OldJJman

I find that you usually don't get much of a reaction at all. The biggest reaction you'll usually get is when you call ahead to a place to see if they'll let adults ride their coaster. Typically you'll hear "It's only a crappy little coaster" and they leave it at that. The only look of suspicion is when you have a group of say, 5 or more adults, lining up somewhere. They generally think you're drunk and doing it on a dare. I haven't "borrowed" an unknown kid since 1999 at WoF. I actually felt like a creep doing it and will not do it again. My biggest fear is that Elissa is now going to make a point of hitting a "Dinorex", and doing a full blown PTR, just to throw it in my face. If you don't think she'd do that, you'd better think again!! JJ

Not exactly true. Let's just say that if it does come to pass, you heard it here first. And no. I can't reveal sources. Sorry.

^That's a lot of tarp! Is this thing going to have 2 trains?? Is there even a transfer track, muchless room for it?? JJ

As you saw in the pics, about 11:00am, it started pouring, along with the thunder and lightning. We were in line for our second ride, about 5 trains away. Oh well. We waited as long as we could and then had to leave for Columbus. Because of the rain, everything in the park was shut down, except for the antique autos, and the Enterprise. Go figure. Maverick is a GREAT ride. Unfortunately, we only got one ride before leaving. I loved the quick lift, and the first drop, though (I can only imagine) in the back, it must be awesome. Great pacing. The airtime hill is severe ejector in the front. The transitions are quick and smooth. The tunnel launch is really good. Really my kind of ride. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A solid top tier ride in my book. I’d give it an “A-“, and I couldn’t really tell you why. But, I did enjoy it a lot. So 1029 miles later, I come to the end of a great trip. Eleven parks, with eleven new credits for me. All in 2-1/2 days. The weather played a great factor in the weekend. I missed out on a couple parks and credits, not a big deal. It was fun, and I had a great time. Only one last thing: INDIANA SUCKS!!

Day 3 It started out as planned. Waking up at 3am and hitting the road by 3:30. We pulled into the parking lot behind Gemini right at 8:30am, ½ hour before opening. (With a Maxx pass, or Joe Cool, or hotel guests, etc…) Jim Raimar met us there in the parking lot. At 9am, the usual running of the bulls began. We walked. We were about 50 people back in line when the people from the Marina gate arrived, and then came the rest from the front of the park. In typical CP fashion, Maverick was closed and they had NO idea of when it would open that day. Great. I figured that we had to leave the park by 1pm at the latest, to get back down to Columbus to catch my flight home. During that first hour, we only saw TTD test 3 times. Well, about 9:50 they finally started testing Maverick. About 10:05 they opened up the line. We got on in about 10 minutes. We opted for a front seat ride. Everyone has already seen tons of pictures of Maverick, so I won’t post too many here. Anyway, on to the pics: and poured. Ending my trip, and these pics. Then it poured! Another view. Better view of the "Stengel" dive. Nice looking trains. It just looks really cool! Nice station and queue line. If rumors are true, will TTD be the tallest coaster in the world again in 2008?? Crash, bang boom. Whoops. SEVERE airtime hill! Small, but packs a big punch. The "Stengel" dive, or whatever you want to call it. Actually, it's much better (IMO) than Goliath's @ Walabi. Kinda short though. Maverick's first drop. Looks pretty cool. We went to park by Gemini so I got the obligatory shot of MF. The infamous Cedar Point skyline. Yeah. Whatever.

^Elissa, I really wouldn't hold my breath. You know how these things go. Like I said, I feel like we got lucky with all the rain. But, there were signs of grease, so there is hope!! Who knows, maybe Nick will spruce it up for you guys!!

I can't vouch for last year (though I did hear it had gotten rough, along with Avalanche), but I did spend 2-1/2 days there back in June 2005. I would definitely say that it ran as good, or even better than when I was there 2 years ago. No bumps, no jarring, just smooth, fast and fun as hell!! (Whereas, Zeus was great right until the bottom of the first drop. After that, it shuffled and jack hammered thru the remainder of the course. It truly sucked!!) Take into mind that my rides were taken after a full night of pretty much constant rain. If you noticed in the picture of the drop out of the station, the water was beading up on the track as well, indicating the possible existence of some sort of grease. It still remains in my top 5, and I have no reason to change that. JJ

No, it's not trimmed. Maybe "petered out" was the wrong term. It just didn't progressively maintain the intensity or speed of of the first 2/3 of the ride. It's an ok finish, very visual, but that hill going towards the station just seemed to take the raw energy out of the ending. Granted, we only got 5 rides, but it was late afternoon, low 80's and a slick track. Didn't change much after the rain. IMO, it's a good solid ride. Just not top tier in my book. Your milage may vary. JJ

Well, as you can see, no pics from Indiana Beach. Why is that you ask? Well, as we we’re driving from the Chicago area and only about 20 miles from the park, my cellphone read 8:28pm. We pulled into the park 27 minutes later at 9:55pm! /begin rant STUPID INDIANA!! No, Darron, Mel and Rich. I’m NOT sorry! STUPID INDIANA!! Granted, I knew the time line went somewhere thru the middle of the state, but IB is farther west than HW (which is in the CENTRAL time zone). BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Let’s have a crooked time line just to screw with people. /end rant. Our first park in the Chicago area was a Dinorex. As you could see, we were denied. The (as Sean put it) “pervert guard” at the door doesn’t let adults in the building without a child. I mean, in this day and age, I guess that it’s a good idea. I just wish I would have known that sooner. They wouldn’t even let me take pictures. So that cancelled the other Dinorex as well. We called Cherry Valley Golf and their coaster wasn’t operating. Safari Land and Go Bananas were milf heavens. (Hi Guy!) Kiddieland was too expensive to even be cool. Haunted Trails was just pure ghetto. Bottom Line: Avalanche, Hades and Cyclops all were just as wonderful as they were 2 years ago. Maybe even better because of the rain. INDIANA BITES! Day over. Spent the night near IB. Had to get up and leave by 3:30am, to make it to Cedar Point by opening at 9. Day 3 coming tonight.

Day 2 started out with rain and according to the weather channel, it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. But, no worries, we’re in the Dells!! (Well, Riverview was closed because of the rain. No great loss. Been there. Done that.) We started out first thing at 10am at Timber Falls for a couple rides on Avalaunch!! The track was soaked! AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME rides!! Bat outta hell! Glorious laterals and airtime! (I still think it should be called “NASCAR: The Ride” due to all left turns!) The water made the rides the best I’ve ever had on it (about 75 total). We headed over to Mt. Olympus for rides on everything except Pegasus (boring) and Dive to Atlantis (which I don’t count as a coaster). Again, Hades really packed a good punch again, especially while wet!! Cyclops was just as good, maybe better than ever, due to the rain. Zeus, on the other hand, was terrible, even in the rain! It still jackhammered all along the course, even on a wet track. Burn it. Blow it up. Whatever. They still need to cut the weeds between the tracks! Opa, was in the new “indoor park”. It was good. Descent spinning. The best part was how they wedged the Disk-O over in the corner of the building. We left and headed for Knucklehead’s Bowling center. Interesting ride package there. The coaster was $3. Originally, we had planned on hitting Little A-Merrick-A, but Meteor wasn’t completed so that was a pass and we headed for the Chicago area, to hit a few kiddie credits. Then it was off to Indiana Beach for the last hour of the night. Hope you like the pics. Please send psychiatric resumes' to TPR for consideration Almost embarrassing. Sean's not sure about our new low. South Ghettoburg. Random shot of El train. I love Chicago! Truly. Sad. Why. Oh. Why. Really pathetic!! Someone needs to get these kids out of here!! My first Python Pit!!! I think that this used to be a Jeepers. A basic John Allen junior woodie. Not too sad or pathetic. Notice the kid getting out while the train was moving. $21.50 to get a stinkin' credit!!! Next stop: Kiddieland I am pathetic. Truly sad. Follow the neon sign! This just screams pathetic! Notice Robb welcoming us in front of the sign? DENIED!! Another new credit!! One of them managed to hit the dashboard thru the open window!! (ewww!) For whatever reason, literally, 100's of birds attacked this pile of dirt in the road. Games (Hi Casey!) Where else can you see a coaster from inside the restroom?? Everytime you went around, they blew the annoying horn! ...and Pathetic. Sad... With a mid-course tire drive. Yes, it's built on stairs. The real reason we came. It looked really cool running! Junior Inverted Whip Drop Tower Junior Himalaya Indoor Tornado. Yay! New credit! Panoramic view of Hades. Returning from hell. Obligatory shot of first drop on Hades. How about Zeus? Too close to Cyclops? This concrete will be the new "beach" for the wave pool being built. It looked no where near completion. Notice how they have the Disk-O wedged back in the corner. Typical spinning mouse cars. Opa is the centerpiece in the "indoor" park. First drop into hell! Behind Zeus' lift hill is the SCAD tower, ejector seat and skycoaster. Lifthill to heaven. What are we in for? Hades was not only wet, but it looks as if there was grease on it as well. Almost too close in places. It gives you great close-ups of the coasters. You enter right between Cyclops and Zeus. Mt. Olympus had a new entry point. Behind the new gift shop in the center there. When did that happen? After a few rides, so were we! Everything was soaked! Did I mention that it was wet? The city was busy at 10am! First stop!

Well, day 1 started off lousy with our plane being 3 hours late out of Baltimore (Thanks Dave), forcing us to give up Arnold’s Park right away. That gave us more time at Valleyfair! Other than that, it was a fun day. Of course, the rains came in, and in typical Knott’s, er, Cedar Poi…, er, Valleyfair! fashion, all of the rides were closed within minutes. Except for Excaliber, which was kind of odd, so we took a couple of rides on that. The rain only lasted about an hour. We also got in a ride on Wild Thing (aka mild thing, yawn). Renegade, I’d rank as a solid “B” ride. Cool first drop, speed hill and turn around. Great pacing until the hill just before you go towards, and around/thru the station. Then it just kind of petered out. I think if they lowered that hill going towards the station, the trip around/thru the station would be as incredible as it looks. Timberland Twister, a good solid ride as well. Load both of us on one side and we spun like crazy! I like this one a little more than the Spinning Dragons at WoF. Probably because of the indoor setting. Next up: The insane day 2!

I’ve been working every available day since the beginning of the year with NO days off, except for Sundays and holidays. I’ve managed to work enough OT to completely pay for the TPR Spain trip and add-on, the TPR Japan trip and add-on, and get my mortgage AND car payments paid thru October. I needed to get away for awhile, and I needed to get a few credits if I wanted to make my goal of hitting #800 on the TPR Japan/Korea trip. Every couple of years Sean Flaharty and myself, do some sort of insane trip. The last 2 trips we’ve done together we managed to do 17 parks/locations in 7 days both times. The first being CA and ID. The second being PA, NY, Canada, OH. I told Sean that I had (without having to take any days off, to preserve my vacation time) a scheduled 3 day weekend off on June 1-3, and would like to hit Renegade, and Maverick on the same weekend. He said cool, and well one thing led to another and, with meticulous planning, it became a very doable, insane trip, with plenty of flexibility built in. After all, this was more of a credit whore trip than anything else. You’ll need to be flexible to have fun on trips like this or you’ll have a really bad time. Because I bought my plane tickets a little too early ($325 r/t), we had to improvise. Forecast for the entire weekend was 50-70% chance of showers and thundershowers all weekend. So here was the schedule and possible credits to get for me: June 1 Get to Minneapolis about 11:30am and rent a car. Go to Arnold’s Park (1 credit, Legend) Go to Valleyfair! (2 credits, Renegade, Steel Venom) Go to Comotown (1 credit) Go to Mall of America (1 credit) Drive to Wisconsin Dells for the night. June 2 Go to Timber Falls (0 credit) Go to Riverview (0 credit) Go to Mt. Olympus (1 credit) Go to Knuckleheads (Wis. Dells) (1 credit) Go to Dinorex #1 (Crystal Lake, IL) (1 credit) Go to Cherry Valley Golf and Games (Rockford, IL) (1 credit) Go to Dinorex #2 (Arlington Heights, IL) (1 credit) Go to Safari Land (Villa Park, IL) (1 credit) Go to Go Bananas (Hardwood Heights, IL) (1 credit) Go to Kiddieland (Melrose Park, IL) (1 credit) End up at Indiana Beach (2 credits) for an hour to close the night. Spend the night near IB. June 3 Wake up early and drive to Cedar Point (1 credit) to ride Maverick. Leave park by 1pm to drive down to Columbus to catch my flight home. Sean brought his new GPS toy, and about 25 cd’s, 13 of them being from Porcupine Tree (A great new band to me! I never got tired of listening to them either!) and solo projects from band members, among others like Dream Theater, King’s X and Jelly Jam. Well, let’s see how day 1 transpired: Hi Tanya!! (End of day 1) Is that stupid thing stuck again?? Ripsaw was just pumping people thru at an amazing pace! Took a spin on the Ghost Blaster. Descent Sally dark ride. Extensive themeing. Logo on the cars. Lots of cool looking twisty track. Cool logo. Oh the memories! (frickin' Knott's) We had to park somewhere in Indiana to enter the Mall of America. Cool looking kiddie ride. (NO, I did not even try to ride it!) .... and pathetic! Truly. Sad... First order of duty: the call of nature! Aha! Victory! Except it took us to the zoo parking lot, where this huge wolf was wandering around. See? The GPS really works! The GPS is so damn cool! Odd looking apartment (?) building. Driving thru the Twin Cities. You know you're a credit whore when you still have your airline ticket in your pocket when you leave your first park of the day. (I did too.) A Screamin Swing. Oh joy. BUT WTF is up with all the added supports? Oh yeah. Cedar Fair. Intamin. Never mind. Steel Venom vertical. With a brake that actually works!! Steel Venom Spiral Nothing says clogged arteries like cheese on a stick! Last train as the rain began. (cleared out the schools though ) Good view of the fly-by. The onride photo came out OK. Coming behind the station. Looks good, but the ride had already lost it's good pace by this point. The trip has officially begun!! Yawn! Hi Derek! We made it! Sometimes, I feel like I paid for that stupid building! Sean's cool GPS. aka, BIB. (Bitch In Box) Our ride for the weekend: a Saturn Vue Sean brought along his HD camera. To kill time, I found some books about the old Riverview Park in Chicago. I'm kind of a nerd about some things. In Chicago. Plenty of planes. None of them ours. Needed a McAngus before the flight. My trip actually started at John Wayne airport, taking a red eye. Ending up in Chicago.

Isn't it the techno version of "Yackety Sax" that they used to play on the Benny Hill show??

Is there a low enough point for a walkway to go over the track?? (a la RCT) I know it seems highly improbable due to the fact that idiots come in every size, but is it a feasible option? JJ

Awesome pictures! Awesome report!! Thank you for taking the time to post them! JJ

No. The ones at DL and SFA are miror images of each other. The one at SFNE is a custom design and usually consindered "God's Coaster" along with EGF (which really IS God's coaster!!). DL came first in 1999, and then the other 2 came in 2000. JJ

Damn Girl!! It seems as if you taken lessons in picture taking!! Very nice!! (and only 1 out of focus too! )

On Media day, and the one day I was there last year (early June) all three trains were running. The helicopter attack is not just a scene, but a block. Once the train dives in, it has cleared the block and another train can be dispatched. IIRC, Jeff Siebert told us about the block in the tunnel before the splashdown. Once a train has cleared the tunnel (prog switches inside) then the train above in the helicopter attack can safely be dispatched. Essentially, it can run 4 trains, but it's not thought to be, and never was practical to do so, due to load/unload times.

Not at all. Only angry at the MORONS that think they are owed something by CP for their ride not being opened. I plan on having a great time on my trip even w/o CP. JJ

I'm confused. By reading so many posts by so called "enthusiasts" even from this site, it's really aggravating to see these people that want their money back, or some sort of compensation from CP. That's just plain STUPID!! GET A FREAKIN' LIFE!!! The world DOES NOT revolve around you, nor your LACK of common sense, nor your INABILITY to read! Robb & Elissa have MANY TIMES OVER reiterated the problems of trying to hit a specific coaster on opening day/weekend, whatever. Yet you ignore it. Look at the schedules of ANY of the trips they have planned: there is always a contingency plan for weather, traffic and any other situation that may arise. Why do they do that?? To make sure that their plans are not dependant on a specific ride being open, or weather delays related to their schedule. Suppose it rained all weekend to the extent that only steeplechase and the antique autos were open?? You still going to BLAME Cedar Point for that? Demand some sort of compensation? If you do, you are certainly a moron. I too, have spent money on airline tickets to hit CP on June 1. Big deal. It won't be open. So now I've altered my plans, and we're going to drive to Valleyfair (instead of flying) by way of IB and the Dells. It's a vacation, people. Treat it like one and make the best of your plans. Failure to plan well, is planning to fail well. It appears that many of you have already done that. I feel NO pity for any of you. JJ

For the record, I talked with people I know and Keith McVeen did not do the animation for the Boardwalk Bullet. On the coaster animation page the was listed earlier in this thread, the only one he did do was the one for Maverick. Apparently, Keith is now working for Universal making the animations come to life in ride systems and themeing.

Good question. I'm not sure I'd put money on that though. Looking at the other animations on the page, they all seem to have his signature style of other rides (in a pretty accurate depiction) in the background and buildings nearby that seem to go along with all the settings. But, it seems as if the detail is just short of what I've seen Keith do. Usually you'd see much more movement in the background of other rides, people, etc... I also noticed that the Griffon vid had no chainlift. I don't think that Keith would leave something like that out. Who knows. Then again, the detail may be lacking due to the limitations of using flash as opposed to mpeg. (Just a theory, as I have no clue if there are any real differences in using the two to display videos.) I haven't talked to him or Joe since I met up with them in Fl. for Sheikra's public opening in 2005.

Who honestly gives a flying fornication??? If you almost got in a fight over the speed of a roller coaster, you have much deeper issues than what can be discussed on TPR. Spare us.

As a matter of fact, yes. Four times: 1993 and 1994 (had family in the area) during the height of their campaign to be the "Las Vegas of the Midwest". The idea was completely squashed by the LACK of major roads and nearby MAJOR airports. Traffic was a pain, and the fact that there was nothing to keep people there for more than 2 days, effectively KILLED that campaign. I also went again in both 2003 and 2004. The roads were basically the same, remaining unchanged (i.e. no new roads, no widening etc...) and most of the hotels/motels and tourist trap attractions were pretty much exactly the same as they were 10 years earlier, though now rundown, and not very attractive for even the curious passers-by. Well, in the 10 years that passed since I went the first time and 2003, not much had changed. (Other than the OzCat being built!!! ) But, in that same amount of time, both Nashville and Las Vegas have made necessary improvements, to both roads and attractions (in Nashville's case, stages and theaters) and having a larger airport, to handle the influx of potential tourists. In basically, what amounts to 14+ years, of casual observation, the desire of the area to be a real tourist destination has been lost on the locals, as well as the state as a whole. It has been forgotten. Branson is dying. It is not being nurtured. Hell, I would guess that Pigeon Forge, TN. has become a larger (and much better) tourist trap than Branson was in it's heyday (the late 1990's). FWIW - Yes, I've been to Pigeon Forge. Twice in the last 3 years. It's certainly easier to get around than Branson also. (Though OzCat is better than Thunderhead!!)

Even so. You are also still an hour away from a "major" airport, if you can even count Tulsa and/or Springfield as major airports. Add in the fact that flying into smaller markets usually can cost anywhere from 20-50% more than major markets, it makes it a really tough sell. Families, the demographic that Disney is most interested in, want them to be able to spend their money IN the parks, hotels, etc... NOT in just getting there. The demographics alone will NOT support a large park of any kind, and I seriously doubt that Disney would actually do anything (muchless with quality) on a small or medium size scale.