Planning a trip could use some advice

[Ddeitz]

First off id like to say, I love the website. The amount of information is overwhelming almost. However on to the goods.

 

I am planning a trip with a friend of mine. We have about 2 1\2-3 weeks of time for the trip. Estimated leave time is june 21st (night of). Its only estimated due to the new passport laws and i dont have one so if mine does not arrive in time for june 21st then we leave when it gets here.

 

We live in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Canada (thats 10 hours north west of Wisconsin dells for the TPR people )

 

We have a good idea of how we want to do the trip however, Its hard to figure out what not so huge parks are worth going to and what ones could maybe be missed.

 

As for a real day list, we are not set by any means.

 

Night 0- Leave winnipeg drive to wisc dells for the A.M

Day 1- Extreme World \Mount Olympics (is it worth it for hades?)

Day 2- Louisville -Six flags KK\Drive to KI and get some time in if we can

Day 3- Kings Island

Day 4-Bush gardens europe

Day 5\6\7 Are in the Washington D.C area. Kings domain\SF America as well as some sights.

Day 8- SFGA (been reading and it seems like 1 day with a Flash pass is good? )

Day 9-Hershey park

Day 10- Dorney park\knobles

Day 11- Rest day in Adriondack Park preserve

Day 12- SF Le ronde

Day 13- Montreal\Ottawa (and some more bungee jumping)

Day 14-Canada's wonderland

Day 15\16-Cedar point

Day 17- Head towards home

 

As you can tell that is not 21 days at all we have a few to spare, so help me fill them with some good parks. The more coasters the better.

 

As for the added rest days, we can add those as we see fit. We are not too worried about hotels. Camping works for us just fine and were taking a van so we can always crash in the back no problem.

 

Questions.

Indiana beach seems to be a decent park, however if we do it then it pretty much eats an entire day unless we can somehow manage to do it and KK in the same day (how long do you need at Indiana beach?)

 

After day 10 we go from knobles all the way to Canada basically skipping quite alot of miles. What are the best parks in that area or a few we could combo for a good time? Morey's piers looks to be good, however it is back tracking unless we do it first but what other parks are able to be done with it that day\worth while! Or other parks along the way to canada that are worth the stop(s).

 

 

After Canada's wonderland we head over to CP We could stop and do Darien lake or waladmeer. Is both in 1 day doable? is seabreeze worth the back tracking as well?

 

 

I skipped six flags great america only because we did it last year. We still may hit it on the way back.

 

Yeah there are quite a few questions but i hope i can find a few answers.

 

Nothing is set in stone so if i miss something worth doing, please say so!

[Carnage]

Have you taken into account the drives, or do you plan to drive overnight or something??

 

Some of your days have very long drives.

 

Like the Dells to Louisville. Or being at Kings Island one day, and BGE the next?? Montreal to Toronto is quite a drive, and then another fairly decent drive to Sandusky the next day.

 

Seems to me you'll probably need to add dedicated drive days in between some of these parks.

[mcjaco]

Have you taken into account the drives, or do you plan to drive overnight or something??

 

Some of your days have very long drives.

 

Like the Dells to Louisville. Or being at Kings Island one day, and BGE the next?? Montreal to Toronto is quite a drive, and then another fairly decent drive to Sandusky the next day.

 

Seems to me you'll probably need to add dedicated drive days in between some of these parks.

 

Dells to Louisville is easily an eight to nine hour drive (with traffic). You might need to recalculate some of your days.

[Carnage]

And Cincinnati to Williamsburg looks to be about a 10 hour drive.

 

Not sure how you could do Kings Island and BGE back to back with that kind of drive in between.

[Homeboy23]

Your right, Richmond to Cincinnati is 8 hours but that is with only a 5 minute stop for gas. Add Richmond to Williamsburg which is about an hour or so, it would be about 9 hours.

 

Keep in my mind when I did that drive to Cincinnati I left Richmond at 2 am so I didn't hit any traffic.

[monsterfan99]

To go with the others, you are going to want to add some driving days. I can tell you doing just this trip below

 

Leave at 3 am, do 3 theme parks that day, sleep 6 hours, do another theme park, sleep 8 hours, drive 6 hours, do theme park, drive 8 hours

 

Is insane enough. My advice would be to put in a drive day after the dells and maybe hit Kiddieland near Chicago in it's last season, hit Beech Bend for a few hours that night or hit Holiday World. Just don't over extend yourself as everyone get cranky and it ruins a good time. Ask any family that has blitzed Disney World for 4 or more day straight.

[larrygator]

Night 0- Leave winnipeg drive to wisc dells for the A.M

Day 1- Extreme World \Mount Olympics (is it worth it for hades?)

Day 2- Louisville -Six flags KK\Drive to KI and get some time in if we can

Day 3- Kings Island

Day 4-Bush gardens europe

Day 5\6\7 Are in the Washington D.C area. Kings domain\SF America as well as some sights.

Day 8- SFGA (been reading and it seems like 1 day with a Flash pass is good? )

Day 9-Hershey park

Day 10- Dorney park\knobles

Day 11- Rest day in Adriondack Park preserve

Day 12- SF Le ronde

Day 13- Montreal\Ottawa (and some more bungee jumping)

Day 14-Canada's wonderland

Day 15\16-Cedar point

Day 17- Head towards home

 

Mt Olypmus and Hades are worth it if you are already in the Dells, but don't miss out on Hellcat at Timber Falls. Even if you get the discounted after 5PM wristband you can power ride it for an hour before hitting the road. Or you can pay by the ride and leave the Dells earlier.

 

Day 2 - I would go to Indiana Beach (need 2-3 hours maximum for coasters) instead of SFKK then head to KI. If you had another day, I'd say go to Holiday World and SFKK on a day between Indiana Beach and KI.

 

To break up the drive it might want to consider going to Hershey the day before Busch Gardens.

 

I'm not sure where you are staying in the Adirondacks, but Great Escape has a couple of coasters (only one good one) that might not be too far out of your way on the drive to LaRonde (You did say coasters were important).

 

Depending on when you leave Canada's Wonderland you might be able to get to Martin's Fantasy Island (Buffalo, NY) for their nighttime discount. They have two coasters, one of which is an above average woodie.

 

That would leave you time to go to Darien Lake the next morning, Waldameer in the afternoon and be at CP for a few hours at night. (I assume you are buying a Cedar Fair Max Pass since you are going to 5 CF parks). That gives you the full next day at CP and a couple of hours the next morning at CP if you stay near Sandusky.

 

The only major park along the way that you would be missing with my itinerary is Kennywood, if only you could squeeze an another day into your trip, you could visit Kennywood between KI and Busch Gardens

 

I would not back track to Morey Piers or Seabreeze nor drive out of the way to Beech Bend. Your time table is tight enough.

 

I hope that helps.

[Ddeitz]

Yeah a few of the drivers are longer then i would like them to be for sure. The KI to bush gardens is the one that actually worries me the most. With that being said it easily could turn into a day of rest and we do something instead of bush that day. However thankfully its not our first trip together and we both can sleep in a car.

 

Could always leave KI at something like 8pm drive until KI 6am lets say (hopefully) and thats still 4 hours of sleep, added to the sleep in the car. But that is paper, and it would not be the first time someone had to eat their words of "oh its no problem i can do it" Soo....i think i will plan a few back up idea's as i said nothing is in stone by any means.

 

Id rather take the days of rest as we need them and not dictate when we are allowed to rest and when not. So if we need rest before bush, we take it if not we keep on going.

 

Thanks for the heads up though.

 

 

Thank you larrygator, that im sure will help me out quite a bit actually.

[monsterfan99]

 

Mt Olypmus and Hades are worth it if you are already in the Dells, but don't miss out on Hellcat at Timber Falls. Even if you get the discounted after 5PM wristband you can power ride it for an hour before hitting the road. Or you can pay by the ride and leave the Dells earlier.

Just wanted to point out they are now only letting you ride it 5 times on Hellcat with a wrist band. This is from people I've talked to that have been there have been limited to that this last weekend.

[Sir Clinksalot]

Wow, that's a LOT of driving.

 

I would look at the main TPR page and see some of the past trips that Robb and Elissa have done, even going back to the pre "TPR Trip" days when it was just them and small groups. The order of the parks should pretty much give you the best driving distances and what parks to do in what order.

[Homeboy23]

Unless you really want to do all that driving to BGE, you might just want to substitute it with Kennywood. Its about 5 hours from Cincinnati and then the next day a 5 hour drive to KD from Kennywood.

 

BGE is a park that you must go to if you can, but from your plans may be too much.

[Ddeitz]

After the input from people here, we took a second look at the trip and ran over a few idea's this is the updated order. The days i think are correct but really we were planning on about 3 weeks so that leaves us with up to 3 extra days to use whenever.

 

The drive to BGE during the night we did look at again, i dont see it being a problem and if we leave KI early it shouldn't be too bad.

 

The plan is almost the same, added a few parks, took a park out, and added a few more days.

 

 

Night 0- Leave winnipeg drive to wisc dells for the A.M

Day 1- Extreme World \Mount Olympics

Day 2- Kings Island

Day 3- BGE

Day 4-Kings Domain\Washington D.C sights if time.

Day 5\6\7* Washing D.C area\Sixflags (we think 3 days in DC could be less could be more)

Day 8- Hershey park

Day 9-Dorney park\knobles

Day 10- SFGA

Day 11- Lake Compouce\SFNE

Day 12- Adirondack Park (Rest day\half way to montreal as well )

Day 13-La ronde (montreal) and sights if time.

Day 14-Bungee jumping @ Great canadian bungee\sights.

Day 15- Canada's wonderland (toronto)

Day 16\17- Cedar Point

Day 18- Home

 

we also have a few parks were keeping as a if were ahead of schedule\want to tack on an extra day.

 

This is the old plans .

 

Night 0- Leave winnipeg drive to wisc dells for the A.M

Day 1- Extreme World \Mount Olympics (is it worth it for hades?)

Day 2- Louisville -Six flags KK\Drive to KI and get some time in if we can

Day 3- Kings Island

Day 4-Bush gardens europe

Day 5\6\7 Are in the Washington D.C area. Kings domain\SF America as well as some sights.

Day 8- SFGA (been reading and it seems like 1 day with a Flash pass is good? )

Day 9-Hershey park

Day 10- Dorney park\knobles

Day 11- Rest day in Adriondack Park preserve

Day 12- SF Le ronde

Day 13- Montreal\Ottawa (and some more bungee jumping)

Day 14-Canada's wonderland

Day 15\16-Cedar point

Day 17- Head towards home

[BEAMER3K]

Sounds like a very fun 3 week trip!!! Don't forget to check the weather for when you're visiting major parks. Epically for Cedar Point, you don't want it to rain when your there!!!