Evan's 2025 Amusement Park (and other fun things) Photo Trip Report Thread

[coastersandhockey]

Hi TPR Forum goers! My name is Evan, and I have been around here for a few years. I've never posted a ton in the forum but have always enjoyed reading. I remember back in the day I used to use my mom's account and read stuff and post from there. Shows the longevity of this forum. A little about me, I live in the suburbs east of Cleveland Ohio with my girlfriend and our two cats and a dog. Cedar Point has always been my home park, though now that I've moved east, Waldameer is kind of my "side piece" home park. Cedar Point is 80 miles away, and Waldameer is 82 miles away. I, like many coaster enthusiasts, grew up wanting to be a roller coaster designer. I realized as I got older what a niche career that is but still found myself in school for mechanical engineering and now work as a process improvement engineer. Not a bad gig! I am also a huge Cleveland and Columbus sports fan, particularly of the hockey variety. But that's enough about me...

This thread will be photo trip reports from everything/everywhere I traveled over the year of 2025. I was inspired by reading other reports on here and thought this would be a good way to kill off the rest of the Winter before the parks open up. Even though I'm an engineer I've always been a decent writer (I think) and a decent photographer (I think), so it seemed like a great idea for me to start this. Maybe one day I'll start my own Substack or similar site. 

In this thread you'll find reports from:

• Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas
• Kings Island 2025 Opening Day
• Cedar Point 2025 Opening Day
• Kings Island Coasterstock 2025
• Siren's Curse Media Day
• Niagara Falls and Canada's Wonderland Mid-July 2025
• Niagara Falls, Canada's Wonderland, Niagara Amusement Park, and Waldameer Late-July 2025
• Universal Orlando August 2025
• Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights 34 

I look forward to writing these up. Some of the bigger trips will be broken up into multiple parts. Feel free to comment. I love a good theme park discussion, plus that will keep me inspired to keep writing these. I would like to do this during the 2026 season as well but that will be a little more "live updates". 

[coastersandhockey]

Alright lets get this party started! First up is our cruise on Grandeur of the Seas. This was my first ever cruise and it absolutely won't be my last. Everything was exceptional. Grandeur of the Seas is Royal Caribbean's smallest and oldest ship which meant that no, we didn't have a full water park on board or multiple show venues or any of that crazy stuff you see on the newer ships. But along with that came a lack of huge families with many little kids overrunning the ship. It never felt too busy at any time even though I believe the ship was full. Where it lacked in amenities, Grandeur made up in charm. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but overall so very happy with this cruise!

Our itinerary was as follows:

• Day Zero: Arrive in Ft. Lauderdale
• Day One: Embarkation Day
• Day Two: Day at Sea
• Day Three: Port Day in Labadee, Haiti
• Day Four: Port Day in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic 
• Day Five: Day at Sea
• Day Six: Disembarkation Day

To avoid updates being too long I'll break them up, so in this update will be Day Zero, Day 1, and Day 2!

We decided on this cruise for two reasons, it was cheap, and it was during my girlfriend's birthday. Her birthday falls in the middle of February, so while that is perfect cruising season (warm but no fear of hurricanes) it also is usually the worst part of the winter here in Northeast Ohio. I spent much of the week leading up to our flight to Fort Lauderdale with a layover in DC watching the weather, and sure enough a major snowstorm was in the forecast for the morning of our flight. I was quite stressed keeping an eye on that plus preparing for my first ever cruise. Thankfully my stress was all for not and the snowstorm ended up being less than they thought and we got to Fort Lauderdale without any issue. Shoutout to United for a great experience! 

We landed in Fort Lauderdale in the late afternoon and made our way to our Airbnb on Hollywood Beach. We had grand plans of spending the evening checking out various things on the beach but we ended up only getting dinner and heading back to the Airbnb. A mixture of travel exhaustion and Hollywood Beach being a bit more "trashy" and "spring break-y" than we would've expected for the middle of February. 

Stepping out on the patio of the Airbnb we could see the ocean through the buildings. 

 

As we were looking for dinner somewhere we passed by one of my favorite dessert places ever, Rita's Frozen Custard. A stop at Rita's is mandatory when I am parks like Dorney Park, Hersheypark, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I'm sure other parks have a Rita's location but those are the ones that stick out in my mind. We have a couple in the Cleveland area but they're a bit of a drive away from home. We'd be sure to stop by after dinner. 

 

Right next door to Rita's was an italian place called "IT Trattoria" that had great reviews on google so we decided to give it a go. The place was empty which probably explains why it appears they have closed this location, although they seem to have a couple locations in Miami. I don't remember exactly what it was that I ate but it was absolutely fabulous. And the authentic Italian Coca-Cola to pair with it was great as well.

 

 

And then it was time for Rita's. I'm a gelato fan. I believe I got raspberry ice, and chocolate custard

 

At this point we were full and exhausted so it was back to the Airbnb and to bed we went. We were on the earliest boarding group for the ship the next day, and we were so excited we didn't mind calling it a night a bit early. 

The next day (Sunday as I recall), we got up, called an uber, and off we went to Port Everglades. There was a good bit of traffic getting in as it was a very busy day in port. I remember seeing 5 or 6 different ships ending one journey and preparing for its next one. Once we got to our terminal everything was incredibly seamless. We were dropped off, got our bags taken by the porters, and onto the ship in about 15 minutes. 

There she is! 

As I said earlier "The Lady G" is Royal's smallest and oldest ship. However, since I had no frame of reference I was absolutely shocked by the sheer size of the boat. I can't even imagine a ship like Icon of the Seas. 

It was finally our turn to board the boat and if first impressions are your thing, Grandeur of the Seas delivers with its beautiful "centrum" area. 

 

Our room wasn't quite ready yet, so we took some time to explore the ship. The main highlights of the ship were what other ships would call "the bare necessities". First, a large theater that hosted various Broadway style shows, comedy acts, and even a magician by the name of Ed Alonzo who toured some of the Cedar Fair (er, Six Flags) parks in recent memory. Then of course we have the typical pool deck and large main dining room. Other things I did not grab pictures of were the all day buffet, and the adults only "Solarium" indoor pool and hot tub area. 

 

We had our first of main dining room meals for dinner that night. A fantastic New York Strip steak for me. On this ship, which I assume is standard practice across the cruising world, dinner was included each night in the main dining room, as was breakfast each day, and lunch on sea days. I believe the buffet was open for all three meals every day. We didn't eat much in the buffet as we found that the food in there was similar in variety to the main dining room, just not as good. 

The following day was a day at sea which we spent eating, drinking, eating some more, and drinking some more. All between swimming, playing bingo, attending various presentations, and checking out the shops on board the ship. 

These birds were following us most of journey from Fort Lauderdale to Labadee. I couldn't make out exactly what they were. Some sort of seagull I suppose. It was fun to enjoy the ocean breeze and watch these guys fly around. It's the little things in life. 

Some more photos. Not a ton to take pictures of as we were in the middle of the ocean. In the first picture you can see the coast of Cuba in the distance as we passed by. For dinner that night we did a specialty dining experience at Chops Steakhouse. It was "okay". I sort of wish we would have just eaten in the main dining room for free but we wanted to do something special since it was my girlfriend's birthday that day. That being said the service was superb and they even brought an extra special dessert not on the menu when they found out it was her birthday. Service across the entire ship was beyond outstanding. They truly make you feel like royalty, no pun intended. Hah!

 

I believe we spent that night watching a Broadway show, and then it was off to bed with our first port day tomorrow in Labadee Haiti, which features the main reason I am including this trip on this thread, a roller coaster!

 

Thanks for reading!

[BobloLives]

Nice!