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!

[coastersandhockey]

Day 3: Labadee Haiti

 

Day 3 was the one I was most looking forward to as it was our first port of the trip, Labadee Haiti. Royal Caribbean markets Labadee as a private island, though it is actually a peninsula that is indeed attached to Haiti proper. There are large, barbed wire fences that block of the peninsula from the mainland. You don't really see these fences on most of the peninsula and Royal Caribbean does a great job making you feel like you truly are on an island. Allegedly there are also sniper towers to protect the peninsula, but I didn't see any. Unfortunately, as of this writing, Royal Caribbean has paused sailings to Labadee through at least the end of 2026 due to ongoing conflict/civil war in Haiti. If memory serves, they have had sailings there paused since only a month or two after our cruise there. For what it is worth, we always felt safe on the peninsula, and should Royal Caribbean ever resume operations there, I would not have reservations about going back.  

 

A lay of the land... It is very much built and executed like an amusement park. 

 

That all being said, back to the report. We arrived in Labadee around 7am with I believe a scheduled departure of 4pm. We had two planned excursions on the "island" and we planned to spend the rest of our day hanging out on the beach, enjoying the provided lunch, and checking out the local artisans. 

Our first look at Labadee from inside the boat. 

 

It's not exactly a short walk from the dock to the entrance of the peninsula. It provided nice views of both the boat, and of Labadee. 

 

The pier spits you out in a small entrance plaza and at that point you're off to explore anywhere you desire. As you can see on the map there is a number of different beaches and attractions to explore. There is also no shortage of bars and entertainment from locals. Even though it is a "private island", Royal Caribbean does allow locals to come over and sell handmade items or perform for cruisegoers. I will say that the local artisan area is one space I would avoid if going back to Labadee. They are EXTREMELY pushy and will absolutely not take no for an answer. So, if you're not prepared to deal with that, avoid that area of the peninsula (bottom right of the map). That being said, the local artisans do not leave that part of the property, so you don't need to be worried about being pestered all day. 

 

It was pretty windy and cloudy to start the day so some beaches and swimming spots were closed to start the day depending on where on the peninsula they were. 

 

That was okay though because we had our sights set on Adrenaline Beach. We figured it would be the slowest of the beaches in Labadee being the furthest from the boat, and also because that was the site of the only roller coaster of this trip, The Dragon's Tail Alpine Coaster. The ride itself is pretty much your run of the mill alpine coaster, but the views on this one are truly unbeatable. When we were about to ride, they had a brief mechanical delay, that we later found out was due to cameras on the lift hill losing power, but once we did ride, they let us go around a second time due to the delay. Don't have to twist my arm!

 

The blue canopy above the coaster that you see is the launch platform for the zipline. This was our other excursion (the coaster was considered an excursion) for the day and it was absolutely incredible. We did this later in the day after the sun came out more. To get up to the platform you first load a bus and they take you up there. The bus does have to cross to the other side of the fence that separates Labadee from Haiti proper and there was armed military personnel. A little odd and definitely a bit "freaky" but not 30 seconds later we were back on "our" side of the fence and getting suited up for the zipline. I obviously couldn't take my phone with me but the views from the top were simply remarkable. In the following photos you can see the ziplines overhead. 

 

We did swim some on Adrenaline Beach but found the sand there to be very rough. Many rocks that were tough on the feet. So after a lunch of burgers, hot dogs, and other picnic food we ventured over to Nellie's Beach which was much better. 

 

The day went quickly, but that's a sign of a good time. A few more photos I grabbed on the way out. 

 

We were then on the ship and off to our next destination, and not a moment too soon. A pretty legit thunderstorm was heading towards Labadee from the other side of the mountains, which was cool to see from the boat. 

 

We settled in for the evening, thoroughly exhausted from a great day. I would like to once again say that Labadee was an excellent experience and I highly recommend it. I see cruise bookings for 2027 do have Labadee as an option, but there is no saying if that sticks around. If it does, and you're looking for cruises, do yourself a favor and pick a cruise with Labadee on the itinerary. 

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

 

 

[bert425]

good report!

I too enjoyed that mountain coaster on Labadee when was there in Feb 2025.   as you note, the views are amazing.

[coastersandhockey]

7 hours ago, bert425 said:

good report!

I too enjoyed that mountain coaster on Labadee when was there in Feb 2025.   as you note, the views are amazing.

Thanks! Must've just missed you! Hah. What ship were you on?

[bert425]

15 hours ago, coastersandhockey said:

Thanks! Must've just missed you! Hah. What ship were you on?

we were on Brilliance of the Seas

 

a smaller ship, but that meant less kiddos