Friday, August 3
After a day of sight seeing including the Cape May Light House and the Hereford Light House just north of Wildwood, we ate dinner (in a less than spectacular restaurant between Wildwood Crest and Cape May) and then headed out for day 2 on the piers. Our hotel was only two blocks away from the north end of the board walk, so we walked to the boards and caught the tram down to Morey's Pier (the upper pier).
Being later around 7pm, the crowds were heavier than the day before. First coaster we encountered was Flitzer. The line for this was very long so we decided to skip it. We were then met with disappointment as the Zoom Phloom was not working (reportedly they had a leak in one of the drops).
Spying the Dante's Inferno dark ride, of course we had to take a spin. Again, I love these things, no matter how cheesy they are.
But then it was time for the main attraction on this pier… Great Nor'Easter. This was my first encounter with a Vekoma SLC (aka "hang and bang") so I did not know what to expect. My wife sat this one out… letting me test the waters first. Being an "inverted" style, experience told me to head for the front seat. Surprisingly, I found these seats to be more comfortable than my beloved B&M's. Anyway, I knew it was going to be a great ride when the train started going up the fast lift hill and I had a perfect view of the vast Atlantic. It was kind of eerie… like you were going right off into the ocean. Then she hit the drop and she screamed through her paces. It was a great ride, not as smooth as a B&M, but not nearly as rough as everyone claimed! Getting off and meeting my wife at the exit, I told her she would love it, so up the ramp again I went with her in tow. This time it was a back seat ride. A bit rougher than the front and a bit more intense, she loved it.
After that ride, we headed over to the little RC-48 coaster. This being New Jersey and all of the jokes about the Mafia, they should really theme this coaster… rename it the Godfather with the tag line "you ride-a my coasta'… I breaka' your knees." This was one of the roughest coasters I have ever been on, and the trains were small and uncomfortable… our knees were constantly battered by the back of the seats in front of us. OUCH!!!!!
Anyway, we survived our one and only ride on this little contraption. A few flat rides were next including something called the Break Dancer and Gravitron. I was a bit worried about Gravitron… a flying saucer looking thing that spins around and you are stuck to the walls on these movable little back boards… almost like a modernized Rotor. However, I found it to be fun.
Before heading off the pier, we took one last ride on Great Nor'Easter. This was my wife's first front seat ride on an inverted coaster of any type, and she absolutely loved it.
We then headed back down to Wild Wheels for a few night rides on Great White. All trams were full so we started walking. We did take one detour to go through Dracula's Castle and the Castle Dungeon. This is on the boards near the entrance to Mariner's Landing, but it is not part of Morey's. Anyway, the walk through castle was a bit corny, but the boat ride through the dungeon underneath was creepy and a little morbid (in other words, it was GREAT!)
My objective a Wild Wheels was to get in as many rides on Great White as possible. My wife (still a bit leery of wood after her Hercules experience) decide to sit these rides out, but she told me to ride as much as I wanted… she was people watching and watching the go cart track. Anyway, the front of Great White at night is very good. The tunnel between the station and lift hill is very dark at night and the view from the top at night is incredible. It was one day before full moon and the view of the moon on the Atlantic at the top of the lift was great. This coaster is a really good night time coaster and I had a ball. I got in two back seat rides, two front seat rides, and one middle ride. The only wait was a train or two for front of back. As I was going to get on for my 6th ride, my wife pointed up at the lift hill. A train was stuck at the top. Had I decided to wait for a front seat on my previous ride, I would have been up there! Not really wanting to wait to see what happened (it was nearing 11:30pm) we decided to catch the next tram north bound and head back to our room for the night.
Saturday, August 4
My wife and I found out just how old we are on this day.
We decided to save our 3 day on the parks for a later visit (the passes carry over from one day to the next) and hit one of the water parks. We decided on the one at the end of Mariner's Landing (middle pier). First off, I am not a swimmer, so I was a bit nervous. Secondly, I wear glasses, but could not wear them on the slides and such so I was "flying blind".
We hit the one of the slides and then the "endless river". After doing my first slide my nervousness was gone… except for the fact that I refused to do the one slide that dumped you into a 10' pool of water. Again, I'm not a swimmer so I like to be able to have my feet touch bottom. My wife did that one while I waited (odd... usually she is the one who waits while I ride).
There is another slide that is called the "Sky Pool" where you slide down in tubes into various pools before dropping down the next slide to the next pool. There are about 4 pools. In ever stinkin' on of them I fell off my tube! Oh the embarrassment!
However, my embarrassment was minor compared to what happened next. We rode the Speed Slide next. This is one where you lay down on your stomach on a mat and slid down. It is fast. My wife went down first and I followed. At the bottom I fell off my mat and had to swim to the side. Coming up, I saw my wife standing by the side and laughing. I didn't think I looked that funny swimming. However she said that she found out that wearing a swim suit that zips up the front is not the best thing to wear when doing that slide. She said that when she hit the bottom, she felt a bit "free", and had to quickly do some "stuffing and zipping" before coming out of the water! Only injury to report was to her pride.
One more turn on the "endless river" and then another on the first slide we hit, and we decided to call it a day.
Walking back to where we were parked (we drove and did not do the tram on Sat), we stopped and got some of those good Curley's French Fries again (loaded with vinegar and salt) and also we each got a slice of pizza at Jumbo's (also at the entrance to the pier). When they say a Jumbo slice, they mean a JUMBO slice. I swear one slice was bigger than an entire Pizza hut personal pan pizza!
Back at the room, we both laid down to rest a bit and before we knew it, we had been sleeping for 45 minutes. We woke up exhausted and our muscles in our arms hurt. That entire night we were tired and were sore, and we are still sore. We figured it was from the water park, and figured we are just not used to that sort of thing… walking up those towers for the slides, carrying the tubes up with us in some cases, etc etc etc. I'm 35, she is 31… and we both realized that we "are not kids anymore". But we still had fun… and are already looking forward to a return trip to Wildwood next year.
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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."
Great TR!!! I knew you would have a great time :)My hubby and i were laughing when we came across your mention of the sky pool and the zipper incident,boy did that bring back memories which made me enjoy reading your TR even more!!!
~*Rickyswmn*~
Wow, they still have Gravitron! That was always one of my favorite rides when I went there as a teenager. Do they still have the mine train dark ride, or is that gone? I loved that ride.
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Batwing-Bow Down
I REALLY want to go now!!!!!
Intamin Fan said:
"Do they still have the mine train dark ride, or is that gone? I loved that ride.
"
I think the Mine Train dark ride you are talking about was located on what was called Dinosaur Beach (Told Nugget Mine Ride to be exact).
Morey's Piers consist of Morey's Pier, Mariner's Landing, and Wild Wheels.
The pier that the Gold Nugget was on still has some attractions on it, however the ride itself is SBNO. About the only things that we saw operating operating on this pier were a go cart track and a very evil looking ride where you sit two perople to a seat on the end of a big arm (with only two sets of seats) and it then spins round and round at a very high altitude... I don't know what they call it here, but Dorney Park calls their "Sky Scraper" (an up charge attraction).
Anyway, believe I read somewhere (perhaps on the RCDB or one of the other sites) that Morey's actually owns the old Dionasaur Beach Pier but has done very little to it. I think I also read somewhere that the old Gold Nugget Mine ride is listed as "for sale".
The only "dark rides" we encountered were "Dante's Inferno" on Morey's Pier (the upper pier), "Dark River" on Mariner's Landing (the middle pier), and "Jersey Junkyard" and "Mummy's Curse" at Wild Wheels (the lower pier). As stated, off the piers and not part of Morey's there is Dracula's Castle walk through with the dungeon boat ride underneat it. (The Dungeon boats being the most interesting of all the dark rides that remain).
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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."
We then headed back down to Wild Wheels for a few night rides on Great White. All trams were full so we started walking. We did take one detour to go through Dracula's Castle and the Castle Dungeon. This is on the boards near the entrance to Mariner's Landing, but it is not part of Morey's. Anyway, the walk through castle was a bit corny, but the boat ride through the dungeon underneath was creepy and a little morbid (in other words, it was GREAT!)
Are there many live actors in either of these? I've been wanting to try them out, but I'm not too crazy about haunted house attractions where live actors jump out at you.
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Sue Barry
CoasterSue@aol.com
The castle itself was not the greatest. You are hearded into a room with about 20 other people and the "actors" do a bit of performance... then you go from room to room (about 5 rooms in all) and there are other little performances. No one jumps out at you. The only truely "scary" parts are the few areas that you have to walk to from room to room... and then only if you are the person in the lead or the person in the rear of the group. All in all, it was okay, but not that great.
The Dungeon Boat Ride underneath the Castle is much better. You get in a boat (max of 4 adults I believe) and you then meander through the dark dungeon and catecombs under the castle. It is very dark at some places, very morbid and creepy at others, and this one does have the live actors that do jump out and scare you. The cost for this is around $4.50, but it is a very long ride.
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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."
SLFAKE said:
"The castle itself was not the greatest. You are hearded into a room with about 20 other people and the "actors" do a bit of performance... then you go from room to room (about 5 rooms in all) and there are other little performances. No one jumps out at you. The only truely "scary" parts are the few areas that you have to walk to from room to room... and then only if you are the person in the lead or the person in the rear of the group. All in all, it was okay, but not that great.
The Dungeon Boat Ride underneath the Castle is much better. You get in a boat (max of 4 adults I believe) and you then meander through the dark dungeon and catecombs under the castle. It is very dark at some places, very morbid and creepy at others, and this one does have the live actors that do jump out and scare you. The cost for this is around $4.50, but it is a very long ride.
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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden...""
Thanks for the info! I tried out both this weekend. Actually, I found the walk-through to be much scarier. The boat ride is very good as far as length and scenes, but there were only 3 live actors who didn't even do a very good job. I was expecting a lot more than that. I stuck in the middle of the group in the castle so it was OK in there. If I was in front or back, they would've got me good. I couldn't believe how pitch-black it was in there!
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Sue Barry
CoasterSue@aol.com
One thing to point out about Morey's water parks. They are on the end of both Morey's Pier and Mariner's Landing and the tickets are good for both parks. HOWEVER, the 2 parks are nearly identical so other than a couple of differences they both have all the same rides. Take it from me, its not worth a 20 minute walk wearing sandals in 95 degree heat.
d3 `-{>
What was that golden nugget ride like? I remember seeing that once when I was a kid, but never going on it.
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http://pacoasters.proboards.com/
The Golden Nugget was really fun... you started out by climbing two chain lifts which brought you to the roof of the structure. The track zig-zagged around up there a few times, and then made a slow descent to the middle level of the ride, zig-zagged some more, and then went to the lower level. There were tons of stunts, like falling timbers, a spinning tunnel, waterfalls and the like... basically your standard haunted house stuff except the ride was a slow-moving coaster.
When the pier became Dinosaur Beach in 1996 (after being closed for a few years), the ride had some new theming added on top of the old stuff, basically to tie the ride in with the rest of the pier's prehistoric feel. The last time I rode it (probably 1999, whatever Dinosaur Beach's last year of operation was), the ride was in the best condition it was ever in.
Yes, Morey's does own the pier and will most likely re-develop the pier in the future, although there have been rumors that the pier will not be mechanical rides but rather other attractions, perhaps along the lines of the Sky Scraper that was added this year. Hopefully Morey's will keep the Golden Nugget... its unlikely that another park will buy it, and now, it is the only thing left of the once-great Hunt's Pier!
Thanks for the info. I've been wondering about that for years.
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http://pacoasters.proboards.com/
As stated, there is now a Sky Scraper ride and also a go-cart track located on the old Hunts Pier. The Gold Nugget is SBNO. Actually, it looks kind of ghostly sitting there abandoned... kind of creepy in its own right.
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"I wasn't always this cynical, but then I started kindergarden..."
