Associated parks:
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TR: Martins Fantasy Island 8-4-2002
"Locostraps and eyewear thieves"
Ok, this is going to be a 6-page trip report just like all the guys in the chat room wanted me to write, I am typing it in Microsoft word and I’m using Arial size 12 in case you are wondering. In case you do not know I kind of have a phobia of the sun which makes it really difficult to go to theme parks cause you gotta be in the sun while your at the park, and I have to stay away from the sun. Luckily the sun didn’t come out for very long and I was able to enjoy most of my park stay. Also I think my phobia is getting better because im chatting with you guys so I think I better keep chatting and going to more parks and maybe it will go away.
This TR is dedicated to aunt rose and Jerry and Dave A, and Paul because I kept thinking about stealing kiddie ride restraints and that reminded me of aunt rose and then I remembered about the locostraps and that reminded me of Dave A and Paul cause I rode the giant slide and I think Paul is the person who told me to never pass up the giant slide so I thought of him when I rode that, and I also took a picture of the giant slide for Paul.
This is my first attempt at a TR so please forgive me if it sucks. Also since I have to write 6 pages about a traditional family theme park there is going to be a lot of rambling. If you are reading this TR respond to this thread because then at least I will know someone is reading my TR cause its gonna take me a long time to write 6 pages.
I actually went to a theme park after like a 2-year absence from going to a theme park. That’s right I have not been to a park in 2 years until now so I really enjoyed this visit. I went with my mom and my 5-year-old cousin which meant I got to ride the kiddie stuff too which was cool.
We split up at the parks entrance and I ran toward the flying bobs since this was the thing I wanted to ride the most. (Other than the silver comet of course). These flying bobs are really good and im pretty sure they are made by chance but I might be wrong about that, I also think they are the portable model cause most of the rides at this park are portable carnival rides. But what’s cool about these flying bobs is that they run them both forwards and backwards and they give you a pretty long ride cycle. The line wasn’t really long for them either and I was able to walk right off from my first ride and get right on again for a second ride. The rides were pretty good and I noticed they replaced the seatbelts on almost all of the cars that was much needed! When I went to the park 2 years ago all the seatbelts had knots tied in them just to keep them together. Some of the cars also had retractable seatbelts I guess they removed them cause they probably broke by now. Now they just have the fold over kind of buckles, but I think those are too big because they dig into your legs and stuff when you get thrown into them. (I know I know I know, you can ridicule me as much as you want but I cant give up tightening the seatbelts on the flying bobs, I made an honest effort to try but it just wouldn’t happen, maybe next time) I would prefer a smaller after burner cockpit type seatbelt with a pushbutton. (Don’t know if that would be strong enough though). A smaller fold over buckle would be ideal but I don’t think ive ever seen a small fold over style buckle. Also I think the cars need to be washed on the flying bobs or something cause they were really dusty; I don’t know why they just don’t wipe the dust off them. I don’t know why but there were 2 cars that were roped off as well. I was riding alone on this ride and most of the others of course, and I think the car rocks more when you ride alone because the last time I got on the flying bobs I had to ride with a girl and the car didn’t rock.
After I took 2 rides on the flying bobs and took a couple pictures of the silver comet while I was in line for the flying bobs, I made my way over to the silver comet. The lines weren’t that long at the beginning of the day (we went to the park between 3 and 4pm) and I decided to take my first ride in the front. The silver comet is a CCI wooden coaster built in 1999 and its max speed is 55 mph and it has one PTC train that is purple. I don’t know why the train is purple so don’t ask. There weren’t any interesting people in line in the Q this time. Ok now is where I have to talk about the locostraps. For those that do not know I will explain what the locostrap is. It’s a strap you put around the lap bar and the grab bar and it prevents the lap bar from stapling you into the train. I do not know who exactly coined the term "locostrap" but if anyone knows please tell me, thanks. BRING A LOCOSTRAP FOR THIS COASTER. I personally do not know the proper procedure for using a locostrap so I refrained from using it cause I didn’t want to get in trouble with the ride ops. I did bring a locostrap to the park in case of an emergency I mean you never know when you’re going to need it. If you usually need a locostrap, you need to bring one for this coaster. I saw about 10 people they had to undo the lap bars on with the lap bar release key (thanks Jerry for telling me what that thing is called). I was fine without the locostrap I think the stapling occurs on the lift hill, just make sure you hold the bar up on the lift hill, its not a hard task. And speaking of stapling, why is it that everyone staples themselves on a coaster, I do not know why these people would staple themselves into a coaster, as it looked pretty painful. I thought that was really weird. I think I was the only one who actually had a clue how to ride a coaster, as I was the only one not stapling myself. The ops didn’t mind and I found that a 3-click ride was more than enough room for me. It didn’t feel like I was stapled at all and there was plenty of room for airtime. (I am not taking a one-click ride, again you can ridicule me for this, and they wouldn’t let me take a 1-click ride even if I wanted it) The ops also didn’t push down on the lap bar they pulled up on it. The one time they pushed down they pushed very lightly and I didn’t even feel it.
The thing that I don’t think you guys are going to like is that they take your glasses and they wont let you wear them no matter what, so if you have a problem with this, don’t go to this park. But I think id rather have my glasses taken then be stapled. They were being careful with the glasses too.
Oh yeah, they also don’t tug on the seatbelt, and they don’t force you to tighten it either. I will admit that I voluntarily tightened the seatbelt cause I had the loose lap bar. At least I had the loose lap bar part down, and I didn’t really put the seatbelt that tight. I still got a lot of airtime. Ok I have finally decided that airtime is a good thing!!!!! I never used to like airtime but now I like airtime so again chatting with you guys has done me some good.
Now down to the actual rides on the silver comet. I took 5 rides total on the coaster that was all I had time for during the day. Yes I know I was supposed to ride it 10 times but I would have never had time to do that. But I am going to be going back to the park so maybe I can try for 10 times again. The first ride I took in the front. I found it very painful. I liked the back better than the front. This coaster has a lot of laterals maybe too many because you are constantly getting thrown around in it. I also had my hands up the whole time and I just let the coaster throw my arms around as much as it wanted to. You don’t get a lot of airtime in the front, but the front is cool when you’re going down the first drop. If you like lateral g’s ride in the front seat. In pretty much any seat the coaster slams your knees into the front of the train but it doesn’t hurt a lot.
My other 3 rides I took in assorted middle seats. By this time I was getting pretty good at narrating the entire ride which was pretty weird, I didn’t think I would have been able to do that. For these rides I found some pretty interesting people in line. I found one family that has obviously been to a lot of theme parks as we mentioned Knoebels, PKI, SFDL, Cedar Point, and Kennywood in the same conversation. I also took this opportunity to spread some rumors about how MFI is supposed to get a steel coaster soon, but I told them it was a rumor so I guess it was ok if I told them it was a rumor. I also explained to them what a steel coaster was cause they asked me and I told them about how the owner of MFI is really good friends with chance rides and so most of the stuff this park will be getting is going to be from chance. The rides in the middle were ok, it’s more painful if you sit toward the front and you get better airtime if you sit toward the back. I liked sitting in the back much better, you don’t have to be in the last seat to get good air, you can get it as long as you are toward the back of the coaster. I also found a girl who apparently fell in the mud and she was joking that she had an "accident" and that the coaster gave her the accident. This same person was picking on and telling jokes to the ride op named "Dennis" who was working the silver comet. There were also assorted drunk people riding the silver comet from the company picnics that were going on so that was quite interesting (the drunk people could barely walk down the exit ramp).
Between these rides I walked into the arcade hoping to find something good. This arcade sucked, they lose a lot of points with me because they didn’t have any pinball machines and I really like playing pinball. When I went 2 years ago they did have one pinball machine so that pacified me. They did have a few classic games which was good but they were all turned off. I wanted to play the Stun Runner too. I didn’t bother putting any quarters into anything in the arcade and I left quickly for more silver comet rides. I was disappointed with the arcade.
The 1 other ride I took was in the back seat. This was the best ride of the day. The airtime was very good and intense. EJECTOR AIR!!!! Again I had more than enough room and took a 3-click ride in the back seat with a semi tight seatbelt. (I just cant give up the tight seatbelt thing, if I could do that, then I would have the ultimate coaster experience, but I still like having the semi tight seatbelt) The laterals were not as intense in the back as the front so it wasn’t as painful.
Then it was time to go on the wildcat. This is a shwartzkopf (sorry about the spelling if I screwed it up) wild cat I think. I think it’s similar to the galaxy or zyklon coasters. It has 4 separate cars, each which hold 4 people. This coaster does not have any seatbelts and I think it has single position lap bars and also no seat dividers. Ok, I only took one ride on this coaster, and it SUCKS! I mean it’s really bad, it’s so slow and you get absolutely no airtime at all. Also the purple and yellow paint scheme isn’t too appealing either, and it has 2 pink, 1 blue and 1 yellow cars.
Then after this I met up with my cousin and mom and we hit the giant slide and the kiddie rides. This was very interesting. I guess I am one of the few lucky coaster people who get to ride a kiddie coaster. First up was the kiddie coaster, it was a Wisdom Orient express. I have to say that this coaster is more fun than the wildcat!! They sent the coaster around 5 times which I thought was pretty good. Also lines for most of the kiddie rides were nonexistent. We actually had to wait for more people to come on the coaster before they ran it. The kiddie coaster is slightly rickety but not too bad, and the cars are quite large they were big enough for me and it wasn’t a tight squeeze at all. This is a great fun, family type ride. Its really nice that they let adults ride most of the kiddie rides at this park because its no fun if you have to just watch your kids the whole time on rides, a family should ride the rides together!
The giant slide was very fun but since I have a slight fear of heights so I do not like climbing up the stairs, that part is very scary for me. It’s enough of a deterrent for me to stay away from the giant slide. They also repainted the giant slide it is now yellow, blue and purple. It was all red before; I think it goes faster now that they repainted it.
I will start off by saying this is Zamperla kiddie land, that is not necessarily a bad thing though, it’s a good thing. I thought the Zamperla rides were very nice for the kids and offered a decently thrilling ride that wasn’t boring at all. Adults can ride the Zamperla rides as well, and I am not sure about this, but I think you can get on them even if you aren’t with a child, there isn’t a sign saying adults must ride with children. You might even be able to get on the kiddie coaster without a child too. The Zamperla rides have a pretty good locking system on them because the operator has to take a key like thing and open up each of the gates to the cars with the key thing, you cant open and close the gates by yourself, except on the balloons.
The Zamperla rides were the crazy bus, kiddie balloons, and kiddie teacups. The first one we went on was the balloons. Now this was an interesting experience for me because the restraint on the balloon we were in didn’t fit me!!! AHHHH im actually going to get an unrestrained ride. I know I know I know, I should appreciate any unrestrained ride nowadays because they are very rare. Ok so it wasn’t that bad riding unrestrained, it was kinda fun. All the restraint was was a 1-inch strap with a plastic clip on the end. You can really get these balloons spinning if you want to. It turned out that only the one restraint was broken and that’s why I couldn’t fit in it, we went on the balloons a few more times during the day and every other time the restraint fit with lots of extra room. Kiddie ride restraints are very comfortable though so it didn’t bother me to be restrained at all. This was probably my favorite kiddie ride out of all of them. The one time we were on the balloons one of the kids was scared and they had to stop the ride to get her off. I thought the ride op did a good job with this situation because he told everyone not to get off because they just had to let someone off. The ride op didn’t just leave the scared child on till the end of the ride. (And yes aunt rose I did want to steal one of these restraints for my collection but I was able to keep myself from doing so, heheheheheh). This ride may be a tight fit for some adults, but not too bad, and you can fit in it.
Next was the crazy bus ride. I don’t really have much to say about this ride but it was kinda neat since it went both forwards and backwards. There is also a lot of space in this ride for adults to fit easily.
The teacup ride was next. This ride was also pretty fun. The black tub wouldn’t spin though and that’s the one we had so we had to go on this ride a couple more times in order to get properly spinning tubs. You can also make this ride spin pretty fast as well. It is also a semi tight fit for adults. Right before closing, there were actually 2 adults in one of the teacups and they were spinning really, really fast, it was funny though. My mom was mildly amused by this.
Adults couldn’t go on the kiddie airplane ride but my cousin and my mom reported that it was very difficult to get the planes to go up in the air, so if you put really small children on this they might not be able to get the planes to go up in the air.
The other kiddie rides were ladybugs, a circle car ride (not Hampton), either a Zamperla convoy or something similar to a Zamperla convoy that is located in the adult section of the park (I think Zamperla makes the convoy), and wet boats which I think are by Allan Herschel. My cousin also had trouble getting into the wet boats.
The parks newest ride is a Chance Slingshot, so of course I had to ride it. I had also never done a drop ride in my life so this would be my first one. This ride has the longest line out of anything in the park; I am suspecting this is due to the low capacity of the ride.
Before I talk about this ride I want to make a comment about being a single rider at the amusement park. I don’t know if this works at other parks, but it was very cool to be a single rider at this park because I got to cut in front of a lot of people on many rides because they just needed one person to fill up the ride. Being a single rider definitely works in your favor at MFI. I got to cut in front of people on the slingshot, the wildcat and the silver comet in many instances. No rides have a no single rider policy either.
Cutting in front of people on the Slingshot was a great welcome due to the line. (I think this ride is actually called the daredevil at MFI, but im calling it the Slingshot cause I like to call rides by their manufacturer name) I felt this ride was very tame; it’s cool when it shoots you up to the top though. I would also imagine the view from the top is pretty good although I didn’t wear my glasses so I cant comment on the view. You do get held at the top for long enough to take in the view though. The drop down to the bottom I felt was slow and relaxing and it also has a little bounce to it at the end.
Finally it was time to head over to kiddieland for a few more rides and them leave the park. The park has very nice gift shops and an excellent candy shop for candy lovers, and the fudge is good, if you go to MFI you have to buy some of the fudge. I didn’t get any other food at the park because I generally do not like to eat at parks, I didn’t really have time to eat anyways. I don’t know why I don’t like to eat at parks (probably because I am too busy) but I just don’t like to eat at parks.
I went into the candy shop and found the one kind of candy I love the most. ROCK CANDY! I have an obsession with rock candy, I just love the stuff. They also had cotton candy flavored rock candy, which I have never seen before, and the rock candy was on a stick which is the way I like it more. So MFI gets points with me for having rock candy in the candy shop. Of course we bought some of the fudge because it’s an absolute must, my favorite flavor is the peanut butter, they also had creamsicle which looked interesting.
Then I went in the souvenir shop to buy myself something and get something for Jerry since he was nice enough to make me a coaster related name tag. I bought an 8.99 t-shirt which I thought was a very reasonable price for a park t-shirt, its not the greatest park t-shirt but its still cool. I also bought 2 coaster buttons for myself. They had patches and lanyard key chains too, and hats as well, with the park logo on it, so at least there was some coaster and park related merchandise there.
Ok, so this ends my first trip report, I have now written over 6 pages. I enjoyed my visit to this park so much that I want to go back again right away. I will probably be going back next week sometime for the after 5 admission special. I will write another trip report but I promise I wont right as much as I did today.
I hope you enjoyed the trip report!
"Locostrap"? You described it in your trip report but I just wondered if you buy these straps or if you make them. And how do you put them on the coaster?
By the way, that's quite a detailed trip report. Sounds like you had a good time. :)
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