Western Cruise

I found this picture of the old Western Cruise. I noticed on the left side of the picture, you can see one of the supports for Corkscrew. To me, it looks like the boat ride traveled under the coaster, or at least really close. Any old timers remember this?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053362/fb9c9300.jpg

*** Edited 7/27/2005 1:31:08 AM UTC by villiageidiot***

God that must have been a long time ago

Yep it used to travel all the way down to the old Paddlewheel Cafe (which is now the drive-in). It also had a drop-off in Frontier Town as well. When I worked PWE we specifically mentioned "the ride does not stop in Frontier Town". The ride was significantly shortened in 1987 to make way for Iron Dragon. I was a Captain in 95 and 96 which was the last year the original boats were used in the lagoon and before the goof guides were put in place to assit with docking. :)

Lots of fun driving those boats on really windy days.

Capt. Matt

I've seen pictures before that showed that the lagoon extended out under Corkscrew and that surprised me. I love to see old pictures of the park, I wish I could find more.

Actually, that wasn't too long ago. I think it got moved to where it is today when the Summer Spectacular started.

They look like the ferry boats at GL. Only a little smaller.

That is a Corkscrew arch, just the bottom portion where you can't see the track.

http://www.schmidty.com/vmhistory/history/misc.asp

Click on those pictures, they show that area.

Midway near Iron Dragon (1989)

Paddlewheel Cafe (1993)
*** Edited 7/27/2005 2:10:36 AM UTC by Vince982***

I found the area it was taken from on a map

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1Y5MKR9XQ455N05MNOLS3DM0PR

This map is from 1995 so the Iron Dragon is in the way.

Scroll down to the last picture:

http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/Coasterpages/cphistory.htm.

I just found it while looking at old threads and that like happened to be there.

Vince982 said:
Scroll down to the last picture:

http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/Coasterpages/cphistory.htm.

I just found it while looking at old threads and that like happened to be there.

Cool, that is a much better picture. It's neat to see how that area has changed.

It was a real coincidence that I found it. I happened to be looking through old threads in the General Forum and I was around page 25-30 and I saw that link, clicked on it, saw that pic, and said "damn, that is the perfect picture to answer this thread." I love old pictures of Cedar Point, areas of the park before major attractions ie: Millennium Force, TTD, Magnum, etc, too bad they are so hard to find.

*** Edited 7/27/2005 4:26:57 AM UTC by Vince982***

The ride was moved to its current location prior to the 1987 season to accommodate Iron Dragon. I don't ever recall it making any stops in Frontiertown.

In never stopped in FrontierTown but the stop across from the Depot was close enough that it was referred to as FrontierTown. You can see the stop in the original picture. You can still see the cleats where they tied the boats up just under the track by corkscrew where the radio controlled boats used to be.

Western Cruise never, ever made a stop in Frontiertown. The announcement was made to warn guests of that fact, in case anyone thought that it did make a stop.

Western Cruise was a show ride, not a transportation ride. It wouldn't even be logical to make a stop and let people out half way through the show.

Matt, I don't know what you mean by the Depot, but the ride didn't stop anywhere other than the dock that guests boarded at. The cleats that were near the Corkscrew track was boat storage in the 60's/early 70's. It was never used when passengers were on board.

Didn't it dock right past the paddlewheel cafe? Which would be just before the entrance to Frontiertown? I apologize if I mislead people wasn't my intention, I just seemed to recall being able to get off the ride and not making a complete loop. However I was very young then. :)

Here is a map that shows where my confusion came from and the reason (I belive) Frontiertown was added to the spiel. The ride did originally board very close to frontier trail. I think my wording is what confused things. I often refer to frontier trail as part of frontiertown. Semantics get in the way of everything! :)

http://www.themeparkbrochures.com/maps/1980/cp1980large.html *** Edited 7/27/2005 4:30:52 PM UTC by Captain Matt***

I never knew that the skyride went that far.

It didn't. There were two "skyrides" before the installation of Iron Dragon. The one that is currently there, and the Frontier Lift which connected the main midway with the frontier trail. The FT station is still there in the form of a bathroom (its the 2-story bathroom that looks like a skyride station). The other station was where the Iron Dragon station now sits.

Looking at the 1980 map, it looks like there was only one island. Before TTD was built, weren't there two? If you look at the 1995 map you will see there are two islands, what would eventually be Millenium Island and the island that Iron Dragon was on. Or is the 1980 map just not drawn accurate?