Snake River Expidition is amazing!

I was at Cedar Point last weekend, and since I am an ex-Paddlewheel Excursions Boat Captain, I didn't mind the almost hour-long line for the park's new ride, Snake River Expedition.

I liked it so much that I actually rode it twice.

The park did a really good job creating this ride. The actors were hilarious, and the story and script both were amusing. Although the boats are new, and larger, they reused most of the props and animatronics from the old ride.

It's bigger and better, with so much more to look at.

I made a video with minor spoilers of the ride on my new YouTube channel, if you'd like to check it out.

You are the third or fourth person that has made me even more excited to check this out. I'm always glad to see Cedar Point invest in rides like this as well as rides like Steel Vengeance. It's why I do love the place so much (when it's able to be operated to its full potential)

I'm glad that you enjoyed it. This is a ride that is going to be made or broken by the actors, and on my ride on Sunday we got a dud. The skipper put his heart into his performance, but his jokes landed flat and the interactions with the actors on the shore were confusing, leading everyone on my boat to be pretty befuddled when we got to the exit. I'd imagine that they will work on things as the season progresses, but fully expect to see a mix of reactions in the meantime.

Thanks for the video. My family enjoyed the PWE (pronounced Peewee) just about every visit we ever made to CP when our son was little.

I was so excited to ride this again last Friday, but ultimately left the line. It looked like it was progressing fast enough until it committed what is to me the most egregious sin of queue lines, the Hidden Surprise Room. (Where just when you think you're almost done, a previously unseen room with an even bigger queue area appears.)

Unfortunately I left the line. It was hot, crowded, smelly and the only time in my 2 visits where I actually wore a mask, so I just lost interest. I'll try again later.

There is no Fast Lane for this ride, just FYI.

Is it me or was there no social distancing in the queue? I don't know that I'm quite ready for that. I just went mask-free this past week in the grocery store for the first time since last May.

Mulfinator, No social distancing is something I've noticed in all park queues this season. Kentucky Kingdom, Kings Island, and Cedar Point... no social distancing at all. I assume it's because the majority of people are vaccinated and forget to do it.

Tommytheduck, The surprise hidden queue irked me too. As soon as I saw it, I remembered the size of the queue building when it was PWE and slapped my forehead. I found the building interesting though. I used to sweep leaves and dirt out of that building out when I worked there. I was pointing at the ceiling and recalling the way the queue used to go. The rides exit at one time used to travel along the side of the building where the roof is flatter.

Phantomtails, I agree that the actors will make or break the ride. I rode it twice in two days. The first day, the actor on the boat, as seen in the video, was hilarious. The second day, we got a different actor, and he had a good voice, but was not nearly as funny.

There's no real social distancing at CP in my 2 visits this year. I do my best to keep space behind the people in front of me and do it a bit conspicuously in the hopes that the people behind me take notice and return the favor.

I haven't been wearing a mask at all, despite what I said I'd do in the Shanghai thread a few weeks ago.

But... when I entered the building for Snake River Ex, it really felt (and smelled) like the situation where it's recommended to still mask up, no matter your vax status. The ceilings were low, it was hot, crowded, and very little air movement at all. So yeah, I masked up and noticed that a higher percentage of people in the building were as well.

The general uncomfortableness of everything mentioned above, followed by the hidden queue reveal just really let all the wind out of my sails. I'm eager to try out this new version though, and hope to do so soon enough.

I'm not sure I understand. You felt... less vaccinated?

Delighted to see the new incarnation, my era working at the Point , it was the Western Cruise. The safety people must have had a say in the concept and bringing it to fruition, as a separate pilot who does nothing but that was unheard of back in the day. It would have probably kept a lot of boats off the sand bars tho.....

Tommytheduck said:

It was hot, crowded, smelly

But enough about the Raptor bathrooms

Jeff said:

I'm not sure I understand. You felt... less vaccinated?

Here we go again...

As I already said, I still don't, and never have, liked the idea of being in a crowded, stale room with a bunch of people, many of whom, even though it's an honor system, are not vaccinated. Yes, I'm aware of the data.

(I mean, have you *ever* enjoyed waiting in the sewer tunnels of Batman: The Ride on a 90 degree day?)

Judge all you want, but I'll do me, boo. Even if it means giving up my Constitutional freedoms for 15 minutes over the course of 3 park visits since my shots.

I'm not judging you, I was just asking. Two sites, thousands of users, I'm not going to remember everything, so I guess, yes, here you go again.

Jeff said:

I'm not sure I understand. You felt... less vaccinated?

This is going to happen for a lot of folks, and it might take a while for it to abate. Many of our brains have spent a good year+ (subconsciously) tracking the environment for other people carrying Death-By-Breath in our immediate vicinity, and sending us an emotional trigger when the threat is deemed present. As I understand the neuroscience*, laying down that subconscious circuitry is relatively easy, but getting to a point where it isn't activated takes time.

*: Not a neuroscientist, just an interested layperson. Summary of what I've learned reading about the last 20 years of work in this space: We generally don't have any idea how our own brains work, and the stories we tell ourselves about why we do things are just wrong.

I think this is spot on. Rationally I know that my vaccine works. However, after more than a year of distancing and mask wearing I was hesitant to take my mask off in indoor settings when CDC changed the guidance. I'm still very hesitant to get near people whose vaccination status is uncertain. I'm pretty sure my reaction would have been the same as Tommy's. If I was with my kids I guarantee I would have been wearing a mask as my daughter is too young to receive her first vaccine.

"Vaccine breakthrough" (bingo!)

Most of us know way more about fomites, aerosols, droplets, filtration etc. that we did a year ago and frankly more than I ever wanted to know but there is no going back now. My family was very healthy the past year and we all really like not getting sick. All of us are vaccinated, it is not Covid that I would be thinking of in that indoor queue situation with a hundred of my closest friends and strangers, it is all the other crap I am not vaccinated against floating around in there!

In a good year I probably loose two weeks or so to non-injury ailments here and there, if I can get a week of that back by doing something simple like wearing a KN-95 in certain situations and avoiding crowded restaurants I certainly will give it a go and see how it works out. What I have been doing the past year certainly has worked.

That is how the neurons I have left are firing right now.

It could be worse. Because of the large crowd and the Friday night closure, Holiday World had "steerage" (the basement queue house under Voyage, with its Holiday World-style extra-narrow queue spaces) fully opened and packed full of people during Saturday's HoliWood Nights ERT.

At least Cedar Point gives you more than 18" of width in the queue.

I do wonder the degree to which the Snake River Expedition will be a "one and done" attraction, just enough to make the lines *a little* shorter. It is pretty decent. I think the biggest issue with it is both its greatest feature and its biggest problem: it relies *heavily* on live actors, which makes it a very expensive attraction to operate. On the other hand, that also means it's easier to change the script around to keep it fresh.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Jungle Cruise seems to remain popular without major changes (well, until now). CP just can't make a ride like this a people eater like Disney can, so even with a relatively low number of guests in line it will still take some time.

Isn't changing anything about a classic Disney ride considered heresy? I mean, people still wait in line for It's a Small World...

I'm really looking forward to this later this month, and also entertained that a post by Travis about the new ride took exactly four posts to turn into a thread about re-entry anxiety.

By the way, really cool video, Travis. It's really interesting to hear the opinion of a former captain from PWE. Great job of covering the ride without giving away too much. I promised to remain spoiler-free until I ride it with my girls in a couple weeks.

Brian Noble said...

As I understand the neuroscience*, laying down that subconscious circuitry is relatively easy, but getting to a point where it isn't activated takes time.

About 6-8 weeks.

Thanks, OhioStater. At first, I wanted to mention in the video that it was light on the spoilers, but I can't figure out if people want spoilers or not, so I decided to keep that quiet.

Also, adding a lot of spoilers would have made the video longer, which I wanted to stay away from.

I'm new at making videos like this, so it's nice to get compliments already.

About Fastlane, The topic is on a list of ideas. I'm actually considering making a video about it in the far off future. That will be fun, won't it? LOL