CP 6/20-21 Our Maverick lift rollback, hanging out with the No Limits guys, my apology to BGE

Before going to the Park

Note: I had to repost the topic due to incorrect dates.

Warning, this is a long report:

Leaving for Sandusky from GL, we took a different way that avoided the OH Turnpike. Unfortunately, there was lots of road construction. We see something on the way that I never seen before in our part of the country—huge LCD-lit billboards that change ads every few seconds. The first one we see in fact is for our next destination Cedar Point.

We also passed the headquarters and/or printing press for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and could not believe the size of it. So not only were we dealing with construction, I also had blinding sun as I was driving and Matt navigated. As we're getting closer to our destination, Jon starts complaining of having trouble breathing and doesn't know what's wrong.

We get out at a rest stop about twenty-six miles from Sandusky. I'm thinking this isn't very good. Jon thinks he's just been under a lot of stress, but he gets out and takes a walk around the parking lot and says he feels a little better. Still we're not taking any chances. As soon as we to Breaker's Express, we're finding out where to get him medical attention.

Arriving at B.E., I was really surprised by how nice the place looked. The check-in goes fine, and our room is on the first floor two doors down from the vending/ice machines. We check into the room and the first thing I smell is cigarette smoke, and we've got someone trying to quit smoking. I re-checked my reservation slip to make sure I did ask for non-smoking. I went back to the front counter to complain, and she said she would send someone to spray the room.

We also needed a rollaway bed, so while the boys went to the ER/medical clinic, I waited around. A guy came and delivered the rollaway bed and sprayed the room with some Febreeze. I'm looking around the room and trying to figure out where the rollaway bed is supposed to go as he didn't set it up for me. There's only place and it gives a tight passage to get to the bathroom.

The guys return fairly quickly and I woke briefly enough to do a body count and it includes Jon so I pass out again:) Before everyone woke up though, I turned over to find out my cell had died from not being charged. So I went out to the car and charged it. I came back in to see that they had a breakfast boutique setup in the lobby with Krispy Creme donuts all kinds of drinks and such for sale.

But it's what one of the employees says that cracks me up. I overhear her say to someone "If you still have money left at the end of your trip, we're not doing our job right." I turn around and I said "Did you just say that?" "Yes, I did. Come on, you're on vacation. You'll look back on this in February and remember the good time you had." She must be a follower of The Lord Gonchar philosophy of vacations:)

So, the next morning I find out that Jon just had a cold and they told him to get some over-the-counter medicine to help with the cold. As we leave for the park, we see a huge line of people waiting to get breakfast. I don't understand why people would wait until 9 a.m. to get breakfast as you can't bring the food into the park with you.

We gave Bryan shotgun, because we knew he would go nuts once he saw the skyline of CP. As we're getting closer, his legs start thumping up and down uncontrollably as he takes it in and sees MF and TTD. He's been wanting to get to CP for years. We get parking in 13E, which is one of the first rows of parking.

The Park

I get in right away with my GL Maxx pass, but the other guys all have to go to Guest Relations to get tickets since they got their Maxx passes at another park (KD). I like the system they have to get you back to the early-entrance rides. They have people waiting with signs over by Demon Drop and you show them your early-admittance pass and then you take the long walk to either MF or Maverick. I don't think Bryan's quite comprehending just how long the distances are between some of the major coasters. I'm not sure what's Jon's thinking as he's being quiet.

So we finally get to the locker bank and you've got four seriously wired individuals who aren't thinking clearly to be reading signs like "These lockers use one-dollar coins." I had already put in four quarters and I'm thinking "Why isn't this working? I've used these kind of lockers at many ski-resorts and other themeparks for years on end. So we finally paid attention and I said rather loudly "This is the stupidest [expletive] thing I've ever seen. Right then, an employee walked over and had a key to take the lock out and give us our key.

So we got into the queue for MF and it was only the first row that leads directly to the station. One of the things I see first though astonishes me—the color on MF has faded so badly that it's almost unrecognizable as being anywhere near the dark blue it once was. I've always joked that I picked out my Mazda Protege 5 in Midnight Blue because it was the same color as MF. Well not anymore. The paint on MF is now a much lighter blue.

The other thing I see in the station makes me think that there are some budget cuts going on at CP. The intelligent lights with the spinning gobos with Millennium Force on them are gone. Of course, I don't know how long ago they were taken out. It just stinks when you hype-up a really cool feature to someone that doesn't exist anymore.

They're running all three trains for the resort guests which is awesome. I don't want to feel nervous about MF, but once we were ascending the lift in the front row, the same feelings came back to "I cannot believe how fast how fast we're going up this lift," and once the drop happens "We're going way too fast through the overbank and the first ground-hugging turn. Getting back to the station and talking at the exit, I said that I felt nervous about how fast the train was going. But oh, what a rush to start off the morning. All I got to say is that I'm thankful I didn't ride with Bryan, because I'd probably have no hearing left:)

We then headed for our next early-opener Maverick. Watching the thing in motion is unbelievable. It's hard to follow what's going on and there's trains flying all over the course. I can't believe how accurately Keith McVeen got it in software. While waiting in the queue, we see the emptying of the money from the soda machines. They send in two guys to work either side. To me, it seems incredibly dangerous to have one individual on either side emptying out a machine with so many people in close proximity. When you're charging $3 for a 20 oz. soda, that's a lot of dollar bills and coins he's emptying out.

We waited one-hour to ride Maverick and one of the guys making ride announcements says something that cracks me and Matt up "Maverick has two, almost three loops," or something like that. They like to tell you all the stats at the Point. Problems developed once we got up to the station. Jon and I rode together again. Someone lost an item and operations were stopped. I heard an employee say quite loudly "and this is why we don't want people bringing loose items into the line." There's a train underneath us stuck in the tunnel due to the shutdown, and they make an announcement that they're moving the trains in manual after the train in the tunnel clears the course.

So then they let us on. They send us out in groups of two and we're riding in Gun Metal aka Brent in row 6. The train in front of us goes up the lift fine, and then we advance. We go up the lift, make it to the top, and then we rolled back down the lift very slowly. Hmmm...A Maverick rollback. There's something I haven't heard about before. So, we got a beach vacation and rollercoaster trip at the same time—only our beach chairs weren't as comfortable:)

After a good twenty-minutes went by, we rolled back a little further in the flat section, and I thought our ride was over. But we were parked right by the outside control panel, so I could see what the young woman outside was doing. I think she first selected LSM lift reset, and then selected LSM lift launch (or something like that), and the green light came on. Yes! We're going to get our ride. We're to the top in no time, and going down the first drop Jon yells quite loudly.

The ride is absolutely insane with so many changes of directions. The launch out of the tunnel took us both by surprise as it happened so quickly as opposed to the longer Volcano launch. The twisted section that goes over the launch tunnel scared the crap out of me as the change of direction was so sudden. Jon and I both loved the ride and some of the crazy airtime was nuts as well. But as soon as return, we hear there's a technical breakdown.

We get off and I point at Matt and Bryan and I said "Ha, ha, we got our ride." Yeah, that wasn't very cool. After an extended delay, Matt and Bryan got their ride, and Matt looked very grumpy. He just didn't like the restraints and I think he hit his jaw or something on the first drop. Bryan wasn't too crazy about the restraints either. More on Maverick on day two.

We then went over to Mean Streak where Matt wanted to make sure I was fine with riding it. I told him I'll be fine. It is unbelievable how much this coaster sucks. There are brief moments of ok, followed by a lot of suck. To say that it's a little bit bumpy would be an understatement. So when we got to the station and the op said "How was your ride?" I said out-loud "That was one of the top-ten worst wooden coasters I've ever been on." When will CP get smart and do something with this horrid ride like take it down?

Everybody was hungry and so we ate at the Chuck Wagon restaurant and got two pizza pies. It amazed us how fast we got our two pies. The pizza was a little bit greasy but tasted really good. We hit the place at just the right time because not soon after a huge line formed and it didn't move. I'm positive that we were done eating by the time that the other people finally got served.

We stopped by Camp Snoopy for Wood Stock Express with its new video recording system. This proved to be hilarious. The four of us each rode in our own cars, and we could not stop laughing at the small repeating loop of our ride. We kept the fun going and rode Cedar Creek Mine Ride, which was pretty good. Right across the way we knocked-off Gemini which I enjoyed better than in 2000. Witches Wheel (Enterprise) was beneath, and finally Bryan gets his ride.

We then went the opposite direction in the speed category and got into line for TTD. Matt and Bryan wanted to ride in the front row, whereas Jon and I just wanted to get on. We were making great progress and Jon and I were in the green train at around forty-five minutes.

They're strict about loose items and since I had none on me, the ride attendant asked me if I wouldn't mine storing the couple in the next seats sunglasses in my left cargo short pockets. I don't know if he was taught that, or he was just thinking quick on his feet.

Well I'll be damned, Jon and I break another Intamin coaster! I'll blame it on Matt and Bryan for wearing Kingda Ka shirts. This time we had to get back into line and wait for maintenance. Once again, an announcement is made saying that trains are being moved in manual. The question I have is why don't they put up a small office with cable t.v., a.c., lounge chair, and a bathroom for the maintenance guy so it doesn't take him X-amount of minutes to get to the ride to fix it?

This time when we loaded, we were in the red train, and once again, I'm carrying two strangers sunglasses. We're moved out onto the launch track in two's like Ka and we're in second place. They have loud dragster engine noise playing for a while before before you launch and it was definitely making me nervous. I knew about the lighting tree (or whatever it's called), but wasn't aware that the tower had lights on it too. Very cool.

But then I heard the tow-cable click backwards and we were gone. It could've been our train, but I found it really bumpy. I also hit my elbow into the side rail in the 270-degree spin. So the verdict? Well at least for me, I prefer Ka. I think Jon felt the same way.

Matt and Bryan chose to ride in the front row, while we baked out in the sun at the grandstand viewing area. They came off liking Dragster better. Matt wanted to have a discussion, and we still had a lot of rides to conquer, so I grabbed him by the shirt to get to Magnum which looked great with its bright-red paintjob. I don't know when it was painted, but ahem, get to the other side and paint MF next, please!

I just remember what Jeff Putz said about pulling the seatbelt nice and tight and we all did. When we got out to the pretzel turn Jon said "awkward," and then had me busting out with laughter as he pointed to the track and said "Smoothing tool!" Jon doesn't use No Limits, but Matt has showed him that feature in the 1.6 upgrade. Clearly, even though Jon is not an enthusiast, he's not a big fan of Ron Toomer's work either:) Thank goodness for the tightening of the seatbelts as the bunnyhills would've been brutal without them.

Someone gets hurt—on Iron Dragon
-----------------------------------------------
After a short ride on Corkscrew, we got on Iron Dragon. Here's where something bad happened to Bryan. As he's trying to get situated, the harness comes down and his elbow is twisted up with his hand beneath him. He calls out to the ride op he tells me afterwards to reset his harness, but they're more worried about making their dispatch times. He winds up riding the entire circuit that way. Ouch.

After Matt and I get off, I see him on the ground holding his right arm. I asked him if he was o.k. and he says "no." I tell him to stay there and I'll find help. I go up to the ride checker at the entrance and thankfully she has a phone. I ask her if she can call base to get help. She explains the situation to base and tells me that they're sorry and they'll do better. That wasn't quite the answer I was looking for. I said my friend is hurt and can we get someone to look at him? She says that we can go to First Aid which is behind the Snoopy Boutique, and it's quite a distance away.

Arriving at First Aid, it turns out that Bryan just has a contusion—basically a bruise around his elbow. They gave him an ice bag and pain medication. We talked to one of the guys at First Aid who used to live in New Jersey, and we were talking about all the new stuff and old stuff that still exists at Great Adventure. It was a great chance as well to hang out in the A.C.:)

Next we went to ride MaxAir. Bryan still wanted to ride stuff, and I had him sit in the test seat. It's quite interesting to me that they have two seats—a regular seat and a big-boy seat next to each other. I close the harness down and he says that it feels o.k. We get seats in the mid-twenties and it just didn't feel as exciting as Delirium at KI, but it was still fun. I think we may just have gotten a bad side.

Keeping up the mild, but fun category, we went to Disaster Transport. Matt and I were both surprised that almost the whole entire queue (if not all of it) has been re-themed. There's a heavy emphasis on black-lights and dark corridors. The ride op asks us to push forward to check our restraints, and I'm thinking "Isn't that your job, not mine?" I think we all enjoyed D.T., but I still like La Vibora better.

The ride that has been calling out our names all day long sits right next door—Wicked Twister. For this ride, we sat towards the front. Matt and I are both Impulse veterans with both Steel Venom at GL, and V2 under our shirts. For the other guys this will be their first. The view of the beach is incredible. The ride doesn't look like much from the queue.

I think it's really cool that one of the songs they play is "The Winner" by The Crystal Method off of Tweekend. Just make sure if you're going to buy the CD for your kids to revisit their trip on W.T. that you follow the Parental Advisory Explicit Content very seriously:) We ride toward the front and wow, this is absolutely insane. The height and twisting is incredible.

Since we're back towards the front of the park, Bryan sits things out while Jon, Matt and I rode Demon Drop, which is one of the last of its breed. Wow, that part where the cart gets moved over the edge still freaks me out. It's starting to get late, so we hit another few rides up towards the front of the park.

Raptor is first, and man does thing need a new paintjob. I found it also to be incredibly rough at times with lots of headbanging as well. It has not aged well. Since we sat in the front row, it said that the video camera footage was not available and sorry for the inconvenience, but watching other people's video loops, it was obvious that other people were experiencing headbanging as well. Please put me back on Alpengeist if it's going to be a larger scale B&M invert thank you.

Blue Streak was up next and the sunset was very confusing to us East coast people. It's 8:40 p.m. at night, but it's still incredibly bright outside. Again, we had to test a ride for Bryan since they still don't have handholds on B.S. We rode in a front car where you could at least hold the front of the train. There were a ton of bugs at the top of the lift, which made us worried about our MF night ride. B.S. kills Mean Streak, and it's kind of hidden. What a shame. It was very smooth (except for the turnaround which had some minor shuffling) and had loads of speed and airtime. I think it might make its way into my top ten woodies I liked it so much.

After stopping off at the Raptor bathroom, I come out to hear a woman say to her boyfriend/husband about the smoking area "They hide us like they''re ashamed of us." Yikes, I've never really thought about it like that, but every park on the trip had designated smoking sections, so I guess they're going to have to get used to it.

The end of day one has us meeting some minor coaster "celebrities" while in the queue for MF. We see two guys with No Limits shirts on and Matt and I say "Nice shirts," to which they reply "Thank you, we are the No Limits guys." Matt also instantly recognized Oleg (the third guy) and his German accent gives him away as well.

I seriously felt like one of the oldest people in the queue at thirty-six, and the d.j. is spinning a lot of songs from when I was a teenager. It just doesn't make sense to me how we can never seem to move beyond a certain era of music. I'm very open-minded to new music (pick-up the new Circa Survive, it's awesome).

So, even when the d.j. spins "Sandstorm," an older techno song, it just seems ancient. But I'd rather have that to get the momentum going than "Under the Bridge," by the Red Hot Chillipeppers. Hey, I'm on vacation, I rather not be thinking about heroin users shooting-up. And when Hanson's "Ooom Bop" goes out by request, I would like to find the person responsible for that selection and make them go to the back of the queue:)

We also hear another bad announcement that they're down to two-train operation, so our potentially 45-minute wait has now increased to about an hour-1/2 and we're all tired.

When we got up into the station, they were warning everyone "If you're waiting for the front, you may not get your ride. Fill in all available rows, as it was about 10:30 p.m. by this point. So we waited for the back and I wound up riding with Oleg, the designer and creator of No Limits.

After getting off the ride, we wound up talking to the guys from NL for quite a while. I found out that all the programming and car designs are done on Macs. I asked who did the Mac port and they said Oleg did it. He asked me later on if I owned a Mac and I proudly told him about my G4 (us Mac people are all snobs:) ). They said it's also been a very popular seller for the Mac.

So when we brought up the wet weather at GL, they said they had been there as well the day before and were yelled at for taking pictures of the station (so that mystery was solved). An attendant said that they couldn't take pictures because those are used for marketing purposes. All they wanted to do was get more research pics.

Day 2-Thursday and yet another thunderstorm
------------------------------------------
We left later than the day before for the the early admittance, but somehow scored better parking again in 13E. Could it have something to do with the weather forecast? Hmmm....Today, we skipped MF and walked back to Maverick where we passed the "holding pen" for the non-resort guests. The walk back to Maverick seems endless. We finally arrive and are met with a long line of people as they haven't opened the queue yet. There are also no trains running either.

Finally, they start testing and we see the maintenance guys riding. After the queue is open, the ride checker is apologizing to everyone for the delay and I'm not thinking anything of it at first. But then later on it hits me that some people were paying a lot more money than we were to stay at a resort and probably weren't expecting such "inconveniences."

Even though the guy told us to ride in a different row, we went for row-2 instead. There weren't enough people in the queue or station to where it would've made much of a difference. Unfortunately, different day—same results for Matt and Bryan. Matt just felt like he could never relax while onboard. On a positive note, an effect which didn't materialize the day before did the second day in the tunnel.

We needed to pick-up a few rides that we missed the first day and went to ride Mantis. Now, the guys from NL said it was much better than several years ago, and I'm hoping for the best. It really wasn't bad, but Bryan and I both hated the bicycle seat as it hurt the inside of our thighs for a little while after. Maybe it has something to do with the tight turns?

Wildcat had a short line so that was up next. It really was a lot of fun, and I can't wait until we get up to Adventure Park USA near Frederick, MD to ride our own version. We saw it on the way out west, but it was far too late by the time we returned back from our trip. We decided to take the full-circuit trip in the train next, and I got some great pics out of it. When we stopped at the Mean Streak station, we were surprised to see them loading real coal into the trains.

After getting off, we went and rode Blue Streak again, this time with Bryan whose arm felt better the second day. Oh no, things are starting to cloud-up again. We walked over to get W.T. in a backseat before they shut it down, but first I see a Cedar Point "celebrity"—it's John Hildebrant with a notepad out talking to a family and pointing to things on a map. A manager guy walks up too, so I'm thinking something serious is going on, but Bryan finds a way to tell him how much he likes the park.

The backseat ride on W.T. was amazing and we're still watching ever-blackening clouds. We probably got one of the last rides in on it before the storm.

We stopped in at the massive Main Arcade to play some games, and I picked out an old Atari super-sized pinball machine called Hercules. Unfortunately, it wouldn't start. I tracked down a skeeball attendant who was able to help me start the game, but the flippers wouldn't work at first, so I'm already down a ball and I paid .50. Finally, the flippers start working, but the right one was intermittently cutting in and out. Oh well, at least I got a free game somehow.

We decided to get something to eat and the guys go the Midway Market buffet, while I go get a double-burger basket and drink at the Burger Patio for $12.99 (ouch!) underneath Raptor. After eating, all hell breaks out again, and I take refuge at a novelty t-shirt store where I watch thousands of people leaving the park. Finally, around 3 p.m. it dries out enough where I can go meet up with the guys.

I see something that absolutely floors me. A manager comes out and flips over the sign that said $12.99 for the buffet to $14.99. Even the senior discount goes up $2. When I tell Matt this, he mentions that in RCT, if it rains, you can charge more for umbrellas. A few rides start coming back on line like MaxAir and W.T., but one that continues to test forever without riders is Raptor. I guess they were trying to clear any water off the track that might have ponded?

One of the our "must-rides" from the day before was Cedar Downs. This carousel is very different from most in that the horses move back and forth and the speed is pretty fast as well. This ride is easily missed as it's set back a little bit underneath Raptor. The soundtrack is pretty cool as well as it's an old-style announcer calling a horse race.

I wanted to show the guys what I think is the least-seen ride in the whole park—Ocean Motion—a Huss pirate ship. The college-aged operator wants us to play a game. Everytime we go up on our side we have to yell, and then the other side was supposed to yell. It's safe to say that we annihilated them.

Matt decides that we should check out the rest of the property—at 4 p.m. in the afternoon—so we get our forearms stamped and walk out onto the walkway that goes by the beach and Breakers Hotel. We then pass The Challenge Park, Soak City (where I get some great shots), and finally we walk through Campers Villiage, where the rest of us have had enough, and we tell Matt that we need to re-enter the park because the sun is killing us. To say that CP is huge is an understatement.

We re-enter by Magnum and there's no line at all. I wasn't crazy about riding it again, but as long as the seatbelt was tight, it's not too bad. Another must-ride was Power Tower, and since the park had cleared out some of people, the wait was significantly less than earlier in the day, so we rode both sides. One of the towers was broken, but the wait still wasn't bad. Jon sits this one out as he doesn't much like stationary heights.

While waiting, I did something that freaked me out; I stared up at the tower with light clouds moving overtop of the tower. It literally looked like the whole tower was moving overtop of us while the clouds stayed still. So, on the Spaceshot side, we go up and are facing the front of the park. On the Turbo Drop side though, we face the inside of the park, and it's a shame we couldn't have been up there longer, as the view was breathtaking. After reconvening, Jon tells us he went and rode the Super Himilaya.

There wasn't much left to do, so we took one more Millennium Force ride, and then I said we had one ride left to do. Earlier on, I kept blanking out on what the 2006 addition was. From the lift of M.F. I was like "duh!" as I saw Skyhawk in motion.

First though we passed by the Red Garter Saloon where the Rock 'n Country show was in progress. We hung out toward the back. It was your basic wedding band-selection of songs with choreography for the musicians and singers. After three songs, I said I needed to get out of there as my ears are my work tools. It was way, way too loud for the size of the room, and the kids performing in the show are sure to suffer a lot of hearing loss after the summer is over.

We finally hit the line for Skyhawk and things weren't too bad. KW sure has them licked though in the time-department. SwingShot went way longer. So we sit down and the restraints are the same, but there's no seatbelt backup device. Instead, they have a large carabiner clip. Just when things were moving, we slowed down. They need to extend the program big-time. I wanted one last Maverick ride, but it was not to be, as the line was too long.

Leaving that area at around 8 p.m., we wanted to figure out approximately how long it took us to walk back to Maverick that morning. Subtracting a stop at a hat store, and bathroom breaks, it took us approximately twenty-minutes at a fairly normal walking pace! (Later, my Dad tells me that's about a mile walk). One of the things that defined our walk back to the main entrance for some of us was just how incredibly painful it was. CP just destroyed us. So anyone who runs back to Maverick in the morning is a fool, or is much younger:)

IN CONCLUSION
------------------------
We had lots of fun over the two days, but even though it wasn't blazing hot, we felt whipped by the sun and walking. CP needs a whole lot more shade. We were smart and applied sunscreen at least twice a day, but Matt's head still got burned one day, and plenty of people were lobster-red by the end of their day.

Operations were fast, and I found myself talking many times to someone behind me and they'd tell me that the line had moved unexpectedly in front of me. This constant motion thing is a new concept when you're used to the parks back east.

Cedar Point though fell down hard in one big area—their bathroom facilities. I know I had taken it out on BGE for this problem, but their bathrooms looked spotless compared to CP's. I found the bathrooms to be some of the most disgusting, unkept, and unclean bathrooms I've ever been in at an amusement park. In fact, Matt said at the Midway Market buffet that in the bathroom someone took the "All you can eat" thing a little bit too seriously and threw-up all over the toilet. I'm glad I wasn't there.

My friend Shannon said the same thing when I was talking to her about Coastermania at CP. She said that their were bugs all over one of the bathrooms she was trying to use. She had to point it out to a PR director just how bad things were.

NEXT UP: KI & Boomerang Bay *** Edited 6/26/2007 1:24:53 AM UTC by Intamin Fan***

such a fun coincidence that someone with the signature "No Limits--a perfectionistic-tweaker's worst nightmare." would meet the worst nightmare makers by coincidence in a coaster queue.
:)))

I-fan, if you're feeling sentimental about the intelligent lights on MF head on over to Castaway Bay, you'll find them over there ;)

I'm very surprised about what you have to say about the restrooms only because CP has been renovating them over the last 5 years. The only ones I can think of that haven't seen the newer, hands free stuff would be the one by Magnum, the one by Red Garter Saloon and obviously the restaurants. Now the bug problem I can see since May and June is a horrendous time for bugs, you would think that they would put those blowers at the door that you see at other places to keep bugs out.

For future reference, you should take the Perimeter road around the park and park over in the Soak City lot or by Gemini. The walk isn't so bad from anywhere in the park (except for the front of the park) to get to this lot.

I'm glad you had a good time, can't wait to read the rest of your TR's.

~Rob Willi

I wasn't necessarily feeling sentimental about the lights--I just expected them to be there! If you're going to play the Millennium Force techno soundtrack, you should have the lights to go along with them, that's all. At least the lift still changes colors.

Now about the bathrooms, it wasn't necessarily the age of the facilities, it was the fact that just about every bathroom had toilet paper all over the floor in the stalls, and some had water all over the floor (at least I hope that's what it was). The bathroom near the Red Garter Saloon and in Camp Snoopy were good examples.

I don't remember a single employee cleaning the bathrooms either over the two days either. I think part of the problem is that the stalls are "floating," which means that any t.p. that winds up on the floor would wind up in the another stall as well. On the plus side, they did have Xcelerator hand-dryers in most of the facilities.

Now compare this to Geagua Lake and King's Island which had spotless bathrooms, and it seems that the focus is quite different at CP, and neither day was that crowded. Oh well, I guess every park can't be perfect.

superman, one of the guys told me to send him my full-circuit Premier track because I'm having a problem with it relaunching in the station, but you're right, I didn't even think about meeting the sources of my frustration:)

---

Matt's head still got burned one day

---

I'm a satisfied BaldGuyz customer. They have a 30SPF gel that doesn't feel greasy, can be worn by those of us that are thinning (or, more than thinning)---once it dries, it leaves whatever hair you may have left looking normal rather than gooped-full-of-sunscreen.

This stuff rocks.

^I'll have to recommend that to him. Most of the time, Matt did wear his M.F. hat, but I'm not sure what happened the day his head got burned. Perhaps he took it off after the storm for a little while? Matt does have thin hair, and also a very fair complex and that may have contributed to it as well. Most days, he would spray his head with a sprayable sunscreen at least once.

I never, ever, ever went to a park without a hat plastered to my head---kept me from burning in my thin spots, but was hotter than blazes.

Since I was turned on to this stuff, I've never worn a hat in a park, and never once gotten a burn. It's that good.

Wouldn't be an I-Fan trip report without talk of the crappers.

^Again, if you're going to call yourself the best themepark on the planet, it would help if your bathrooms matched the rest of the park in quality--which I think CP has a lot of.

By the way, maybe I wouldn't have mentioned the crappers, but I was encouraged by Rablat5 to keep talking about them. He said I shouldn't be discouraged from talking about them just because you don't like hearing about them.

Read his reports, he reports on the bathrooms as well at the parks he went to. So don't tell me that I'm the only one who considers bathroom cleanliness to be important. It says a lot about how you think of your guests.

And by the way, go back and read the hundred or so trip reports I've written over the years and tell me how many times I've mentioned bathroom cleanliness. I think you'd stop with one hand. And out of this whole week did KW, GL, or KI have unclean or dirty restrooms? Nope, not a one.

---

Intamin Fan said:
I said out-loud "That was one of the top-ten worst wooden coasters I've ever been on."

---

Could you have said anything else that would have made you sound like more of a jackass?

I-Fan- I didn't read your trip report but did you criticize Cedar Point? Just a hunch...

Comon' you know better than to do that on this site?

;) *** Edited 6/27/2007 3:56:54 PM UTC by coasterguts***

Neuski first of all, why am I a jackass? If you've got every ride operator asking you how your ride was, obviously they're not doing it for their health. Someone in corporate wants to know how loud the "virtual dB meter" is when people return to the station, so they can figure out what is popular and what isn't.

And if they're not asking people how their ride was for corporate, what's the point? Why do you care how my ride was? Do you really think the ride ops took it personally if they even heard me? Highly doubtful.

They didn't design the ride, they didn't buy the ride, and they didn't install the ride. They applied to work at the park, and someone said "You'll work at Mean Streak this summer." Plus, I'm sure they're well aware what a piece of crap Mean Streak is based on other customer's reactions.

So What should I have said? "God that was great, gee I want to ride this all day!" Or how about, "There is no other coaster in this park that I'd rather be riding!" or "I love being shaken to death for almost three-minutes doing absolutely nothing in the process!" or "This coaster needs five more brakes and it'd be perfect!"

Come on, get a life buddy and have a sense of humor. There was nothing evil or enthusiass-tic about it. I was just simply stating my opinion. I am allowed to do that at Cedar Point--right?

To coasterguts, the only seven bad things (and some of it is just opinion and maybe not bad anyway) I said was that 1) the bathrooms were a mess, 2) Mean Streak is terrible, 3) My friend got a contusion on Iron Dragon because someone was more worried about making rider quotas than about my friend's safety. They didn't listen to him when he asked them to reset his harness as his arm got stuck in a bad position, and Bryan's loud! and 5) Raptor has become quite rough--Thunderhawk, the SLC at GL was smoother 6) M.F. needs a new paintjob--bad, and 7) that the park needs a lot more shade, but I think everyone is aware of that and it'll probably never change.

Otherwise, there were no major problems and we had a great time over the two days.

Saying something like that is just one of the many annoying things those poor people have to hear all day long. And I seriously doubt that the train reaction on the return to the station is how the measure a ride's popularity.

Outside all of the tragedies it sounds like you had a good time. Glad to hear it, can't wait to go myself. :)

It isn't about the ride operators, or Kinzel. It's about the other people you rode with and the people waiting to ride. Hearing that negativity is going to impact the person waiting to ride and the person that just enjoyed his or her ride.

Since you haven't figured it out yet, the question you answered that day is only supposed to make your day better by creating a round of applause or other positive answer. It isn't there so that "corporate" can gauge the popularity of a ride. There are numbers for that.

1) I don't care about the other people I rode with, other than my friends who also hated M.S. and we had two newbies. I don't know the other people on the train, and therefore any comments I make are irrevelant to them anyway. I didn't see anyone walking away from the ride looking all depressed because I made the comment.

Why is it acceptable to make negative comments about rides that people don't like at other parks, but not CP? Do you ever go to a movie? If you have, haven't you heard people making both positive and negative comments about the movie as they're exiting the lobby?

2) I don't care if someone else enjoyed their ride. Much like a blockbuster movie, sometimes a lot of people clap at the end because they don't know any better.

I'm seen hundreds of great movies in the theatre, but National Treasure was definitely not one of them. A lot of people thought otherwise though and clapped at the end and I didn't.

3) If you think it's an issue of respect, than clearly you're wrong. The park should be respecting us (and I mean all of us, not just enthusiasts) by providing a thrilling, non-shaky/rough, non-braked all-over-the-place ride that actually does something coaster.

4) Why are you always supposed to have a positive response when you return to station, or when a flat-ride stops? If the ride is terrible, then you have a right to your opinion. If you want to know what I think of your ride, then damnit, I'm going to tell you good or bad.

5) I'm not an idiot, I know they have ride-counters, and Mean Streak won best-capacity crew last year. The sticker is attached to the operator's booth. *** Edited 6/28/2007 3:10:51 AM UTC by Intamin Fan***

You're right. All parks that aren't providing rides that are "thrilling, non-shaky/rough, non-braked all-over-the-place" are disrespecting their patrons.

I'm done.

Intamin Fan regarding Disaster Transport: "The ride op asks us to push forward to check our restraints, and I'm thinking "Isn't that your job, not mine?"

Certain rides have that policy and the hosts were following procedure.

Think Disney roller coasters (Mullholland, Primeval) The hosts don't check restraints there either.

Personally, even if the ride sucked, the enthusiasm of the crew plays a role in the experience as a whole.

When the crew of MS says in an upbeat voice, "welcome back green train how was your ride?" some people yell, most are quiet. But I can tell you, if someone said out loud that the ride sucked, all attention would move from the ride and to the fool who said such a thing. It's just like complaining about the way the Soprano's ended - get over yourself.

If you didn't like the ride, no one but you cares. You said it yourself that you could care less what your fellow riders felt - I am sure the feeling is mutual.

For the record, I spent 8 days, yes (not a typo) 8 days at CP at the beginning of the month. The Magnum bathrooms truly need work - yet there were employees cleaning it each day. I guess your timing was off or you were predisposed to hate the bathrooms.

1) I was sitting in the front car, and it's highly doubtful that anyone else heard my comments. Really, all I was doing was laughing at how bad it was.

2) I didn't say the ride sucked. What I said is that it was one of the the top-ten worst wooden coasters I've ever been on. What makes that any different than the multitudes of people who said they have a headache after they rode one of the Premier coasters pre-lapbar days, or people getting off most SLC's? The majority of people generally don't say those things quietly either.

3) I was in non-enthusiast clothing that day. No one would have even known that I like the hobby or not.

4) I have no predisposition towards hating anyone's bathrooms. KW, GL, and KI had spotless bathrooms. Could it have been timing? Highly doubtful. We drank a lot of water and at least for me, that means plenty of pitstops. I never saw a single bathroom being cleaned.

5) Please give me tips on how you survived eight days at CP. After two, we were wrecked. I think it was the combination of too much sun, and too much walking.

Scottt, thanks for filling me in on the lapbar procedure. I think Woodstock Express was another ride where they asked us to recheck our lapbars (I don't remember the others). Now what it someone were deaf, or didn't speak English?

1: I-Fan's comment was no worse than the average "Wow, that REALLY HURT!" you hear from riders coming off of MS.

5: I never, ever, stay in a theme park for more than about 6 hours continuously unless I'm willing to completely write off the next day. However, in addition to being bald, I'm old and out of shape. ;)