ValleyFair! 5-27-08

Arrived at the park around 10am to find around twenty school buses in the parking lot, and a string of them waiting to get into the parking lot. We waited in line at the one open toll booth for a few minutes, then a another booth opened. We hopped into that line and when we got up to the booth I asked the girl if we could get inside to buy our passes. She let us through, but took down our license plate number. She had taken down other license plates before us, and I didn't see any money transactions, so I was confused what that was about. I thought maybe we had to register our car for the free parking?

We got to the pass office, found out it was closed, so we went to guest services. The gal unlocked the door for us and took our information and money. When I was looking online the website wanted to charge us tax on the passes, so I was surprised when the two passes only rang up to $300. The girlfriend and I got our pictures taken and passes printed and off into the park we went.

Our first ride of the day was Corkscrew. They were running one train, but the wait was about five minutes. This coaster was riding a lot smoother than I remember the year before at this time. I enjoyed the ride immensely.

Next up was Renegade. What an amazing ride, we waited ten minutes with one train running, but that was a much better wait then the hour last year with only one train running. We lucked out and got into the front seat. This was my third time on the coaster and I've been lucky enough to get the front twice. The ride was very smooth and full of good pops of air. Almost forgot about the picture!

We made our way back under the tunnel to Excalibur. I'm not sure where the idea for this coaster came about, but it is short and sweet. It would have been nice if it was a more traditional mine train, but fast is good too sometimes.

Wild Thing was next on the list. The wait was about two minutes since they were running two trains. I had a waterproof box with me for our stuff and they made me stuff it up my shirt long after checking my restraint, so I ended up holding up the ride so we could open my restraint and tuck it into my shirt. I had the thing clipped onto my belt loop, but he said it wasn't good enough (even though the other rides didn't seem to mind). I didn't argue and tried to quickly do as they asked. This coaster is everything that I could ask for, tall, fast, and wild! Quite smooth throughout.

Extreme Swing was up, but running one side. I hadn't been on one of these as last year Cedar Points' was too long of a wait. We waited to ride and it was worth the wait. We even got our picture taken by one of the park photographers!

Steel Venom is a good ride, but I don't like the "stall" on the back spike, I remembered how much it hurt when the train stopped and I slammed into the restraint so I braced myself this time and it was a lot more enjoyable.

We had skipped High Roller earlier, so it was time to ride. I'm not very satisfied with all the trim brakes, but it looked as if the park had done some re-tracking, so it was a bit smoother then last year. Still a fun ride, really needs a paint job though.

Mad Mouse seemed smoother than last year too. I remember the transitions from positive to negative vertical G's to be quite rough, but it was good this time.

I'm having a brain fart for the rest of the day as I was quite satisfied with my Panda Express for lunch. I remember watching the IMAX video, which is good (40 minute run time!), it's on the oceans off South Africa.

I remember one of the road wheels was not spinning in the second car of Excalibur. I told one of the ride ops, but he must have been confused, he told be that it was "normal for not all of them to touch, it has enough wheels that you can't see, it won't fall off." I wasn't concerned with it falling off, I was concerned that the wheel assembly now slams into the track because of the wheel not touching. It was very odd to see it not moving however. Oh well...

Rode the coaster a few more times. It was a fun day. I wouldn't recommend coming around Memorial Day as it seems a lot of field trips are at that time for the schools. Kids get annoying after awhile!