I was there last night from 445-815. I tried to talk my son into going but he didn't like the forecast. I was planning on renewing our platinum passes so I was going no matter what the weather, I didn't want to mess with this on closing day and was hoping to salvage a few good rides on a night with a dismal forecast.
I went to the marina entrance to head back to MF for early entry and there were just a handful of "regulars" and I had a nice time interacting with the employees and all of us braving the elements. As I said to the nice couple in front of me, it beats sitting home and watching TV and they agreed.
At 5pm we all high tailed it to MF just to hurry up and wait. I noticed Maverick was running on my way over and planned on heading there if MF didn't open in a few minutes. It was still running all 3 trains with water dummies, so I bailed and headed to Maverick. Maverick station was empty and I decided I would stay there and ride until MF was running. At one point while walking back in line I heard the lift hill clatter loudly as it will do on occasion and thought I heard screams as it dropped down the lift hill. Well one more on maverick and I was going back to MF, but it did not send anymore trains the entire time that I was in the park, not sure if they ever got it running. I decided to ride maverick until I tired, since the only thing I could see running was GK (you can see it from the top of the lift on Maverick). I got 5 rides and then she was down for weather, it was raining much heavier.
I went over and walked right on "Skyhawk H2O" as the ride op was saying. The rain slowed to a drizzle again and I commented about this to the person next to me and we were both pleased. Of course, I spoke to soon and the heavy rain started again. I ended up with wet thighs but everything else was water proof.
I headed to the bathroom to dry my gloves and jeans a little and decided I would head to the front of the park via Frontier Trail. At around 615 pm the winds started picking up and as I got within view of GK I noticed the train was stopped at the top of the hill and by now it was raining sideways with the wind getting pretty strong. A ride op was at the top of the hill and looked like he/she was talking to someone on the train, so I was feeling pretty sorry for those that appeared to be stuck in the windiest part of the ride, at least it was in their backs anyhow.
At this point I decided to renew our passes. I had to go out to my car, fill out and sign my check and put everything in a zip lock bag and handed it to the CP pass center employee, it was raining pretty steady and this was the only way to keep everything dry. At some point I noticed that GK sent a train through, probably the stuck one, but I was not sure. It did not run the rest of the time I was there.
I got a windy wild ride on WT, BS and walked back through the Gemini midway one last time at night to end the night with a 6th ride on Maverick. It was a wild ride with the strong wind and rain.
I grabbed a cup of coffee at Starbucks and called it a night at 815. Surprisingly, there were still some people entering the park on my way out and I was surprised that there were well more than 2-3 rows of cars in the lot.
In spite of the weather, I was dressed well and was actually hot due to all the walking. It was a good night.
Paul
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