May 20 & 21 - Finally Made It!

Well, I had to wait two weeks, but we finally made it to the park! Took care of the season pass business Friday night, and got into the park for some twilight rides on the Magnum before the 8pm closing time. I managed to get 8 rides in before the park closed, the last two of which were really good trims-off rides. There was a pretty good breeze off the lake, and it was cool up on the hills. Lots of rollers on the lake. The park was quiet, and I never waited more than a single dispatch for a ride, and several of them were true walk-ons, including one front-seat ride. Magnum was running great, with no problems at all, and they were running 3 trains, which was a bit of a surprise, but hey, it kept the station empty.

After a night spent at the Best Budget Inn in downtown Port Clinton, I was back at CP in time to hear the lift hill start on Saturday morning. My wife & daughter were in Canton for a wedding shower, so I hooked up with my niece & 2 grand-nephews for the day. Zack is in second grade and is already a coaster nut. He joined me for five rides on the Magnum, several of which were walk-ons. I love having that coaster virtually to myself! The first few were trims-off, as it was early, and they were screamers. I picked up some bruises Friday and Saturday, that's for sure.

After five rides, they closed the Magnum briefly for some reason, maybe to add a train. I am not sure, so we moved on down for a ride on the Corkscrew, and then some Dippin Dots for the kid. The crowd was starting to thicken by then, lots & lots of matching band T-shirts in the park that day. A ride on the CP & LE took us around to Frontier Town where we took a turn on Whitewater Landing, then a trip on the Cadillac Cars. Stopped to feed the cannibal fish and baby geese on the bridge near the Mine Ride.

On the way to the Gemini, we ran into Dick Kinzel and three other white-shirts coming off of the tracks from the direction of Boneville. He saw my PointBuzz shirt and said, with a laugh,"Magnum is sinking!?" I said, "That's what they tell me." He said, "I hope not!", and I replied "So do I!". The white shirts all had a good laugh over that. Fun guy, with a good sense of humor.

After that encounter, we had a good red-train ride on the Gemini, an excellent walk-on with the Monster, and a trip around the lagoon with Captain Kate on the Winnebago. Then it was off with the niece & 2 grand-nephews down the Frontier Trail for a nice mid-afternoon, let-the-tourists-stand-in-line stroll. Fed some ducks at the Petting Farm, and checked out the shops on the way, stopping for a chat with the wood carver who is doing a magnificent basswood rendition of the old Kiddie Kingdom hippo.

Back on the midway, we passed on Iron Dragon, which had a line filling half of the cattle pens, and the Wildcat as well. Waited 1 cycle for the Dodgems, and about 15 minutes for the Skyride. When did they move the loading point so far forward? And why?

At the other end of the midway, Zack had his first ride on Demon Drop, which immediately led to his second ride. "That was cool, Uncle Tim!" I noticed that they blocked off the midway access from that side, so you must go around past Donut Time to get to the main midway from the Demon Drop exit. That's OK, because it was 4-shot latte time from the Starbucks anyway.

Enjoyed the latte on the stroll down to get my first up-close look at maXair. Noted with sadness the removal of the red molded plastic seats which used to surround the trees. Another childhood memory gone. Also noted the thousands of cubic yards of new concrete that has been poured. The maXair ride is visually impressive, and boy, it moves a lot of air on each swing. Unfortunately, I will not be riding it, as I am sure I will not fit in the seat, and even if I did, my body is too long for the distance between the shoulder harness and the seat base. Took a ride on the Troika, another old fave, and then it was off to Ocean Motion.

What the heck did they do down there? The ride cycle is super-short, and they have totally changed the loading procedure. Gone is the long rope which allowed you to line up more or less where you wanted to be on the ride. Now you are stopped at the turnstile, and they only let you through to the platform when the ride is empty. This means you have no real opportunity to get to either end of the ride unless you are one of the first 10 or 12 people boarding. I guess that's OK, because they were only loading it to about half capacity anyway. Nothing like taking something that works really well and making a mess of it.

After Ocean Motion it was off to the Pagoda for a little shopping, as I hadn't managed to find my annual hat yet. Found a good one there. I love the Pagoda. After the hat purchase, it was time to say goodbye to the kids, and head back to Port Clinton. It was a good first day in the park for me, and I am looking forward to more of the same. The weather was great, and the employees I encountered seemed to be enthused about their jobs, and friendly to the guests.

My only regret for this weekend? I didn't bring a fishing pole! I woke up very early this morning, and took a walk down by the lake, behind the motel, to work out the stiffness and muscle cramps caused by 2 days of walking CP and riding coasters. It was about 5:45 am, and the lake was like glass. The air was utterly still, and the steam from the Davis-Besse cooling tower was drifting arrow straight into the sky. I was on a patio-deck next to the rocks at the lakeshore, watching the water literally boiling with walleye! It was amazing. They were piling on top of each other, breaking the surface, going crazy. It was like watching the carp at CP. I could see hundreds of fish, climbing all over each other, feeding on whatever the early morning entrée was. I could have caught my limit in walleye in minutes, without half trying. I will not leave my pole at home if I stay there again, because guests are welcome to fish there!

I also went and here is my tr great Job.

got to the park at 10:00 am

Got in line for season pass which ended up being a two hour wait. First ride I hit was maxair. The line was all the way to the end of the kiddie bumper cars. It only took 40 Minutes, Do not be alarmed if the lineis out of the queve the ride gets 50 people out every two minutes, great loading by the crew. Then I headed to Magnum. I got the ejector seat and it was an awesome ride. The paint looks amazing and the crew was like clock work they had every train leaving the station at the same time. Great Job. I thne proceeded to hit the paddle wheel to check out the mysterous mouynds of durt. I also noticed that some trees have been knocked downand there was a make shift road are cut out of the trees. I don't know what is going on there I will just wait and see. Next up was gemini. Its line streched all the way into the mid way. I could see that only one line to the back of the train was going up. I decided to ride when i get back there all the queve lines are full for only one side of the ride. I then head to gt some Custard with my dad. We then decide to leave the park because I had an obligations I had to go to. Great day

Max Air 10/10 awesome!

Magnum 9/10 Great crew

Gemini 9/10 For getting everyone on the ride in about 20 minutes.

Paddle wheel 10/10 The most awesome ride I have ver rode it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time, Wow. ( Sarcastic)

I left around 3 and it was a great day. The parkin lkot was full on the right side with cars and the left with busses. It was band day and medical health familuy day.

P.S sorry there were no pictures next time I will take my new camra.

CP/PKIdude,

Isn't the que line for MaxAir the oddest thing? Good Lord do you know what lines are going to be like for that thing in July? They are going to stretch down past Oceana (it will always be Oceana to me) and around the Peanut's Playground to the Pagoda!!! What the heck were they thinking?

CPLurker

They were thinking of not wasting money and space on a permanent queue. And how do we know what they will do when crowds get bigger. They are already using a bit of temporary rails, what's to say they couldn't pull out more when the crowds really get going? I'm glad they didn't waste a ton of space on queues that won't be used in 5 years *cough*PowerTower*cough*.

Excellent point John. Still, it is only about a 100 person que (took 2 loads for me to get through it). I figured they would have designed the que to allow overflow lines down the games midway. You know how kids like to screw around on the que line bars, so not real sure the temp bars are a great idea. It will be interesting. They need to design these ques so that a portion of them can be removed in several years when the ride's novelty wears off. Put in another drink stand or something... lol. I'll stand by my statement. It's gonna be a problem during the busy months. Luckily the WT midway isn't very busy.

CPLurker

"Bring back the Penguins!"
*** Edited 6/1/2005 12:21:18 PM UTC by CPLurker***