Philrad71

^^ All of the Comfort Inn's that we have stayed at in the past have been good - glad you treated yourself. Hope you have a great time!

Well what the heck, man... Why didn't you tell me you were in my neighborhood? Well ya gotta let me know these things beforehand - c'mon! Then you're probably familiar with the chicken and waffles melt? Or the quirky bar decorations. I imagine the CP one will be a lot like this, but with hopefully more CP retro stuff on the walls!

OMG...seriously my gut hurts from laughing so hard. I know I shouldn't, but those videos...I really need to buy you a drink sometime, Robb.

^ Agreed. Where the heck are all the photos of the "new coaster at the back of the park"? I saw what....like four photos of the coaster before all of the complaining about park operations started? I was quite disappointed to come here and see five pages of complaining after hoping for lots of PTR's showing what's new and what will be new in 2018. All I have to say about the complainers is that they need to take into account that the winters are a LOT harsher on the Great Lakes shores than in other places in the U.S. and just as with Halloweekends, staffing at the beginning and end of the season is always going to be different than mid-season. If you don't live near the shores of the Great Lakes, you don't understand the havoc a winter can cause. Heck, I have yet to mow my back yard because it is so wet and full of debris that I can't even walk on it without sinking up to my ankles. I can only imagine the work that it must take to make this park presentable by the first weekend in May. I would imagine that the rides have to be as cranky as us Great Lakers are after a seven month winter hibernation! We all know that Tony reads the forum and he listens...the least we can do is keep the posts sensible and mature because I know that he will take the feedback into account as long as we're being rational about it. In closing, I do need to comment on the Melt pic...it really looks great! It looks like it will incorporate the "local" flavor just like the one that we visited in Mentor, Ohio outside of Cleveland, which is really cool - I LOVE the retro CP stuff! And it looks like they will still incorporate all of the holiday decorations too (I saw the lighted snowman in the photo). I just wonder if instead of using retro albums as menus (like they do at the other Melt locations) if they could print retro CP park maps and/or photos with the menus on the back? Now THAT would be really cool! Can't wait to check it out on our next visit!

Wild Wadi looks awesome. Love the idea about going from slide to slide without getting out of your tube - that's some great engineering there. And of course, the food looks really good too...you all know that I'm going to comment on that!

Nights usually get cool, but be forewarned that the campground next to the park sells out early in the summer (in particular on weekends). They have the other one nearby that is may be more likely to not sell out that also provides a shuttle. Or....you could be more adventurous like us and stay at the Indian Head campground: Trip Report I wonder if it has "improved" any since we were there in 2010.

^ Thank you for the suggestions...I will certainly give them a listen (and probably end up buying them). My friend in Seattle that just saw Ty Segall live also prefers his earlier work, but said that the recent show that he and his wife saw was really good. So far I have Fuzz and Melted, but nothing else. It's high time to buy some more of his stuff as well as a couple new Thee Oh Sees albums. You are very lucky to live where you live. While the concert scene in Buffalo has improved, it's still not quite as vibrant as Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Toronto. Looks like the closest place Ty will play on this tour to me is Pittsburgh. And of course, it's on a Sunday so that would mean taking Monday off of work (because I would obviously be too hungover).

I would have never guessed in a million years that a Drop Tower accident thread would cause me to laugh my balls off and smh, but this thread has succeeded. Idiocracy...it's permeating so quickly through our society that I shouldn't even be laughing really. But that TV photo with Robb's comments - comedy gold. Almost forgot to add the caveat so people wouldn't jump my bones for thinking that I was laughing at the accident, but only at the comments. That was a close call - whew!

I'm with you on that. Having grown up around here, I've come to terms that SDC will never serve alcohol. I'm honestly impressed that Branson has a winery and a distillery. Plus Springfield just opened its third brewery. For an area that actually still has dry towns, this is progress. I agree that it IS definitely progress! While I have no problem with the wholesome family approach of SDC and Dollywood, sooner or later someone is going to get into management that is going to realize the high profit margin that comes with serving alcohol in a theme park. Now before the teetotalers all come with their axes swinging saying how it would kill the charm of the park and bring in the wrong type of crowds, I'll say up front that I know that alcohol can bring out the bad in a lot of people. But pricing it to the point where some redneck alcoholic that downs an 18 pack of Busch Light every day is going to say, "Dang, I ain't payin' no $8 for a Bud Light, yo!", you've already eliminated a high percentage of those who are going to get drunk and ruin the family vibe. And chances are that if they are a falling down type of drunk, they're likely to just leave the park and go get drunk at their car in the parking lot or go to a bar and come back anyway. Alcohol sales at parks has never been a problem at any other park that I have visited. Obviously if more and more parks are doing beer & wine with food festivals, they know what type of good revenue is coming in with it. They likely wouldn't do it otherwise.

That Crazy Corn on the Cob looks very unique and interesting. But having BBQ without beer...there is just something morally wrong about that. It's like having pizza or wings without beer, for God's sake - it, it just shouldn't be!

^ Thanks for the tip on Burgatory. I was just looking through their menu and found this... PS - I still prefer the fries at CP over Potato Patch. What do you mean by scraps? All end pieces of the potato, or fries that had been sitting under the heat lamp for a while? I could really get into something like this!

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I'll chalk ours up to perhaps some some pre-cooked BBQ that likely sat around for a bit too long. Will have to check the one at BGW the next time we go, although I might have a hard time prying myself away from Festhaus.

^ We stayed at the Days Inn across the street from KD and had no issues with it. Clean, reasonably priced and a free shuttle to the park - although we had to wait about a 1/2 hour for it because it was early season and they didn't have the staffing. Definitely not a Hampton, but serviceable.

This is the most American post that I have ever read.

That's too bad to hear about Miriblandia. I like the looks of this park more than Gardaland - and that would include their coaster line-up. ISpeed just looks like it would be a TON of fun!

I just checked out their show on KEXP (You Tube) last night and I liked what I saw/heard. Good to see a lot of great music starting to come alive again - seems like the rock scene had been flat for a while (or I just didn't know where to go looking). Really been getting more into Ty Segall lately too. My friends just saw him in Seattle a few weeks ago and they said the show was amazing. My last show was the Dean Ween Group with the Meat Puppets in Cleveland last October. I really need to get out to a show soon...been too long.

Staying local with a limited edition 2X Unfiltered (insanely hoppy) IPA. I never realized all the unfiltered "stuff" floating in it until the sun came out. Given that this is the first time in a week that we have seen the sun, no wonder it went unnoticed until now! This one is quite different from Southern Tier's "regular" 2XIPA. While still 8.2% APV, this one has more of a floral-type of hop flavor than the regular. I'll drink a regular 2XIPA tomorrow and take a pic to show the differences in color.

It's sinking due to all of the recent rain and flooding. We all know that Magnum has been slowly sinking for years now - this recent rainfall is just accelerating this sinking. Couple that with the recent water park renovations altering the water table level near the coaster footers of the lift hill and all signs are obvious that it's going to be torn down and moved to Michigan's Adventure next year.

^ Panda Express has some pretty reliable food and I always find myself salivating from the smell while we're waiting in line for MF! Not quite as sold on Pinks yet though as we had two sub-par dogs from there (think lukewarm dog w/cold cheese sauce and cooked bacon straight out of the fridge). I'm willing to give it another go though - perhaps with my expectations a bit lower. If everything would have been hot, I'm sure that it would have tasted much, much better. I was tempted to take the dogs back, but the line was insane and we were really hungry so we gobbled them down anyway. Just hit it at the wrong time, I guess. One can never go wrong with the German plate at Festhaus at BGE either, although I will say in all honesty that we weren't overly impressed with the BBQ place (Trappers?) at BGT. I've heard that the one in BGE is great, but I have also heard ravings about the one in Tampa as well. Perhaps we just hit this on a bad day too, but our group found the brisket, chicken and ribs to all be overcooked and dried out. I recall slathering mine in sauce & washing it down with beer so I wouldn't be chewing it for days. lol Although I readily admit that I have found out from personal experience that cooking really great BBQ is no where near as easy as some people might think it is. I would imagine that trying to churn out high quality BBQ at a theme park all day, every day can't be the easiest of tasks either.

^ and ^^ I was certainly scratching my head at the OP's comment.

^ Interesting take on your visit. I agree that the Busch parks food choices are infinitely better with regards to quality, but to be fair, I can see that Cedar Fair knows this and are taking steps to correct it. I was really impressed over hearing about the new food choices at CP this year with regards to Melt and a Famous Dave's stand being added to the park.

^ Completely disagree. Memorial Day weekend you will definitely want to avoid unless you buy skip the line passes. We have been to BGE on Memorial Day and the park was absolutely dead. And the following day (the 30th) all kids will be back to school and the parents will be back to work. We did KD on that Tuesday and everything was pretty much a walk-on. To the point where we actually left around 6:00 because we had ridden everything multiple times and were simply ready to hit the road. You're definitely not crazy for going on those two days - that's actually a great plan that I would encourage!

I also thought a drop tower would be perfect there, so it's nice to finally see it come to fruition. The ride looks great, love the rotating view that it gives going up the tower...and who couldn't love the "Donkey Engine" theming?