Run and Ride Race Weekend, June 9-11

This past weekend my wife and I made the trip from Indy for the Run and Ride Race. We did the weekend admission package which is a phenomenal deal. $65 gets you 3 days in the park, free parking every day, early entry race morning, a one-time FL+ voucher, coupons for food and merch in the park, and the race itself and the swag that comes with it (aka a shirt).

We got to town late Thursday night and stayed at the Seacrest Motel in town. It was a really nice little place and highly recommended at the price compared to other similarly priced options.

I want to write a detailed review of the weekend but it would end up with too much repetition. Instead I'll write a few observations of the park itself as well as some rides.

There is nothing like that first sight of the CP skyline when you hop on the causeway. My last visit was 2015 and my wife's was 2013. We were there Friday morning early enough to be first in line at the marine entrance for 10 AM entry. It was really cool watching Valravn run while we were waiting. It's a really imposing ride and looks really cool in that spot. The face-lift the whole area got with that ride looks great. While we didn't ride it first, we did get one ride in each day we were there. Not only was this my first ride on Valravn but it was my first dive coaster experience overall. It was a lot of fun. We got a ride in each row--front middle, and far left in both 2nd and 3rd. Front row was cool but the middle isn't as good because you're over the track. The 2nd row far left ride was the best because when you're stopped at the top you're hanging over nothing but ground. Oh, and that ride was also at night, which was really cool. It had a couple other fun weightless moments as well. The airtime hill was a little underwhelming. This ride did have some issues Friday night and part of Saturday. Overall a great addition to the park that I'll ride every trip.

MF is still my favorite coaster in the world. The first drop is unrivaled and the three airtime hills are awesome. Back row is best! We rode MF probably a total of 8 times all weekend.

Maverick is a close second. We rode twice in a row our first morning, first time in the very back and the next time in row 5. I actually thought row 5 was a bit more intense. I like the right side best because the drop coming out of the tunnel launch is better from there. This is a phenomenal ride and we got to ride it a bunch over the course of the weekend. Sunday morning we came here after MF first thing and we rode it 3 straight times over the course of just about an hour.

Magnum has got to be the most underrated coaster in the park. Regardless of what people say here, the consistently short wait times compared to other rides in the park says it all. This is such a fun ride! The first drop is great and the bunny hills toward the end are crazy! I love this ride and hope it lasts many more years.

Raptor was a favorite of mine for a long time but when we rode it Friday it was a letdown. We were in the very back and it was kinda boring. It felt slow and was a bit more rough than I remember. I'll definitely ride it again next time and probably will go for front row. Fortunately the wait was really short Friday.

Gatekeeper is probably in my top 5 in the park. We got to ride it enough to figure out our favorite spot is in the left back row. You really get pulled down the first drop quickly. We did make the foolish decision to ride front row in the evening when the bugs were at their worst. We won't be doing that again.

Top Thrill Dragster has always been a mixed bag for me. The ride itself is a lot of fun, but it's so quick that I don't find it worth more than a 45-60 minute wait. Fortunately all we waited on Friday was about 45. That ended up being our only time on TTD. Saturday would've been too long of a wait and it didn't run at all on Sunday when we were there until 4ish.

I have a make mention of the great Skyhawk. This is another severely underrated ride (again, based on typical wait times). The feeling of getting thrown into the sky on the way up, the feeling of dangling over nothing on the way back, and the coaster-type drop feeling in the swing add up to such a fun ride.

I wonder how long Windseeker and/or Wicked Twister will last. WT seemed to be down a lot and when it's up usually seems to have such low ridership. Of course we all know what a waste of space Windseeker is. It's a really fun ride with amazing views but it's down so much for high winds/weather it just seems like a waste to me. I was really hoping to ride it at sunset but it was barely running all weekend. With both of them being so close I could see them getting rid of both to make room for something else along the beach.

Mean Streak 2.0 or whatever you want to call it looks like it's gonna be so fun. It doesn't look like two tracks to me, but I didn't get real close or anything.

Overall this was the best trip to CP I've ever had. I've never gone for more than 2 days before. We consistently only had to wait 30 minutes of left for almost everything we rode, with only a few rare exceptions at peak times. The only time we had a weather issue was Friday night in the last hour. Saturday and Sunday were extremely hot but that didn't stop us from riding. Fortunately we had some BOGO ice cream coupons from our race swag.

Oh, about the race. We were so exhausted from Friday and Saturday in the park that we actually missed our alarms and slept through the race. Oops!

The last line is the awesomeness! Came for the race, got the swag, slept right through it...

Priceless!

Please come back and visit again!

Oh we will! I want to come back for the race weekend. It's such a steal! We probably would've been more upset about missing the race if we'd trained for it. Next year hopefully we will. Then the walking through the park the two days prior won't wear us out quite as much.