My girlfriend and I departed Toronto at 5'30"am on Monday to hit up CP. We got there around 11'30", after a wrong turn in Cleveland [oops], and picked up our season's passes.
Noticed TTD being down for the day, which was a bummer. Instead, we headed over to Millenium Force, which was also broken down. My girlfriend [who is in love with it] nearly broke down and cried. Instead, we hit up Magnum, which is still running great and let the thigh bruises begin early.
We went to the back of the park next, to continue our Gemini Battle. If any of you remember the last trip [which I posted about here], you'll remember that my girlfriend took two out of three races from me on Gemini. I was not to be outdone this time, winning our first battle in the red train.
Then we walked back to Mean Streak, only to find that it was closed. Anger! We took the long way around FrontierTown and found that MF was back up and running. An hour wait later, and we were satisfied.
Noticing the long line for Mantis, we decided to skip it for now, and instead Wildcat and Iron Dragon were next on our trip. Iron Dragon was worse than I remembered it, but Wildcat was a lot more fun. Last time we were here, we took the Space Shot for a ride and hated it, but we neglected to give the Turbo Drop a chance. This time, however, we hooked it up, and man, it was so much better than the Space Shot. Minimum wait, too.
We took a SkyRide trip up to the front of the park to go on Raptor a couple of times, as well as Blue Streak. Then we waited about 30 minutes for Disaster Transport, which was better than I remembered [but still not worth the wait]. Wicked Twister's line was pretty long, so we by-passed it for the time being and went on Troika [which looks better than it runs]. Then we went over to Chaos to test out our skills of somersaulting our car. Unfortunately, we weren't as l33t as we'd hoped, AND we got stuck with a bad car, so we only flipped a couple of times. Oh well, that would change later in the trip [foreshadowing!].
We got back on the SkyRide - our preferred method of transportation - to head back to the other end of the park, and went on Millenium Force again, a 45-minute wait. Back to Magnum for a couple of more rides, and then we decided to leave, as it was getting pretty cold and we were getting pretty hungry.
We ate dinner at East of Chicago, which was a TERRIBLE letdown from the last time. The price was still okay, but the selection had drastically lowered, as had the quality. No more return visits here. Our choice of hotel was the EconoLodge on Cleveland Road. They gave us a smoking room [despite us asking for non-smoking], but that was quickly fixed. No real complaints about the room, except for a couple of stains on the mattress, and the ancient TV, but everything else was good - exactly what you'd expect for a $39.99 room.
The second day saw us shake our heads in disappointment at the "TOP THRILL DRAGSTER IS CURRENTLY CLOSED" sign. We shook that off with a ride on Magnum. Then we walked over to Millenium Force and hooked up another trip on that, 45 minutes wait. Right after, we noticed that FreeWay stamps were being given out, so we got us some of them. Yay no lines!
We went on Mantis next, and I liked it more than last time, but still not a lot. It's amazing that something that looks so twisted and awesome can be so disappointing. See: Mean Streak. Speaking of, we went on the CP&LE Railroad and headed back to the Mean Streak area. Unfortunately, they were transferring a second train onto the track, so we just continued our train journey through the skeleton town, which was hilarious and caught me off-guard [despite knowing it was there].
We stayed on the train again, and ended up BACK at Mean Streak - which was now successfully running again. Took a trip on that, which leads me to list Mean Streak as number one on my "Most Impressive Looking With Least Results" list. I mean, watching it haul ass around the track, you just think, "Wow." But riding it, you just think, "Ow." So promising, but so disappointing. Then I managed to whoop some more ass at the Great Gemini Battle - it's 2-0 for me so far, as I take the lead in our Gemini series, three wins to two, with a win on the blue train.
We hit Power Tower Turbo Drop, Wildcat, Iron Dragon and Mantis, and grabbing our FreeWay flight on Millenium Force. Then we headed back up to the front of the park on the SkyRide, and went on Raptor a couple of times and Blue Streak thrice before settling down and eating at Johnny Rocket's.
Gotta say, I love the atmosphere of the place, and the service is good, but man, the prices are just highway robbery. $7.50 for a burger that's not even as big as a Whopper is just.. wow. My girlfriend had the hotdog, and I figured, "Hey, at $5, it's probably at least a big-size hot dog!" But no! Just some little dinky thing. Good atmosphere, but not worth the visit.
After lunch, we headed over to Wicked Twister and took a ride. I love that thing. We even managed to be around for a joke launch, "Three, two - *whoosh* - oops." We went back on Chaos afterwards to perfect our spinning, and managed to get five or six tumbles on the first ride, but only one or two on the second. Placement of seating is very important here, I guess. We just got unlucky.
We hopped back on the SkyRide and took another couple of rides on Magnum before calling it a day.
As we drove out, we stopped along the sideroad to take pictures of Millenium Force dropping down the first hill from close-up. We waited for a few minutes - before I noticed that the train was actually stuck on the lift hill. So we drove up a bit and parked and took a few shots of the stagnant train. Security came over and gave us a bit of a hard time, so we ditched.
We went to dinner at Olive Garden, which was quite a disappointment. So far, food had been the worst part of the trip [even though I was incredibly pumped for it before we had left].
Third day, we were once again greeted by the sign that TTD was down again. Ugh. Three days, no Top Thrill. Figures that it would shut down the day before we come and open up the day after we leave. Brings back horrible memories of Volcano at PKD [which was down for an ungodly amount of time, and then opened up the day after I visited the park].
Anyway, we of course started our final day with a couple of Magnum trips before get another FreeWay stamp for MF. We went on Wildcat again before heading up to the front to ride maXair.
Having ridden Psyclone at Wonderland, I was sorely, sorely disappointed by the ride. Now, maybe we just had bad seats, or I was just annoyed at the terribly cold weather, but maXair totally changed my mind on all of this. We waited about 15 minutes [through a full queue that spilled out onto the midway], and sat seats 9 and 10. It was an awesome ride, way better than at Wonderland. So, we took another ride on it. Seats 30 and 31 this time, and another great ride. We went on Wicked Twister a couple of times, and then continued to try and master Chaos [seven somersaults in two rides], before hitting up maXair one more time [seats 41 and 42 I think].
Then we went back to the SkyRide and to Millenium Force for our FreeWay ride. Back down to Blue Streak and Raptor before heading to Famous Dave's for lunch. I had no clue what the place was like, or even that it was a BBQ joint [yes, I do live under a rock], but it was pretty good for what it's worth. Had a long talk with our server, Trevor, who was seriously wanting a big tip. He didn't get it. But he was nice enough anyway. I just hope to never see him again because he might remember me and want to kill me.
Back to the park, and one final ride on Millenium Force, an hour wait. Then we took the long way around to get on Gemini for our third and final battle. My girlfriend took the red side, hoping to pull off the final victory - but alas, she could not, as we tied the race, and I finished the trip undefeated! Woohoo! Another Magnum ride after that.
We set out on a mission to get Dippin' Dots, something that we'd never had but which had greatly interested us, when we noticed a line forming outside of TTD's queue. After a quick check of the trains [which had been on storage tracks for the whole trip, but were now positioned in the station], we lined up. After about 15 minutes, we decided that it just wasn't going to happen, and we purchased our Dots and left.
Those Dippin' Dots are really, really good. Very weird, but very good. In fact, I want more now. The price is the only thing holding me back from being addicted.
So then we started our journey home, and yeah.
That's our trip!
If you guys want to see pictures.. let me know.
*** Edited 5/19/2005 7:42:10 PM UTC by grind your soul***
Cool.... Sounds like a good trip besides the TTD issues. I'm glad you liked Maxair. I have not ridden Psyclone at Wonderland, but I do think it would be just an ok ride.
Coaster Count: 147
Well Psyclone and maXair, as far as I know, are quite similar. maXair is slightly bigger [I'm thinking maybe less than 20 feet] and it's arch isn't really that much bigger, either. So really, they should compare to one another.
However, they don't.
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