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So, with Cedar Point seemingly down for the count this morning (they did end up opening up some, but not all of the major coasters), I decided to drive out to Waldameer earlier than I had planned for my first visit to the park. All in all, a great time. It has a quaint charm to it, not unlike Knoebels. They've even got a Larson drop tower, which is probably just as nutty as Stratosphere, but it wasn't running today, so I can't be sure. My first ride of the day was Wacky Shack, a classic mutli-level dark ride. Good enough, but some of the effects inside were obviously not working. It has this little downhill section...does that make it a credit? LOL, no. First coaster of the day was Ravine Flyer II. Nerd shot. So what did I think? HO. LY. SHIT. This was an incredible ride, both in the front and the back, but I'll put the front a little bit higher. As someone else said, you could easily mistake this for a GCI....I got a lot of Mystic Timbers and White Lightning vibes off of it. With Millennium Flyers, this would be a top 5 wooden coaster for me....even with the shitty two-bench PTC's it might end up in the top 10. Speed, twistys, airtime...this coaster has it all. This thing, though? Disappointing. I was expecting a classic junior woodie with some pops of air like the Woodstock Express clones in the back row, but nope...it just kinda meanders around the course, never really doing anything special. I expected better with the buzz-bar and no-seat-belt junior PTC trains, but...meh. One and done for me. That was it for me for rides here, two laps on RF2, one on Comet, and one on Wacky Shack. The Music Express and Paratrooper were running stupidly slow, so I skipped them. It is nice that they have a Chance Wipeout, but I recall them making me violently ill, so it was also skipped. I DID very much like that you could use your rides card points for food, which I thought was a smart move. As for the food, I had a burger (very good, especially for the sub-$5 price), and a pretzel, which was a little hard for my liking. They also had this "ACE Memorial Park" which I found hilarious for how little was in it. Note that you could not read whatever was once written on the two plaques. So long, Waldameer. I will definitely be stopping by on my next trip out to Cedar Point for some laps on Ravine Flyer II. Now get to work on those Millennium Flyers!

Honestly, some of my favorite experiences at parks involve meeting new people. Last year at Kennywood, a very nice family of 5 saw me hanging around near Thunderbolt and were happy to let me ride with them. Fast forward to a few weeks later - I'm at Cedar Point making my way around collecting the access passes, when out of nowhere I hear, "hey is that the Kennywood guy?!?!" Yup, same family

If CF completely stopped fireworks outside of July 4th would anybody care?

The boat currently has a line out of the queue house,and isn't on Fast Lane. I'll let you know if I can get on it later. In other news, every coaster I've been on today has stacked at the furthest breakrun possible. I just watched a Magnum train sit on the 3rd set of brakes, right after the last tunnel, for literally 5 minutes. If there is one phrase to sum up the ride operations here, it is "no sense of urgency." They're all super friendly but my god man, speed it up.

Here is a new photo update from Liseberg: Missed to post the photo I took last time I visited Liseberg.... And today as a comparison Did some more adjusting to the image: 360 And from the mountain lookout: Next time will be from the inside /// Marcus

I305 was open in the rain yesterday. Ran most of the day until about 5.

At least as of like a week ago...there were deff no trims on either Grizzly or Racer lol We also know wood coasters, esp more aged ones, can be very temperamental. Like I said my previous visit in 2013 I found Grizzly running great, Racer was sluggish as heck. May 2021, least that weekend, Grizzly I found sadly sluggish but Racer was moving great. It's just the nature of these types of rides, they will be inconsistent but yeah I highly doubt either has been "trimmed" if they've slowed with time as you say it's prob just natural aging.

"What more can we do to piss off our guests today?" -Cedar Fair, probably

Agreed! Even if its just brief convos I almost always encounter good people/times any park I go to. Much as its fun to joke, there's always people there solo (ya know could be a local just popping in) so yeah I've honestly never found it awkward and always do find people to chat or sometimes even do a few rides with at any park. ha I've had a similar experience! Two people who were also at Holiday World I bumped into the day after I saw em at King's Island. They ALSO did Kentucky Kingdom in between like I did, was a fun time. EDIT: OOF looks like a good chance of rain tomm. Scheduling is set so I can't change it, hoping the coaster gods allow me at least a few rides in.

Loooooooove this!

Memorial Day weekend and great weather here in Orlando. Hagrids HAD a 90 minute wait before the virtual times ran out. At the same time, VelociCoaster was 45 minutes! I am betting wait times will average 45-90 during the summer. But like I said earlier, I have been able to ride it multiple times in the evening. They usually post a 60 minute wait, but the line moves so fast, it's usually less than that.

I dont know about you but the words 'challenging location' is giving me a hard time ruling out CGA for the new project given how challenging the park is to build a new coaster

That's not quite a haiku but keep trying.

Knoebels will surprise you. Aside from the big three woodies (Phoenix, Twister, and Flying Turns - which hasn't yet operated this year and possibly won't), there is Impulse, a surprisingly smooth Zierer, and Black Diamond (an incredible rebuild of a historic ride) for coasters, and a ton of awesome historic flats, including: -A whip that runs close to its original speed. -Bumper cars that run at an insane speed -A great Haunted Mansion ride-through haunted house. -Looper, which if you have a partner for this trip, is something to be experienced. -Cosmotron, an indoor Musik Express-style ride with an actual DJ and light show -A great log flume -A classic carosel with the ability to grab brass rings! -A hillarious drive-'em boat ride. -Paratrooper, Roto Jets, Satellite, and Round-Up, four classics that are tougher and tougher to find. -A nutty drop tower that, while not that tall, doesn't brake until like the last 10 feet. It is really not a place to be trifled with, and if you end up there on a Saturday you can easily spend the whole operating day there.

This is an uncomfortable amount of kiddie coaster discussion.

Well, I'm back at the park, and hooray things are running! In the two hours I've been here, I've been on Millennium, Maverick, and SV. Let me tell you how much of a disaster SV is now. For one, the FL merge point is now way back, father back than on MF. After accessing the temporary lockers, the crowd just meshes together...it looks like one side *should* be for FL, but it isn't. The biggest kick is that this new locker system requires 5 more employees. In a park with such staffing woes, how is this possibly a smart use of resources? At least they're letting smokers exit and re-enter at the Magnum gate.

Gavin MacLeod, who starred as Murray in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (tv) ...... Always heckling news announcer Ted. Then getting trounced by Sue Ann Nivens {Betty White} ...... And as the original Capt. Stubing on "The Love Boat." He was 90.

Fury line shut down at 630 for 845 fireworks. Awesome on a holiday weekend.