May 19-21: A great Sandusky Weekend!

I just got back to South Bend after a great weekend in Sandusky.

My friends and I arrived to Breakers Express around 3PM Friday afternoon. The rain was just clearing the Sandusky area so we knew the lines would be short. We got our tickets, and hotel keys, took a brief gander at the shiny new Intamin track and headed to the park.

It amazes me that even after working at the park for 2 seasons, and visiting it numerous times, how much I still get excited as I cross the Causeway, and accelerate over the Causeway Bunny Hop... ;)

I got my Season Pass processed (No Wait), drove back past the construction site, and on to the Soak City lot, and then had to wait 30 minutes until 4:00 so my friends could get into the park with me for their Starlight admission. Finally it was time to ride...

First ride was of course, Magnum. We got 2 quick rides (6-2 and 1-2)... Both great. While the paint looks great, it didnt do much to smooth the ride much, however the trims were off due to the cooler weather... that was a plus.

We then spent the next 4 hours getting 11 more rides and one delicious 25c Cotton Candy. It was one ride after another. We left the park at 7:45 and we rode:

Magnum (3 total)
Gemini
Skyhawk (More about this ride below)
Millennium Force (was a tight fit!)
Iron Dragon
Wicked Twister
maXair
Raptor
TTD

My first ride on Skyhawk was less than expected. I guess my expectations were too high, and that made me not able to appreciate the ride for what it is... I left the park Friday not sure of my full opinion on the ride, but I was willing to give it another try.

Friday night was capped off by watching the Pistons/Cavs game with a Steakburger and Half Yard at Gerolds Old Dutch Tavern... If you have never had a Dutch Burger... you don't know what you are missing...

Onto Saturday...

We woke up early and got to the park for Resort Early Entry. We walked to the Marina Gate and made a brisk walk to MF. Even by walking briskly, we easily beat the other two entrances and got the first train of the day on MF. We followed that up with another ride while the line was still on the ramp. We then went back to the other Early Ride of the day Skyhawk. I was still undecided after Friday's ride, but after 4 more rides in 10 minutes time, it quickly grew on me. The visuals, airtime, and power of the ride are quite amazing... The only downside, as everyone has mentioned, is the cycle length.

By 10:30 the park was in full swing and it was clear it was going to be a very busy day... Especially for May. The parking lot was moderately full, but the real shocker was the amount of busses in the lot. From what I figured out there was some type of music festival in the park yesterday, as it seemed every other guest walking around had a band or choir t-shirt on, in addition the crowds were also larger because the weather was so beautiful and CP hasn't seen much of that lately. After getting so many rides on Friday, we decided to just walk around and enjoy the park, and ride whenever we happened to get the chance. There were some great bands playing on the Midway, so we stopped to enjoy them. After that we had a decent lunch at Macaroni's and took another lap around the park to ride whatever we could. We stopped in the Red Garter for the 3 PM Rock the House, and I saw Jeff, but didnt get a chance to say hi. The show was good as usual, but nothing majorly different from the Rock shows I've seen in the past there. The vocals were very solid though... especially from the males. Next we decided that we should go back to the hotel to rest, and hope that the crowds would clear up by 6 or so...

We were wrong...

We returned to the park at 6:30 and saw that MF was stopped just out of the station, and that the queues were emptied (never a good sign), our next sign that the crowds had not thinned was seeing a full block of queues in use for Mean Streak. .We wandered around the park in awe of how many people were still in the park, Corkscrew was even using queues with a 30-45 minute wait. I got a few more rides in, enjoyed a Cheese-on-a-Stick and finished up the day with a flight on Skyhawk and 2 more laps on Magnum.

We left the park right at close, went back to the Hotel, went right to sleep as we were exhausted from the two days. This morning, I got one more lap around the park to look at the construction site again, and then headed back to South Bend.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend, despite the crowds. I think the park seemed overall more alive than it has in past years. The crowds were literally eating up the 25c cotton candy (I had 4), and the majority of the ride hosts were enthusiastic, including those on some of the smaller rides. I even saw Mr Kinzel taking his walk around the park, and saw Monty up near Demon Drop quite a bit... hmm... Anyway I have typed enough so I will finish this TR with a summary of all my rides for the weekend:

Magnum - 7 laps
Skyhawk - 6
Millennium Force - 3
Gemini - 3
Chaos - 2
maXair - 2
Mean Steak - 1 (Seemed much faster than I remembered)
Iron Dragon - 1
Wicked Twister - 1 (Also seemed faster than last year)
Raptor - 1
Blue Streak - 1
Ocean Motion - 1 (haha)
Dragster - 1
CCMR - 1
Power Tower (Shot) - 1
Sky Ride - 2 (;))
CC&LE RR (To look at construction!)

Total: 32 Rides (minus transport rides)

Photos from the Weekend:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18597748@N00/sets/72057594141477663/

*** Edited 5/22/2006 12:23:31 AM UTC by Josh M.***

You're right, It was a great weekend...even with the insane-for-May Saturday crowd.

Oh, and yes. There WAS a national bank/choir competion in Sandusky this weekend. My neice was part of it.

MrScott

Saturday was about a 30-35. A really decent May crowd.

Nothing quite like waiting 30 minutes to ride the Antique Cars. ;)

Haha... even worse was the notion of actually standing in the queues for Corkscrew...

What was even more funny is at the end of the night there was a 10 minute wait for Magnum, so we were making it our last ride of the night, when some guys in front of us saw the time and said "Oh man, the park is about to close, we have to ride Corkscrew!"... and they jumped out of line. Sure enough, when our train was coming back into the station at 10:08, Corkscrew still appeared to be running loaded... haha...

Once it qiut raining Friday, the weekend turned out great! Yes Saturday was busier than I expected. But it is a good sign. Otherwise, how are they going to pay for the new rides?! :)

Saturday, I only had about 20 rides on Magnum. Most were in morning before crowd hit.