What exactly is Paddlewheel Excursions?

I've been going to CP since '94 and have seen PE on the map and heard it mentioned here. What exactly is it? Is it a river ride/tour or what??

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Brian
Greensburg PA
Hometown parks: Kennywood, Cedar Point!

It used to be the Western Cruise, renamed Paddelwheel Excursions in 1987 when the Iron Dragon was built on it's old loading station location. It's just a paddelwheel boat that you sit in and travel around the lagoon. You pass by mechanical characters in a Western theme and listen to bad jokes by the captain. I'm not sure how many people each boat holds, maybe about 50. The location is hard to find if you are not familiar with CP.

Er, yes.

A collection of too-small boats cruises around the island in the middle of the lagoon system, where Millennium Force's second major turnaround will be. Surrounding the channel on both sides are dioramas, some animated, some not. The boat captain pilots the boat around the course, telling bad jokes the whole time...bad jokes usually but not always related to the scenes on the lagoon bank. Paddlewheel Excursions is a sanitized and expurgated re-make of the Western Cruise, a similar ride which had its dock about where Iron Dragon's lift approach is now. The old version had hostile Indians. The new version, in these more enlightened days, does not.

Paddlewheel Excursions used the large 'stern-wheel' boats from the time it started up in 1987 until 1997 when Chaos replaced the crane they used to use to get the boats in and out of the lagoon. Now, the smaller "side wheel" boats are pulled out using a ramp located beneath Mantis:TCFKAB.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

(how many people)

Try 26. If you squeeze hard.

The old boats could take about 50.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

"enlightened days"

Arrgghhh! I hate the trend toward sanitized, homogenized, pasteurized, and desensitized!
I remember when the old "Western Cruise" opened. It was a pretty well done tour of a stylized "pioneer settlement" showing conceptualized dioramas of frontier life. They were comical, and fun, and in some ways, educational. The jokes came later, and they were fun, too. It has evolved into a bland, lifeless caricature of the orginal. There is no flow to the series of the dioramas, like there once was, and the jokes seem to be told for the sake of sarcasm, rather than the fun "puns" the captains were so famous for. I realize why they had to replace the boats, but the old ones had real style. The new ones are really crappy little motor barges. :(

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Timothy A. Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn"
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tabretz

Yeah, whatever. You know what I call it? BORING!
Ride a coaster guys, forget the stupid boat ride. Same jokes, every year, every tour guide. Raptor, different, every time. Different seat, different people riding with you, different weather. Sorry, I don't mean to offend you if you like it, but I think it is boring.
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Thank you for riding the Raptor and enjoy your day here at Cedar Point, America's Rockin' RollerCoast!

Their are four boats but only two or less operate at a time the others are docked by Chaos. I am guessing that Cedar Point just wants to be ready in case for some reason the Q-lines start filling up. The New boats are actually powered by a motor if my memorye serves me correctly (the wheels are just for looks), yes 25 is right though I have never seen that many on one boat. A new joke was added last season by none other than my Grandmother. LOL. Too be honest every new ride since Mantis has been built around Paddlewheel and six others before that. The scenery of the rides is breath taking and Cedar Point has made sure that the captains and dock hands know their coasters. In fact in recent years they have given out roller coaster fact sheets to some of the captains. You can learn interesting and TRUE facts about rides surrounding Paddlewheel Excursions and They even sometimes through in some original jokes about the rides. I only got to ride PE 12 times this season but on previous seasons I have gotten up to 30 rides in a day. The captains used to let me re-ride on slow days. The ride is fun for a first timer, relaxing, full of facts, and puts the lagoons to good use. I now look at this ride as more of a family or even kiddy ride rather than an exciting excursion on the Cedar Point lagoons, however. I remember back when you could sometimes get a little wet from cannonballs and bullets flying about. I at one point disagreed about Cedar Point's being bad at theme when people where referring to just Disaster Transport but now I see that that was not the first.

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AKA: bodyin thewaterball fountain.

Paddlewheel Excursions: 12
Jokes on PE: 120 *** This post was edited by bodyin thelagoon on 12/31/99. ***

first of all, there's been as many as 42 passengers on the paddlewheel boat this year, and secondly, the reason the jokes are the same every year is because the script used has been in place since the 1960's. the script cannot be changed unless approved by "the silver tags" and therefore will stay sensitized for all ages and/or races. just to clear a few things up the reason the ride continues is because it's one of the only 4 attractions at the park, and several people like to take a load off and sit in the shade for the 10 minute cruise. however, it is speculated that it'll provide transportation from it's current departure spot to next to the millenium entrance. nothing made deffinite on that, but "the silver tags" have discussed it.

Oooh Captain Noah hello from Massachusetts!! E-mail me! (if you remember lil old Natalie from TC)

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Natalie
CP Ride Operations '99-'00

Kumba Cayl: Two words for you: FAMILY RIDE. If you don't like it, don't waste our time with pointless commentary about how lame it is.

Oh, and because my sense of history isn't what it should be, and it's one of few gems I have, you can still ride the original boats on the Cuyahoga River in the The Flats of Cleveland, shuttling drunks between the east and west banks (which are curiously north and south among the twisting banks). The boats dock, I think, next to the "gentleman's club" formerly known as Tiffany's.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 50
*** This post was edited by Jeff on 11/11/2000. ***

Baaad jokes, that's true (my opinion), but it is a very classic CP ride -- I remember going on it every year before I was ever tall enough for the coasters. Kids get a great kick out of it, and it can be fun.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/
Make your VOTE COUNT! Take the POLL!

I actualy like PE. When you need to rest for a bit, and or when you want to get some cool pics of Mantis or MF, PE is where you go. The jokes are cheesy it's true, but cheesy jokes rule. It's just a change of pace, thats why I like PE.

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Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. -Ozzy

Bodyin...YOU'RE BACK!! :)

Hey Jeff, look when Kumba Cayl posted that. Talk about a topic brought back from the dead.

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Number 1 And Only Cedar Point.

ah, lucky you, the young and tolerent...of things that spin and fly and spiral!! Give those of us with infirm limbs and limited equlibrium a break and leave us the sedate--jokes and all....

I think it's a fun ride, and it's a good time to rest your feet. I know of one joke I heard this year that I heard in 1998 though.

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Visit Cedar Point the Amazement Park!
www.geocities.com/madogeric

Hey Captain Noah! What's up?

The only thing worse than riding and listening to the "corny" jokes, is having a Paddlewheel Captain for a roomate! :) Captain Nate was always trying out new material on me.

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Kevin
2000 Raptor Crew

One thing that probably not too many people noticed about the old boats is that the paddlewheel was fake on those boats also. It was freewheeling and moved because of the motion of the boat. This was easy to spot when the captain put the boat into reverse, the paddlewheel didn't reverse. Also, if you looked at it carefully, you would see it had not type of drive mechanism attached to it.

..and when the boats where in reverse you had NO STEERING. Made it fun pulling the boats back to the gas dock which was located by the Frontier Lift station.
It is a "different ride" now then it was as the Western Cruise but I still ride it once a year so I can say I rode every ride in the Park.
I just don't know about those uniforms...(maybe I shouldn't talk...see my info for reference):)

My favorite scene from the old WC was the sunken burning boat by the first railroad trestle. When did they take that out? Did it last into the PE conversion? So many of my mid eighties CP memories blend into one.