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Canada's Wonderland Discussion Thread


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^ If you’re looking for thrills at Centreville you’ll be disappointed, but there are some highlights that I believe make it work visiting.

 

- The ferry ride to the island offers beautiful views of downtown and is an attraction in its own right.

- The park’s Sky Ride is a relaxing 10+ minute ride with nice views of the park and again, views of the Toronto skyline.

- There is an enclosed Scrambler ride that isn’t very dark, but they kept me on For a good 5 minutes.

- The Park has a small log flume, which is always a positive

- And finally the park’s Haunted Barrel Works dark ride is a true classic. Loud noises, silly effects and a hilarious guillotine scene make this ride worth the trip.

 

There’s several food stands, a gift shop and plenty of kids rides including a Miler kids coaster as well. My lone complaint was the “No Single Riders” rule on the Antique Cars. I asked the operator if it was simply for kids and he said no and that he didn’t know why it was a rule... it just is.

 

So I guess In Summary, If you have the time and don’t mind battling downtown traffic and parking, I’d recommend a visit. I enjoyed my time there back in June before the Corey Hart concert (which was awesome!) and would definitely return.

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^ If you’re looking for thrills at Centreville you’ll be disappointed, but there are some highlights that I believe make it work visiting.

 

Thank you! We've been discussing it due to the proximity of the city. The views look amazing and we don't mind the lack of thrills. We tend to visit smaller parks and fairs in between our big park trips. Just didn't want to go out of our way to find that it's a total waste of time.

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Going to be spending a week in Toronto this month and plan for 2 days at CW. Was wondering if it's worth visiting Centreville Park while in town. Anyone ever been?

 

Not sure how much free time you'll have but you'll also be within a 2-3 hour drive from Six Flags Darien Lake and about 4 hours from Waldameer depending on Toronto and border traffic.

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I was finally able to get to the park for the year on Wednesday and later that night WindSeeker was testing like crazy. I later noticed that it’s been closed for a week now. Anyone know what’s up?

 

Also, when I was there I picked a Wednesday figuring it wouldn’t be crowded in the middle of the week. I stood corrected, it was PACKED. Is that typical on a wednesday for everything worth riding to be well over an hour at times?

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I was finally able to get to the park for the year on Wednesday and later that night WindSeeker was testing like crazy. I later noticed that it’s been closed for a week now. Anyone know what’s up?

 

Also, when I was there I picked a Wednesday figuring it wouldn’t be crowded in the middle of the week. I stood corrected, it was PACKED. Is that typical on a wednesday for everything worth riding to be well over an hour at times?

 

I was also there on Wednesday and was surprised to see the park was really busy as well! It didn't help that Windseeker and Vortex were down, but these things do happen. But, I guess the nice and somewhat cooler weather, along with Kidzfest happening until August 5th, and Yukon Striker being new this year really brought out the crowds. This was my eighth visit of the season, so I was okay with the crowds, but I can see how it can be somewhat of an inconvenience for someone who visits not too often.

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I can't believe more people aren't praising Yukon Striker. I already like dive coasters and I experienced so much more intensity than any other dive coaster. Even as a pretty big fan of B&M I can say that this is the first B&M that actually starts to disorient me around the vertical loop. Yukon Striker feels fast the entire time, which I think is attributed to the layout being closed in by the tunnel, trenches, interaction with Vortex, and close to the trees. Fantastic ride.

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^ I went on a Monday during July, and it was also packed, Yukon is absolutely awesome and I can see why the park is always packed now, totally beats Valravn. (Only waited around 10 minutes because I had FL+ )

 

I am quite confident that the park will break the 4 million visitor mark this year with Yukon Striker drawing in the crowds! According to TEA, last year's attendance at Canada's Wonderland was 3,798,000 visitors. All of my 23 rides on Yukon Striker have been amazing so far! It is quite intense sitting on the end of the row when pulling through the zero-g winder inversion!

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I'm starting to plan some coaster trips out for next year, and I have a question for the locals/regulars. When does Canada's Wonderland begin weekday operation, typically? Do they have a set week that is the same every year, or is it more variable. Cedar Fair parks don't have any way to look back in their operation calendars, at least that I've found... Thanks in advance!

 

Also, it's good to see some love up above for dive coasters! I love them, and think they're a great coaster concept, and execution! I'm really excited to ride Yukon Striker, for this very reason, and hope to next year! I don't get the enthusiast hate for these coasters, but oh well... Just one more thing I'm not in sync with enthusiasts on!

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Emily and I went to Canada's Wonderland a couple Saturdays ago. It was the very last day of our Philli/SFGadv/NYC/Nagara Falls/Toronto Trip. SFGAdv and CW kind of set our route, but the parks were a side note to the trip. That's becoming our new norm.

 

After our less than stellar day and a half at Six Flags Great Adventure (see SFGadv Thread for TR), and falling out of coaster interest this summer, I wasn't overly excited. In fact, Emily and I didn't even get to the park until after twelve. We traded the first couple hours of operation for a nice breakfast in downtown Toronto. Then, house keeping had just started to work on our room right when we got back to the hotel to finish getting ready. That took an hour. We were wanting to take the subway until running behind. We took the rental, instead. Apparently the tolls here are weird and they bill the rental company, who bills us later?? Yeah, we avoided all of that crap a split second before accidentally turning onto the toll highway. It caused our GPS to yell at us and we had to take a busy route through about 20 lights, which delayed us even more. All of this is just more of our park luck this summer.

 

Canada's Wonderland was packed when we got there. We went immediately to a FL+ stand, which I thought was weird being far away from the entrance. I got a little nervous, since we waited in a 30 minute line and I'm always a little anxious about them selling out. That would have meant it was a wasted trip. But, we scored our FL+ passes with no doubt in our decision to do so.

 

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The first thing I noticed about Canada's Wonderland is just how nice looking the park is. Leviathan wraps around the front gate and closes in that corner of the park to remind you where you're at. Most of the rides seemed pretty well placed and well kept. I'd honestly put the landscaping up there near parks like Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which I did not expect.

 

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Seriously... our last park was Great Adventure. This was a nice change. Immediately, Canada's Wonderland seemed like a park we would be OK spending a whole day at. Everything seemed painted and well maintained.

 

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This was our first ride of the day. The FL+ line was 10 minutes or so and then we waited probably another five or ten minutes for the front row. I don't want to talk to people who can't appreciate a ride like Leviathan. Seriously, this thing had a ton of air, a couple Fury-like high speed turns, and it felt fast the entire time. It was short, but it never let up. I can't wait for whatever KI has in store.

 

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Everything was nice here. What a far cry from Six Flags. As far as Vortex goes, it's not for me. I can really see how a lot of people love it, but it was too intense to enjoy for more than one lap. Be prepared for a lot of positive G Forces and very abrupt transitions. I had no idea where I was or where we were going on the ride.

 

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What a great setup. Yukon Striker felt unlike the other dive coaster I'd been on. It felt a lot faster and I think much of that has to do with the layout interacting with Vortex, the tunnel... and all the other crap I said in my previous post. Top notch. I think the waits were around an hour. A separate line splits off about 50 feet or so from the station. I think it was a ten to fifteen minute wait for the front after the split. The split is also where the FL+ merge is. Be prepared to not to be able to choose the front row. If too many people wait for the front it will bottle neck at the split and FL+ merge. Don't be a dick to the staff.

 

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B&M's always look great. I can understand why they're so expensive.

 

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Coasters or not, I wish my lawn looked that nice.

 

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At one point we hit stunt coaster and for whatever reason the grouper was having a brain fart. We were in the front row on an empty train... wtf? None of the effects worked. Meh.

 

At first glance, we thought this was just a murky stream until Emily noticed it was filled with a ton of coy fish. There were so many that we couldn't help but to just stop and look at them for a few minutes. If I hated myself the caption would have been "Behemoth doing it's thing." I'd jump head first into the coy stream before doing that.

 

I couldn't help but to squeeze in that remark... Stop saying it.

 

I'll get to the boring crap. I rode the Time Warp. I was kind to Emily and I encouraged her to sit that one out. It didn't take much encouraging and she was thankful. It was walk-on. The loading was weird with no explanation. I braced myself for every transition by smashing my head against whichever side of the head rest that the ride would throw me to. It seriously wasn't that bad. I'll probably never ride another one again, but I wanted to see what it was all about. I also wasn't aware that the restraints had opened, so I think I was just standing in the car for several seconds while it moved forward, before I realized I was supposed to step out.

 

I hit flight deck or whatever. The ugly gray one. I wouldn't have let Emily ride even if she wanted to, and of course she didn't at all. I don't give a crap about the credit. My only SLC was T3 and I wanted to know what a head banging SLC was all about as a contrast the the kidney jarring SLC I'd ridden. It sucked. I mean, it sucked bad. I'll never ride one again, but I wanted to at least experience it.

 

It was funny that there were two grown men behind me just praising the hell out of it. Good for them. They were talking about how great the ride was, because it was so fast, and that Leviathan looked sketchy. Hah. It does go to show you that it doesn't matter what people on here think about a ride as long as guests can appreciate it. It held a line, so keep the SLC, as long as it can still deliver fun to enough guests.

 

I avoided a few rides for the sake of time. I suppressed a little guilt by not chasing credits. I know what a boomerang is like and it sucks, so I skipped it. I know what a wild mouse is and I didn't want to waste the time waiting for it, so I skipped it. We skipped the arrow/vekoma/whatever manufacturer looper. They hurt. I didn't weird parents out by seeking out kiddie coasters. I want to make even more of a habit of not caring about a worthless number of roller coasters I've ridden in exchange for more enjoyable quality riding experiences, or just taking the time to relax. We missed a lot of rides here.

 

****PART 2 BELOW****

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***PART 2****

I think eventually we left the park for an early dinner. We'd been eating really good, working out, staying healthy, and at the same time sampling a delicious variety of local/interesting food throughout our 9 day trip. We picked a nearby generic sports bar. At this point, I wanted a freaking cheap hamburger and a beer. It seriously hit the spot. I'm from the Midwest... suck it.

 

We got back to the park with a little more enthusiasm. We did end up grabbing another beer from a stand in between Leviathan and the front gate. Or somewhere near a big pond, I don't know. It was a nice place to people watch. Other than that, I didn't see a lot of places selling drinks or nice patios to sit at. We didn't have a lot of time. Maybe we just missed them.

 

I think we did the Boo Blasters game or whatever it's called. Emily likes those rides and they're pretty fun. We only stumbled across it when we couldn't find a bathroom. Speaking of children's rides... she wanted to ride the swans, but we got turned away because we didn't have a kid. I made fun of her. I guess with Boo Blasters and our obligatory bumper cars experience earlier we'd gotten our fill of letting out the inner child in us.

 

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Sometime during the day we rode Behemoth, which for some reason I still haven't learned how to spell without auto correct. I hate those random words you get hung up. Anyway... we took two rides during the day, both in the back car. Our first was on the outer edge and it had a noticeable rattle. It didn't bother me, but Emily said it was 'too rough' for her. We later went with the middle seats in the back row and it was more of the same to her.

 

To be honest, I didn't really get much out of Behemoth (I still spelled it wrong.) I don't remember much about the ride except for someone holding their cell phone and me watching it fly out of their hand and into the lake. The gratification from that was indescribable. Maybe the appreciation came from our first ride of the day on Leviathan when we were stopped on the lift hill because the douchers sitting next to us wouldn't put their phones away. When people yelled at them they got pissed off and threatened to spit during the ride. Pretty childish for dudes who looked my age. We noticed that they didn't get escorted out of the park and the issue wasn't even addressed when they got off the ride.

 

Either way, I probably wasn't in the right frame of mind to really enjoy Behemoth, as I wasn't for the whole trip. I don't care if anyone bitches at me, but I really did feel a significant rattle that took away from the ride. Say what you want.

 

Ironically, we liked Mine Buster a lot more than Behemoth. (nailed the spelling this time) We rode it twice and the final helix/tunnel was a very small reminder of Beast. Wilde Beast was rough. I wasn't a fan.

 

The mine train at this park was also crazy. Two laps of WTF packed into one long train of darkness and deafening screams from riders of all ages. No regrets.

 

I'll throw in some more vain-like pictures to cap this off.

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I was ready for a shave.

 

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I think we got three or four rides on Leviathan and maybe three rides on Yukon Striker. We planned on capping off our trip with one last memorable ride, maybe two, on Leviathan. But, it ended up pouring rain, lightning, and anything else that could shut down operations for the rest of the night and sum up the entirety of our 2019 coaster season. At least we were on the last car of the night on Yukon Striker before it shut down, so we were really lucky for that.

 

All in all, we found Canada's Wonderland to be a great park. In my personal opinion it's the second best park in the chain of the CF parks we've visited, and one of the better parks in North America.

 

I want to note that we woke up at 3:45 to get to the airport 3 hours early for our 8:15 flight, as suggested. Anyone who suggested this can eat shit... By the time we parked our rental, got lost, and made it through customs I think it took a half hour total. I even unintentionally screwed up on a couple of the basic questions asked to me during US Custom's questioning and the dude stamped our passport and told us to GTFO. Three hours of sleep and I couldn't even remember which day we got into Canada. Our flight was delayed and we spent 12 hours in the Air Canada terminal before jumping on the smallest plane ever for a direct flight back to St. Louis. Air sickness brought me right back to our wonderful (:lmao:) homeland.

 

Here's are the coasters we really enjoyed this trip, which are kind of in order.

 

Leviathan

Yukon Striker

Nitro

Coney Island Cyclone

Bizzaro

Mine Buster

 

We weren't really digging much else. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll regain some more interest in this hobby. I think maybe it's just that the parks get so overshadowed by our sight seeing and other experiences during our trips. I'm actually excited for our annual return to KI coming up soon, so that reasoning makes sense.

 

Done.

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^Thanks for taking the time to write up and share your review! It was a good read! I'm glad it was a better experience for you than SFGAdv was!

 

Well, my plans for this year and next have taken a sudden left turn, and now I'm planning (hoping) my first (and likely last) coaster trip of the year, to be to Canada's Wonderland! Here's my question for the locals, or those in the know... I know the park is generally busy every day, and more crowded than the average park, but what are crowds typically like Labor Day (in the US) weekend? Here in the States, it's typically a busier than a normal weekend at an amusement park, but I wasn't sure whether it not being an official Holiday in Canada would have any bearing on the crowds. I'm currently looking to go to CW Sunday the 1st of September, but could potentially push it back a day to go on Labor Day itself. Another option will be going the following weekend, on Sunday the 8th. How would that day be crowds-wise, compared to Labor Day weekend? The big draw of going on the 1st is the 10:00 closing time, but would either Labor Day or the 8th be a better bet in terms of less people, thereby making the earlier close time not as big of an issue? Sorry for all of the questions, but I'm just not sure what to expect from this park, given the last time I was there was the year Behemoth debuted. Thanks in advance for any assistance rendered, and be prepared for me to probably ask a few more questions over the next couple of weeks! I'm getting excited to finally return to this park, and bring my kids along for their first time there (and out of the country, too!)

 

Oh, one semi-related question I'm wondering... When does CW typically put their 2020 Platinum Passes on sale, and do they offer a free visit in the park the remainder of the year? I got my Platinum Pass from KI last time, and I believe it worked that way with the free visit, but I wasn't sure if CW did the same. I also think I remember passes going on sale in mid to late August, but I couldn't recall for certain, so I thought I'd ask. Thanks!

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With the buying of a 2020 pass, historically, if you were to buy it as a "new" pass you would get a single free ticket for the previous season. If you are renewing (you can renew from ANY home park) you would get a free fast lane + to use this year.

 

In 2016 I bought my CW pass on Aug 29 (they probably went on sale way before that),

In 2017 I bought my CP pass as a renewal on Aug 20

In 2018 I bought my CW renewal on August 16

In 2019 I bought my CW renewal on August 15th.

 

If you don't currently have a pass but are looking to get one for next year, you definitely want to wait to get it at Canada's Wonderland when they go on sale. Not only will you get the free ticket for this season, but your pass will be way more inexpensive with the exchange rate (even if you have a foreign transaction fee). Historically they charge the same in Canadian dollars as they do in USD for the same price as all platinum passes.

 

As for crowds, I know we went on Labor Day one year, but honestly I can't remember how it was. Sorry!

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Cool! Thanks for that information on the Platinum Passes at CW! That was my previous experience at other CF parks, so I was hoping it'd be the same here! I imagine in a couple of weeks they'll go on sale, and I'll be on the lookout for that!

 

I am sure it'll be busier on Labor Day weekend, but I'm trying to gauge the level of busier: will it likely be "don't even bother" busier? Or just "prepare for potentially hour long waits on the bigger coasters" busier? Anybody who can provide further insight here, it is much appreciated!

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I'm starting to plan some coaster trips out for next year, and I have a question for the locals/regulars. When does Canada's Wonderland begin weekday operation, typically? Do they have a set week that is the same every year, or is it more variable. Cedar Fair parks don't have any way to look back in their operation calendars, at least that I've found... Thanks in advance!

 

Also, it's good to see some love up above for dive coasters! I love them, and think they're a great coaster concept, and execution! I'm really excited to ride Yukon Striker, for this very reason, and hope to next year! I don't get the enthusiast hate for these coasters, but oh well... Just one more thing I'm not in sync with enthusiasts on!

 

I think it usually opens daily the 2nd or 3rd week

of May.

 

That's correct, for the past couple of years the park has began daily operation by the second Thursday in May. During the weekdays in May, the park is open from 10am to 6pm. That will give you plenty of time to ride and re-ride anything you want to as it is mostly school groups performing in the Festival of Music event during that time of the season. They typically leave in the mid-late afternoon. I hope this information helps, DILinator!

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That's correct, for the past couple of years the park has began daily operation by the second Thursday in May. During the weekdays in May, the park is open from 10am to 6pm. That will give you plenty of time to ride and re-ride anything you want to as it is mostly school groups performing in the Festival of Music event during that time of the season. They typically leave in the mid-late afternoon. I hope this information helps, DILinator!

 

Thanks, it does help, Johnlloyd! I may still go next year, but now I'm planning to go later this year, so what is your take on crowds at CW for the Labor Day weekend, and Labor Day (or I should say, Labour Day) itself? Will they be really bad? Or will it be manageable? Should I wait and go the following weekend, even though the park closes two hours earlier? Thanks for any input or advice you can give regarding these dates, and what to expect crowd-wise at CW!

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That's correct, for the past couple of years the park has began daily operation by the second Thursday in May. During the weekdays in May, the park is open from 10am to 6pm. That will give you plenty of time to ride and re-ride anything you want to as it is mostly school groups performing in the Festival of Music event during that time of the season. They typically leave in the mid-late afternoon. I hope this information helps, DILinator!

 

Thanks, it does help, Johnlloyd! I may still go next year, but now I'm planning to go later this year, so what is your take on crowds at CW for the Labor Day weekend, and Labor Day (or I should say, Labour Day) itself? Will they be really bad? Or will it be manageable? Should I wait and go the following weekend, even though the park closes two hours earlier? Thanks for any input or advice you can give regarding these dates, and what to expect crowd-wise at CW!

 

In previous years, the park can be quite busy over the Labour Day weekend as that is the final weekend of summer vacation before schools go back here in Ontario. Also, the park holds the fireworks show on the Sunday of the Labour Day weekend, which tends to draw significant crowds. It may be best to visit the following weekend, unless that is the only time you can visit. But, if there is a chance of rain in the weather forecast, it may not be too busy.

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(or I should say, Labour Day)

You might as well. There are a lot of Americans on here who've adopted Canadian spelling for whatever reason. Reverse assimilation? I suppose I don't pretend to be that cultured.

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^What's interesting, is that I actually had assumed that Labor Day was a US holiday only, but upon looking into it, I discovered that they do indeed celebrate it in Canada, only with that alternate spelling used. Hence my added in "Labour Day" remark!

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