Darien Lake 6/9/05
Associated parks:
None
We didn't leave til 1 and the slow bus we took landed us there 3 hours later, at about 4.
As we walked we noticed a sign that Mind Eraser was closed all day. It looks like it either has been closed for a while or it will because there's a nice 'permanent' looking sign outside the front gate. I wanted to ride it but hopefully next time.
After dishing out all the coupons from my family's season passes we ended up getting 18 people in for $203.00 Not too bad at all!
Rides:
Superman - 4 rides
Same fun ride as usual. It seems to boring compared to MF but it's nice to have it at my homepark. The line was out of the station and down the small staircase but not into the queues. Might not seem bad the the line was SO SLOW. It was probably about 20-25 minute wait, which may not seem bad but it was really unnecessary. I have no clue why the refuse to just run 2 trains. They need to face the fact that the ride isn't that popular and amazing and that no matter what they do the queue line isn't going to fill up anymore. There were 4 people checking restraints which was nice and they were pretty quick. I got a night ride but the best ride was in the back seat, earlier in the day.
Predator - 3 rides
Imagine this: Predator is open and running with 2 trains! WOW. Alot of the day the line wasn' long so they were only running one and sending one through empty which I thought was pretty dumb. THe only reason why they weren't running 1 was because tomorrow is a Saturday and they were too lazy to take it off the transfer. The workers were trying but the seatbelt check takes 5+ minutes so there was stacking everytime. Luckily whenever all rows were filled, they would fill both trains. 2 front seat rides, one back, both great. Not too painful and some nice airtime. Luckily it keeps its speed despite the constant shuffling and trims on the first drop.
Boomerang - 1 ride
1 train wait for any row pretty much. Same great ride as awesome. I love this thing, it's a boomerang that's actually smooth with no headbanging. The backwards trip is awesome too. I wish I could have ridden it more but we were trying to get everything in.
Twister - Closed. No mechanics working on it. Probably they're too lazy to staff it.
Viper - First ride on it this season. 2 trains running, loading both each time. The workers seemed friendly. No wait both times I rode. A little bumpy, but definately one of the better arrow loopers because at least it has a nice layout instead of drop turnaround, double corkscrew, turnaround, brake.
Grizzly Run - We had to get at least six people to fill a boat, by law. The girl was really nice about and felt bad we couldn't ride. We walked out the entrance, saw a guy with his son, and two of our friends who came and wanted to ride. We had exactly six. We ended up doing 2 laps around. Fun ride, the water falls were off which was a good thing, and the rapids were pretty fun. The worker 2/3 of the way through was shooting off geysers at us.
Water Park
Darien Lake's water park is the worst water park you will ever go to on a busy day. You'll be waiting upwards of an hour for a tube slide.
Luckily the weather was sorta crummy yesterday so it wasn't too crowded.
First we walked to Tornado.
Tornado:
I had high expectations for this ride. It looked really cool, and it's been highly rated so I was pretty exciting. We waited about 20 minutes or so and lugged the tube up the hill.
Once we got going, we sorta got stuck in the slide but lifeguard gave us a push. The ride itself was pretty fun, but nothing that scary or insane. You barely go up the sides, and my head wasn't even wet when we got off surprisingly. It was ok, and yes it was fun, but nothing spectacular I think they ripped out part of the parking lot to put the slide but luckily they have filled it all in with grass, shrubs, and flowers, so it looks nice.
Floodgate Falls:
This lazy river with drops is a blast. I tried to get out of the tube and sorta move myself along so I didn't get stuck, but I ended up accidently leaving my tube behind and going face first down the 'waterfall'. Fun ride though.
Cuda Falls:
Next up was the 4 tube slides. There was not really any line so we didn't these nonstop for about 30 minutes. There were only 2 workers at the top of the giant 'pool' that you wait in. One was friendly but the other one looked like he was about 12. Neither were a lifeguard which sorta scared me but that one kid was yelling and screaming at kids, telling them to push themselves, and it wasn't too good. The other guy was doing his best to remain calm and help push kids down, telling the older kids to wait 10 seconds and then go. Fun slides.
We ended the day with the AWESOME AWESOME AWESEOME lazer show. It was incredible. I always thought CP's was good but this was spectacular. The lazer's coming out at the crowds were awesome, they had fog mixing with the light making it look like clowds. The selection of songs was great, rap, rock, and some otheres, including the Chicken Dance, which we danced along with, as did the chicken on the screen who was hilarious. It all ended with the usual Proud to Be an American which was nice. There was also a tribute to Canada which was sorta weird. Throughout the show there were constantly fireworks. Great show 10/10.
We had a fun day. Although my youth coordinator doesn't ride rides, she wants to come back again in August when I have another wild card week with $10.00 tickets. Sounds good to me!
Darien Lake is nice park, they keep it up nice and the selection of rides isn't great but it's ok. Great for a day trip but honestly, they just have to start running a second train on Superman. The line was ridiculous considering the small amount of people in line. They are severe need of a new thrill ride or coaster. Nothing big, just a B&M floorless like Batman the Dark Night. That would be enough to attract crowds from both Buffalo and Syracuse. *** Edited 7/9/2005 5:16:28 PM UTC by Ride of Steel***
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