After a series of failed attempts I was finally able to get my three best friends together for a trip out to Muskegon and Michigan's Adventure. It took about 3 hrs to get there from the NW side of Chicago, not stopping once and going 80 almost the whole way.
First off, I love the location of the park, in the woods along side lake michigan. I also loved entering the parking lot, as you drive right alongside shivering timbers. Needless to say my eyes were not on the road.
The parking was $5, not bad, and the lot was pretty empty. Entrance was only $20, also not bad....... or so it seemed at the time.
To put it simply, i was pretty much paying $20 to ride shivering timbers (not that that's a bad deal in itself).
This is about as bland of a park as I have ever seen. There is no theming, hardly any landscaping, no shade, and not a whole lot of rides. To put it in perspective, they have just about as many rides as holiday world, but I would rather go to HW about ten times more than I'd want to return here again.
Not to say this is a bad park, the lines were short, everything was clean, and its inexpensive. The park just has no character to it. The layout leaves a bit to be desired as well, as rides are just placed sparaticly and a lot of the paths are not well connected (kind of reminded me of one of my RCT parks).
As for the trip itself, we got going in the park around 11:30, rode most of the rides besides shivering timbers, grilled out in the parking lot until around 2, then returned to the park and pretty much rode Shivering Timbers until we left around 6.
A few comments on the coasters-----
corkscrew-- this has to be the simplest layout for a full circuit coaster i have ever seen. And i thought CP's corkscrew was short. I was also extremely troubled by the crew on this ride as they didn't even check anyone's restraints before dispatching the train. Ride is as follows--lift, drop, turn, 2 corkscrews, turn, end. Still, at least it wasn't rough. 1 time C
mad mouse-- I am a fan of wild mouse coasters, as they give such a different ride from your average coaster. This one was an arrow and had the standard wild mouse design, it was fun, in fact I actually rode it three times. B
Wolverive Wildcat-- First off, the name of this coaster really bothers me, couldn't they just have picked one or the other? What the hell is a wolverine wildcat? If the ride were any good i prolly wouldn't care. It has a nice layout and a decent first drop, and the double up/double down hill was unique, but thats about all I can say about it. The pacing was not that great, there was little to no airtime, and no laterals either. Also, even for a one train operation the line moved especially slowly. I rode it 2 times....and thats just because i wanted to give it a second chance. C
Zach's Zoomer- Fun for a kids coaster, even mini cci's are fun. 1 time....B-
Shivering Timbers- Ok, why else would anyone even go to this park right? Shivering Timbers is a great ride.....but at the same time it does not make it into my class of elite coasters. It barely beats out Viper and Beast for the #3 spot on my wooden coaster list.(behind Raven and Legend). As u prolly know, ST is a simple out and back coaster of very large proportions. I found it to be unique in that the front gave the best airtime. Anyway, the outbound trip makes this an A coaster, you fly over some massive hills and absolutely FLY out of your seat. Never on a coaster has a seatbelt saved my life, but on this ride it did. There is a sign as youi go up the lift hill that says if you undo your safety belt you will be ejected from the park. I didn't realize how true that was, because if you have your lapbar high up (the ride ops didn't even care how high up I had it), and you undo your seatbelt, you WILL fly out of this ride, literally. So i guess ST gets the honor of being the first coaster to make me really fear for my life. After the first set of hills comes the turnaround, and then a bunch of standard bunny hops back towards the station, followed by a final double helix. The return trip was fun, but nothing special. Overall though, this coaster gives as much air time as any other one I've been on. However, it didn't have any kind of element of surprise or real setting, and that kind of took away from it a little, and kept it from reaching the class of Legend or Raven. None the less, if u are an airtime whore u will love this ride. I lost track of how many times I rode it. A
Overall, I had a fun time, at the same time i wouldn't recommend coming to this park if you are more than three hours away, cause it prolly wouldn't be worth it. Still, this park has a ton of room and potential if CF knows what its doing. The park has tons of space and is surrounded by trees, which I think could be well utilized in the future with a beast/raven type coaster which goes out into the woods. If they make some improvements and add some top notch rides this could be a great park in a few years.
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I dinna cry when me own father was hung for stealing a pig. But I'll cry now.- Willie
Your TR is a rather accurate description of the park. However, if you didn't check out the water park portion of MA then you missed most of the park. To put it simply the water park at MA is better that the water parks at CP, PKI, PKD, SFA and SFWoA.
d7droog52 said:
"Wolverive Wildcat-- First off, the name of this coaster really bothers me, couldn't they just have picked one or the other? What the hell is a wolverine wildcat? "
Just a guess, but I think the 'wolverine' is a nod to the U of Mich varsity mascot. They could have called it Michigan Wildcat, but thought 'wolverine' sounded more fierce.
Anyway, one of these days when I take an extended trip back to see my peeps in Chi, I'll make that 2.5 hr trek (my parents live on the SE side). Nice TR, thanks.
lata,
jcsn
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"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men" - Willy Wonka:
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Nice TR. I'm making the trip from Chicago on Thursday.
You are right that the park is very bland, however I would like to point out that Cedar Fair has said that they will try to spruce up the park. I know when I was there, there were workers in the park the entire time laying sod and planting gardens. My guess is that the park will look a lot better in future years.
As for the placement of the rides, Most of the rides are flat rides, and they can easily be moved. I would expect many of the rides to change locations in the upcoming years.
The waterpark did look pretty nice, but i'm not really much of a waterpark fan, so skipping it didn't bother me so much. Still, if u do like waterparks i am sure it will make the trip much more enjoyable. As for the name Wolverine Wildcat.... i completely forgot about the michigan wolverines. But then why didn't they just call it the wolverine, thats not a bad coaster name at all, in fact i'm surprised there aren't more coasters named that. I guess i am just easily bothered by such things, can't help it. And then i was thinking, maybe they should have given Shivering Timbers a pirate theme....get it, shiver me timbers....pirates....ha ha.
I think that the Flat Rides are really underrated here. Sure, they only have one brand new flat ride, Chaos, but where else will they run every flat ride for a good 3 minutes? I was on the Tilt a Whirl forever! They run Chaos forever too. Glad you enjoyed the Timbers, and liked the Wolverine Wildcat. 2Hostyl is right with the UofM Wolverine comment. Pointan is alos correct in saying that the waterpark is a big part of MA. Don't worry, the park won't be bland for long, CF will slowly spruce it up.
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CDNSN
Wolverine is much more than just U-M - it's a symbol for the whole state of Michigan. Just like Ohio's the "Buckeye state", Michigan's the "Wolverine state". But you're right - calling a coaster simply "The Wolverine" is a great idea.
I was there Sunday as well. We made the 6+ hour drive from eastern Ohio. I agree with everything you said 100%.
Timbers doesn't make it into my top 5. My first thoughts were to go ride it before Cedar Fair screws it up, but after actually riding Timbers, my only hope is that they will save this ride from destoying itself.
It seems to me that the upstop wheels have way too much clearance as the train "bucks" down the first two drops much like Son of beast did last year before they smoothed it out a bit.
Don't get me wrong, Timbers is a great ride. We waited 20 minutes for our first ride, after the water park opened it was nearly walk-on the rest of the afternoon. I figured we would get maybe 2 rides in going on a Sunday and rode so many times we lost track as well!!!
We also rode the Corkscrew once and no operator even looked at us as we pulled out of the station checking our own shoulder harnesses!!! This seems to be the exact layout of the one removed from Geauga Lake to put in the Mind Eraser.
Zach's Zoomer is a snappy little wooden gem that I wouldn't mind having in my backyard. I think this was CCI's 2nd coaster( not positive).
I was impressed with the Mad Mouse as well. Very fun, very well built. The ride almost seems over engineered. It has an extremely stout support design compared to any other coaster of it's size.
If you go, ride the Pirate Ship. This one gives the most insane air time in the back row of any of the Pirate ships I have ridden.
I think Cedar Fair should take everything in the park except the coasters out into the parking lot this winter and start over as not too much planning has gone into the layout of the park to this point.
Please plant a tree or two...
Everyone was jockying for a spot under the Log ride in the grass because it was about the only place to hide from the sun.
We had fun but Michigan Adventure is not on my "must visit again" list.
The only bad park of the trip was hitting the traffic from the air show as we left turning a 6 hour drive home into almost 8. It took nearly 2 hours to get to Grand Rapids(approx 40 miles)!!!
I love summer road construction projects!
BTW, give some props to Corkscrew, it was one the first Arrow projects that made such a big influence. This is one of the few of these models left! Wow, a 6 hour drive, I admire your determination. I agree that MA isn't really worth that long of a drive, but it is still a greatpark. I said it once, I'll say it again, give CF a little time, and MA will be awesome!
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CDNSN
a little time, and alot of money!!! That place is going to need millions of dollars in landscaping to create the "character" of the park
Actually I really enjoyed MA. A very different feel and pace from your standard theme park.
If you notice, there is sand everywhere in the park. I, too, hope that more trees and landscaping will be added to the park.
I think CF should just improve on the flow in the midways. I didn't have a problem with it as everything was close to each other. They certainly need more restrooms in the park as well as a good sit down restaurant.
X Factor
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SFWoA: An Unofficial Guide
http://sfohio.tripod.com
CoasterLovinFool said:
" I figured we would get maybe 2 rides in going on a Sunday and rode so many times we lost track as well!!!
"
Ahh... small parks. Complain if you must, but you gotta love the absolute best attribute they all have - small crowds! Even the best ones - like Holiday World - makes for as many rides as you can stand in one day (unless it's SRM. Then you'll have to wait!). ;)
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So many coasters - so little time.
Actually, to my surprise when i went to HW on a weekend in mid july last year it was packed. There were 45-60 min waits for legend and 30-45 min waits for raven all day long..... but most of the time yes, it is quite empty
