Michigan's Adventure

First off, we wanted to try and make this trip somewhat cheaper, so we chose MiA & CP to utilize our CP passes. Secondly, my wife is not as enthusiastic about coasters as me and the kids are, so we chose to spend half the trip in Muskegon/Lake Michigan-area so everyone could have some fun.

Michigan's Adventure

I'm choosing to do some likes and dislikes for this portion of the TR.

Likes

1) Grand Rapids - Very impressive! Best looking raft ride I've seen personally. Good theming, nice layout, huge lines...this ride was a great decision for MiA. YOU WILL GET TOTALLY SOAKED ON THIS RIDE!!! Plus, for those who like to soak others, the have 12 water cannons, and they are positioned very nicely.

2) Managements prescence around the park. From parking cars, to walking the midways, and jumping on kids playing basketball in the midway, you couldn't turn a corner without seeing one.

3) The majority of employees were awesome! They were friendly, they talked to patrons while they waited in line, always asked if you were ready to ride/and asked how your ride was.

4) Wolverine Wildcat & Zach's Zoomer - OK pick yourselves up off the floor from laughing. I have younger children, one of which can ride bigger rides, and she must have rode ZZ 5-6 times each day we were there. ZZ was a fun ride, even for me as an adult. WW wasn't a top 10 woodie, but it was just fun...lots of little pops of air and bunnyhills.

5) There were quite a few breakdowns on rides in our two days at the park, but maintenance was on top of things at all times. They were a great crew, and though they don't have the land to cover some parks do, they were answering calls, and fixing rides quick.

Dislikes

1) The train ride - I wanted to like it, but there was nothing to it. No scenery...nothing. The girl running the train used some sarcasm in her dialogue she read, which I found funny, and fitting. They should give them dialogue about the parks coasters and history, (esp. since this is their 50th anniversary, talk about the humble beginnings as a deer park). If not, close it until you can theme the ride some.

2) Shivering Timbers - Now keep and open mind here, I enjoyed most of my rides on ST, but the reason it appears in the dislikes is for this reason. Give this ride some serious TLC people. This coaster was awesome, and could still be talked about as much as it was 5 years ago, but it's gonna require some attention. I don't think that is too much to ask for your parks crowning achievement. There were many parts of that ride that were just painful, and other parts that were just unecessarily rough.

3) I hadn't gotten to Corkscrew yet, and it was 8:55pm when I entered the line. There was just myself, and two 11-12 years olds waiting, with a full train preparing to leave except for two restraints still raised. A rider up front said this was probably the last ride, so I went up to the two open seats about mid-train and asked if I could board, the employee just stares at me like I was speaking a foreign language, and tells me I can wait up front for the next ride.

He gives a thumbs up to the operator, who says, "all clear" and releases the train...with the two OTSR's still standing up from mid-train. Everybody yells, they stop it, throw the restaints down, and send it. While the ride is running through they ignore us, the employee takes a running jump into the track atop the station breaks to dig out a womans sandle from the previous ride. When the train returns, they let everybody off, look at us, with four more people about to enter the line, and say, "Corkscrew is closed for the evening folks". A couple of us saw a manager out front of the ride explained ourselves, which he offered to walk us personally up to the ride the following morning but I had to decline since at that point we were not returning because of other plans. He did go and talk to the guys to get to the bottom of it immediately...Thanks Brandon! (the manager).

4) Some groundskeeping around Shivering Timbers would be great for asthetic reasons, and the addition of trees and other foliage on the walkways would help disguise the lack of attractions around the park. I don't mean this as a means of being sneaky, more of an accentuate the positives, and hide the negatives. My first thought when I entered the park was, "I can see that there is nothing to do at the other end, so let's hit the front first.

Anyway, believe it or not, I actually had a great time at MiA! It was a fun park for the little they had to work with on attractions. The staff was overall, really awesome, (esp. management). They parked us, greeted us, said hello as they passed us, and were at the exits to thank us, and say good night. The park was clean, cleanest bathrooms I've been in a while, (esp. at the Wagon Wheel pizza stand). Reasonably priced food. Decent waterpark that had a lot to do for little ones. I'll give it an 8 out of 10 overall.

Re Grand Rapids....
Do you get wet after the waterfall? When I was there in early June, it looked like there weren't any good rapids to get you wet. I decided it was too cold to ride that night though, as the waterfall seemed to be soaking people.

There are a lot of new trees planted - it's going to take some time for them to mature. It's way better than it was a couple of years ago.

I also think that the train was built with growth in mind, and it will be improved a little every year. It used to just circle the field - at least now it goes somewhere!

I rode Timbers last week and found it to be good in the front, but a bit slower then in years past - good floater air, but not too intense. The back shuffled a bit, but hardly painful. Maybe I'm just numb to rough coasters. One of the best rides I've ever had on a roller coaster was on Timbers a few years ago at Timbersfest. When the thing gets in sync, it's unbelievable.

Great TR, by the way.

Edit -typos. *** Edited 7/9/2006 4:01:06 PM UTC by Chaindog***

Yeah, that area around GR will look great in a couple of years. It'll do a great job of hiding the ride layout. As far as the waterfall, from what we could tell it was hit or miss depending on how your boat bounced off the canyon walls. Some got away, while some got totally dumped on.

My main problem with the train ride was the lack of interest one employee showed, and the other who did her best IMO to entertain when she clearly had nothing entertaining to read from her pre-written dialogue sheet. As I said in the TR, they could've told about the parks history, Timbers & Wilcat's history, but that poor girl had nothing to say.

And I don't think I mentioned it in the TR, but Timbers blue train did run a lot better than the green. And the parts I considered painful were mostly the bottoms of the hills throughout the ride. My favorite part of the ride though was the whole second half. The low to the ground elements, (trick-track, small bunnyhills, headchoppers), made that ride for me. The airtime was decent to me, but since Voyage airtime has taken on a new definition.

I seem to recall a tornado took out a good number of the old growth trees a couple years before CF took over the park. Since then, they have planted a lot of trees, but as Chaindog said, it's going to take some time before the new trees mature.

I just have a question about the Grand Rapids ride. When you said it had long lines, How long were the lines? And, I would like to know if you noticed how many rafts the ride was running?

I have not been to the park this year, because of lack of cash. but, I do plan to go some time in August. And, I hope to get at least one ride on the Rapids this year.

The longest lines I have witnessed at MA were at the water park. My firends and I waited 2 hours last summer to ride the Funnel of fear. Is Grand Rapids up in that wait zone? I have also waited over an hour to ride The Mine shaft, and, Mammoth River.

As for the coasters. The longest I have waited was 1 hour for the wildcat. 45 minutes for ST, and 45 for the mad mouse. But, that was on an extremely busy day. What were the lines like when you visited?

Were all the lines long? or just at the water park, which is almost allways crowded.

Let me know. So, I can make plans.

From the one trip i've had this year, Grand Rapids is quite popular. During the hottest part of the day, Funnel of Fear and Grand Rapids both had about a 40 mintue wait. Adventure Falls was just about a walk on, most of the slides you could get on in 5-10 minutes or less.