abovethesink

Here's a trip report from a couple weeks ago: Date: Sunday, August 30th Background: Tuesday through Sunday the 30th was supposed to be one of two roadtrips for us for the summer. This one taking us to Darien Lake, Waldameer, Conneaut Lake, and ending at Cedar Point before the return trip. Obviously Covid did that in. Conneaut and Darien didn't open and Cedar Point had some rides closed, but the nail in the coffin was when Ohio was added to the NY two week quarantine list. We salvaged the vacation by exploring the Maine mid-coast, mostly Rockland and Camden, and kept a coaster component by reserving a spot at Canobie Lake Park where we had never been for Saturday, August 29th. The park was basically on our route anyway. However, the park did not open that day so we took the somewhat bold step of switching it to Sunday. This is despite the fact that we still had a seven hour drive home after the park and work the next morning, but I couldn't live without getting at least something in. Unfortunately, this did make the visit more of a credit grab than I like to do as we were pressed for time, but we got to visit nonetheless. Experience: First impressions were great. They organized the entry into the park pretty well and while the reservation system was a little clunky, it worked. Ours was 10:45 if I remember right. The park is very pretty upon entry. It has a small, intimate feel. Colorful, mostly fresh looking paint popped everywhere and looked great against all the foliage. A lot of the flats had some sort of simple, consistent little self contained theme that looked nice. I figured we had a little time, so I let my 10 year old ride some flats. He got on Ice Jet with my wife and the flyers by himself while she recovered from the spinning. I don't do much spinning myself. Ice Jet got good reviews from a 10 year old, but the flyers he didn't like compared to the ones he rode at Holiday World in June. My only real disappointment was finding out that their classic, hand carved carousel is indoors and therefore closed. I mean it makes sense on both accounts, so no complaints, but of course I would like to have seen it. Next we decided it was time to get the credits and found an extremely long line for Yankee Cannonball stretching way, way out into the midway. We were hoping that it was more an illusion than anything else because of all the spacing in it, but with one train ops and only a max of ten passengers per train (barring a super big party that could sit together), it wasn't. We also realized later in the line that there must be some sort of fast pass system because people coming up the exit (I think it was the exit) would sometimes take over trains and the main line wouldn't move at all. We waited two hours for a little family woodie, but I was getting my credits damnit! One thing we were very impressed about in the line were the social distancing and mask enforcement. Staff constantly had guests move around and had people put masks back up over their noses. One pair of teenagers ahead of us got pretty consistent attention with this. Unfortunately that wouldn't hold true throughout the park, but it was a good start. When we finally got on the ride, I was relieved to find the time wasn't completely wasted. What a fun little woodie. I am sure the fact that I hadn't ridden anything since early June contributed to how much I liked it and it isn't some great ride by any means, but it is a fun race to the parking lot and back. There was some light airtime and it paced itself pretty well. By the end of the day I realized it was the best of the three rollercoasters in the park. Next up was Untamed. This is where the social distancing fell apart. In that line, which did not spread out of its queue, there were a couple faded stickers on the ground in the last two switchback rows and that was it. No enforcement and social distancing relied on how close people felt like getting to you. I was looking forward to the ride still and it didn't bother me that much. One thing unrelated that did bother me was a pair of dogs. There were two waiting for people in line. One was clearly a traditional service dog, a Golden Retriever, and it was perfect. The other was a small, terrier type dog that barked its head off whenever it could see the service dog. I hate to see people abusing the support animal system like that to bring their pet in, of course, but come on man. If you're going to do that, then have some respect while in the park at least. Just move around the corner to a different bench so it can't see the service dog. I imagine that must be stressful for the service dog dutifully doing its job even though it is trained not to respond. When I wasn't being distracted by the barking dog, I was first admiring how pretty the Eurofighter in front of me was. The detail work of painting the supports like birch trees was wonderful and the bear trains were pretty too. Unfortunately staring at the track also created the realization that this was going to be a rough ride. That thing SWAYS with each ride. The whole course moves a ton as the trains pass through it. Unfortunately after maybe a half hour in line, it delivered the ride it looked like it would too. For me, it wasn't that bad. The first drop was good fun and I liked the layout. It was pretty damn violent and beat up my shoulders, but I still enjoyed it overall. My kid did too. My poor wife, however, got her head all banged around and she was out for the day with a headache. I really just wanted to get the last credit anyway though so that didn't kill my day. We got some water for all of us, ice cream for them, and she went to the car. My son and I then proceeded on to their Arrow Corkscrew model for credit #149. That took about 40 minutes in line, I'd say, and it was the experience you'd expect. Spoilers: It was bad. But I will say two good things: 1) The setting is very pretty. The ride looks great and you get some good views from the lift. 2) Knowing their days overall are numbered even if a ride like this in a smaller park will probably outlast most of them, I do get a nostalgic sort of pleasure from them still. So it was was mostly forceless except for banging my head around, but I am still glad to have gotten the chance to experience it. I also sort of enjoyed and sort of was mortified by my kid's reaction to another kid his age exiting the ride. The other kid told his presumably mother that it was a 10/10 ride and my son just thought it was the funniest thing that someone could love one of these. I have made a mini-coaster snob. We exited the park without incident, found the already cooled car, and took off. Final Thoughts: First and foremost, I owe the park something closer to a full day. I can't really review the park as a whole with only a few hours of credit whoring, but I can say it is a charming place with a pretty aesthetic and a nice looking collection of flats. There is little reason to visit if you're only into coasters, but I did enjoy the ambiance. We also didn't step foot in the small water park. My number one priority would be fixing Untamed, if possible. I think the fact that it should be the flagship attraction at the park but had the shortest line of the three coasters speaks volumes. I get why the small woodie might have a longer line as the family friendly choice, but Untamed didn't really have better capacity than either and shouldn't be outdrawn by an old Arrow corkscrew model. I can only assume there is a connection between the massive swaying of the track and the roughness too, so I would be curious to explore whether adding a handful of strategic new supports would help with the poor ride experience. Beyond that, all I can say is that I look forward to a visit in a post-vaccine world where we can take our time a bit and really let our kid ride everything in the next couple years before he gets too old to want to do the flats. The park is right on our way to both Boston and/or Maine, so it pairs nicely with non-coaster trips too. tldr: Go if you appreciate small, regional parks and want to make a slow paced day of it. Go if are a credit whore as there are three there. Don't go if you only go to parks for good, high end attractions like big coasters. They aren't good enough to justify the trip versus any number of other parks.

I am assuming you would still recommend FL+ for Saturday, October 24th, right? I am not sure if we are going to be able to make the drive yet because of work situations, but we might be able to get away for a long weekend and that would be the target day for my first visit to KI given that it won't be open on the Friday before.

Twenty years from now I fully expect to be grumbling at yet another Raptor credit I have to get at some random small park like I do with the Boomerangs now, haha. People liked Boomerangs when they were new like we like Raptors, right? They kept building them anyway. All enthusiast mandated clone whining out of the way, these are truly awesome additions for smaller to midsized parks. I haven't actually been on one yet, but the POVs look amazing and reviews seem good across the board. A park like Silverwood will benefit tremendously from this ride. Plus, it does look to me that it is a modified version of Railblazer. It will need to reprofile, if only subtly, to accomodate for 10 car trains, no?

Man, that doesn't look like a crazy intense ride from what I can tell, but with that level of theming it doesn't need to be. That looks really awesome. I need to make a Eurotrip in the next five years.