sscamatt

After hitting up Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in the morning, we made the little over an hour drive to Holiday World. Home to 3 world class wooden roller coasters: Voyage, Legend and Raven. We got to the park around 2:30 and bad weather awaited us. Voyage pokes into the sky: Holiday World has a "This place is really really nice" kinda feel: The no-smoking signs are like advertisements to the people who are non-smokers and reminders for those who do smoke. Out of all the parks I've been to that are smoke free, there was less smoking outside of the smoking areas here than anywhere else: The park map homes are just like those you see near the grocery store with the "buy a car" pamphlets in them. They are even themed to the section they are in!: There is a wide selection of Pepsi products available for free, including coffee at the food places. The free Pepsi stands out in the park have 12oz cups and the ones attached to food stands have larger cups (20oz I believe): Everything was closed due to the weather so we figured we would hang out for Voyage to open. When the coasters close due to lightning at Holiday World, maintenance must walk the entire track before it re-opens. This is a somewhat lengthy process: We ate at the Plymouth Rock Cafe while we waited for the weather to pass. It was like a homecooked thanksgiving meal, very different than your standard amusement park fare. The umbrella's outside are made of metal, and they keep the rain out, We ate outside while it was raining and it wasn't a problem. Voyage finally opened and we rode with a 10 minute wait. This coaster is amazing, the only problem I had with it is that the trim was on pretty hard halfway through the ride and it slowed the second half down a bit. Next up was The Legend: Next up was Raven, this coaster is a lot of fun and I will rank it somewhere in my top 10 Wooden: Next we hit up Splashin' Safari. This park is hands down the best waterpark included with admission. They have almost every type of water attraction. The new bowl is pretty awesome. Gobbler Getaway was next, you don't shoot the turkeys, you "call" them because it is a family park. Sally did a nice job with this ride and it is rather long: The old lady pets the cat in line and its kinda freaky: We went back to The Voyage for a night ride. We got on with almost no line. The first half of the ride was just like normal and then we hit the trim brakes, this time was different. The trim brakes did not engage and I knew something was up. The second half of the ride was amazing! When we got back to the brake run outside the station we were awaited with an employee who informed us that the ride computer had faulted and that it would be a little bit before we would be brought back in. At this time we were dry and then it started pouring and everyone on the the train on the brake run got soaked. It was well worth it because we had just had an amazing ride on Voyage. If the trim was always off, this ride would easily be my #1 wood coaster, unfortunately this isn't normal operation. The Voyage Gift Shop is really nice:

Got to the park at 9:30am with anticipation of a 10am opening. Some part of their website still stated that the opening was 10am so a bunch of people showed up around the time we did and were not very happy to find out that the park actually opens at 11am. Nobody really rides the rides here, everyone comes for the waterpark which is fine with me. Superman is still closed, you can see the side that the incident happened on because the lift is still in the air: First up was Deluge, their new for 2007 water coaster. This one is different than other because it doesn't use water like masterblaster or conveyors like others, but instead uses magnets to launch you up the hills. The rafts are large as they seat 4 people. This is one of the best water attractions I've ever ridden. The lifts aren't lame like the Typhoon at SFNE. You literally get launched up the hills and get thrown out of your seat on the drops: You can see the airtime you get here: First coaster we rode was Chang. This B&M stand up is a lot better than others because there isn't that much headbanging: Next up was T2. This is a prototype SLC, and wow, it has the worst headbanging of any coaster I've been on: Thunder Run was next. This woodie is fun on the straightaways but is rough on the turnarounds. Next up was the Twister Twins. We rode the Blue side first and then the Pink side. The Pink side seemed to give a better ride, could have been where we were sitting but with Gerstlauer trains, no place on the train is really a good ride: We then headed over to the Roller Skater, which is exactly what its named, Roller Skates: Next up was Greezed Lightnin'. It has a weight drop launch. I remember the one at Astroworld being better: Road Runner Express was next, just a standard run of the mill Wild Mouse: Some other pics from the day: We rode all 7 coasters and Deluge in just under 2 hours and were on the road to Holiday World

Magnum was still running 3 trains which is the funny part.

Drop Zone at Kings Island was open on 7/26 when I went.

Kings Island was the next stop on the trip. The park wasn't that busy and lines were short for almost everything. The entrance is still Paramount: Once we got into the park, we headed over the action zone as this is the busies park of the park during the day. Face/off wasn't open yet bu Demon Drop was open, this is the tallest drop tower in the US: First coaster we rode was Son of Beast. I missed the loop by one year, but by judging the roughness of the rest of the ride, maybe its a good thing: There is a little cage for children waiting for their parents on the ride. (Or maybe it is there to protect them from the beast): Next up was Top Gun. I like this Suspended arrow a lot better than the others I've been on (XLR-8 and Iron Dragon) because it swings more back and forth. They were running 2 trains, but it was walk-on anyway. We made our way down to Adventure Express. It was running 3 trains. This thing is an efficiency machine and it was walk-on. This is my favorite arrow mine train Next up was Racer. We rode backwards first. Sat all the way in the back (car with logo). The backwards side is way better than the forwards side: Next we got in line for Firehawk, right after we got in line, it broke down. On one side of the station the people would stay lying down. After waiting 15 minutes without moving, we decided to go elsewhere and come back. We then headed over to Italian Job, this is a fun little coaster that is great for families. The first spiral is pretty intense: Huge Numbers: Next up was Vortex, the elements feel similar to Great American Scream Machine at GrAdv, but less headbanging: The Beast was next, this ride is very intense, but I loved it, I put it somewhere in my top 10 wooden, but somewhere near the bottom: Tomb Raider was closed all day . I really wanted to ride the HUSS Giant Topspin. When we asked an employee why it was closed, the girl replied "because Kings Island sucks".: Next we headed over to the Nickelodeon area. The theming here is awesome and I see why they are rated #1 Kiddie area in a park, it really blows everyone elses away: The Vekoma Suspended Family coaster was next, Rugrats Runaway Reptar, lots of run with minimal headbanging. There aren't any inversions so this should be expected: Next up was the Fairly Odd Coaster, the trains are really small, they are like shrunken big PTC's. Next up was the Skater, this is one with the hump in the middle. I like the feeling that you get from disk-o's but the track on this is better. The best ride would be the disk-o with a hump. Still, this was a lot of fun: We headed back over to the action area of the park to see if Face/Off was running. It was and had the second longest line all day. It was about 30 mins. This ride is amazing, its all the fun of a regular boomerang, but without the headbanging and hard stop. It doesn't make you sick like regular boomerangs because it brings you up to the first lift hill at the end of the ride and then slowly lowers you down: Delirium was next and it seems to go higher than maXair at Cedar Point. Kings Island has one of the more interesting Slash Down rides because it has a little air time hill on the drop: There is a fish feeding place on the patio near Adventure Express. The fish go nuts when you throw food at them. I highly suggest anyone going to Kings Island check them out. (Hint: You can get more food for free by picking up all that is dropped near the food machines, the piles on the ground here are much more than what you get for 50 cents in the machine): Then we headed over to firehawk to give it another try. It seemed to be running so we gave it a whirl. We waited about 45 minutes and it was well worth the wait. The vekoma flying coasters are way better than the B&M ones. There is no awkward moves and the flip and the top of the lift hill makes it very thrilling. The way the restraints work provide no head banging because it is a soft strap. Kudos to Vekoma for making an awesome coaster: Flight of fear was next, It has very nice theming. I like to call this kind of coaster "the big tangle" because the other ones that premier made look exactly like that: Next we hit Scooby Doo & The Haunted Castle. This is a sally interactive dark ride. The scenes inside it are just like Ghost Hunt at Lake Compounce, but the ghosts are now scoobies: Then we went up the tower and I took some shots of the park: And some other pics: Later in the day we got some re-rides on Adventure Express, Italian Job and some night rides on Beast.

It's hard to tell from the RCDB pictures, but I just figuired it was because it seems to fit perfectly. Did the monorail have dual loading stations?

Yes studying, maybe his dream is to become a structural engineer and he wants to build roller coasters.

After hitting up Geauga Lake and Memphis Kiddie Park we visited Cedar Point. I bought a Cedar Fair Maxx Pass at Dorney Park earlier in the season. In order to use it at Cedar Point you have to sign in at guest services. While in line we overheard the person in front of us asking about early entry. To our surprise, you can enter early with a non-ohio park Maxx Pass. Sweet! Cedar Point has an amazing sky line: Got a spot somewhat close to the entrance even though most of the parking lot was filled: First up was the Demon Drop. The ride had a pretty short line and we waited about 10 mins. This is a first generation Intamin freefall ride. The drop feeling on this ride is amazing, even better than S&S turbo drops and some intamin second gens. Added to the thrill is that it makes lots of loud clunky noises, and you get to watch all the mechanisms working while your on the ride. This adds to the amazing drop because there is a small fear in the back of your mind that its just gonna break. Cedar fair should reconsider trying to sell this ride: Next up was Disaster Transport. The sign in the front of the ride said 45 minute wait. Not bad compared to what we would wait for some rides later on. The queue isn't that bad to wait in because of the theming and air conditioning. The great thing about Cedar Point is that the times that they show on the signs in front of their rides are always right on. The three days that we were at the park, we tried our hardest to prove the sign wrong, and it only happened once because a coaster closed due to weather. Kudo's to CP for doing any amazing job with the wait time signs: Next we rode Wicked Twister, which was also about a 45 minute wait: Iron Dragon was next. This ride runs three trains and the dispatches are almost perfect every time: We rode Cedar Downs next. The sign in front says it goes 14 something mph. It was alot of fun: We walked down to the Maverick area to see how long the line was. The sign said 1.5 hours. From other trip reports I've read this is about the normal and the line stays at about 1.5 hours and sometimes jumps up to 2 hours. The 1.5 hour mark is the whole queue line filled right up to the entrance sign. Anymore than that and the line starts pouring out into the midway. This is the one ride here that CP doesn't run efficiently. There are 5 trains total and they are sent out in blocks of 2 trains at a time similar to TTD. As soon as the second train in each block of trains clears the tunnel launch, the next 2 trains can be dispatches. This was not the case. Trains were dispatching about 10 seconds later than they could have been and this created alot of stacking at some points. It's only been 2 months so maybe they will work out the bugs in the near future. They still run alot more efficiently than Kingda Ka which has the same restraints and similar loading patterns. I can see why they took out the heartline roll as many people would probably have a large gash in their neck after riding. I would assume that these rough spots are the reason that the height was changed from 48" to 52". The park map still states the height as 48". There are two points in the first half of the ride (before the launch tunnel) which have a little bit of neck chopping but the rest is very nice. The ride is still a lot of run and definitely a winner among the general public. It is my favorite coaster with inversions. The line: Here you can see the trough from the log fume that once stood where the second half of Maverick's queue line is: We got off of Maverick just in time to get one of the last rides on Mean Streak. This coaster is really rough. Next morning we got to the park at 8:30am for 9am early entry. Rides that are open during early entry are Millennium Force, Maverick, MaXair and sometimes TTD? From reading previous trip reports, everyone runs to Maverick which is pretty much the case. We headed to Millennium Force because we rode Maverick the previous night. The queue line for Millennium Force opened around 10:10am and we waited about 20 minutes to ride. They were running 3 trains: We then walked over to see the Maverick line, it was already a 1.5 hour wait with just early entry people. I feel bad for the people who get in the park at 10am, run to Maverick, to find a line just as long as later in the day. Headed over to see if Top Thrill Dragster was open, on our way we saw no line for Jr. Gemini and figured it would be the only chance of ever getting on. Got up and asked if we would ride. The operator said that we couldn't unless we had a child to ride with. We told her we really want to ride and she told us to wait. We got on the next ride and made random kids sit with us. (I would assume so she doesn't get in trouble). This ride was Intamin's first coaster and was very smooth: Next up was Top Thrill Dragster, the whole queue line was out in the midway as they were still test running. The line started moving quickly and we waited 45 minutes to ride. TTD is much better than Kingda Ka because there are no over the shoulder restraints, you have a sense of freedom as you crest the hill and spin 270 degrees downward: After TTD we rode the Blue side of Gemini, they were racing but the dispatches were off by a few seconds so it ruined the effect. Waited about 15 minutes, this ride is one of the highest capacity rides at CP, so there is almost never a line: It has a very retro station: We then rode the Cedar Creek Mine Ride, the wait was about 10 minutes. Nothing special here: Next we rode Mantis, CP's B&M stand up. The sign in front said 1 hour, it would turn out this wasn't the case. The ride was running 2 trains. After waiting for about 15 minutes, it started to rain. When it rains, CP brings their coasters down to one train of doesn't run some at all. Mantis is one ride that they bring down to one train. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is, but other B&M's can run in rain so I don't think it has to do with the ride itself. Between weather and switching to one train, we ended up waiting 2 hours and 15 minutes to ride. It is an OK ride, but the trim on the first drop ruins it: Now it was raining a bit and there were some lightning storms in the area so a few coasters were closed and others were running one train. Rides that we saw closed were: Raptor, Wildcat. Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster. Rides that we saw running one train: Mantis, Iron Dragon. We saw that Blue Streak was running so we headed over that way. The wait was about 20 minutes: maXair was open and had a line of about 15 minutes, we decided to wait and it was worth it. The HUSS giant frisbee is way better than the small one and doesn't give you the sickness feeling that the smaller one does. The only problem is that it has horrible dispatch times. I don't think it's really anything that CP is doing wrong, but rather the design of the ride itself: We then rode the space spiral and I snapped some photos: Raptor: Raptor: Parking Lot: Wicked Twister: Rode the Sky Ride over to the other end of the park and snapped some more photos: Next up was the Wildcat. This ride usually has a very long line due to its location and low capacity. We got there right after it rained so they have to do 45 minutes worth of test runs including an inspection from maintenance. Raptor was next, we waited 1.5 hours for this ride. They were running 3 trains. This is the best inverted coaster I've ever been on. The ride is pretty intense near the end: Next we rode the Corksrew. This is one of the best Arrow corksrews I've been on, you even get a bit of airtime. The ride has manual restraints, but with this girl working, they are just as fast as automatic ones. And here is a link to a video that I took of why Cedar Point is the park with the best capacity: http://www.fragsouth.com/video/CPCorkscrewEfficiency.wmv We then rode the Woodstock Express. They have onride video which proves to be very popular with the families. There also are a lot of geese under the ride: We then headed over to Millennium Force to take a night ride. The next morning (Wednesday 7/25) we headed to Maverick for early entry. Like I said earlier, this is where everyone runs. Even though we were one of the first ones through the main gate, all the breakers people beat us there and we still had to wait about an hour. Maverick is better during the day because you know when to brace yourself for neck chopping and the tunnel effect proves to be better: The line: Rode the train and got some pics of around the park and some more Maverick: Millenium Force cable tensioner: More Maverick Rode the Sky Way back over to the front and got this shot: Then rode Demon Drop 4-5 times before heading out early to Chili's and the hotel to rest up for the rest of the trip. We had a lot of fun at Cedar Point and a lot of other parks management should visit this park and take notes. I'm not sure what they are doing with line cutting, but it is working because the entire time we were there, we got cut once. Waiting in line at CP isn't that horrible because they have upbeat music in their queue lines. For larger pictures or some I didn't include in the TR: http://www.pbase.com/sscamatt/cedar_point

On the way from Geauga Lake to Cedar Point, we stopped at Memphis Kiddie Park in Cleveland, OH. It is right in between the two parks and is an easy credit if you are traveling between them. The park has a few kiddie rides and a train that goes around the whole park. It seemed that many grandparents brought their grandchildren here. It costs $1.40 to ride the Little Dipper, which is the oldest steel coaster operating in its original location in the US. The park staff was very friendly and we were in and out in about 15 minutes. They also have a very interesting Ferris wheel:

I fixed the pictures, I linked them wrong before.

This is the first park we hit on a tour of some midwest parks. We went here in the morning, then drove to Cedar Point and stopped at Memphis Kiddie Park on the way. Got to the park around 9:30am with a very small crowd: Villian from the parking lot: The entrance to the park still has a six flags feel with some addition of cedar fair trash cans: There is a sign that tells patrons that rides have been removed (We got to ride X-flight as Firehawk at Kings Island later in the week): The park was supposed to open at 10am, but we weren't let in until around 10:08. The first ride we rode was villian. This CCI would probably give a pretty good ride but is ridiculously rough and ruined with the Gerstlauer trains that they are running: While taking this picture I was told that "picture taking up here is not allowed" What kinda rule is this? Next we rode the Beaver Land Mine Ride. This is the same layout as the one at SFNE, but with a little bit different theming: Next we rode the Double Loop, just about the standard in old arrow looping coasters: Next we rode the Dominator, the parks B&M floorless: Raging Wolf Bobs was still closed: The HUSS Topspin was also closed today, but we saw maintenance there working on it: The topspin here has some pretty awesome theming, and even a scary lady on a bed to go with it: The Skycoaster at Geauga Lake is really short, it looks almost disproportionate: Next up was Thunderhawk, when I hear the name "Thunderhawk", I think of an old wooden coaster, but nope, it's Geauga Lake's Vekoma SLC. Standard headbanging here: Next up was the log flume, just about the least wet I've ever gotten on a log flume, but this is a good thing because I didn't wasn't to get wet. This was the longest line we waited in here, not because of length, but because of the poor capacity the ride was running at: Geauga Lake has a pretty nice fountain, but nothing compared to many other parks: On the climbing game you can see Steel Venom in the large picture behind it: Next up was Head Spin, a Vekoma Boomerang with a twist: it was one of the smoothest ones I've ever been on: The observation tower was closed, this whole section of the park seems to be almost deserted now that X-flight, Steel Venom and the old waterpark are no longer operational: Next we rode the big dipper: Here is X-Flight's old station: And now for pictures of the old waterpark: The weeds are growing in around the slides: There are no fences to stop you from walking around the old waterpark, the restaurant in the middle of the old waterpark is still open so they let people walk to it, but it all looks very run down: Old lazy river: Old gift shop, when you are walking around this place, you really feel like your in an abandoned amusement park: And then we walked across the giant bridge to the new waterpark side of the park, this walkway is very long and cuts right through the center of the lake, snapped some pics: And now some pics of the waterpark: Funny sign: They don't make you carry your tubes up with you like some parks: And tucked away in the back corner of the park is Dino Island II. It is a motion simulator ride that is on par with Back to the Future and probably cost the park just as much. The people pictured are about the only ones we saw while we were back here: We left the park around 2pm. You can tell the when six flags owned the park they dumps tons of money into it. With the amount of money being spent on the new waterpark and cedar fair taking rides away I wouldn't be surprised if within the next few years this park becomes only water. Besides, Cedar Point doesn't have a floorless coaster. If you would like to see larger sizes of the pictures, or some other pictures I did not include in this TR: http://www.pbase.com/sscamatt/geauga_2007_07_23

http://www.parcmanagement.com/

How did you get into Stricker's Grove?