Opening Day 2018

RideMan said:

GigaG said:
...Ever seen the video of Blue Streak doing a 20 second dispatch with ride ops riding the running boards (...)

For your convenience:
https://vimeo.com/rideman/bluestreak1991

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

This is amazing. Thank you. Just as I had remembered it. I’ll never forget seeing the changes to blue streak’s operations after having not visited the park in 25 years.

Any videos online of Gemini running six trains? Youtube turns up squat

Gemini ran six trains for years and years. They were timed so that one set of trains were in the station, one set was on the lift and one set was rounding the second turn.

^^The videos of one pair coming down the drop and another coming over the bunny hills were likely taken in that era, and it's a known fact Gemini ran 6 trains.

I hope they continue to run 6 trains on Gemini. That was always the best. That’s how I was able to ride it 42 times straight!!!

Hope they work out the bugs on SV, I’m sure they will. Growing pains. Some people on twitter need to chill. If you don’t like it don’t go opening day!!!!

Ride on!

Also it just proves that you can test run a coaster all day long but real world is much different.

Just got home my family had a great time. I had no expectations to get on SV today. We arrived around noon. Enjoyed being back in the park. My daughter is now over 48 inches so she was able to get a lot of first time rides and most queues were under 15 minutes.

Not all the food and beverage locations were open but the park has a few open in each area plus food trucks were in several locations to offer other options.

I was disappointed a few rides closed early ( Cedar downs closed at 3pm??)

I also had a great time. We did the 9am dash from the front gate to Steel Vengeance. Got off the ride at 1:15, just in time apparently. Instantly my new favorite coaster. I honestly couldn’t stop laughing during the whole thing. The airtime was just absolutely unreal.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying some rides and the beautiful weather. Got two Magnum rides in with relatively no wait, and it was running great. Had a fantastic lunch at Famous Dave’s and enjoyed the water.

Yeah, it was busy. After a horrible April weather wise it was sunny and 75. On a Saturday. On Opening Day. Of the most hyped new coaster in 18 years.

They were understaffed. The park was running at 2/3 potential ride wise. If you have looked at the history of Opening Days it was pretty par for the course. Other than the obvious Steel Vengeance incident, the only real bummers of the day were Dragster and Valravn not being ready. I saw some stuff on Twitter where butthurt people were bitching that “only 4 coasters are open!” Given the time of the tweet (around 5pm) that simply was not true.

Just saw Valraven running. Nice to see that CP is putting calories of food items on the menu boards now.

I got to the park around 10:00 and got in line at 10:50. It was about a 5 1/2 hour wait. I waited until the incident and finally left around 2:50. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get on the ride, but CP definetly made up for it by giving the people in line a free boarding pass through the exit for SV anytime this year. That was a nice thing for them to do since most of the people still in line have waited 3, 4, and for some, 5 hours. But the park definetly wasn’t at its best today. We finally left the park around 8:30 pm and only got to ride Gemini (non racing) and Corkscrew. Everything else we tried riding broke down. I wasn’t necessarily upset with things breaking down, I was just in a bad mood because I developed stomach ulcers and was in terrible pain the entire day, making me grumpy. Anyways, on the way out, the park handed out scratch cards with prizes. We won a BOGO admission ticket and $20 off of admission. Even with everything that happened today, I’m just happy that the park is open again and ready to deliver a great season of thrills. Ride on.

I could write a book on today or I could sum it up in one word, so I'll opt for the one word.

"Disorganised"

I disagree. They were doing crowd control at Steel Vengeance like a well oiled machine at park open. As for the rest of the park, they were just playing with a partial deck.

ImpulsivePhoenix said:
I wonder if there is any point of arriving at early entry if I choose to go tomorrow. I'm doubtful SV will be running, and I don't know how prepared the other rides will be. I remember last May the rides were slow to start on Early Entry.

The ride is scheduled to open and operate this morning; per park officials.

Saw video of Dragster running later in the day. Still haven't seen video of the queue stretching over the level crossing.

What happens if everybody shows up with their Vengeance exit pass at once? :-p

I was at the park from 9am to close. I had a great day. It's always a great day when one is within the CP gates! It's opening day......things happen, just be glad the park is open or us to enjoy once again.

I arrived around 8AM and parked in the CP Shores lot. It appears that a lot of people parked for free in the Preferred Parking lot. (didn't think to look to see if that entrance was staffed or not).

At 9am a fast walk was done to SV. I was off the ride at 9:40ish. Voyage at Holiday World is still my #1. I need to ride SV a few more times as it does not meander around its course like MS did for all its years. SV is a great ride and I am looking forward to more rides this year.

The staffing level did seem lower then past opening day low staffing levelsl. At least the park is making attempts at making rides available with these partial times that some flats were open, All coasters were operating by afternoon except for Wicked Twister) and the SV incident). It would appear that due to 'construction' aka moving dirt around the old stadium site that Tiki Twirl, Troika, Giant Wheel, and WT went down as crews showed up in the evening hours, turned on construction,6 lights and started working.

I did walk from the resort entrance all the way to the front parking lot along the boardwalk. One gets a nice view of the former stadium site, as well as, different views of Gatekeeper. What I was not expecting was to see the boardwalk just abruptly end at the parking lot. I thought they might have 'continued' it along the parking lot sidewalk to the main entrance. In any case, the entrance to the boardwalk is nicely marked with the arches.

As for the food/beverage. There were times when the computers had gone down and one could not be processed for use of the drink plan. But later all was working again.

Since I was not able to make my scheduled platinum pass preview day this past Monday due to a family emergency that arose, I shelled out the $7.29 minus pass discount in order to try a slice of the Smokehouse BBQ pizza. (mid day snack) It was good. What was odd was to order and pay (not get a receipt) and then go to the pick up your order line and tell employee what I ordered. Other patrons did have receipts....now that was odd. Must have been a known register issue or something that management knew was not printing receipts.

For lunch, I went to the Firehouse Grilling Company food truck due to lines at the food stands that were open. The Smokehouse burger has got to be one of the best burgers I have ever had.....oh and the Bourbon Brownie.....YUM!

For evening food....Just like opening day at KI I tried the new smokehouse offerings. I had the ribs at KI (which were good), but that was not offered at CP. The smoked sausage was very good as was the Mac N Cheese.

So all in all I had an enjoyable day at the park!

Speaking of mac and cheese, I had some at Famous Dave’s yesterday. I’m not sure if it was new or I just had never had it, but it had bits of corn and pepper in it and was sort of a southwest-y mac and cheese and some of the best mac I have ever tasted!

Shawn Meyer said:

^ Thank you TwistedWicker and Bluestreaker for helping me not feel left out there. I feel better now! I plan on going on Mother's day. She normally doesn't care because she works Sunday's so maybe I'll have a better crowd than today anyway.

Opening day wasn't convenient for me I'm planning to get up there today some time. We usually go on Mother's Day because that's what this mother likes to do. It's usually not too busy.

In regards to the boardwalk continuing past the parking lot toward the front entrance, I would've thought they would do the same thing too. Either way, I'm overly excited for the Sand Bar area.

^^ How are the crowds on Mothers Day?

Didn’t they used to have parades, bands, shows, and characters all throughout the park on opening day? The last three opening days I’ve been to didn’t have those (that I saw at least). I feel like it just doesn’t feel very special without all of the exciting entertainment.