Michigan's Adventure: 7/3

It's been about 5 years since I had an excuse to be on that side of the state, so we snuck a couple other families away from my in-laws' family reunion for the day. Moderate crowds, and many were in the waterpark despite the lower temps. Too cold for me, though.

They seem to be having some trouble with Thunderchicken. It opened two hours late. It had only one train on in the early afternoon. Later the second went on, and we hopped in line, but it went down while we were waiting. We stuck it out for 10 minutes, but when the 2nd and 3rd tech arrived, we bailed. They re-opened with one train again.

So, we never did get on, but the installation is nice. Freshly painted, reasonably well-landscaped, and some nice decorative touches in the station. The peeps are lining up for it, in a big way. Between that and Grand Rapids, that corner of the park looks quite nice.

The train still goes through nowhere, but at least it has a second station now up by Thunderchicken. That may have gone in with Grand Rapids.

Timbers seems to be running reasonably well. Some rough spots here and there, but for the most part it was "good rough" not "bad rough." By mid-afternoon, it had warmed up and was delivering some very nice air. Two trains all day, despite rarely having more than a 3 train wait in the station (and usually less).

The replacement trees and landscaping are starting to grow in---still under-developed, but a big improvement from five years ago. Between that and the effort put in on the new installations, the atmosphere is definitely moving in the right direction. Still a ways to go, but little steps for little feet.

Food prices are a bit lower than some other CF parks---I recall $6-7 for a burger and fries, which struck me as not completely horrible. Still not much in the way of options ---the standard hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, and little else.

Major bonus points for the kettle corn stand, though. It's not the very best corn I've ever had, but it was pretty darn good, and priced pretty fairly at $4.50 for a big bag. We got a couple bags between the three families.

Admission was $25 a throw for the non-pass-endowed, and that was before a discount of a couple bucks or so per person. We comped everyone parking by spreading our kids into the other cars---every Platinum pass includes parking, so that's cool with us. True, it's a smaller park, but we kept ourselves busy from 11-6 no problem. The park's smaller scale worked well, allowing us to split up with bigger kids going one way, and smaller kids another, easily hooking back up.

Except for the completely disinterested ops on Corkscrew, staff was generally friendly, competent, and with a reasonable degree of hustle.

Everyone that went had a good time, and the other families would like to do it again sooner rather than later. There's been a lot of kvetching on the boards about MiA, but it's fine for what it is---a small park with a small supporting population base that still has a couple of things going for it.

Thunderchicken! I love it!

I would imagine maintenance is still learning how to deal with the new steel and hope they've actually got some assistance from a park that is used to dealing with the issues that can arise.

I still haven't been since Grand Rapids opened, so I'm hoping to take advantage of the Platinum Pass to make a visit this season.

I was there on the 3rd as well! :)

I was struck by how nice the park looked & felt Thursday.

The flowers are gorgeous, and the landscaping crisp and clean. The bathrooms were clean, especially compared to my awful experience at Cedar Point early this year.

All the ride ops were courteous at the least, and most were really cheerful and efficient.

All in all, probably the best day I've had at an amusement park outside of TimbersFests.

Sounds like a nice day with the family.