Photo TR: Coastermania 2009

[Rastuso]

Coastermania – June 5th and 6th, 2009

 

 

My mom left for Detroit and we got ready to go. First stop today was the Root Beer Stand in Sharonville. They make their own Root Beer and Orange drink. The Root Beer is awesome, and the orange is pretty good too, although very sweet. The burgers are decent. This is a great roadside stop. The place is full of hats hanging from the ceiling. It was Friday around noon and the place was packed.

 

We make the long, uneventful trek to Sandusky and arrive at the Hampton Inn to find out that it is also bike week. It didn’t take long for the sound of a revving motor cycle to get really old. We ate and my son and I headed off to the Point. This was his first trip ever. My mom said Cedar Point was my first amusement park when I was an infant. We visited quite often as I grew up, and I have fond memories of the Pirate ride, the San Francisco Fire ride, and the Funhouse. It’s sad that all three are gone. I also have a memory of one of the log rides being themed to the Nestea Plunge and running the logs backwards, although I haven’t seen photographic evidence of this yet.

 

We arrive at a pretty decently empty parking lot, get our Coastermania lanyards, and head on in. We choose to ride the skyride to start out. My son looks at Raptor and decides to pass, which is a bummer. But he does agree to go to Millennium Force to start out.

 

I love MilF, but my last visit it was down. When it had its issues a week ago, I was quite upset, thinking I’d miss it again. Luckily, it was running well. The wait was only into the first cattle area and went by fast. We get in around the middle to see how my son takes it. The ride is a bit more rattly then I remember, but still awesome. Massive speed throughout with a perfect drop and some good airtime hills. Still one of the best anywhere. My son is a bit shocked, but really likes it. I see the inner thrill rider coming out of him.

 

We head on back the Frontier Trail towards Maverick. The line is advertised as 1.25 hours, so we skip it for now. We hit Mean Streak instead for the credit for my son. This thing is running pretty rough and isn’t much fun. I used to sort of enjoy the ride, but not today. My son is not impressed. We then hit the Mine Train for a super jerky ride, again not really impressing my son. He sees a swing and runs over for a quick spin. As I wait, 4 little kids are running in circles on some benches. After one of them falls and gets hurt, a parent finally decides they should stop.

 

We continue on to Gemini. I have a picture of me, my brother, and my dad waiting in line for this in I believe opening year in 1979 when I was my son’s age. We reminisce a bit, and talk about how we miss my dad, and how we’d never wait 2 hours for this ride now. But hey, it was the biggest in the world back then. Today, it’s a walk-on with only one side running. How the mighty have fallen. The girl behind us thinks she’s cute by screaming on the hills. I turn around and scream on one of the turnarounds. My son says “good one, dad”, and she is stunned. I absolutely hate these bitches that do this shit, and I always love the looks on their faces when I scream right at them. She screamed a bit once more, but was fairly quite for the rest of the ride.

 

We note that the Muffleheads are invading, horror movie style. You can see huge swarms, including one near the top of Gemini’s lift. They look as if they are spewing out of the trees in little tornados. We head to Magnum, and the station roof is covered with them. We arrive as they are cleaning puke off the ride. Someone apparently ate too many muffleheads. My son was a bit scared by the very small tunnels on the ride, and is unimpressed with the triangle hills on the return run. Magnum definitely can’t compete with newer rides. I remember riding it during its opening year about 20 times when Coastermania was just Magnum-mania. I sure couldn’t do that now.

 

We go check out the Dragster line and see it is quite short, at the base of the ramp. The crowds are definitely small. It’s only about 70 degrees out which may have kept some folks away, but I’m enjoying the weather, since it’s in the mid 90s in Houston. My son says he’s not going to ride it. I try my best to convince him, but he heads down the station stairs as I get strapped in. I love this ride. It’s pure adrenaline. I’ve never ridden at night and like the few seconds at the top, looking out on the park in eerie quietness.

 

My son is still a bit spooked from Magnum, so we head out. There was Maverick ERT tonight, but I decide I’ll try and get it during Joe Cool time tomorrow. I find out later this was a very good choice since the ERT had huge lines since the night ERT schedules really didn’t make much sense, mostly containing second tier rides.

 

I wake up Saturday, really dragging ass. I finally get to the park around 8, and figure I’ve missed MilF ERT, so I head to Dragster which has about the same wait as last night, about 20 minutes. After the 120 mph wakeup, I see that MilF is still running trains, so I ask a guy in a tie. He says it’s running, which makes sense, since it will be running for Joe Cool in an hour anyway. I ask about Marverick, but he says that is hotel ERT, and we’re supposed to take a break then. I wonder if this will be enforced, or if it is just an attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick.

 

I go over to MilF where there is only a station wait. After the first ride, I see they are letting folks go right back into the station. Woohoo! I get 3 quick MilF rides, and feel a bit woozie from the g’s. It’s almost 9 anyway, so I head to Maverick. The Jedi Mind Trick didn’t work, and I head into the queue with tons of other Coastermania folks. I’d be pissed if I was a hotel guest. By the time I was to the station, the whole inside queue was filled, and the line was to the entrance, which is probably 1.5 hours.

 

I get in a ride that I really didn’t know much about. I’ve never really studied the layout. The first drop was a bit crazy, really not very fun. The first half is pretty smooth, despite the crazy loops and turns. The hidden launch is fun, but then things go a bit awry. Right after the launch, they slow you down. WTF??? I’d guess this wasn’t the plan originally. I also think this is around where they removed loop was. There is a really bad neck punch before you go through the rocks. After that, the rest is pretty good. Overall, a unique fun ride that would be awesome if that neck punch as smoothed out. A bit of an odd ride overall. It takes up a huge piece of land, but does seem quite popular since it’s line was longer than Dragster and Milf all the time.

 

I decide to head back to the hotel, since I fear the worst for Saturday at Cedar Point.

 

We go to Goofy Golf to check it out. I recall there being a few other go kart places a few years ago, but they all seem to be gone now. Only Goofy Golf remains, complete with it’s totally 80s main building that was probably one hell of an arcade in its heydey. Now it’s a sad redemption room. The golf courses don’t look that great. It’s sad that so few places still have classic 80s miniature golf courses full of weird holes with tons of large obstructions and stuff.

 

We decide to do the gokarts, since my son can drive on the middle course. I envision him slamming into wall after wall. We get our tickets and wait forever for them to remove 4 karts from the track since they don’t have a separate load area. We get in, and we’re off for some true life Mario Kart. My son does amazingly well, probably because of the hours playing various incarnations of MK. After one lap, he comes to a stop, thinking that was it. I scream past him, throw a turtle shell, and head around the first turn. He keeps up very well, and passes me on the inside of a turn. He does slam into a wall once, but quickly gets turned around by the ops. Ultimately, he did win, since I slowed down when we were told to stop and he still plows through the finish area, almost taking out an employee before stopping.

 

We hit the Amish shop next door that had some pretty good cheese and sausage. I’m just exhausted so we head back and I take a rare nap. When I get up, I feel pretty good. We head back to the park. We’re hungry, so we first hit Toft’s dairy, which I just found out about from a fellow TPR poster. We get there to see tons of flavors. My son get a small Cookie Dough ice cream with cookie dough chunks. I get Black Cherry ice cream with black cherries in it. I was surprised that they weren’t overly sweet, although they are definitely overly creamy. The “small” serving is actually enormous. At $2.50 you get more ice cream then you can even get at Baskin Robbins in their largest serving, that would be more than twice the price. There were a few ice chunks in the ice cream, which was a bit of disappointment, but overall this is easily the best value of kick ass ice cream I’ve ever had.

 

We head out the peninsula, and I’m expecting to see the main lot almost filled. Amazingly, the crowd looks smaller than last night! WOW, a Saturday crowd smaller than a Friday night crowd? Amazing.

 

We head in and go by Disaster Transport to find a line out the door. I’m sure it’ll be shorter later, so we bail and hit Blue Streak. I haven’t ridden this one in a while. It delivers a fun ride, for sure. I pay respects to the remnants of the Pirate ride. We take some Halloween pics in the Snoopy store, and we head to Draggin Iron for a walkon ride. This is always fun, but nothing spectacular. I’m just glad they keep it.

 

 

 

My son sorta wanted to ride Corkscrew, but I wasn’t really wanting to. We hit Power Tower instead. As I warned him, it’s not as fun as Drop Zone, but still fun, and hardly any wait.

 

We decide to ride MilF next, which has a shorter line Saturday night than Friday night. We decide to get an onride photo, since we were both giving Isaacs. They also give out a keychain dongle with the photo.

 

I saw from Power Tower that Dragster’s line is just to the bottom of the ramp. I tell my son I’m going to ride, and amazingly he says he’ll ride too. Hells yeah! We get in line, and he’s not too scared. We get to the launch area and his voice is a bit shaky, but still not too bad. Off we go for another great ride. My son cheers wildly at the end, loving the ride just as I had expected. We get another onride photo, although there aren’t any good pictures with both of us in it.

 

We get some souveniers including a dragster shirt for my son, and some cool Cedar Point poker chips. We found four different ones. I was also shocked that the large park maps are only 99 cents!! WOW, some parks charge almost $10 for these.

 

We head up for a now walkon ride for Dispatch Master Transport. My son likes it. It is fun and quirky, although I do wish there was a little light in the final room, because not knowing what is coming up is a bit jarring on this type of coaster. We do one last quick reride.

 

We get some pics in front of the Magnum 20th sign at the entrance. I can’t believe it’s been that long. My son is quite sad we’re leaving. He’s become a serious thrill rider these past 3 days. He’s more of a thrill rider than I was at his age, that’s for sure. He’s still not ready for mega loopers, but I sure wouldn’t have gotten on Dragster at age 10 if Beast was too intimidating.

I can't believe my son conquered the mighty Dragster. He's asking when we're going to SFGAdv now.

The Isaac. The universal sign of "hey man, how you doin!"

Luckily, my son never picked up a blue turtle shell.

That's a small!!!

Cedar Point does a good job for Coastermania, although I wish they would have had more than XL T-shirts. I probably could have sold them for $25 each.

Those little tornados that look like a bat spot in the picture, yeah those are Mufflehead swarms.

Still probably my number one, and a lot closer to Texas than the two in Korea and one in Japan that give it competition

I thought this pic looks cool.

A great way to start the day.

[jarmor]

I havent had a "homemade" anything that wasnt awesome! I think its the fact that i kinda know whats in it makes me feel a little better...