BigDipper 80

I happened to be out near the Ohio B&M plant the other day and spotted track for what appears to be Happy Valley's dive machine...

CP hires people from all over the place. I've worked with people from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Jamaica. And that was just one crew in one season!

As a former Mantis ride op, I'm still sad to see my baby turned into a floorless, but I totally get why they did it and Rougarou was running incredibly smooth the last time I rode it. CP is really looking nice after the past few seasons of upgrades.

I heard they're expanding the Midwest to include West Virginia, actually! That's old news. They added WV to the Big12 a long time ago. (Skipped right over Ohio and Indiana) Hey now, there's a good chance Cincinnati will be added to the Big 12 in this next expansion! Great TR, Password! As you obviously know, you picked three great parks to visit. I really love all of these parks for very different reasons.

Those are some bizarre-looking restraints on T3... glad to hear that they improve the experience though!

I think you all forget that this is Cedar Fair, obviously they would have went with Wood Hawk before Splinter Cat.

^That's unfortunate but still good to know. I'm going Saturday and I'm really not super concerned about the ridiculous lines because I've sorta moved past the whole "let's ride everything fifty times ZOMG" and just want to take my time, and my list of must-rides for this trip is really only Valravn, Rougarou, MF and Maverick (because 2015 was the first year in a decade I didn't go to CP, and I haven't been on them since the upgrades) but if the lines will be (slightly) more manageable for Valravn in the evening I'll just hold off on it till toward the end of the night.

Sorry if this has been asked, but what's the "queue trend" like for Valravn? Does it die down at night like most other Beemers? Even Banshee and Gatekeeper in their debut years rarely had a line late in the day.

^Trust me, most of them won't even make it to the bathroom. It was a lot of fun being a Mantis ride-op right after the lunch rush with a Panda Express just down the midway.

The crazy thing is that Cleveland and Ohio as a whole has such a massive selection of craft beers that it would be so easy to have a great offering of beer at the park.

Exciting news! Ferryboat service between downtown Sandusky and Cedar Point is being offered this summer! LINK

I didn't see it posted, but the Proto Build Bar does have its website up: http://www.protobuildbar.com/# I briefly popped in to check out the place the other day, and the Santa Claw is indeed still set up in the back of the bar! There she is!

Interesting that Chik-fil-A is turning into Frontier Inn again, although CP has been doing a better job respecting its history recently so I guess it's not surprising to see it revert to an earlier form.

^They also use it for employee training during the regular season. All the orientation and safety courses are taught up there.

^I don't know if it's because of the design or because of how it's operated, but I've always found it bizarre that The Bat doesn't have enough time to clear the block brake without causing the train on the lift to slow to a crawl. It takes so long for the second train to get around the turn into the station that the other train practically parks itself on the lift hill.

^^^ Interestingly (perhaps) is that Magnum is also designed to set up if a train stops on the block outside the last tunnel. Before they put in the new controls, you also had to run over to that block brake to release the train, and you'd have to call the office and report it. Arrows live in their own little world.

^From experience, I can tell you that operating ID with three trains was a nightmare. The dispatch time was something like 20 seconds during three-train operation, and if you missed interval you'd set up the ride. If that happened, a train would stop on the second lift, so a ride op would have to run from the platform down the spiral stairs, through the forest and out to the second lift. When you got out there, you had to pick up and hang up the phone so the person in controls knew you were there, and then you'd have to hold down the lift jog button to reset the lift. THEN you'd have to run back to the platform and hopefully make it back before the third train out on the block brake parked in the station or you'd set up the ride again and have to run back out to the second lift. I can't vouch for whether that's the reason they went back to two trains (I've heard alternately that it had something to do with "standardization across CF parks" because Bat and Vortex run two trains, never mind that they can ONLY run two trains), but it was not fun doing three train ops on ID. Even with instructing guests that there were no bins, they'd still invariably walk across the train looking for bins, or they'd fumble around looking for nonexistent seatbelts, or their kids would be fidgeting so it often ended up being hard to hit interval.

Gemini's first drop in the second-to-last row is probably the best first drop at Cedar Point. There's really nothing quite like it, and it really tosses you up and out of your seat. It would be a shame to see the park's best Arrow leave.

It's amazing that you can see nearly half of the park's coasters in that one photo.

Just came across this today... Disney brought back the Three Caballero figures from the old Mickey Mouse Revue and put them at the finale of the Grand Fiesta Tour! A cool little update for that ride. FULL ARTICLE

Today I discovered that the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Cleveland is the only plant in America that still uses cane sugar in its formulation, which makes it effectively the same product as Mexican Coke!

I've been compiling shots of my current hometown for a while now...

^They're not... it's still included with the ticket.

I'm thoroughly convinced that ODOT is never going to stop construction throughout Cincinnati. They just finished up Pfeiffer, and we still have MLK, Fields-Ertel, and most of I-75 to finish... The horrific bottlenecks just keep shuffling around and are never relieved! Anyway, I'm pleased that Soak City is getting more slides. It feels so spread out and underdeveloped as a waterpark. I suppose it has a lot of slides but most of its' towers are very small and outdated. I'm kind of surprised people actually believed Racer was going anywhere, I think Don Helbig would chain himself to it if management ever said they were taking it out!

It's starting to get exciting here in Cincinnati as everyone ramps up for the All Star Game: Hard to see, but there is a nice ASG planter in the riverfront park near the ballpark. The Scripps Tower is decked out in a pillbox hat and a Redlegs moustache.