Now that I've had a bit of time to recover, why not share some of the fun from the weekend.
Day 1: CP
Arrived at CP around 4:30 pm on Saturday. This would be the first time I've been there on
a Saturday in a LONG time. The crowds showed me why it's been that way. There was really only one objective for the trip anyway, and that was to pick up Natalie for the remainder of the trip. So I'm a complete sucker and I waited 40 minutes for Mean Streak! I could have just walked up the exit ramp and spared myself the pain, but I decided not to think at all.
Mean Streak is just bad. I needed to ride something to make me feel better, so I slowly
made my way over to Magnum, where I waited only 25 minutes. Rode in 1.3, same great ride as always!
After meeting up and gathering Natalie's stuff, it was off to Pennsylvania.
Day 2: Kennywood
This park just flat out rocks. There wasn't much at all I didn't like here! It was fun to be at an ACE event after 4 years of not going to one. As I said in another thread, one of the best parts of the day was the people watching. We spent quite a bit of time in the middle of the day just relaxing, something more people should do. It's great to just sit on a bench and chill out, especially at the peak point of the day when you don't want to wait in line.
As far as the rides go, we hit pretty much everything. Racer is just plain fun, Jack Rabbit's double dip makes the ride (and the ride ops were really cool too for finding Natalie's pin!), and Thunderbolt just didn't do much for me (aside from make my back hurt :oP).
Phantom's Revenge is simply incredible! I went in knowing nothing about the layout aside from the first two drops. Completely blew me away! The double dip on this coaster is just sick, and the air at the end of the ride... wow!
Exterminator was another pleasant suprise. The spinning is wicked! Loved the nasty looking fake rats on the walls, nice themeing.
Rode a whole slew of other rides... PittFall, Turtle, The Whip, Kangaroo, walked through Noah's Ark, rode the car ride (forgot the name!), made that nasty mistake of riding (another forgotten name) the flat ride next to the fries place in Lost Kennywood. Neil Rupp is a deadman for that one!!
Natalie and I both opted to try solo flights on the skycoaster. We'd both done RipCord at CP before with people, and Natalie had done Kennywood's with people... but those rides were nothing compared to this. Flying solo on this was amazing!!! I highly recommend it!
Before the evening ERT we decided to indulge in the famous fries. Mmmmm... those are good stuff.
ERT was fun, managed 3 rides at night after 2 rides in the morning on Phantom's Revenge. The line was over an hour all day, so we opted to only ride during ERT. Dinner was amusing, but not enough to keep us from almost falling asleep.
To top it all off, we got to see a lot of people. Saw Jeff and Stephanie multiple times through the day, MagnumDan and Mindy, Shawn Mamros, spent a good portion of the day with Neil Rupp and Martin, and saw a ton of other people throughout the day (too many to list!)
Day 3: SFWoA
Started off the day with the intelligent move of parking on the wildlife side! :o)
They should just put a sign out front reading "prepare to be offended by our operations!" So we're spoiled by CP... but this was just bad. I wanted to ride Raging Wolf Bobs for the count. 1 train operation. RWB is also now my least favorite wood coaster. There just wasn't anything fun about it.
Rode Villain because neither of us had really high opinions of it, and wanted to see if maybe it was just because of where we sat (in the back). Rode up front and still don't see what all the hype was about. Don't get me wrong, it's a good ride, I just don't think it was all that. Not to mention the CRUEL ride op who decided to violently staple me. My lapbar was touching my lap, enough room to be comfortable, not trying anything dumb. She comes over and forces the bar down as far as Natalie's!!! OUCH!!! It really wasn't necessary, not to mention she wasn't wearing a nametag. How poor is that?
Went over to X-Flight for Natalie's first ride on it. Still love it!! This ride is just crazy. The intensity of the vertical loop is incredible. It gets me more disoriented than any other coaster.
Opted for a ride on S:UE. FUN FUN FUN! But that was to be all the fun :o( It was time to end one of the best trips I've ever taken. Thank you Natalie!!! Looking forward to more trips like this down the line. That's all from me!
--Jeff
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Jeff Tobe
tobejeff@pilot.msu.edu
THRUST AIR!
*** This post was edited by Mantomatic on 7/18/2001. ***
The flat ride at Kennywood by Small Fry's you speak of is WipeOut, one of the very few rides I refuse to try again.
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Matt Lynch
Co-Webmaster, Kennywood Boulevard
http://kennywood.coasterbuzz.com
Yep, that was it Matt. We rode it RIGHT after dinner... the fact that we just ate a ton of food and were beyond tired made it a very nasty ride! Not to mention we ended up being the ones going backwards :oP
Almost forgot, rode the Bayern Kurve earier in the day too. That ride is intense!
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Jeff Tobe
tobejeff@pilot.msu.edu
THRUST AIR
Man, I must be a rarity. I LOVE the Wipeout, especially backwards...
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--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
And the car ride we rode, where my hand was nearly smacked off by Neil (oooh he's gonna get it for that and for the Wipeout), was called the Auto Race.
Jeff pretty much summed up my feelings for the past weekend...I had a great time! Even though SFWoA/O/Geauga Lake still sucks.
-Natalie
Neil Rupp will pay!!
*** This post was edited by AirtimeSROS on 7/18/2001. ***
I don't care much for the Wipeout anymore, but I used to love it. I remember back when I first rode it (this might not have been at Kennywood), they let us ride it continuously, reversing the direction everytime.
Speaking of intense flat rides, how about a Power Surge next year?
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Joe Cernelli, who needs to get back to Knoebel's
real soon!
Head Webmaster, Kennywood Boulevard
http://kennywood.coasterbuzz.com
The Wipeout is the only ride at Kennywood that I will not ride again.
A Power Surge - I could go for that! ;)
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Kennywood Insider's Guide
http://kennywood.coaster-mania.com
