AndrewA86

I’m glad you liked it. I’m looking forward to yours when you get around to posting it. I try to stay away from reading about parks I’ve never been to. Now all I do is look for others’ reports. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Right, the plate has to be visible for the camera to pick it up. Mine wasn't before I stopped at Walmart to buy a marker to color in the 9 that had peeled off. Based on the calculator I should be charged $21.50 for my trip.

Thanks. Yeah that is probably what did it to that app. I’ll have to record on iron dragon next time I’m at CP to see if it does the same thing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So on Thursday I decided to use what I thought was my last paid sick day of the school year to go to Cedar Point. While at Cedar Point I get a text from the school secretary saying I actually had another one and if I still wasn't feeling well that I should take off Friday too. LOL. So what the hell, yeah sure I'll take Friday off. The school year ends next week and if I didn't use it I would lose it.. But what to do with my unexpected day off? I had been planning a trip around Lake Erie for a while. Stops at Canada's Wonderland, the Hockey Hall of Fame, CFL game (Toronto or Hamilton), Niagara Falls, Marineland, Fantasy Island, and Waldameer were all going to be part of it. But since I had a Friday with nothing to do I decided to contact some people to see if they were interested in going to Canada's Wonderland on Friday. Like the responsible adults that they are, they said they had to work. So I said screw it, I'll go by myself. The plan was to get to the park an hour early so I would have no trouble rope dropping it to Wonder Mountain's Guardian. (Spoiler alert: I had plenty of trouble) I set the alarm for 4:30 AM. Because in order to get to CW at 9 AM with about a 4 hour drive (from Detroit) I have to leave at 5. The alarm went off at 4:30, but this was after a full day at Cedar Point with a 2 hour drive there and back, so I wasn't quite ready to get up at 4:30. I doze off again and for some reason I start dreaming about Kings Dominion opening a new flying coaster where Volcano is/was. When I realize I had dozed off I quickly get up and look at the clock, it says 5:20... oh sh!t... I'm on the road by 5:45 headed towards the Ambassador Bridge which is only about a 10 minute drive from my house. Now I've been to Windsor a ton, but always use the tunnel since it drops you off right in downtown Windsor. I've never used the bridge before. When I get to the Canadian side I see a bunch of toll booths with green "open" signs above them, so I roll up to one and stop. I roll down my window but there's nobody to talk to. So I'm thinking, OK, this must not be where you stop so I start going forward and all of a sudden I hear a loud "HEY!" I look up and there's a guy in this raised toll booth with a pissed off look on his face. At this point I realized I was where the trucks were supposed to be. All of a sudden I am nervous as hell and I had to get out of my car to give the guy my passport and answer his questions. First question: Where are you going? I answer- Ca-ca-ca Canada's Wonderland s-s-s sir... He was like oh, that place was a dump before Cedar Point bought it. I was like yeah, I've been wanting to go for a while now, I get in free with my cedar fair pass... After that he was cool and we talked roller coasters for about 2 or 3 minutes. When I get on the highway I see a nice sign that says "maximum 100 km/h" and under it the metric conversion to 60 MPH. Damn, I gotta go 60, hopefully when I get out of Windsor the speed limit will get higher.. It didn't. According to the law you can only go 60 on a highway in the middle of nowhere. It's not like the Canadians obey the law though. I'm going 60, but cars and trucks are passing me like I'm parked. Still I stay at 60 because I'm in a foreign country and the 9 on my plate is unrecognizable due to the blue paper somehow coming off. Does anyone actually drive the speed limit in Canada? So while on the highway I am looking at traffic in Toronto and it's already a mess. I wanted to avoid that toll road and just stay in the highway but that didn't look like a good idea. So I start reading (while driving) about this toll road. Apparently it uses cameras to record your trip and then bills you. I figure out that my trip will cost me about $21. Ok fine, I'm using the toll road. Then I read at the bottom unrecognizable plates will be charged $50. Well sh!t my plate is unrecognizable. So I stop at a Walmart in God knows where and buy a blue magic marker to color in the 9 hoping that will be good enough. I'm quite fond of my work as it doesn't look any different from the rest of the plate. That also gave me a new found confidence to drive on this highway with the flow of traffic. I push it up to 80 mph. After all I haven't seen any cops on the road. Wow this is long and I haven't even started talking about the park yet.. Ok, long story short, I hit a bunch of traffic before the toll road, I take the toll road which probably saved me a ton of time, and I get to the park a half hour after it opened... And oh yeah, the park was PACKED! Had to wait 30 min just to get in... Forget about Wonder Mountain's Guardian, where can I buy fast lane.. found it! Headed over to Wonder Mountains Guardian to see the line and it was a full queue... I'm not one who really cares about theming, but I like fountains and water sh!t and I really liked the entrance to this park.. So I then made my way over to Yukon Striker, which looked fantastic! But it wasn't open yet. So I decided Mighty Canadian Mine Buster would be credit #89. The ride was, well, trash... I really get on my students for using that word in this way, but it really fits. It was rough, and not enjoyable at all. I measured the ride forces with that ride forces app for anyone who is interested.. Then I saw that Yukon Striker was open. Fast lane does not dump you right into the station. There is a point in the line where it splits. That it where you choose your row. It basically at the bottom of the stairs to the station. Fast lane merges with the rest at that point. If you choose the first row it's about a 20 minute wait from that point. I thought the ride was really good. Definitely the best dive coaster I've been on. And I've been on all of the ones in North America. What I really liked about this one as that it seemed like the holding brake help you further down the drop. So not only the people on the front row got a view of what was below, but everyone gets a good view. IMO that made the 2nd and 3rd rows not completely suck, unlike the rest of the dive coasters. My favorite element (after the first drop of course) was the vertical loop. The actual ride goes through that element a lot faster than it appears on the pov and it was quite forceful. Yukon Striker actually exceeded my expectations and landed a spot in my top 25 at #25. I have less than 100 credits so it's not like it's THAT big a deal, but I really enjoyed it! For those wondering about the vest restraints. First of all they have never bothered me. There were some saying they were a little "better" than the ones on Valravn. Personally I didn't notice a difference. And if the vest restraints bother you then I don't know what to tell you.. Put down the xbox controller and do some pushups... Just kidding... Kind of... Here are the ride forces for Yukon Striker I think a lot of that airtime was me walking out of the station. I really like this app. As you will see a lot of the airtime measurements are off. After Yukon I noticed 2 flat rides in the area, and I love me some flat rides. Sledge Hammer I guess is the only operating ride of it's kind in the world. It was pretty fun except for the bulky restraints. The ride forces app unfortunately didn't pick anything up for this. sorry about my fat finger in the way Psyclone was right next to it. And it was a fun ride, but again it had bulky restraints that made it uncomfortable for me in the shoulders. It was also a very short cycle. fat finger in the way again... Then I made my way over to Behemoth. The fast lane line does dump you into the station for this one. So even though there was almost a full queue I was in the front seat in less than 5 minutes. This ride was freaking awesome! I don't hear too much talk about this, but it grabbed my #2 spot with B&M hyper's behind Mako. The airtime is so strong, and it's a very intense ride. It definitely exceeded my expectations. I marathoned this for a while. I walked by time warp and the SLC but passed on both. I don't ride SLC's, and time warp just didn't look like fun. I trust others' opinions when just about everyone says those are 2 of the worst coasters win Earth.. Hi SLC... no I'll pass, thank you... One small complaint is how long the food and refresh lines are/were.. It took me an hour to get lunch.. By now it's close to 3 PM and I realized I have not ridden the freaking giga yet... yeah fat finger again I thought it met expectations. It was tall, it was fast, and it was pretty intense, but some have said it is better than Millennium Force... umm not even close... I did marathon it for about an hour though.. On one of my rides I rode with a group of guys were were just blown away by it. And I was kind of jealous that they enjoyed it so much and how much it overwhelmed them. I guess because I ride coasters so often and go to a place like Cedar Point so often I'm used to it. I don't know... Just a thought I had while sitting on the brake run with those guys. And BTW those were pretty fun guys to hang out with even though they thought Leviathan was the tallest coaster in the world, and they thought Cedar Point was a Six Flags Park LOL!!! We talked Raptors basketball (this was before game 4) and coasters for a little bit. Then I went over to Wilde Beast. And like Minebuster, this thing is trash.. Too rough to enjoy. Then I started to head over to Dragon Fyre, but Wilde Beast gave me a headache so I wasn't in the mood for Arrow's sh!t just yet. I went back to the car to sit in the AC for half an hour and I took a couple Tylenol because that trash Wilde beast really f*cked me up... After I recovered I got on Vortex. I really like the bat at Kings Island so I was really looking forward to this one. Vortex felt faster and more intense, but also rougher. It was definitely a fun ride though. I think I need up having 3 rides on it. ??? Airtime... Then I went over to Dragon Fyre again, and this was the most surprising coaster of the park. I really liked this ride. Usually Arrow loopers dig into my shoulders, but this one didn't at all, and it was actually quite comfortable. The ride wasn't too rough, and it was pretty forceful for a looper IMO. I actually had 3 rides on it. that yellow cloth or whatever it is I think made this ride more enjoyable than other Arrow loopers After that I spent the rest of the time on Leviathan, Yukon Striker, and Behemoth. The other coasters that were not on fast lane I skipped because those lines were too long. And the other flat rides I skipped too because they had the same uncomfortable bulky restraints. Overall it was a really fun day and the park lived up to my expectations. Their top 3 all made my top 25... I'll definitely be back!

Oh yeah!! And that’s how long I had to wait Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My computer is saying its not safe to view the results. Anyone else getting that message?

Isn't "better" relative? Maybe I should have said if I don't think it's better than Fury.

Me too. Absolutely untouchable as far as I’m concerned. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah I’m expecting long food lines as I’ll be there on a weekend. Thanks for all the info! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the info. Another question, what are the best food options in the park on the dining plan? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How is the fast lane setup at CW? Do they merge the lines or is there a separate line for FL? Thanks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great way to put it. I have experienced some level of disappointment for it not being as tall/record-breaking/long as my pipe dreams had hoped, but I'm still overjoyed for the park getting a coaster like this and I will still be there and happily marathon the thing, and I can't wait to ride it during Haunt no matter how it turns out. Personally I will be disappointed if it's not better than Fury. But just because it's not taller, faster and/or longer than Fury doesn't mean it can't be better. Look at Millennium Force and Expedition GeForce...

I’ve noticed this too. IMO I really like it. Makes the station far less crowded and it efficiently allocates people to each seat while still allowing those that really want a certain spot to get it (cause you can just ask for it). Wait times I would presume are reduced as a result. Yeah I would have liked it too if they honored my requests for certain rows, but they didn’t. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Must be bad luck on my part or they were training new employees. Glad to hear it’s not happening to everybody. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Something I have noticed this season so far is that the park is not honoring row requests as much and they are assigning rows on almost everything except Millennium Force and Blue Streak. I got assigned a row on Iron freaking Dragon! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I went 2 years ago on a KY state fair Saturday and KK was completely dead. Every coaster and flat ride was a walk on. I also went to Holiday World the next day and that place was just as dead. So if you haven't been there I would highly suggest it as it's not too far from Louisville.

I appreciate you saying that!

Well, there are some exceptions. I wouldn't let someone get in/stay in a 2 hour line 15 min before the park closes. But the kids that go are PBIS kids so they have common sense.

When I was in school we would leave an hour before the park closed and it always pissed me off. Now that I run the trip for the school I teach at I have them meet at closing time. And I really don't expect to see all of them until all the rides are closed. For a lot of them it's the one and only time they will have ever been to CP so I let them get the most out of it.

Hold up, are you saying that with a platinum pass you've been able to get FL+ for the price of regular FL at Kings Island? Or that with a platinum pass from Kings Island and Worlds of Fun you've been able to get FL+ for the price of regular FL at Cedar Point?

The pizza I got from Hugo's was awful. Really low quality and cold. It is the first day so maybe it will improve.

Good timing would be to get to the 401/ airport area after 9:30am. By then the early morning rush hour would be less. (it is a busy highway and has traffic no matter when). This would get you to wonderland around the 10:00AM opening time. google maps says it takes 3:24 to get from ambassador bridge to YYZ so It might mean leaving at a stupid early time of day. I might be inclined to buy a fastpass for an extra 2 hours of sleep... Otherwise use your favourite map app and ask for no tolls and see what it says. HWY 407, sometimes called ETR Electronic Toll Road is the one to avoid. I think what I’m going to do is go on a Saturday around noon. Spend the night and get fast lane for Sunday and stay until I’m satisfied. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok so 401 to 400 north. Looks easy enough. Thanks! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So I see that there’s a toll road in Toronto where you can’t pay with cash. I did a little research but it’s still pretty confusing. What do I have to do in order to use that road or is there a way around it? I’m coming from Detroit. Thanks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk