Canada's Wonderland Discussion Thread

[Johnlloyd]

On Monday, April 4th, Canada's Wonderland announced that all festivals and events are back for the 2022 season including three new food festivals celebrating Portugal, Ireland and The Caribbean! More details about upcoming events can be found on their website! 

 

[prozach626]

The World's of Fun thread has officially had more activity since 2021, and their big announcement for 2022 is much needed track work on their newest roller coaster.

[BitterOldHag]

As far as crossing the border goes, I believe the rules are as follows for guests crossing from the US into Canada:

- As of April 1, a negative COVID test is no longer required for land crossings

- visitor must download the "ArriveCAN" app to their mobile device

- visitor MUST be "fully vaccinated" (both doses of Pfizer or Moderna, single J&J, or other which can be found on the CBP website)

- vaccination card must be scanned and uploaded to ArriveCAN app to be presented at the border 

- date of visit must be entered and at what border crossing the visitor will be using (this may have changed, but I tried the other day and it still asks both questions)

- visitor may be randomly selected to take a COVID test at the border 

I'm hoping to get up there in May as it has been 6 years since my last visit to the park.  Being fully vaxxed and double boosted, I am hoping it will be a smooth trip north!

[teacherkim]

We will be flying in early on June 16th to do a day and a half (or maybe a day and 2/3rds depending on how fast we get through customs) as a warm up, so to speak, to CoasterCon which is at CedarPoint and having a pre-con day at Waldameer. Fully vaxxed and boosted so no worries flying in and glad to see that we don't need to test coming in. Hopefully it stays that way. I have no objection to getting tested, just a hassle. There is now a direct flight from STL to Toronto although it is on a little 48 seat CRJ, which I think will be the smallest plane I've ever been on! 

We are then driving a rental car across the border to Waldameer, and then on to Cedarpoint and Kennywood for Con, and flying home from Pittsburgh which also means we don't have to test to re enter the US because we are doing a land crossing instead of a flight. Not sure of the reasoning behind that other than we aren't spending time in crowded airports and planes but whatever, I'll take it.

Looking forward to the visit, we've wanted to get to up to the park for a long time now.

[anonymouscactus]

Excited for pass preview day in 2 days! They finally confirmed my all season FL+ will be available to redeem so I'm definitely there. The weather is going to be perfect and I suspect it's going to be really busy. Just curious if a lot of rides won't be ready due to the terrible and cold weather this week.

[anonymouscactus]

Thought for sure some major rides would be closed due to weather this past week but alas queue times are posted for their park buyout special event today.

Looks like the 2 water rides, drop tower, riptide, soaring timbers, and windseeker are the only major rides closed. 

Unfortunately Time Warp is open and still in existence.

[njcoasterguy34]

Why is it that I don't feel any pain or discomfort on those Zamperla flying coasters?  I've ridden both Time Warp at CW and Soaring Eagle at Luna Park NYC and enjoyed them both.

[Doppel Looping]

5 hours ago, njcoasterguy34 said:

Why is it that I don't feel any pain or discomfort on those Zamperla flying coasters?  I've ridden both Time Warp at CW and Soaring Eagle at Luna Park NYC and enjoyed them both.

Front row, lean forward?

 

at opening day the parking lot is full to the parking booths  any other day i would turn around a nd leave  

 

it looks like they painted leviathan!

 

[anonymouscactus]

Yeah from the highway it took us about 40 min to get parked, and then another 20 min to get through security/gate. If I didn't have Fastlane I woulda turned around lol lines aren't bad with FL+.

Starbucks and the muskoga burger place were a shit show. I rode Leviathan twice and Wilde Beast before my wife even got her drink and they ran out of stuff and were giving attitude. At Muskoga, after waiting 30 min to order a burger, then an additional 30 to get the burger, they said they ran out of beef and it would be another 30 min. So people just took chicken or impossible burgers because there is no way anyone was waiting any longer than an hour. I enjoyed my cider and the impossible burger wasn't that bad.

In line for Yukon Striker front row line with FL+. More than 90 min in standard queue, about 15 with FL.

Great weather and definitely enjoying myself. I haven't been to a park in a long while so it's good to be back.

Food service to be expected on their "opening day" but just informing everyone

 

Also nobody appears to be directing people to the real entrance of Yukon Striker everyone is thinking the single rider is the real line that is overflowing onto the midway. And to add extra insult tons of empty seats going out. I'm sure they'll get in their groove soon, but, eek.

[Doppel Looping]

It looks like they are building something to the left of vortex. Tore down the latte hut for it. 
 

probably not a coaster or parking garage. 
 

funny there is no signage, just a tarp covered fence. “Find out what’s coming when we are done.”

 

I got a meal plan burger and walked around a bit to see lines everywhere and then left. Pretty much what i expected. Glad to be back but will pick a slower day to try to ride anything. 

[anonymouscactus]

Awfully big building for a restaurant, with multiple floors... but alas....

https://dailyhive.com/toronto/canadas-wonderland-new-restaurant-yukon-striker

 

[Johnlloyd]

My brother and I made our first visit of the 2022 season to Canada's Wonderland on April 30th, which was Opening Day. Below are some photos of the new facilities that have been built over the off-season, as well as the new large dining facility that is still well under construction, and some other changes around the park. 

Here is a look at the new dining facility under construction. It will be themed to a mountain lodge and will be able to seat many people when it opens.

 

Here's a side view of the new dining facility. It looks to be massive from the ground and above!

Nearby the new dining facility behind Wonder Mountain a new Coca-Cola Refresh station was constructed during the off-season. It is tucked away off the path and looks like it has always been there despite being brand new.

In order to make room for the new dining facility behind Wonder Mountain, the Mountainside Bakery (formerly Cookie Café prior to 2016) was demolished. Instead of removing it completely, the park constructed a new building across the path which will be home to the new Cookie Café.

Across the Windseeker in Action Zone, a new structure was built across from Windseeker. It replaced an older structure which was home to Fast Lane sales. I believe this new structure will serve the same purpose and possibly more!

For the 2022 season, Dairy Queen is no longer at the park. The locations have been replaced with park-ran ice cream shops serving soft-serve ice cream and sundaes. Pictured above is the Swiss Dip shop on International Street. Below is Arthur's Sundaes & Cones in Medieval Faire.

 

Also new this season, The International Marketplace Buffet in Medieval Faire has been retransformed to the All's Well Hall, which it was known as in the 1980s. I love seeing the park continuing to revert rides, attractions, and facilities to their original names over the past few years!

Also, the Tim Horton's location in Kidzville has been replaced with Tree Top Café. It will now serve Starbucks.

More photos from opening day can be found on my blog, Amusement Views.

[Nrthwnd]

Did you say ...... Buffet????

LOL. Great look at all the stuff being renovated, replaced and/or repaired. (3 'R's - who knew?)

[BitterOldHag]

Visited CW for the first time since 2016 on Friday and had a decent visit.  Here's my observations:

Good

- Yukon Striker is outstanding.  In my opinion, this is the best B&M dive coaster that I have been on (that list includes Sheikra, Griffon and Valravn).  The first drop into the underwater tunnel is a great thrill with an imposing headchopper visual, the "inline twist" element (?) was disorienting and the ride as is of course tradition was glass smooth.  I also got a kick out of the mobile Loose Item bins.  More rides should use something like that! 

- Leviathan was still running beautifully.  While I feel it is the weakest of the 3 B&M gigas I have been on, it still boasts an incredible first drop (again into a tunnel offering a nice headchopper effect), the train flies through the course and even has a moment or two of nice floater air, and like Yukon Striker, the ride is as smooth as a baby's bottom.  Great stuff, especially riding in the front seat.

- Vortex was running great.  I seem to remember a pothole on a portion of the track, but the train flew and swung smoothly through the course.  Like its twin at Kings Island, the ride is too short, but is still quite fun.  I like the new mine car-style theme on the trains too.

- SledgeHammer is awesome.  I know it may not be a popular opinion, but this one of a kind Huss Jump2 is a unique ride experience that offers some unusual sensations all without being nauseating.  My only complaint about the ride are the absurdly bulky restraints.  They are a bit too claustrophobic and can cause some headbanging on the "jump up" moments, but overall, if this ride is operating, I say ride it. 

Average

- Behemoth.  What happened here?  Perhaps it is early in the season, and perhaps it was because temps were in the low 60's (Fahrenheit), but Behemoth seemed to be running a bit sluggish.  It's a good ride still, but it didn't seem to fly through the course like Diamondback at Kings Island.  Heck, Intimidator at Carowinds seemed faster than Behemoth.  

Bad  

- Ride Cycle times.  It seemed that most of the flat rides here had painfully short cycles.  Psyclone literally swung 5 or 6 times and then slowed to a stop.  Soaring Timbers went around 6 times and that was it.  The carriage didn't even flip.  And the Swing of the Century's cycle timed in at 47 seconds.  Yes, the park was semi crowded, but these are just crazy short ride times.  On the plus side, SledgeHammer runs for about 2 minutes and Klockwerks ran a respectable cycle, but most other rides were not even worth lining up for.  

- Carrousel "music".  I didn't know if this should be considered bad, but the park's beautiful Antique Carrousel (the sign did have two R's) is lacking a band organ or recorded music, so one of the ride ops sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" while the ride spun.  Now that is an odd choice of tunes! 

- And finally, the food lines were simply insane.  Thankfully I had a very limited amount of time to spend at the park and ended up eating elsewhere, but jeez, those lines looked like they could sap at least 45 minutes out of your day. 

It was great to be back in Canada again and I hope to visit CW one more time before the season is over.  The park is well maintained, the employees were friendly (and were all wearing masks), and the ride selection is definitely one of the more varied ones in North America.  I see Duran Duran is playing the Molson Amphitheater in August, so a trip to visit the CNE, Wonderland and a concert with newly inducted Rock And Roll Hall of Famers sounds like a plan to me!    

[teacherkim]

To those that have posted appreciate the updates and trip reports! We will be making our first ever visit pre-CoasterCon on June 16 & 17 and really looking forward to it. So bummed that we won't sync up with Duran Duran......

[Johnlloyd]

Yesterday on May 19th, I made my second visit of the 2022 season. Since my first visit of the season nearly three weeks ago, a lot of progress has been made on the new dining facility! With a roof and walls, it looks extremely massive than it had before! The construction crews were hard at work building it yesterday. It will definitely look amazing once it is completed! Be sure to check out some photos I took of it while at the park. 

 

[teacherkim]

We made our first ever visit to the park pre CoasterCon on 6/16 and 6/17 and had a great visit. Wonderful Canadian hospitality as we expected and we loved the weirdness of whatever Wonder Mt and all it's inhabitants are trying to be. I mean that as a complement, truly! We had an early flight on Thursday and came straight to the park so it was kind of the bonus day since we had no idea when we would actually arrive. Planned on Friday being the big day since we could stay open to close and had FL+. Good thing too as we lost about 2 hours due to weather, not much rain but lightning in the area. Also Yukon Striker went down for wind for a while. We focused on the non FL rides on Thursday figuring Friday would be busier and that was a wise move. There were a lot of school groups both days as it was the last week of school in that area. 

Got 16 of the 17 coasters. The only one we didn't get on was the kiddie since we had no kid and never saw a chance to "borrow" one to ride, lol. By we I mean my son got 16 and I did 13 or 14, no way was I starting out a 10 day coaster trip getting beat up on the SLC and flying coasters tend to make me sick but we had a great couple of days. 

Glad you are getting a new restaurant, the choices were kind of limited; I mean do you really need 4 Subway's? What's up with that, lol?

[Johnlloyd]

It has been awhile since I gave an update on the new dining facility known as Lazy Bear Lodge, so here are a couple of photos that I took yesterday, during my fifth visit of the season! It is really looking great!

 

 

Also during my visit yesterday, I noticed that the waterfalls on White Water Canyon were operating again! I hadn't seen them work in about four or five years! 

[Nrthwnd]

^ Ha! Put a couple of animatronic elephants in that waterfall setup, and you've got a "a little bit of Disney Jungle Cruise."

In the WDW Magic Kingdom's version. Photo from the www.

[Doppel Looping]

There was a fire at the waterpark last night after the fireworks. Local news channel, CP24 says they evacuated people from the park at 11:30pm. There are a few badly shot videos on the internet that look like they were taken from cars on the road out that goes past behemoth. Traffic on the road out seemed to be moving surprisingly well, usually it is a parking lot after a long day lets out.

 

We were there during the day and they closed splashworks and some of the other rides in the area at 6pm because of the fireworks, so there were likely no people around.

 

I only have some sketchy internet video to go by but it looks like the Funnel slide Typhoon was on fire. Not sure if they will be able to find another hand me down slide from another park to replace it.

 

The only good news, if there is any is that it should free up some lifeguards to staff the other attractions. Today was the most packed i have ever seen the waterpark but Mountain bay cliffs only opened for a few hours in the afternoon because of staffing shortages and Lazy river did not open at all.

 

 

Update: Looking at another video just now, part of Minebuster looked liked it was on fire too. We can only hope.

 

[Haymaker]

[mikeykaise]

that must have been one hell of a firework piece that fell on the slide to melt that much plastic.

[Doppel Looping]

I guess if that is the extent of the damage then we got off pretty lucky. From the poorly shot cellphone video it looked pretty severe.

 

Thoughts and prayers go out to the fibreglass that burned. Maybe a go fund me is on it's way?

 

If that is all that is damaged, Splashworks should be back up to half capacity in no time.

 

[Haymaker]

6 hours ago, mikeykaise said:

that must have been one hell of a firework piece that fell on the slide to melt that much plastic.

Allegedly it was a pump house that went up and tool the slide with it

[lord denning]

Surprised no one has posted about the 2023 additions yet.  I know we like to wait for Robb to do the official press release stuff so I will not to link anything.

Interested in the family launched coaster - assume it will go where the dinosaurs alive / aquarium used to be.  Much needed ride.  Want to see the layout.

As for the massive - flat I do not think the park needed it and that land was the great picnic area for fireworks.