Little Geauga Lake Updates

Went to geauga Lake midst the raindrops that fell most of saturday.

First off the hydes section is not roped or anything just a lawn or mud pit with hay on top.

Most rides were running and decently well. The WolfBobs are noticeably better in the high turn, after the retracking was done, really runs well now. Villain sorry but the trick track wasnt taken out and the ride seems to actually run at least better than it was last year even though it seems that they didnt touch anything on it.

Dominator still needs wheel replacing, check em out if you dont believe me, its smooth still, but the train vibrates a ton, but it doesnt toss you or slam you but its pretty shaky. They need to still address this problem.

Lastly i got to talk to the man yesterday. I got to talk to Dick Kinzel after getting off the dominator. He was just browsing the park with Spehn and another bigshot who i didnt recognize. I must say he is ultra personable, and asked how i was enjoying things and if i had gone to any of the other parks and if i planned to. He puts business in the forefront but he also thanked me and my mom for coming out and as well as i thanked him for giving us the parks to come to. A very classy individual to the fullest, also considering he also came from valleyfair in the day sometime as he mentioned that as well.

All in all they seem well prepared there and it will be very interesting to see how things progress as the crowd was down, but that was to be expected. I commend them for having things ready for the first day and had it working well.

I went up to Bill and told him they did a good job with RWB.

Didn't notice any out-of-the-ordinary vibration on Batman, but felt that Villian -though very intense- was running pretty solid.

Double Loop has also entered it's 29th year in the best condition as always. Serial Killer seemed like it was running pretty good as well.

Was sad to see an empty Silver Bullet (Enterprise) lot for the 3rd year as well as the non-existant hopes of the Rocket Ships and Flying Scooters returing.

However, I was happy to see the Monorail still up and running.

I was at the park all day Saturday and saw Dick briefly. But I also had the chance to speak with Tom Jones in the morning asking about the coasters. I had already seen that Villain's jazz track was still there on Friday when I processed my pass. When I asked about Villain he quite frankly stated they ran out of time but told us to go ride the Raging Wolf Bobs for a noticable change.

So what did I notice about the Wolf Bobs? They pretty much fixed all the business that the ride had in the track work. The center line of the *Dinn* curve was changed removing the lateral slam on the first speed hill. It's a nice smooth curve there now. The swamp curve is much better now, but quite honestly still isn't right as they still didn't cut the curve there smoothly in two spots I noticed. They didn't lower the hill either like originally planned a couple years ago. That would've really helped the second half of the ride. The following double down type sequence into the horshoe curve is smooth, but I stll felt a slight bouncing in the valley under the crossover below the third hill. Overall the coaster is really smooth now. It's back to it's 1988 condition except with a better second drop.

Villain, I did notice some track work as there are a couple of small areas where it was recapped. But they did not fix the track where it needed it. I know the spots that are really bad need more than just recapping, so I'm sure that had something to do with the decision to just recap a few areas. Still it's been too long with that ride. It's a great coaster that too many people hate anymore because of it's trains and bad track. But I digress, I thought it wasn't as bad as when I last rode it in the Fall.

Big Dipper was testing in the rain since before the gates opened. Go there to get the first ride when park opens (it's still running and the rain has stopped) and we're met at the entrance by Wally Moose saying the rides closed. Stupid me....I forgot.....skid brakes...they don't work in the rain with one train operation!! It did finally open later and was running great. I did see some new handrails on the *slow down* hill, and some recapping work on the first hill's curve and drop (right rail).

All the woodies were running well for opening day but they all seemed to be suffering from Orange Track Syndrom which makes me wonder if Geauga Lake has finally made that switch to dry graphite for there coaster track lubricant of choice. Too bad as Dipper suffered from very bad squealing during the day when it dried up in the afternoon. The new track steel on RWB's new track even had surface rust showing.

I thought Dominator was running pretty well. It was running fast and the midcourse wsn't killing the drop into the second half of the ride. Still has that vibration that all B&M's have though during the corkscrews. But the ride was fun as always.

I didn't ride the other coasters but thought that the area where Nasty Fall was would be a great place for a Mouse. It would be a nice fit there. Overall the park was deserted (except for some school busses) and we had a good time considering the weather. I'm just not overly impressed yet with changes in the park.

One reason Dominator (Or most B&M's) vibrate is lack of weight. Ive ridden dominator with both empty and full trains and the empty ones vibrate 100x more than weighted trains. Unless of course it was a full train then oh well. Ride Headspin then go ride Dominator. See whats rough then!

Does monorail still have to slow down on the return trip near the street? I rode it twice last year and they had to practically craw back to the station. Any thoughts on the waterpark changes? I know it hasn't opened yet, but thought you could comment on what you saw.

Yes, the monorail has to slow down there. The track it to curvey to take it any faster. It could be very dangerous.

Dominator is probably the only B&M coaster in the world that suffers due to a lack of ridership!

I wish that Cedar Fair would do what is needed to make the park into what it needs to be instead of little fixes here and there that don't do anything (and the occasional big fix that doesn't do anything either).