TR: Canada's Wonderland 6/24

[BuffaloCoastin]

 

I’ll try to make this as short as possible, because it’ll be hard to keep your interest with a lack of pictures.

 

We left school at about 8:15, and got to the park around 10:45 (not bad, considering we were planning on 3 hours). The park looked crowded, as expected, but we were not going to be deterred, there was a plan to follow. If only we knew the plan would be quickly blown to bits...

 

Italian Job Stunt Track

After almost getting lost twice, we finally found the entrance to the queue to IJST tucked away next to MCMB. We entered the queue, and as is always a bad sign, people started leaving in masses. We asked what the problem was, and sure enough, there was some sort of malfunction, we saw empty trains being tested. We were told it would be about 2 hours until the ride was operating, and the line was supposedly 2 ½ hours long from where we were – I don’t think so.

 

After the day’s first disappointment, we journeyed towards the other end of the park, somewhat following the plan. I was with 2 other people, and it needs to be said that one is an average rider (nothing too outrageous, but he’ll ride most things) and the other is not a fan of heights, meaning he’d ride nothing all day. We jumped in line for the first coaster we saw, seeing it was:

 

Thunder Run

All I’ll say was we didn’t know what we were in line for until halfway up the queue, and the ride in itself was pretty lame for our standards.

 

We then journeyed to find something our friend Ryan would actually ride. He picked the teacup-like ride, and while the other two went on, I took the opportunity to use the “washrooms,” as they are called in Canada. They got off, and we headed to the nearest coaster (although Ryan refused to ride, again):

 

Dragon Fire

Yeah, it’s an Arrow Looper...The only good things about it was that it wasn’t too rough and there was absolutely no line.

 

At this point, we grabbed some Dairy Queen and decided to try to find more people (there were about 140 other people on this trip, we had seen none of them since we entered.) Almost immediately we saw a few classmates and a bunch of Freshmen, so we chatted it up. They too had apparently achieved very little, and had just gotten off Vortex. This was one ride I couldn’t pass up on, so I grabbed one of the freshmen that hadn’t ridden it yet and we jumped in line.

 

Vortex

There’s just something about suspended coasters that makes them...special I guess. Vortex seemed really fast and whipped around the turns like nuts. Personally, I loved it.

 

We got off and found most of the other group riding a flat. After they got off, they desperately wanted to ride The Bat. My dislike for Vekoma boomerangs failed to outweigh my desire for a credit, so I joined in. Of course we were met with a 30-minute wait...

 

The Bat

It’s a Vekoma ‘Rang. ‘Nuff said.

 

After this, when I realized I was one of few that did not want to go to the water park, I gave up on being an enthusiast/credit whore for a couple hours to go along to try and find other people. We casually walked the park looking for stuff to do, people to see, etcetera, and we ran into a couple of people that wanted to ride Tomb Raider. Since I missed out last year, I was only obliged to join in. Here comes disappointment number 2:

 

Tomb Raider: The Ride

We waited ½ hour and when we entered the station, I thought I was experiencing Deja Vu:

“Attention guests waiting to ride Tomb Raider, the ride will be experiencing a temporary delay due to unforeseen circumstances. We are awaiting the arrival of a mechanic and should be up and running again momentarily.”

Well, after sitting for 10 minutes, we asked the ride op what “momentarily” meant. She admitted it meant anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to the rest of the day. Screw that.

 

What a jip. So, feeling somewhat defeated, we went to Splash-works to plan out the rest of our adventures. We met up with a ton of our friends there, and formed new groups. I went along with the people determined to get the most rides in the least amount of time. Where were these people before?

 

We planned to go cross-park to hit Drop Zone, another attraction I missed last year. It was quite a hike, but the 6 of us made it:

 

Drop Zone

The line was manageable (20 minutes), and after hearing that damn recording that we laughed at because it said you couldn’t have implants on the ride, we boarded. All I can say is: “Holy _____ (insert word of choice)” What a ride. In all of 30 seconds I think it was the best drop tower I had ever ridden.

 

We were able to get in a few rides that I won’t bother to summarize because I think you all know what they are, or nobody’s made it this far in the TR:

 

Cliffhanger (Got really wet, but it cooled us down)

The Fly (Wild mouse, whoop dee-doo)

Psyclone

Sledge Hammer

 

After SH, it was about time to leave. We had to be on the busses by 7, so for now it was “Goodbye Canada, thanks for the disappointments!” All in all, I added 5 credits (I got 4 different ones last year), and In my humble opinion, Drop Zone was the best ride in the park. We never got to ride Italian Job or Tomb Raider. Oh well, that’s Canada for you, eh.