Return to Waldameer -- June 16

Last Tuesday I returned to Waldameer. It was nice day with the park having a moderate attendance level because of school picnics. For the most part, I rode the same rides as last year plus the new Mega Vortex. As usual, the park was quite enjoyable.

The Mega Vortex is a Mega Disk-O, the same type of ride as Cosmic Chaos at Kennywood. It is a nice but not overly intense thrill ride. As a new ride it was quite popular with about a 4 to 5 cycle line. The ride appears to be a good addition for this park.

Naturally I got several rides in on Ravine Flyer 2. It seems to be running more intense than last year. There are a few rough spots mainly in the far end of the ride on the other side of the highway which might need to be addressed following this season. Overall, it still remains a great ride. Waiting time was around 15 to 20 minutes.

Whacky Shack still appeals to me in spite of the half-hour wait caused by low capacity. There is still something special about those old Bill Tracey darkrides. I also went through Pirates Cove, a Tracey walkthrough.

Thunder River is the park's Log Flume and it is wetter than most rides of this type. An interesting part of this ride is the misty tunnel with the special effects.

Steel Dragon remains a fun coaster with the unpredictable spinning and the strongly banked turns. Supriningly, the wait on this ride was quite short.

Thanks to Waldameer, I won't miss the Wipeout at Kennywood now that it's gone. The Waldameer ride is run as it should be with spinning in both directuons.

Regarding the other flat rides, the Spider remains my favorite one here. The Tilt-A-Whirl is the best I have ever ridden with intense and frequent spinning. The only flat that I rode that was disappointing was the Paratrooper. It turned too slow compared to the ones at Kennywood and Conneaut Lake.

While riding the L. Ruth Express train I noticed the planned location for the new ride next year. It's inside the train loop over by RF2. There's a gate there that will permit access to this area once the ride is installed. Apparently, the ride will be like the Italian Trapeze at Knoebels.

I took the advice of others and just had a snack at the park. The funnel cake was very good, relatively soft but with a slight crispiness. The lemonade was refreshing with crushed ice that made it something like a slush.

Overall, this park continues to improve every year. One new change this year is the new smoking rules. Smoking is only permitted in designated areas just like at Kennywood. This addresses one of the most common complaints about this park in the past.

Based on my experiences here, I will be looking forward to future trips to Waldameer. This park is certainly worth visiting if you live anywhere within a reasonable distance of Erie.

Nice TR and glad to hear you had fun at my home town park. Did you mean June 10 or June 17 as the date you were there?

It was Tuesday, June 16. I incorrectly mentioned that it was on Wednesday but I have corrected that.

Waldameer ran a full page ad on the back page of the Akron Beacon Journal's weekly Enjoy section today. Very nice, if a little too text-driven. They fit pretty much every scrap of information they could on that page.

Hey I was also around on Tuesday. I thought the park was actually very busy for a Tuesday. I agree that its mostly school picnics, but it was still crowded for a Tuesday. Normally, I assume a Tuesday at Waldameer included a couple cycle wait for Ravine Flyer II and minimal waits on other rides besides Whacky Shack. Oh well, after years of constant walk-ons and relatively unfilled seats I love seeing these crowds at Waldameer.