6-19-10 A GREAT Day at Canobie Lake Park!

You ever have one of those mornings were you get up with no plans but just have to do something???

Well that happened to me this morning. I looked out my window at the gorgeous sunshine and thought "This is a perfectly day to go ride the Cannonball!"

Boy I was right!

The park opened at 11 AM today, so I arrived at about 10:15 to find a pretty substantial crowd waiting to get in. It's a perfect Saturday, no surprise here.

Any, after getting inside the gate, my first stop (like usual) is the underrated Yankee Cannonball. I tell you that she was running smoother (realative for a woodie) than I had seen her in many years. The line for this ride reamained about 20-25 minutes all day.

Next, for the first time in my life, I tried the Psycodrome. Meh. It's a good scrambler, but nothing special.

By this time, it was nearly noon and my stomach was growling, so I walked over the other end of the park and hit the Dancing Bear Canteen for a burger. Prices aren't nearly as bad a Six Flags ($12 for a 1/2 lb cheeseburger meal & a soda), but the quality is better. Sodexho's still providing the food service for the park.

On my way back for another run on the C-Ball, I noticed something new. Other parks have shooting galleries, but have you ever seen a paintball shooting gallery at a park? Apparently, they just installed it, not only this season, but it opened to the GP yesterday (6/18). $10 for 100 balls AND you get to shoot a Kobe Bryant jersey? (Remember, this is New England. The Celtics loss is still VERY fresh.)

Here's where the day starts getting fun: I started chatting with a gentleman there about park stuff and whatnot, and he inroduced himself as Tony Berini, Jr, one of the owners of the park. Cool! I had the ear of one of the guys IN CHARGE of running the place! After he realized that I had a clue about what makes a good park (after having worked at CP a season and having visited a few other parks across the country), he invited back to his office for a friendly chat. He asked me point blank about what the park needs. I politely replied that it could use a new coaster. Something a bit more thrilling than the Canobie Corkscrew, but classic like the C-Ball. He liked the idea, but the challenge will be doing it with an 80 foot height limit.

Back to the TR: After letting lunch settle a bit, the Xtreme Frisbee was next. Oddly enough, this is one of the few rides that makes my stomach go wonky. It semes the ride op must've "tweaked" the ride program a bit because the thing was flat-out FLYING!!! Good ride though.

After trying to get my stomach calmed down a bit, next was the Canobie Corkscrew, a 70's vintage Arrow looper. The ride ops were great, but this thing rode worse than the last Verkoma SLC I was on! (Mind Eraser at SFNE las year). That's saying a lot.

After hitting the Turkish Twist, I wanted to get two more laps on the C-Ball. I got them. One more from the front that was smoother, and the last ride, in the back, had airtime out the wazoo!!! There's a reason was I still love the Yankee Cannonball. The airtime.

All day, the ride ops were friendly, the park looked super clean, and the crowds and lines (except for the YC and the Boston Tea Party) we managable.

Always nice to have a park not too far away when you have those days when you want to do something. Good TR!

It's even better when the park is a hidden gem like Canobie!

I STILL haven't figured out why more of you guys don't swing up here.

Yeah. The highlight of the day was meeting the owner, Tony Berini.

I'm still amazed at how well the keep up the park. I could tell that a few rides (like the Turkish Twist and the Dodgem got repainted in the off season. At the Paintball Gallery was a slick addition too. They're still tweaking it, but it's a great addition to the park.

Canobie IS a gem and Cannonball is a great ride. Unfortunately it's not that easy to get to for most of us east coasters. It's about a 7-hour drive for me outside of the horrendous I-95 rush hour traffic. So it's not convenient to day trips like Hershey, Knoebels, Kennywood, Lake Compounce, Dorney, SFA, Great Adventure, Coney, Jersey shore, Kinggs Dominion, even Busch Gardens.

80ft height limit eh? No problem. Alton Towers knows how to work around that. ;)

What they really need to do is make the flyers snappable. ;)

That's right!!!! I forgot AT has that limit.

Matt, I feel that same way about most of the parks you get to visit regularly. The only one from that list I've had the chance to check out was Knoble's, and that was only for about two hours. :(

I'm not sure if a flyer would fit in well at Canobie. Maybe something like Maverick or a shrunken Mangum.