6/19 GL-day2 Almost a total washout. How does this park make any money?

Not getting a whole lot of sleep the night before due to someone's strong snoring (it wasn't me), three of us woke up a little bit tired. We stayed at the Red Roof Inn in Monroeville, and it was very nice and it's one of their remodeled properties and wasn't too expensive. The coffee machine with multiple flavors hit the spot as well. Matt, Jon, and Bryan had all bought cereal, but I ran out of time packing and never bought any.

I asked if there was anywhere to pick up a breakfast sandwich, and the clerk recommends the Giant Eagle across from the Hummer/Saturn dealership for those who live in the area. Unfortunately, they don't have anything, but I picked up some batteries for the camera, and Bryan picks up something as well. Where's Matt and Jon? We're not about to go wandering around the store trying to find them, so it's time to have some fun:)

We asked the clerk if she would make a loudspeaker announcement with their full names, and she plays along. Matt and Jon show up at the front of the store clearly embarrassed, but laughing:) Bryan and I just lose it-LoL. So we found out that they do have a convenience store w/gas station called GetGo (I think) which I think is owned by Giant Eagle right behind the store. It was a tiny store, but they made things to order like WaWa or Sheetz.

I knew that Tuesday's forecast looked bad the week before, but you can always hope for better results as you get closer to the day. Unfortunately my Weather Channel forecast was still calling for rain, scattered storms, and thunder storms. I was the only one without a Maxx Pass, so we didn't have much of a choice if we wanted to get into Cedar Point the next two days and KI on Friday. We arrive at the park and the tollbooth attendant says politely that there would be no refunds, and not surprisingly, we didn't have to fight for a parking spot:)

After being the only person to be getting a Maxx Pass for $125, I got a card that looked very different than the passes the guys got. My card actually has my picture on it. They have to go to guest relations to get a ticket just like at the Paramount Parks. I bring my raincoat, but I'm worried I'm going to get really overheated in it if the weather does lighten-up.

We first hit El Dorado, which I had always assumed for some reason was a Huss ride (wasn't open in 2000), but there were two things that were different about it—1) It's obviously a portable ride, and 2) sitting down these are the same lapbars as found on 1001 Nachts at Knoebels. Oh crap, this is a Weber ride in disguise as a classic car with the hateful lapbars, and we'll be getting no airtime, but on the other hand, it gave us a really good view of the park, and it's really pretty.

Next, we knocked out the Boomerang credit Head Spin which I missed seven years ago because I didn't care to wait. It wasn't that bad, but it was unusual to see a seatbelt attached to an OTSR. I'll have to admit that I have really bad memories of the people at Six Flags Ohio and the incident that happened following our ride brought it all back. I have out my digital camera to take a picture and some idiot decides he's going to jump into a big puddle of water. I will not repeat the words I said to him as this is a family site. Luckily, this was the only problem I had all day.

Matt so badly wants the Big Dipper credit that he didn't get in 2000, but the ride op says the track has to dry out first. That could be a challenge on a day like today, but the sun does come out for a while. We pass by a broken-down—but being repaired Shipwreck Falls—and head towards Dominator. It's very strange to see the remnants of Hurricane Harbor still sitting there as well. Something tells me, those slides will wind up at another park someday.

Snoopy does make an appearance in his Camp Snoopy garb, and Bryan wants a photo. After seeing multiple billboards for making a Kennywood memory, including going to the Cleveland area, it becomes the running joke of the trip that any pics I take of the crew will cost extra for their "memories." My fee is $30 for posing with costume characters:)

I'm super-psyched to ride Dominator (formerly Batman Knight Flight) again. But, I had promised Bryan that he would get his Enterprise ride today that he missed out at KW since he just missed his last ride. There's just one catch–where did the Enterprise go? I'm thinking it may have moved to the WWK side, but I'm not seeing anything from the stairwell of Dominator.

Dominator did not let any of us down, and since there was practically no one in the park we waited for the front row. Of course because it's a Cedar Fair property now, everyone must be asked how their ride was. Coming back into the station I yelled out "It was Godlike!" The only bumpy/rough part was the interlocking corkscrews, but the rest of the ride rocked. As we're leaving the station, I see a guy with red hair wearing a Pointbuzz shirt. I never did see him again.

While Bryan, Matt, and Jon went to ride Villain—which there was no way in hell I was getting on—I took some more pics. The crew comes off, and even Matt says it was really rough and he liked The Boss last year. We then all went and rode Double Loop. It wasn't bad for an Arrow, and I had forgotten about the square helix at the end:) So then we rode the Beaver Land Mine Ride which we were given two-cycles on. These Zierer junior coasters are a lot of fun, and every park should have one.

One disappointment was passing the All American Cornhole game and no one was working there. According to the sign, for $3 you can throw four bags into a shallow wedged-shaped box with a hole in it at the top. The grand prize was an 1GB iPod Nano. There's just something so wrong with the name. :0)

Unfortunately, it was starting to cloud-up, and raindrops were starting to fall. Now, I'm not regretting the raincoat. We quickly headed back to pick-up Big Dipper before it would close again. We got over there with little time to spare. I remember really liking this ride in 2000, but oh how things have changed. The out-portion was really rough, but the return portion was great with lots of airtime. Matt wanted one more ride and Bryan, Jon and I sat it out as we wanted no more.

After Matt exited the ride, we passed the Midway Arcade, where every game was being shutdown and security doors being pulled down. It was becoming very obvious that a wicked storm was about to be unleashed. The closest place to hang out for the time being was the Snoopy Boutique and here we go again. Sigh.

Heavy rains and thunderstorms forced us inside, I'm disappointed because I really wanted to cross the bridge to the other side of the park, but I'm sure they closed it down for safety—at least, I hope they did. It was rapidly approaching 4 p.m. and the storm is at full steam. We're looking at the prospects of ever-diminishing returns on our time here. I heard a supervisor walk by and radio to someone "If it's flooding, shut it down." Matt wants to just leave and drive up to Cedar Point, but, I had another idea…

[insert lightbulb above head here]
What if we could drive to the Wildwater Kingdom side of the park and watch the Lego Racers 4D show? It would be better than doing nothing, and the thunderstorms might stop by then. So, it turns out that you can go the other side of the park with your parking ticket—once. We get over there and there are two-manned toolbooths, and once again a very polite young lady tells us that there will be no rainchecks, which was completely understandable. The parking lot is completely deserted. There will be no triple-Z parking today:)

It was very different seeing the park from the other side of the lake, and quite beautiful. The next showing of Lego Racers was at 5:30 p.m., and so we waited things out at the viewing area that leads to the floating bridge. I wasn't quite sure what the show was going to be like, but Matt says that Iwerks does really good work. So there are nine of us taking in the presentation in a theatre meant to seat hundreds of people (300-500, more?).

The short-film movie was pretty good, but I didn't think the 3D-stuff worked too well. There were a few things here and there though that did. It was the 4D-stuff (smoke, water etc.) that amazed me, and how well everything was synched-up to the film. Coming out of the Harbor Theater where the film is shown, things had finally lightened-up again. We had talked about doing the waterpark, but by the time we had gone back out to the car, grabbed our stuff, and then changed, it would've been pointless.

After taking a small tour of the rides portion of WWK, we took the back-path that goes around Raging Wolf Bobs. Passing it, I've got to say that it looks really decrepit compared to everything else in the park. And I don't think it's just a paintjob issue. We're now right back right where I wanted us—in front of Dominator for another ride. This time we rode in the back.

Another credit I never got in 2000 was Thunderhawk, the SLC. After Jeff Putz said it was really smooth, I decided I really wanted to try it out. This is a ride where you can get a DVD of your ride. I'm thinking this could be interesting, especially on an SLC. But call me flabbergasted, it was really smooth and you could ride it several times in a row. It didn't have any of the shake of Mind Eraser at SFA, for example. Bryan actually looks dumbfounded that it could be that smooth. Getting off the ride though, we found out that the DVD booth was shutdown.

I wouldn't say that I forced it on anyone, but we went back and rode Dominator again in the front seat to close our time at GL. The best part was that we got to take the floating bridge back to the other side of the park. So, in summary I really liked GL in comparison to what SFO was like. I liked that the midways were cleared out of some rides to make more room to walk as that was an issue in the Six Flags days. I thought the park's rides looked really well kept-up (except for RWB), and the park was really clean as well.

But, I'm a bit worried about the park. Granted, we had crappy weather, but I think the park is a little too big for its britches—and that's with X-Flight and Steel Venom gone. I also don't think it helps the park's revenue that there's a shopping center across the street with other cheaper food options. I could've bought something inside the park with my GL coupons, but those options weren't open, so we ate at the Subway across from the Geauga Lake entrance in the shopping plaza.

Lastly, Matt heard some enthusiasts being yelled out about picture taking in the station of one of the rides. Read my Cedar Point (if you'd like) report to find out who those people were as they weren't your normal enthusiasts.

I was there Wednesday, and it was surprisingly busy. Supposedly a large group there, but no matter, it was good to see people in the park. I'm glad you enjoyed the park.

Are you sure you saw seatbelts on the Boomerang? I'm pretty sure they weren't there the next day.

-Sam

You're right about Headspin. I was a little bit hazy on that. We went to three Cedar Fair parks over five days and trying to remember which trains had OTSR's with the new seatbelts (which just about everyone does now) and which ones didn't got me confused.

I think we all enjoyed GL. We just would've rather had some better weather to go along with it, but obviously that can be out of your control sometimes. I'm glad to hear that there were more people the following day, as the park has a lot of capacity, even with X-Flight and Steel Venom gone.

The following day at CP was the first day where we had a full day of sunshine, and then Thursday at CP we had another bad storm breakout. Hopefully, I'll put up that TR tommorow, as I'm too tired to finish it right now.

You'll have to excuse me because I'm completely unfamilar with the park or parking lot, but you say that you can only drive to the other side once. That seems really strange.

Are you allowed to leave the park and come back later without paying again?

What's Wolf Bobs current status? It's still on their website, though I'm not sure if they ever removed it.

Thanks