Cedar Point, Closing Weekend 2006

I'll try to keep this fairly brief. I stayed in a Lighthouse Point cottage with Catherine, and Mike and Artemisa Jandes from Chicago. I didn't do a lot of public complaining about it last year, but the thing was just not clean the last two years, and this was really the last time I was going to try it. Fortunately, everything was tip top. And thank God, because the weather would keep us in there quite a bit.

Friday night we didn't have any really strong riding ambitions, but we hit a few rides. Honestly I barely remember which ones other than Blue Streak, which, poor thing, has just been slow in this cold weather the last few weeks.

We finally got around to seeing "Eternal Jamnation" at the Red Garter, and it was the show I've been waiting for for years. Those hideous costumes were gone from the old show and the set was Kiss-free. They also brought back "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence, which frankly is a necessary song to show off the talent of the female singers in a rock show. And imagine my surprise to hear "Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard. And did I mention there was no Kiss? Seriously, if they're going to stick with the rock theme again next year, this is the closest they've gotten to the perfect show.

Saturday started with breakfast at the cafe off the Breakers lobby. I was fairly alarmed when we got there because I could smell it, but was not aware that they moved it out of Friday's. Nine bucks isn't a terrible deal really, if you've done the whole Vegas buffet thing. We did it Sunday too, and were quite satisfied.

We did the early entry thing and rode Skyhawk. What a great addition to the park, if you don't count the down time.

Right after that we jumped on Millennium Force, which ended up being a bit painful as the sleet went horizontal just as we pulled out of the station. I've done the ride in cold weather before, but this was a new and unpleasant experience! Yeah, it sucked, but it's still one of those rides I'll always remember.

Another try on Blue Streak and Wicked Twister, and we noticed the sky was very, very dark to the west. The cold and the wind was already taking its toll, so we headed back to the cottage. While crossing the Camper Village parking lot, the sky opened up with the 50 mph gusts and horizontal sleet. Not good.

We all passed out for a lengthy nap and some TV.

At six that night we had reservations at Bay Harbor. We watched the sunset with the view of the park. Our waitor was top notch, and the food was amazing. The menu is actually fairly basic, but you can't beat the presentation and preparation. I'd still like to see some things a little more vegetarian and health conscious (yes, you can make gourmet food like that), but overall it was a great meal to remember. My compliments to the chef.

After dinner, the four of us recorded the podcast in a little under an hour. With a few beverages, we were off back into the park.

Honestly, I can't believe how many people were there. The weather couldn't have been much worse unless it was raining all day. We did get a few laps on various rides, including maXair, which I had not been on in awhile. They even started up Raptor, which I thought was asking for a rollback (though it ended up doing so Sunday morning, when I wouldn't have expected it).

Sunday was much nicer, but I really wasn't feeling well, so we didn't spend a lot of time there. Just getting into the park was a first, because the last two years we just left on Sunday without going in!

Overall, good weekend with good times. Would've liked to have connected with more people, but weather made everything harder. Good cap to a good season.

Actually Jeff, the Garter show wasn't "KISS free" . "Shout it Out Loud" towards the end of the show is in fact.. A KISS song.. hehe

I do have to agree through that this was the best cast I've seen in the Garter since the days of "Hot Country Nites", and this is coming from soneone who would rather claw his own eyeballs out than goto a country concert.

I actually sat through the Garter Show this year and was quite impressed. The Evanescence cover was really good as I do a lot of Karaoke shows and EVERY female that "thinks" she has some talent belts out the most ear splitting renditions of any Evanescence song she can find in the book. It was truly nice to hear someone do an outstanding job covering it. The only gripe I had about the show was the Motley Crue medley they closed the show with. I t just seemed as if the guys were way too low and unenthusiastic enough to do a Vince Neil-esque performance on that one but still enjoyed it none the less.

Surely you didn't have the same buffet that Beth & I had during BooBuzz weekend. I felt slightly ripped off when I considered that I had better food at the employee cafe the summer before for a third of the price.

Crap, I guess I was so against Kiss that I just tuned it out of my mind.

Having seen the show at least half a dozen times (I didn't keep count), I'd have to say it was one of the highlights of this year's Halloweekends!

Good to read that you finally saw it Jeff.

-Sam

I agree 100% on how good Eternal Jamnation was. A bunch of us ended up catching the last performance of the season (you think the coasters there have a lot of groupies...) and all of the cast memebers simply nailed their parts. Everyone seemed to really let go for the last performance.

Glad to hear the breakfast buffet served you well, also. Having worked as the area supervisor over that restaurant last season, I can tell you that service experiences during Halloweekends breakfast were hit or miss at times. A lot of the seasonals seemed to give up the last few weekends and left supervision/mangement to keep the fires under control.

Aww man you did not hit TTD? That ride was awesome atleast you still had alot of fun! XD