CoasterMania! '08

This being my 10th CoasterMania, I was really excited.Hubby Eric and I arrived at the park at the crack of 4:30am. Didn’t have any good answer for Eric on why we had to be there so early since riding time wasn’t till 6. Every year I drag him there that early, you’d think he’d quit asking! :)

Since we both knew about the shirts for a couple weeks, we couldn’t wait to see what they looked like. They were really nice sweatshirts, kudos to CP for those! They will come in handy come Halloweekends!

A couple weeks ago I had found a “CoasterMania” t-shirt at the Odds and Ends store. I had 2008 added to it and put the designs of all the rides on the back. I added bling to the coasters and that’s what I wore. You should have seen the people staring at the shirt! Many enthusiasts stopped me and asked me where I got the shirt.

After the usual “welcome to Coastermania” speech, the gates opened and while most of the crowd headed to MF and Mav, I went for Raptor. There were a couple of rides where it was only ME on the train. Felt like test ride days all over again! After 12 rides the crew finally got the ok for rerides so I got to reride 5x and then stopped. I felt bad for Eric just sitting and watching. Kudos to the Raptor crew for kicking such butt so early in the morning! :) Met a few friends in Donut Time before gates opened. When we looked up shortly before 10 it was like every single school in Ohio came that day. OMG I had never seen so many kids! It's like they multiplied during the day too! Eric and I spent most of the day just walking around taking pictures. “Hot” would be an understatement on how hot it was. It felt like Florida hot, thank goodness for the lake wind! Shortly before noon we headed to the convention center for the Q&A, for the questions yes, but the a/c was a welcome relief!

As with Q&A’s of past why are there ALWAYS those people who just like to hear themselves talk and complain? OMG! They go on and on and on about 1 incident, which by the time they shut up we find out had been rectified at the time the incident occurred. They are lucky I don’t have that microphone cause I swear there are times I just want to grab it away! It is always the same questions too “whats wrong with Mean Streak?” “why can’t CP do something cause I’m too fat to ride?” OMG! I had to ask about what KI was getting, I kept referring it as the new “garden” cause that’s what the employees will call it if you ask them what they are building. Apparently we will have that answer come August--PLEASE be a B&M Garden!! Eric asked if we could have PM ERT on Mav which Bill Spehn ok’d! Yea! :)

I would like to have someone ask about why Skycoaster is $35.00/person to ride! OK-it was on “special” for $20.00/person but still-no wonder it was empty any time we saw it.

Lunch was pretty good, I felt so bad for the cooks standing by a hot grill on such a hot day. Same goes for the silver tags who are forced to wear long sleeved shirts and pants. Blech. After lunch we hubby and I snuck back to the hotel for a nap and a shower.
We headed back to the park around 6ish for the yearly GOCC meeting at Fridays. Not a lot of people showed up but we had the fun table so it was a blast. Thanks Flora and Tim! :)
When we left we noticed this red winged black bird who would attack anyone walking past him that had blonde hair! It was hilarious! No, he didn’t touch me but maybe it was only real blondes. After a while there was a crowd standing there watching this bird. I think once the bird realized he had a crowd he left.

We tagged up with Millennium Tony and his g/f Renee. Tony and I rode SkyHawk (love that ride!) and then we all took the train to the other side of the park. Ended up back at Raptor. Since it was a walk on I rode 2 more times then took some night shots of Raptor and waited for park to close. It was then the warnings were all out about this oncoming tornado, when the wind started really picking up I got worried but knew CP wouldn’t allow their guests just to stand around during a tornado. Thankfully it missed us and it was off the PM ERT. I jumped on Maggie and when they said (at that time) no rerides, I headed to Gemini. Gemini can still kick butt. Naturally our train lost but barely! The crew was really having fun racing the trains. We headed to Maverick where I stayed the rest of the evening. Ended up getting 6 rides and OMG Mav was flying!! I could not believe how fast it was moving! Way more fun at night! I’ve got the bruised shoulders to prove how fast it was! Way fun! I never did touch MF but no biggie, if it’s between MF and Mav, Mav wins hands down.

We left shortly before midnight totally exhausted. It wasn’t even so much all the stuff we did but more the heat that really takes it toll after a while. The 20 gallons of Pepsi doesn’t help either when it’s that hot out. Even though Eric didn’t ride all that much even he didn’t feel all that great during the noon heat.

We won’t even get into how many “is that tattoo real?” questions I got.

Coaster Mania ‘08 was a blast! We had a lot of fun. CP really went out of their way this year to make it an event to remember. My only suggestion is PM ERT on Raptor!!!

The only sad points were no CoasterEXT the next day :(
And where was Mr Skyward???

Thanks to everyone who helped make it such a great event! See ya next year!

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1354 :)

Question for anybody to answer: Did anybody see the argument between Tony and a non CoasterMania person just before PM ERT @ Maverick? I thought the woman was going to punch him. If she would've punched him, I would've gone in there to back him up.

About that black bird, Randy told me he was one of the people that got attacked.

The kids that poured in were insane. A couple of us were sitting at a table in front or Iron Dragon (trying to keep cool.... thank God for free water!) when we saw thousands of kids running past us, most of them to MForce. We just thought it was hysterical especially since most of them didn't seem to know that you had to "turn left" to get to the Force. ;)

I still don't understand why people have to RUN to the coasters at opening. It's not like they are going to disappear!

It was my favorite Coastermania yet. The ERT was freakin' AMAZING! The park went ALL out. The sweatshirt and free nachos were nice little perks. I can't do the WHOLE day, though. After the buffet I went back to my motel, took a swim, and enjoyed the air conditioning. :) I went back about 8pm. Thanks again, CP! :)

-Tina

*** Edited 6/13/2008 8:19:17 AM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

I totally forgot about something--the ONLY thing that ruined my day was the enthusiass on Raptor during ERT in seat 1-4 who filmed the entire ride. We were in row 3 so naturally saw the whole thing. I so prayed he would drop his stupid camera. He thought he was slick putting the camera back in his fanny pack when we were on the runway. Guess he didn't know (or care) that there are cameras on the lift and block brake, plus YOU'RE FILMED THE WHOLE RIDE DUMBA**!

Naturally my friend Adam and I told the ride ops when we got back to the station. Had it been a normal day it's a safe bet the guy would have gotten kicked out or a good talking to by security.
He didn't get that this time, jerk was there the whole day :(

Why is there always that ONE person who has to be stupid???? :(

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1354 :)