Julie's Vacation on a Stick Photo TR - Day 5

All the photos from this day can be seen on my website at:

http://www.fyabulous.com/onastick/conneaut.html

 

July 14th

The 14th was the day I was planning to drive from Pittsburgh to Toronto, making stops at Conneaut Lake Park, Waldameer Park and Darien Lake.

 

I woke up around 8:30, and was treated to breakfast courtesy of Kim's dad. I chatted with her parents for a bit while she was still asleep, and they are some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet! They loaded me up with bottled water, ice for my cooler and some fruit for the road! Before I left, I woke Kim up to tell her goodbye, and I headed off on my way. So I wouldn't get lost, her dad even drove his car to the interstate I'd be taking and let me follow him.

 

The drive to Conneaut Lake, PA took about 2 hours, which put me there at just a little after 11:00. The park didn't open until 12:00, but luckily there was a Walmart there at that exit. I went ahead and left another big batch of my digital photos to be printed, and would come back and get them after I was done at the park. I also took down some trip report notes and tried to straighten up the car as best I could (it was really a disaster area by this point, having virtually lived out of it for 5 days).

 

At noon, I drove over to the park, which was easier to find than I anticipated. I parked at the back entrance (if you can call it that) near the Toboggan. I only saw one other car in the lot, so I knew it wouldn't be too crowded! When I walked in...it really looked like a dump, to be totally honest. There was nothing happy or magical about this place at all. The rides just seemed to be plopped down on street corners...like maybe someone acquired a few blocks worth of property, and decided to build an amusement park. But instead of making it look like a park, they just left it looking like streets.

 

I wandered up the main road through the park, and stopped in a gift shop to peruse. They had some ok merchandise, but some of it seemed pretty redneck...not something I'd experienced this far north before! I asked the clerk where I could buy an armband, and she said she didn't know. I later found out that there is only one place anywhere near her to get an armband...you'd think they could inform their employees of that.

 

I got in line to get an armband, and waited about 20 minutes for it. There was only one person in the booth, and she was playing ticket taker and information giver-outer all at once. Once I got the armband, I headed for Blue Streak, which was the only thing so far I'd spotted that I wanted to ride.

 

Blue Streak looked pretty interesting...very old, but decently maintained. It has hand brakes, and also this mural type drawing with bulbs that light up as the train passes certain parts of the track. Pretty cool. The whole place had a strange smell...just like it had been stored in my grandma's attic for years, and had just been taken out to run again. The ride itself was good...a classic little woodie that's worth the effort to save in my opinion!

 

The rest of the park...that's another story. Half the rides seemed to either be dismantled or at least they didn't open with the park that day. Not all the apparently working rides seemed to have ride ops either. I had to go to the bathroom, so as I passed the entrance to the water park area, I ducked into a bathroom. AAACCCKKK!!! The toilet was brown and rusty and looked absolutely nauseating! No way did I want to even humor the thought of using a toilet that dirty! I proceeded on, hoping to find a better one later.

 

I went to the real main entrance area of the park (why was I directed to the back entrance?) where they had a nice looking set of flyers. There was only me and two kids riding, so we seemed to get an extra long cycle. I could get them to do a little bit of a snapping motion, but couldn't get any noise. I'm still learning though The flyers were great...wish I could say that about other stuff in the park.

 

I headed back towards the main area of the park since nothing else up near the entrance appealed to me (and the Ferris wheel didn't seem to have a ride op). I walked towards the kiddie area of the park, where I passed the Devil's Den. It was sitting on a curb, and right around the corner from it, there appeared to be some regular houses...so strange to have a park in the middle of a neighborhood like that. I wanted to ride so I could see the gum wall and decide for myself if it's a coaster or not, but opted out since haunted houses scare the bejeebuz out of me.

 

I went into the kiddie area (passing two freaky clown masks with no eyes along the way...scary!!!) in hopes of riding the Little Dipper. Well, it was closed that day, and even if it had been open, I probably couldn't have ridden it because of not having a kid with me. The kiddie rides looked pretty standard, if dirty and run down. I decided that I'd had just about enough of this dirty, nasty park, so I headed back towards my car. I passed an arcade along the way, so I ducked in for a little skee ball. Over half the games were out of order, but I found a skee ball lane that was working ok. I think I played $3 or so worth of quarters, and got enough tickets to get two hair ties and a tiger print makeup bag hehe.

 

I really had to pee at this point, so I found one more bathroom...which was equally as disgusting as the first! How the patrons of this park find the bathrooms acceptable is beyond me! I was hungry too, and thought about grabbing a slice of pizza...but based on the cleanliness of the bathrooms, I just didn't feel sure enough that the kitchen was sanitary!

 

I decided to just get my Toboggan credit and get the heck out of dodge before I caught something communicable. The ride op was flirting with me, which would have been great had I been in a better mood! The vehicle seemed to be smaller than I remembered them, and it was so tight that it was cutting off the circulation in my legs. During the vertical lift hill, I was going to take a picture, but something fell in my right eye! No doubt it was a bit of crud from the chain that hadn't been cleaned off in years. After that, I couldn't get out of the park fast enough.

 

On the way out of the lot, I called Kevin to just try and put in words what a crappy dump Conneaut was, but I barely could! We talked until I got back to Walmart, where I promptly went in and used the bathroom! Ahh, a relatively clean bathroom! I was never so happy to see a Walmart toilet in my life. I was hungry, but I'd done so well about eating at new places thus far, that I didn't want to just buy something at Walmart for lunch. The only thing I saw at that exit that was new was a Red Lobster, but that seemed a little too expensive and time consuming. My pictures turned out really well, and pretty soon I was on my way to Waldameer.

 

The drive to Waldameer was quick and pleasant, and the park was very easy to find. Even as I drove up, I knew this park was going to be head and shoulders better than Conneaut. Wow...it's really surprising how two parks can be so night and day different and be less than an hour apart. As soon as I walked in, Waldameer seemed cute and fun and family friendly. And it didn't smell like an attic! It was landscaped well and generally looked a million times nicer than Conneaut.

 

I was still hungry at this point since I hadn't eaten, but Comet was right there beckoning me, and there was no line! So I went ahead and rode it. This was another great, fun little woodie. It was buried all within the trees so it was difficult to get a good picture of it. After my ride, I found the Potato Patch, so I got a burger and fries with cheese sauce. When the guy gave me my change, I noticed that he gave me three different kinds of nickels...a Canadian one, the regular looking one, and a new one I'd never seen before. As I mentioned it, I dropped it straight into my cheese sauce! So the guy working there got a good laugh about it with me. My burger was fantastic...it was charcoal grilled, and tasted just like something my dad would make during the summer. Never had a real charcoal grilled burger before in a park, but it was great! The fries were a bit on the greasy side, which is why I don't tend to buy natural fries a lot, but I ate them anyway.

 

I walked around a bit taking in the scenery, when I came upon the Whacky Shack. Seems like everyone who talks about Waldameer says that you *have* to do the Whacky Shack...so I gave it a try. I was so nervous through the whole thing (why do I act like a baby in fun houses?!?! haha) but true to it's name, it really was more just "whacky" than scary. Wonder if anyone has every pointed out that they have "wacky" spelled wrong? Pirates Cove was right next door, but it's a walk through I believe, and fearing another Noah's Ark type attraction, I passed.

 

I wanted some aerial photos, so I got on the ski lift ride next. It had the longest wait of anything at that park...around 10 minutes. The poor ride op looked so hot and so tired, and he was loading and unloading the whole thing by himself! It was a very nice ride, which afforded me a few great pictures! The ski lift reminded me of Lake Winnie, which is probably my favorite of the small, independently owned parks I've visited.

 

When I left the ski lift, I decided to make a stab at riding Ravine Flyer 3 without a kid. There was no one in line...and there had been no one in line when I was on the ski lift either. So I went up to the girl working there and used my sad face and said "Do I really have to have a kid to ride this?" Really apologetically sounding, she said "Yeah, I'm sorry." So I said "Ok, can I just wait here until a kid comes up that I can ride with?" That made her laugh, so she said I could ride by myself, but just once, and I said that once was all I wanted to ride it! So I took a front seat ride, and it's actually quite a bit more interesting than most kiddie coasters since it's above water most of the time. When I left, I thanked her for humoring me.

 

With one more fine kiddie coaster credit under this credit whore's belt, I went over to ride Steel Dragon. I'd never ridden a coaster quite like this before. Other spinning mice are like regular mice, but spin when you hit certain turns. This one loads people on the front and the back, and spins and gyrates most of the time, in sync with the way the track is banking. It was really a cool coaster since you didn't know which way you were gonna spin next! The cars are beautiful too, with dragons painted on the sides.

 

I would have loved to have spent more time at Waldameer, but I still had Darien Lake to visit, and it was already mid-afternoon. The rest of the rides were kind of ordinary anyway, but looked fun. It's definitely a park I'd like to visit again when I can spend more time there. I really had high hopes for this park from the way everyone talks about it, and I found it just as cute and charming as I was hoping.

 

Back in the car, I was off to Darien Lake. I was warned extensively by Kim and Kevin that this park would suck, and to not get my hopes up, so I didn't. It was a lot farther outside of Buffalo than I thought it would be. I figured it was in a suburb, but it's really more like halfway to Rochester. I found it easily though, eventhough it felt like it took me forever to get there.

 

I parked and went in, and was immediately greeted with a lovely SLC, Mind Eraser. Figuring it would be the worst coaster in the park, I ran for it first to get it out of the way. The wait wasn't terrible, which was good, but the ride ended up being the worst, roughest coaster of the trip. My ears hurt excruciatingly when I left. There is just no way to be a defensive rider on these things...you get the s**t beat out of you no matter what you do. And no, it did not erase my mind of the pain it caused me.

 

I saw Viper next, and after watching it for just a second, figured it would be pretty bad too. You could watch people in certain elements just have their heads jerked everywhere, so I wasn't looking forward to it. I boarded, and while it was really rough, it wasn't as bad as some I've been on. Still not something I care to reride though.

 

I rode the kiddie coaster, Brain Teaser, next since it was in the area. It was a kiddie coaster, what can I say? I decided on Predator next, hoping against hope that it would be a decent coaster. Well, again, I was completely wrong. On the bottoms of the hills, I could actually see the train shaking a good 3 or 4 inches to right and left, which made it feel like you were riding a moving jackhammer. I don't remember a single redeeming quality to this woodie except the brake run.

 

Needing a bit of a break from such bad coasters, I got in line for Superman: Ride of Steel. At least this was one that I could say, with 95% certainty, would not shake the s**t out of me. I waited about half an hour, and couldn't help but eaves drop on the group behind me. It was one guy's first day ever of riding coasters! Man, did he choose to start at the wrong park! Funny thing was the guy was saying "Yeah, that dangly one was pretty good, and that one that pulls you up then drops you (the boomerang) was awesome!" OMG! Someone get this guy on a good coaster, quick! At least he was in line for what had to be the best one in the park.

 

I sat in the middle of the train since I didn't want to wait for the back seat. The climb and the first drop were just like the one at Six Flags New England, but that was where a lot of the similarities ended. The Darien Lake version puts a lot of emphasis on the helixes since they are right over the water, and there are two of them. I don't remember a helix really standing out in the SFNE one because of all the huge airtime hills. Darien Lake had a few airtime hills, and the airtime you got was great, just not as many as SFNE. The last couple of bunny hills were a great way to end though. Overall it was just what I needed in the middle of all the other wretched coasters at this park. I was a great coaster on it's own, but only about half as great as SFNE's version.

 

I decided to go ahead and be the whore and get the Boomerang Coast to Coaster credit while I was there. There was no line luckily, and I was in and out faster than I could say "Screw you, Vekoma Boomerang!" but not without massive outer ear bludgeoning first.

 

I was hot and tired and ready to make a run for the border at this point, so I started heading out. On the way, I passed a guesser who had yard tall Six Flags glasses as one of his prizes. Since I collect them, and people are constantly guessing me younger than I am, I decided to let him guess my age for $3. Well, he guessed 27 (I'm 26), which floored me, since no one ever even guesses me as old as I am, much less older! I started to walk away when he put his microphone down and said that if I played again for $2 more, he'd let me have whatever prize I wanted, even if he guessed correctly. So I said ok, figuring that I'd have spent $5 on it in a gift shop had it been there. I had him guess my birth month that time, and he guessed August, which is within two months of July! He didn't tell people he'd gotten it right though, so I went up and got my prize like he'd been wrong

 

On my way out, I rinsed out the yard tall glass and got it filled with Coke for $.99, and headed off to Canada. I'm used to crossing at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, but Kevin had suggested an alternate bridge that would be faster based on coming from Darien Lake. So I found my way across, and the border guard barely asked me anything about where I was going and how long I was staying. There was also nothing on the other side of the border...unlike Niagara Falls which is a tourist trap if I've ever seen one!

 

A little ways down the highway, I found a Tim Hortons! Yummy!! Love me some Tim Hortons! My guess is it was about 10:00pm by this time, so the bagel selection was limited. I got a toasted whole grain bagel with turkey and swiss. When I bit into it, it tasted sweet! Bleh! I opened it up, and there was a clear yellow condiment on it that I didn't recognize, so I went up and asked what it was. It was honey mustard, which has got to be my least favorite condiment ever! Might as well put horseradish on it, it would taste better! So the girl remade the sandwich, and the boss seemed pretty irked that she'd put the honey mustard on it instead of regular mustard. Once it was fixed, the sandwich was great.

 

Kevin had tried to get me to agree to stay with him once I got to Canada, but he's about an hour past where my hotel was, which would have put me at his house at close to 1:00am! So I said no, that I'd keep my hotel, also so I wouldn't have to backtrack the 45 minutes or so to Canada's Wonderland the next day. He was busy all weekend and couldn't go to the park with me, but we'd agreed to meet up for dinner on Friday night anyway.

 

I reached my hotel in Mississauga around midnight, and it was very nice! It was another employee discounted Holiday Inn Express. It was the cheapest one I could find, so it was a little ways off from the park but I didn't care. I'd rather save $20 per night and drive 20 extra minutes to the park! The room was very nice...it had beautiful linens and headboards, and nice smelling soaps hehe. It also had Canadian TV...go figure! I love Canada I got some ice and fixed a big glass of ice water in my Cedar Point birthday mug, then went to bed.

Finally, a decent coaster, after riding all the other crap at Darien Lake.

What a lovely sight...death machine in front of stagnate lake.

Steel Dragon

Every park needs one of these signs!!!

Julie dangles from the ski lift at Waldameer.

Everyone loves log, including Waldameer.

The Conneaut Toboggan...it was all fun and games until it tried to put my eye out.

Ahhhh!!! Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts! Find a happy place!!!

Blue Streak...just about the only thing worth saving at Conneaut.

..which begs the question...what weather *can* Conneaut control?

I'm loving these TRs, but the phrase "I was never so happy to see a Walmart toilet in my life" may be the greatest thing ever...

 

dt

^^I know what she means! Great TR!

 

***500th Post***

I've been to that Walmart many times. Their bathrooms were always better than 6flags parks.

Sorry to hear what's happened to CLP. I'm going there next week, and will probibly hit Waldemere as well. We're going to stay by CLP though, I like the area and wineries.

Too Bad the most memorable part of your CLP TR had the TR standing for Toilet Report.

Were they at least working on the Bug? I heard they got the part they ordered like 2-3 yrs ago.

Damn, Conneaut Lake must have gotten control of my Weather Controlling Machine!!! (or at least part of it since they can only control some weather!)

 

Elissa "I love signs like that!" Alvey

Awesome TR. These are really fun to read!!!

I agree with Cregg. However, after reading 5 good long TRs I get a little bit tired... But I will keep up.

 

--Sören

I didn't see anyone working on the Tumble Bug. It just appeared to be track, with no vehicles (not sure about a central drive mechanism...I didn't inspect that closely since I couldn't ride it anyway!). They *were* working on the Tilt-a-Whirl while I was there. Maybe 3 or 4 men were feverishly working on it...at least that should be up and running soon. The train, Yo-yo, Roundup, Tumble Bug, Tilt-a-Whirl and Little Dipper were all closed while I was there...which also didn't make me take fondly to the park. And like I said, a lot of what was supposed to be open didn't appear to have ride ops.

*hangs head...wishing she'd saved the $13 and spent more time at Waldameer*

-Julie

I feel bad about your experience at Conneaut Lake. I'll try to give some explanation for the state of the park since I'm sure many people could have the same reaction to the place.

 

In previous years the park has had more rides open but with smaller crowds. The problem is that the park is now paying for past problems. They didn't pay their bills and the previous owner was a crook.

 

Currently the park is owned by the community (I don't know the exact setup but it's some kind of board). The Blue Streak is well mantained as mentioned and the maintenance crew is seemingly working hard to get the other rides open as time and money permit. They got the Toboggan open and I hear the Tilt is now open. Apparently the Tumble Bug is a few weeks away, a great sign considering they park could have just said wait until next year. As for ride operators, I'd assume that during the weekdays they may rotate rides due to low crowds. I know in the past they had the old fashioned method of closing the ride down while employees went on break.

 

The bathrooms and facilities need plenty of help but again, the park doesn't have any money. If the park doesn't have rides open then people aren't going to come and need the restrooms anyway. Hopefully this can improve in the future. For now I'd suggest the Beach Club or hotel lobby to find acceptable facilities.

 

Trust me, your $13 is appreciated. I'd like to think the Blue Streak alone is worth that much.

At some point, it seems like you would have to ask yourself "Is this park worth saving?" In it's current incarnation and state, I would say no! A park does not get like that overnight. You don't walk in one day and realize that you have rides on street corners, toilets rusted beyond repair, and that your whole park has a strange odor. As it is, the park is no nicer than any travelling carnival I have been to, with the exception of having the Blue Streak.

If the new owners want to spruce it up and add to it, that's great and I'm all for it. I'd like to go back one day and be wowed by how much nicer it is. But that is major *major* work considering the state it's in. Getting the rides working and toilets clean is only one part of it. The park does not feel inviting. It does not feel happy. It did not even feel safe in my opinion. Getting that happy, fun vibe going will take much more work than getting a Tumble Bug working.

I halfway felt bad for giving such a bad review to a park that I knew ahead of time had had problems...but it is just so far gone that I couldn't see much positive to the experience.

-Julie