coneyislandchris

Awesome, awesome, awesome report. Kills me that I'm going to be so close to it next week but won't be around during the weekend. I really need to change this and take the entire family down there soon. Thanks again for a killer (as always) report!

I'm thinking 2019 is the year for something big. I'm thinking 2018 was the year for something big.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah but 99% of the time when I get a sweet tea ALL I taste is the sugar. I just can't do it anymore. I personally really like unsweetened cold green tea, it's my go-to drink of choice these days along with flavored seltzer, but good luck finding it at any theme park in the States. At least most of the places that have the Coke Freestyle machines have one or two "Dasani Sparkling" options for the seltzer, but I've never seen any theme park that actually stocks the cold green tea bottles.

I mean, it's a family coaster. I'm not going in with high thrill expectations. Hopefully it will maintain a low height requirement and become a new "first coaster" for a whole new generation of Wildwood kids. Also, damn, that theming. I'm not sure it could be any more Wildwood if it tried.

Amazing updates as always!

Weird place for it but okay. Guess I know where we'll be staying if we ever actually make it out to Dutch Wonderland, since both of the kids are little Cartoon Network addicts.

Michael, your trip reports are a constant highlight of the forum. Between the heavy praise from you and Bill, it's making me eager to get down to SWO sooner than later. I may have to ditch the family and catch one of those $20 Frontier flights out of Long Island one of these days, provided my wife doesn't stab me in the stomach when I get home.

Foregone conclusions: Luna Park / Deno's (proximity) Rye Playland (proximity) Dorney Park (proximity to family / CF platinum passes) Sesame Place (SW platinum passes) Six Flags Great Adventure (nearest SF park, cheapo gold memberships) Knoebels (didn't make it out there once this year and I'll be damned if we let that happen again) Almost certainly: Morey's Piers (hoping to pull trigger on season passes during Black Friday sale and spend more time down the shore with the family) Six Flags New England (memberships) Kings Dominion (CF platinum passes) Busch Gardens Williamsburg / Water Country USA (SW platinum passes) Hopefully: Cedar Point / Kings Island (most likely end of season or the very beginning, either or) Kennywood (whenever Steel Curtain opens, or for Phantom Fright Nights again) Depending on the kiddo's height: Knott's Berry Farm / Six Flags Magic Mountain (would like to hit up West Coast Bash for his birthday if he makes it up to 54" by then) Hersheypark (probably an off year since there's nothing new, but if he makes it to 54" you better believe he's making a beeline for Skyrush) Depending on the family's finances: All the Florida parks (BGT, SWO, Universal, Disney, Fun Spots etc...) Canada's Wonderland (also dependent upon height, but need to get passports for the kids)

I am honestly excited about the progress they're making! I grew up in the Lehigh Valley area, and trips to Bushkill Park were not uncommon occurrences when I'd be dropped off at my grandmother's for the weekend. I'm looking at that 1988 video above and it's a complete flashback for me because that's the way I remember the park from when I was a kid. It's been hard seeing the images come out from there since the flooding and devastation they suffered, but after hearing about how hard they've been working to reopen the park over the past several years, it fills me with anticipation hoping that some day I'll be able to take my own children there. Thank you for posting this and keeping us all updated on the progress!

This absolute freakin' BEAST. Top ten material right here... Oh yeah, you know you're jealous.

You and I share this rare opinion. Between our two days at CP during coaster camp out we rode three times. We waited in line for it over an hour during the day. I really liked it, but it didn't come anywhere close to being one of my favorites, since my tastes are different. We had ERT at night for two hours and we could have had as many chances to ride as we wanted, with everything being a station wait. We rode in the back and liked it a little less. We waited ten minutes for the front and I was done with it after the MCBR where the ride just tries to throw you off left and right. Once or twice a visit is enough for me. I think we liked it best in the middle. Oh wow, I guess I'm not alone in my opinion then. Granted I only rode it the one time this year, but honestly, I wasn't in a big hurry to get back in line and do it all over again. The first drop was amazing, that breaking wave was pretty cool, and I always love the moments that put you upside down inside the structure on any RMC, but after a while it just became relentless and a bit of a blur as all the little RMC elements kinda blended together. Personally I enjoyed Twisted Timbers a whole lot more out of the new RMCs for this season. Again, not saying this is a BAD coaster by any stretch of the means, but out of all the stuff there is at Cedar Point, I'd probably take Maverick, Millennium Force, or Raptor over it. I am however looking forward to going back next season and giving it another chance.

^ Goddamn if that isn't the happiest looking coaster in the world. Just seeing him speeding through the greenery like that put a smile on my face.

I honestly assumed from the intentional foreshadowing that they were going to send the damn train out and around the circuit with the lapbars up, y'know... for y'all to get some literal ejector air. I'm torn now between really wanting to visit this place and wanting to stay as far the f*ck away from it as possible.

Hey Andrew, been working my way backwards catching up on all your reports. Can't believe I missed this thread until now. This seems like an amazing trip overall, and I'm all the more impressed it's been broken up with awesome tourist destinations such as PNC Park and Fallingwater. Great writeups, great photos! Can't wait to read more. I've never even made it out to Conneaut but man, it looks as if the park has clearly seen better days. I'd still love to visit someday if only to check out Blue Streak. Is that really a Toboggan waiting to be set up all the way back there?

I'm just hoping against hope that it manages to hold out until early December. The family and I are going to be taking off a week and are heading back down that way for an early Xmas vacation. Fingers crossed!

This is my excuse every time I'm in the area. I can't justify making the stop. Maybe one of these years, especially after reading the recent excellent reports. (Plus I haven't been on a Rock-O-Plane since a county fair in the early 90's.)

Wacky Taxi is LEGIT. I know I said it before in the other thread but it's an amazing coaster for people who hate coasters (like my poor wife). I'm just hoping we can figure out how to graduate her from a pseudo-kiddie woodie like this to, say, something like InvadR or Mystic Timbers without her getting too freaked out. As always, great reporting!

I'm planning on bringing my son this Friday night as well. How were the crowd levels? Were any of the haunts super gory, or were they mostly on the tame side?

Just thought I'd check in with a quick report from a Saturday visit to the park with the wife, the two kids, and our married friends who brought their son and goddaughter. The Halloween festivities are in full swing, which in this park means instead of haunted houses and fright trails, you get all the Sesame Street characters in costumes and trick-or-treating in the otherwise-closed-down waterslides half of the park. A fair trade for the younger set. After leaving NYC around 8 in the morning, we were a bit worried that we were going to run into a washout as it was raining the entire trip down. When we arrived in Langhorne and parked our car, we double checked the weather once more to find that they were only calling for another half hour of rain and then clear skies for rest of the day. Perfect! Our friends joined us soon after and we were in the park by 10:30, armed with a set of pre-paid-for Abby's Unlimited Magic Queue wristbands. Since we had done a Halloween visit last year, we knew that the park got crowded and the Magic Queue sold out, often resulting in stupid long lines for all the low-capacity flat rides. With the dreary skies in the morning, this was looking like it might be a waste of cash as we wandered around a mostly empty park. First things first; we made a beeline over to Oscar's Wacky Taxi to get it out of the way, since this and the other coaster are far away from pretty much every other attraction in the park. On top of that, this is the only major ride to NOT be included in the Unlimited Magic Queue. If you really want to skip the line, you can purchase individual skips at $9 per person. :/ I know I've talked in the past about how famously my wife is NOT a fan of roller coasters. On our last visit, she tried both of the Sesame Place offerings, despised Vapor Trail... yet absolutely fell in love with the Wacky Taxi. She's not entirely sure of the reason for it, but between the relatively low height, high walls on the sides of the trains, comfortable restraints, and short-ish ride length, this ended up being the first coaster she ever voluntarily rode a second time in a row. Even with Today was no exception, as we all walked up into an empty station, took over four rows, and made our way through the course. Lots of giggling and screams from the kids, and howls of joy from the adults. Once again, we got a re-ride thanks to the non-existent lines, and this time my wife shocked us all when she announced she'd ride on her own (our eighth member of the group was sitting out the rides today due to an extreme case of bun in the oven). We're gonna turn her into a coaster fan yet! Looking for advice on what to put her on next since she enjoys this one so much -- any thoughts, gang? After our pair of rides on the Taxi, we made our way to the main section of the park and got a ride on their Sunny Day Carousel, which ran a shockingly long cycle for a merry-go-round these days. Once we got off, everyone was starting to feel some stomach rumblings for lunch, so we made our way over towards Elmo's Eatery, billed as a "sit-down restaurant with table service". Actually, what they end up doing is you place your order at a register, then they hand you one of those vibrating drink coaster type things, and once it buzzes you make your way over to another counter to pick your food up. Not quite table service but honestly better than most of the alternatives here. Food was okay but nothing too amazing -- the orange chicken with rice was surprisingly not terrible. Our next item on the docket was to try to see at least one show. We decided to check out the "Elmo: The Musical" stage show right next door. The theater was really tiny, with barely more than a few cubic feet of stage space amongst the bleacher stadium seating, yet they made the most of that limited space. Since it's the Halloween season, the show was all about Elmo making up a musical about trick-or-treating, but he ended up focusing on the tricks part and imagining himself as a magician-in-training. Cue a talking bunny, a cameo from Sesame Street's favorite manic pixie fairy girl Abby Cadabby, the great chicken magician David Cluckerfield, and a whole lot of audience participation. It ended up being a whole lot of fun for the whole family, children and grown-ups alike (even yours truly who's had seven years of Elmo saturation at this point), and I'd not mind seeing more of these in future visits! Of course, after we finished this stage show, we got to the real reason for the trip (and the wristbands); back to the rides! Sun had started peeking out from behind the clouds, and with it came the crowd levels we were expecting. As it's a park catering to small children, there are gratefully low height requirements on almost everything. The one outlier is the amusingly named "Honker Dinger Derby", which is an Orbiter painted in pastel neon colors. This ride has a 42" minimum, and as such, ended up being the only thing the 3-year-old girls couldn't ride at 41" tall. My friend's son and I ended up being the sole members of our group to give it a try, and after experiencing the weak speed and short cycle of the similar Flying Machine at BGW, I wasn't expecting too much out of this. I was woefully unprepared for it to pack as much of a punch as it did. Much longer cycle, much faster speed. No wonder it's a 42" minimum! The rest of us got our rides in on everything else that was included on the Unlimited Magic Queue, which included: - Flying Cookie Jars, a spinning balloon tower ride that gave a great view of Vapor Trail -- when we weren't furiously spinning out of control! - Oscar's Rusty Rockets, a suspended whip-like ride that kept the speed low but upped the intensity with pumping euro-trance music. Not sure what that had to do with anything but it got the kids dancing in their seats! - Captain Cookie's High C's Adventure, similar to the Jolly Roger ride at Great Adventure but instead of the creepy skull theme it's all brightly colored pirate ships that you sit in as you go around an undulating track. - Monster Mix-Up, the obligatory tea cup ride, instantly made better than all the rest by the inclusion of a mirror ball and "Disco Inferno" soundtrack. Groovy! - Blast Off!, a bouncy drop tower ride. My daughter LOVES these rides no matter where she goes. - Flyin' Fish, the Sesame version of the Flying Elephants. Instead of Dumbo, each car is shaped like Elmo imagining himself as a different type of animal-fish. Catfish, dogfish, pigfish, you get the idea. - Peek-A-Bug, the answer to if someone asked the question "What if we made Tango at Great Adventure even smaller, slower, and less spinny?". - Elmo's Cloud Chaser, a kiddie wave swinger. On our ride through, thirty seconds in, the operator had to get on the loudspeaker and announce... "All guests, please put your cell phones and cameras away. I repeat, please put your phones away. SIR, PLEASE PUT YOUR PHONE BACK IN YOUR POCKET." Sure enough, shortly thereafter, the ride stopped, and the op walked up to a middle-aged man who was completely oblivious to everything and was still holding his phone in his hand. "Sir, you need to put that phone away right now." "Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't know!" The op then allowed this guy to keep riding once he restarted the ride. No ejections at Sesame Place, apparently. We took a walk around some of the other areas of the park, checking out the midway games, some temporary carnival flat rides that were set up for the Halloween season and were not included on the Unlimited Magic Queue either, and of course the famous 123 Sesame Street building steps. We also wandered into the other half of the park to check out their miniature train ride (well, kind of -- there were no tracks and it was running on all-terrain wheels), and the kids got some treats as we wandered through the trick-or-treat trails. We finished up our rides with a quick spin on Vapor Trail for everyone except the two ladies, and honestly, for a "kiddie" Vekoma, it's not half bad. We were contemplating getting the PhotoKey to collect our photos from the two coasters, but at $70 for a single day photo pass? Ugh, forget about it. I swear it didn't always cost that much. Although that was our last ride of the day, we had one more special event planned for the night. We ended up getting reservations for "Dine With Me", which is a buffet meal for the whole family that includes a show, songs, and personal walk-arounds and photo ops from a number of the Sesame monsters. Saturday's show included appearances from Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie, Rosita, and Elmo, and as they made their way around from table to table, it was impossible to ignore the gigantic smiles from all of our kids as they got to pose with the cast and get big hugs. The food was honestly the best food I've ever had at Sesame Place as well, with delicious pulled pork and BBQ ribs as highlights on the menu. A definite recommendation if you ever visit with your kids! Once the dinner and a show was done, we had just under ten minutes left in the park, and since everyone seemed to be crashing hard, we decided to skip out on any further rides at this point. Sure enough, once everyone got buckled into their seats, it was a matter of moments before we heard snores coming from the back of the car. All in all, a successful day and a whole lot of fun for everyone!

Sesame Place is on the same level as SWSD, $239.88 per platinum pass, but up until this past Monday they were running a promotion where they were discounted to $167.88. They aren't limited to Pennsylvania residents, but they do explicitly exclude residents of CA, FL, TX, & VA from purchasing. Since it's our closest possible park in the chain, and we have kids in the target age range for the whole Sesame branding, it was a no-brainer for us.

It originally was going to be Knoebels all this weekend, but we've cancelled those plans... we have a family member who's currently in hospice care and nearing end-of-life (they've given him hours to days at this point). I hope everyone else who's heading out there for the Phall Phunfest has a great time in our absence. Eat some pierogies for all of us.

I hope to be able to write up a full trip report soon, but man, this past Sunday was the best day my son and I have ever had at Cedar Point. Fantastic weather, next to no lines, and free season pass renewal FLPs for those few rides that did sport a line. It was so dead we were able to walk right up to basically any open food register of our choice. Did I miss some sort of memo? Where WAS everyone?

Great trip report! I wish I had read it on Saturday before pulling the trigger on the Haunt passes for my son and myself, as I wouldn't have skipped the wax museum one. Had I known that they were doing the flashlight thing and it was in the old Tomb Raider building, I'd have made sure that we got that in on Saturday. (Also seconding thanks for the Pokemon egg from the Beast!)

The kiddo and I are going to be in town on Saturday to hit up the park for the first time this year. He's really hoping it doesn't end up being Vortex, he loved that ride last year. I'm in the same boat because I have a soft spot for Arrow loopers and they're becoming few and far between lately. I'm hoping for Firehawk personally because I've never had a good ride on a Vekoma flyer and IMO it'd be no great loss. The Bat... I don't even wanna think about that, to be honest. This will be our first year visiting during Haunt. Anything to recommend (other than the obligatory Beast night rides)?

The kiddo and I are gonna be hopping in the car Friday morning with plans on stopping at Kennywood on Friday night, Kings Island all day Saturday, and Cedar Point on Sunday. Might throw in a mountain coaster too if we have enough time.