So, just *had* to get your TR in at 3:47 in the morning, didnja? Fine, I'll just piggyback.
My family has their annual reunion in Point Pleasant every July. Now I hate reunions, but this year I finally broke down and went -- primarily as an excuse to drive the additional 45 minutes to Huntington.
Camden Park's web site has a pretty good combo deal with the local Best Western. $109 for one night and four free passes. Since the passes normally run $21, I figured out that meant the hotel was only $25. Sounded like a good deal to me. (I won't get into the ridiculous checking in problems we experienced and will instead save them for a future episode of I Love Lucy.)
Since it was just my six year old daughter and I, we were able to use two of the tickets for Saturday evening and the other two Sunday afternoon. Both days were insanely hot and muggy; only the first evening was particularly busy, with ride waits of ten to fifteen minutes typical. The next day most attractions were walk on.
The park is in a pretty location, nestled between one of the main east-west thoroughfares and a small, tree-lined tributary of the Ohio River. There were some nice views of the river from picnic shelters behind the rides.
It's obvious an attempt to upgrade the park is being made. The parking lot looks like new asphalt. The new putt putt golf course is nothing exceptional, but it is nicely themed with animatronic hillbillies (and aren't those the best kind?) Big Dipper boasted some new wood on some of the straights and bents, although it woulda been nice if they could have taken a stab at painting the rest of the ride. It looks absolutely decrepit. I saw what appeared to be a new catwalk going all the way around the L'il Dipper.
Everywhere you look, it's a weird juxtaposition of decrepitude and shiny newness. Example: the Flyers look to be practically brand new. The concrete pad underneath looks fairly fresh, yet it is torn up by some impressive cracks overgrown with weeds.
Big Dipper offers a surprisingly intense ride. In the back car there are three really sweet pops of air. It's a standard double figure eight design with a long tunnel enclosing the 'out' half of the second eight. It was quite fun, and we opted to ride it three times on Saturday and a couple more the next day.
L'il Dipper is that rarest of creatures, a kiddie woodie with a steel structure. It's a fairly mild ride, not as jerky as it looks. Worth it if you're a credit ho, and arguably so even if you're not.
I agree with Gonch about the ride ops. The guy running Big Dipper was great! He tried to fire up each train that left the station. As we re-rode a number of times, we got to talk a good bit. He was very proud of 'his' coaster and boasted both its 50 year anniversary and the much older train. When I mentioned they looked like old style PTC Flyers he practically jumped up and down. I asked if the headlights still worked and he said yes, but they weren't allowed to turn them on because they weren't replaceable. As a bonus, he gave us what he called a 'turbocharged' ride. He cranked the lift motor up to what must have been full throttle, giving us a quicker cresting of the lift hill and noticeably faster momentum on the course. Woo! I didn't even know those old chain lifts were equipped with variable speed motors.
The log ride was terrific. The two hills were deceptive in their short height; the first was only about ten feet tall and the second maybe 22, but we got fairly soaked even so. The rest of the course, the entire channel is sunk directly into the ground, so you're riding amid the grass. It was oddly pleasing. I seem to remember riding another log ride that somewhere, but I can't place the park.
It was weird how arbitrarily the height restrictions were enforced. Most of the time, they weren't at all. I saw a kid who couldn't have cleared three feet get on L'il Dipper, which had a 48" min. height posted. At Bullseye, which is basically a Roundup themed like a roulette wheel, the height marker looked to be at least 52 inches, but the ride op decided my 49 1/2" tall daughter was tall enough. I'm not complaining.
On almost every flat we rode, we got fantastic ride times. We received one of the best rides on a Tilt-a-Whirl I've ever gotten. Ditto for the Spider.
I opted out of riding the Skydiver, in part because I didn't want to leave my daughter for that long, but also because I don't like how those slowly inverting rides tear up my shoulders. However, we did take on the Skyliner -- the single scariest skyride I've ever seen. The pulley mechanisms on either side of the support poles rattle back and forth, and the poles themselves sway noticeably. I tried to disguise my terror when the kids in the gondola behind us started bouncing up and down, causing the entire cable to reverberate (and us too).
The Skyliner follows the entire layout of the putt putt golf course overhead, and my vanity was tickled when my hole in one shot was cheered from overhead . . . 
I've never seen more tobacco chewing/spitting at an amusement park. The train has a sign forbidding specifically eating, drinking, and tobacco. Not smoking, tobacco. People also had the weird propensity of dropping shoes, hats, even water bottles, from rides, like it was some sort of West Virginian sport. (I have W. Virginian DNA, so I'm allowed to question it.)
As Gonch mentioned, the prices on soft drinks were horrendous. We're talking Cedar Fair, Six Flags bad. A ten ounce Coke in a plastic cup at the cafeteria ran me $2.11 after tax. With no refills permitted and requiring an additional cup to wash down my BBQ sandwich, I ended up paying $4.22 for the equivalence of a twenty ounce drink -- the worst price I have ever paid anywhere, I believe.
The Haunted House was truly neat. Not particularly scary, but cool. I'm tempted to count it as a coaster credit. Hmm, let's see: chain lift, one drop, multiple turns, completely gravity propelled. Works for me . . .
So where did the old Screamin' Demon from Kings Island stand? Was that the Tbolt that somebody else mentioned?
One thing: I wish they would either tear down the Ferris Wheel or replace it. It's right along side the road, and it looks terrible. From the look of it, it's been SBNO for some years. I couldn't even spot controls for it.
At one point, I discovered I had lost my cell phone. After retracing our steps past multiple rides and benches, we ended at the Tilt-a-Whirl. The ride op had found it in the car (apparently all those gees from the spins had forced it out of my pocket) and was safekeeping it. He was genuinely excited that he could get it back to its owner. Very cool.
Most of the employees were pleasant, even above and beyond the call of duty. There were a few bad apples, but then again every park this side of Orlando has their share.
All in all, we truly liked the park for what it was. Part run down carnival, part resurgent family park. We would have stayed longer than we did on Sunday, had it not been so frickin' hot. It will be interesting to get back here in 2 or 3 years and see what progress they've made. *** Edited 7/21/2008 6:29:25 PM UTC by Ensign Smith***
- Mike Roberts