up the Frontier Trail, it was like a ghost town. No Maverick, which was a bummer because that was one of the rides we would have liked to snag. At this point, I wasn't interested in hitting rides I haven't been on in awhile. I'm not all that sentimental. Mean Streak will still suck if I don't ride it. Instead, I thought I should try to get on GateKeeper again, since my lifetime count on that is obviously not high.

There were more Skyrides, then we split up again. I was three trains from riding, front seat left, on GateKeeper, when it poured again. After 15 minutes, including block checks, they started loading again. I've only had one other front seat lap, so this was a treat. What a visually amazing experience. The airtime hill is very strong in the front, as is the pop into the midcourse brakes. The keyholes are dramatic in any seat, but really fantastic in the front. It's not as intense as Raptor, but I really think that's OK.

One more ride on Skyride, and we headed back toward the Soak City lot and our car, just before closing. Simon was a trooper, and closed the park for the first time. In a fit of awesome, the park opened up Dragster and Power Tower with only 15 minutes to go. I love that about the park.

I haven't been to the park on a day in July or August in years, and despite the weather, we had a great time. It's a little sad that the visits won't be as frequent. I hope Simon remembers how special it is.

I agree with you about the Fastlane on the family rides. It's definitely something that they either should have thought about ahead of time or at least addressed by now. I doubt you're the first person to encounter the problem.

Of course I'd think consistency in the parent swap program would have been accomplished by now (the little purple sheets, hand them in when you ride, send the other part of your group that was watching the kid up the exit when you are done) but every time we try to do one at one of the former Paramount parks, they look at us like we are smoking some kind of crazy stuff.

I'm not saying everything has to be the same throughout all the parks, but there are certain things that work well that would be simple to implement everywhere.

I'm glad to hear the impulse is delivering a good ride after being down a couple weeks ago.

I too have found WT to seem faster then last year. Whether this is my imagination or real-life I'm not sure so it's good to hear you had the same experience. When I was watching it while in line for Gatekeeper the other day, it definitely looked like it was going quite far up the track, and shaking the entire track and green supports in the process.

Yeah, they shake, you think that's bad, look at dragster after the train has passed that section of track :P

^ That was always something to do while the kids marathoned rides in camp snoopy....watch dragster sway....:)