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Skycoastin' Steve's 2011 Season Extravaganza!!


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I'm also surprised to see you waited that entire time for CH to open. There's no way I could have waited in the sun that long, I would have thrown in the towel long before 2:00 rolled around.

I'm surprised I waited that long too. I normally have the patience of a gnat, but I have a strong will if I want something bad enough. I held up WAY better than I expected to as usually after a couple hours straight in the sun like that I'd be getting sick. I did start getting a headache after awhile, but the free water they handed out a couple times helped. I really just wanted to go over to the water cart and dunk my head in the ice though.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Alrighty it's time to talk about TPR day at BGW! We were a small but dedicated group of TPR members that had a great time at a great park. BGW gave us a wonderful backstage tour of Darkastle, Alpengeist, and Europe in the Air, and the ERT on Griffon, Alpengeist, and Apollo's Chariot were a very nice touch, as well! I got to meet a lot of great people and had a fun time chatting it up with fellow enthusiasts who actually know their stuff (which is a nice change of pace from trying to talk about this stuff with family/friends who don't know jack). The weather was a little moody and it rained a couple times, but I'll take that over 100 and sunny any day!

 

Anywho, it was certainly a fun day (as they always tend to be at BGW), and I got to see a couple shows I had never seen before (Celtic Fyre and Mix It Up), which solidified BGW as one of the top live entertainment parks in the country in my opinion. I honestly think Celtic Fyre is the best show I've ever seen at a theme park, so if you're ever there, see it!!

 

The only pictures I really took were during the backstage tours, wasn't in the documenting mood other than that, and I've taken pics of everything else at that park already. Got a few construction shots of Verbolten, as well.

 

During the Darkastle tour, they also let us see what a ride program looks like when the vehicle is just sitting there in the maintenance area. Of course, I had to take video!

 

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After our ERT on Griffon and Alpengeist was over, it was time to start our backstage tour with Curse of Darkastle!

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Entering the maintenance area......

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Maintenance area!

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This is the open pit, where they throw all lost children not claimed by the end of the day.

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Also, anyone caught in the backstage area (or in the boneyard) not wearing one of these gets thrown into the open pit!

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This rail provides power to the ride vehicles, and as you can see, leads all unsuspecting GP into the open pit.

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For all you wheel nerds.

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Maintenance can monitor where the ride vehicles are by looking at this screen.

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The fireplace where Ludwig wants to heat things uppppppp!!!

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He's so mean. Maybe his mother didn't hug him enough?

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Fake library.

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Everyone who has ever worked at the ride has signed the fake library. I wonder what the fine would be for returning a book to the library after you had signed it?

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This is where you spin like crazy, and where our first ride of the day got stuck because of a "door fault." Whoops!

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Sideways building.

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Who was the genius that built this building on its side?

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Oooooooooooo scary!

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Back to the station.

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Some of the computers that control audio and video for the ride.

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I've done work running lines for servers before. This had to have SUCKED.

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Apparently this is the "brain" of Curse of Darkastle, and the machine that decides who gets thrown into the open pit!

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More theming.

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Dysfunctional family of dead people. I think there's a possibility for a reality show there.....

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Tree.

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Main control panel inside the operators' booth.

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Two screens used to monitor where the vehicles are during the ride and if the scenes are working properly.

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Eight video screens so the operators can monitor the guests who are riding. Anyone caught misbehaving gets thrown into, you guessed it, the OPEN PIT!!!

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Blueprint that was hanging up in the booth.

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I wanted to name this ride "Der Fallinfast." Apparently, it's "Der Fallintoofast."

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This is a well that is 540 feet deep and provides water for all three water rides in the park. It was built way back when Le Scoot first opened, so B&M had to design the maintenance bay around this.

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The 3rd train wasn't being used on Sunday.

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For those of you who aren't familiar with B&M transfer tracks, the trains have a separate set of wheels that sit on those outside tracks. That way there's no stress put on the road wheels and maintenance can work on the wheel bogeys freely.

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Holding a road wheel, I wonder if I can get my car custom fit for these?

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Next up was a tour of Europe in the Air. The ride itself is rather boring, but the tour was pretty interesting!

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Here's the control panel, where you can monitor the ride both with the video screens and by looking out the window, which overlooks the ride area. Watching the ride vehicle do its thing was pretty awesome, the hydraulic legs made it look like an Autobot coming to life. I actually think the 4th Transformers movie will be about this ride standing up and throwing unsuspecting members of the GP into the open pit.

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Time to look at the big pile of dirt that will soon be Verbolten.

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A couple old BBW footers, I guess they aren't reusing these ones.

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Come ride Mach Tower, where we don't need magnetic brakes, that's what the ground is for!!

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Construction buoys protecting the water from all the nasty things that will roll down the hill.

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You get a decent view of the construction area from the train.

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Pile of Dirt: The Ride.

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So today I made a late trip to KD to check out the Snoopy Starlight Spectacular and to ride Grizzly and I-305 at night, all of which were, in the words of Borat, a great success!!

 

I really think KD did an awesome job with SSS. It's definitely a different atmosphere than CP's, so it's tough to compare the two. CP's is more themed to the seasons and is more spread out, whereas KD's is more of a modern music/Peanuts theme song extravaganza. Either way, these Starlight shows are really a big hit with the GP, and they beautify the parks at night, so hopefully we keep seeing more of them. Hopefully I'll get to check out both KI's and Carowinds' at some point in the future.

 

I did get to take several good pictures at sunset of various attractions, as well as some good night shots of the park along with video of SSS. The video will be up probably tomorrow morning, just depends on how fast Youtube works for me tonight. Enjoy! And please comment!

 

Edit: And now we have video!

 

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So after thinking about it some, it dawned on me that I've never really seen any dusk/sunset pictures of I-305.

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I had to park on Doswell Road and climb through a ditch to get these, so you better enjoy them!

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Airtime!

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They just built it in an awkward place that isn't exactly conducive to taking sunset photos. Harumph.

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But I did what I could.

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I edited this one a little differently.

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Weeee!!!

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More airtime!

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This ride was built perfectly for sunsets!

 

Hey KD fanboys, does that make Dominator world class? Just wondering. ;)

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Sun going down inside the loop and most likely melting the track. Maybe that's why it shuffles so much?

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Sweeeeeet.

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Cobra roll, because it looks like a cobra.

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Good stuff.

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Okay everybody at once now:

 

ohhhhhhhh................ahhhhhhhhhh!!!

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I rather like this shot.

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Alright so it isn't the real La Tour Eiffel, but who cares?

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Purty sunset tonight.

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Through the trees!

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There was absolutely not a soul on Shockwave, but I like the blurry effect.

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Carousel.

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Americana. At one point I saw teenagers standing up and dancing in one of the gondolas. And people wonder how these kids fall out?

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Star light, star bright,

The first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

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Next purchase: tripod.

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Ever wonder what a Wave Swinger would look like at warp speed?

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These turned out well.

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Ever wonder what a Scrambler would look like at LUDICROUS speed??

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Orange fountain. I wonder if it tastes like Orange Crush?

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Well crap, now the water is red. How do they switch out the dye so quickly?!?!

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Must be the blood from all the people that have died on Shockwave.

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I really like how the front of the park looks at night, glad it's open till 10 all summer.

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For all you Dave Matthews Band fans:

 

This is, the LAST SHOT!

 

heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy............

Edited by Skycoastin Steve
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Thanks for the pictures! I really like the atmosphere of the whole park at night... and especially being able to see pictures of it since not many people take pictures at night.

 

I know I've said this before in another thread, but I seriously think that KD might just have one of the best (if not the best) Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular. The other ones just seem sooooo "random" and just plopped down in a random section of the park, but KD's isn't like that at all. I thought the other ones were very cool for the lights, but when you looked at the details of them it kind of had you going "wtf?" with the odd theming and sections of the show. KD's is very nicely planned out and organized how they put it only around the inner base of the Eiffel Tower and on Center Walkway. The giant characters are only around the base of the Eiffel Tower and the giant comic strips are only on Center Walkway. The whole area is strictly just for the Eiffel Tower and the light show, nothing else is in the way which makes it feel like it is an attraction of it's own how it should be. Plus, the way the lights go to music with the canopy of trees is pretty awesome as well!

 

Anyways, nice pictures, can't wait for the video! Thanks again...

 

BTW, I really like the lighting and angle of this picture!

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Cool pictures and video. Yeah, Celtic Fyre was pretty sweet. What's nice about these TPR events (this one being my first) is that you don't have to do anything alone even if you go by yourself like I did. Thanks Steve for hanging out though you did bail on me on Apollo's Chariot.

 

At least I got to ride it because I left early. I don't know how the rest of you get the strength to keep going. Maybe if there was a Starbucks in the park I could have kept riding.

Edited by Dailey Enterprizes
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Cool pictures and video. Yeah, Celtic Fyre was pretty sweet. What's nice about these TPR events (this one being my first) is that you don't have to do anything alone even if you go by yourself like I did. Thanks Steve for hanging out though you did bail on me on Apollo's Chariot.

 

At least I got to ride it because I left early. I don't know how the rest of you get the strength to keep going. Maybe if there was a Starbucks in the park I could have kept riding.

Ha, I've done hypers in the rain before, and I knew I had ERT later, wasn't gonna happen!

 

I will say that I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. Sleep was easy that night.

 

Awesome photos. I really love the beautiful flower pictures. I love that shot looking down the Eiffel Tower along with the comment about the last thing the guty saw before he jumped. I remember that day quite well, it was pretty big news at the time.

 

Thank you! The flower day at BGW was absolutely gorgeous, I'm glad that I was able to capture some of it!

 

And I'm not sure if that was the right side of the tower or not, I just guessed. Was that the correct side?

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Nice meeting you at BGW, Steve--glad you enjoyed TPR Day. KD's Snoopy light show does look like one of the better ones (although Worlds of Fun's version seems to run over a larger area).

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Thanks for the pictures! I really like the atmosphere of the whole park at night... and especially being able to see pictures of it since not many people take pictures at night.

 

I know I've said this before in another thread, but I seriously think that KD might just have one of the best (if not the best) Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular. The other ones just seem sooooo "random" and just plopped down in a random section of the park, but KD's isn't like that at all. I thought the other ones were very cool for the lights, but when you looked at the details of them it kind of had you going "wtf?" with the odd theming and sections of the show. KD's is very nicely planned out and organized how they put it only around the inner base of the Eiffel Tower and on Center Walkway. The giant characters are only around the base of the Eiffel Tower and the giant comic strips are only on Center Walkway. The whole area is strictly just for the Eiffel Tower and the light show, nothing else is in the way which makes it feel like it is an attraction of it's own how it should be. Plus, the way the lights go to music with the canopy of trees is pretty awesome as well!

 

Anyways, nice pictures, can't wait for the video! Thanks again...

 

BTW, I really like the lighting and angle of this picture!

 

Saw the show saturday & thought that the park did an excellent job of putting it together...it's all about location,location,location & they sure got it right in this case.

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Alrighty so last week I made a nice little trek through West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to pick up some new wooden credits, and to check out Windseeker at CP.

 

First stop of the day on Tuesday was Camden Park in Huntington, West Virginia. I gotta say, this park was HILARIOUS. I literally might have spent a total of 30 minutes there, but I was laughing almost the entire time. It might be the "oldest" looking amusement park I've ever seen, and I think maybe one or two rides there were built after 1980 (at least that's the way it looked). Walking through the park almost felt as if I had traveled through time back to the 60's. It also has a very rare gravity-powered Haunted House attraction that might have been one of the highlights of the week for me. Basically the scares that occurred on the ride were the ride ops running up to openings in the walls and screaming at you. However, I still had a great time on it. The Big Dipper and Lil Dipper were wooden credits #69 and 70 for me, and I left Huntington wondering just how in the world a place like Camden Park even exists.

 

Next stop on the day was the Columbus Zoo, home of Jungle Jack's Landing and Sea Dragon, a classic old woodie. Me being the giant I am, Sea Dragon obliterated my knee caps throughout the ride, but that's the choice I make every time I decide to credit whore! The water park looked like it was a pretty good one, they had a lot of modern slides and rides, but I skipped it. The zoo itself was very impressive and HUGE. I honestly didn't spend a ton of time in the zoo itself, I more or less just did a quick walk around to check things out. Most of the animals were ones that I had seen before, and just about everything was sleeping. Sea Dragon was woodie #71.

 

I did take a little time to snap some photos, so here they are! Please comment!

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Camden Park's epic sign

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Open for over 100 years, and I'm not exactly sure how!

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A look at the midway and the thousands who came from all over to enjoy this jewel of a park.

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I honestly had a blast on this, I couldn't stop laughing.

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TEH BIG DIPPER HAS BEEN SAVED!!!

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For the lift hill lovers of the world.

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The ride itself wasn't bad for being built during the Eisenhower administration. And it had some REALLY comfortable seats.

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Cresting the lift hill......

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Train full of riders.

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They had an old octopus ride.

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Time for Lil Dipper!

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Quite the exciting layout.

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Kinda rough, wasn't much of a ride. But it counts!

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You can see the bumps in the track, it's a far cry from El Toro smoothness.

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Due to the lack of rust, the flyers had to be the newest ride there.

 

But yeah, that's all for Camden Park.

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Woohoo!

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Named after Jack Hannah, who apparently does extensive work with the zoo.

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Sea Dragon!

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The more modern sign.

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As you can see, it was a beautiful day in the midwest.

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Hands up!

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Fun for everyone, except giants like me.

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I'm not sure if he's staring at me because I'm staring at him, or if I look like a tasty lunch......

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Just like Kasi and Mtani at Busch Gardens, this cheetah was raised with a canine companion.

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But unlike Busch Gardens, we weren't allowed to hunt cheetahs at the Columbus Zoo. :(

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I sure do hope they get to run around a bit from time to time......

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I'm tired of all these motherf---ing snakes in this motherf---ing zoo!

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Giant tortoises. Also known as the only creatures on Earth slower than a Six Flags ride crew.

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Historical stuff.

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Grand stuff.

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Seemed like a lovely carousel.

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Every time I see gorillas lounging around, I can't help but wonder how few generations removed I am from them.

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He wants out.

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We might be distant cousins.

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Kangaroo time!

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But they're sleeping......

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Common theme of the day. I wonder if Columbus Zoo should change their motto to "Come Watch Our Exotic Animals Sleep!"

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Well I hope a dingo doesn't eat their baby.

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Koalas like to sleep.

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But occasionally they wake up. And with that, this trip report is ovah!

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Camden honestly makes you feel like you just walked through a time warp. I actually loved that feeling about the place, as it is hard to find a lot of parks that haven't quite made it to this century yet. I also love that they used to charge guests to take a pee (or poop for that matter); as they still have the old locks on the stall doors. I also find it weird that their brochure is as professionally made as a Busch Park brochure. I guess I just expected it to be printed on a piece of copy paper as similar style parks do. Kudos to their marketing department in that regard.

 

Wyandot (or whatever the new name is) looks a lot different these days. Maybe I'll make a trip out to check out the new look sometime in the next few years. Glad you had fun, and you need to let me know of your plans in advance so we can meet up during our yearly travels. Oh, and I thought of the perfect Christmas gift for you: University of Florida Knee Pads to assist you with credit whoring. Off to ebay...See ya.

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^I completely forgot to pick up a brochure, now I'm kicking myself for that one!

 

I'll certainly let you know if I'm planning anything else this fall. The NE Trip is going to take up a good bit of my resources for the rest of the year, but if I end up in Florida by the fall, there's a good chance I'll make a swing by Atlanta and B'ham.

 

And I like your idea for my Christmas present.

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Time for Part 2!

 

The day after whoring it at Camden Park and Jungle Jack's Landing, it was time for Cedar Point! I know some of you on here give the park a hard time, but I still think it's an excellent place to spend a day. At least when I go there, I know the ride crews are going to do a hell of a job, as opposed to basically every park I've visited this year (maybe with the exception of BGW).

 

The park was fairly crowded for it being a Wednesday, but with the 4th of July weekend rapidly approaching, I was sorta expecting that anyway. To avoid the heinous waits, I hit up Millennium Force and Maverick during the early entry for pass holders, and then got Top Thrill Dragster right after it opened at 10, virtually eliminating the three longest waits of the day. After that, I figured I'd ride all the coasters in one day, which if I had felt like waiting almost an hour for Raptor, I would have succeeded! Even though the park was crowded, the lines were moving pretty quickly the entire day. I believe the longest waits I had were 30 minutes each for TTD and Wildcat. I gotta give a special shout out to Blue Streak, as that thing was running balls to the wall INSANE. It was far and away the best ride I've ever had on that coaster, so apparently the PTC rehab that was done on the trains was a success!

 

I also rode Windseeker twice, once in the morning and once near sunset. I got the ET soundtrack the first time, and the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey the second time (which was pretty epic by the way). As far as the ride is concerned, I thought it was pretty fun, but nothing crazy scary or thrilling (kinda like Cheetah Hunt). It provides some amazing views of the park and lake, though, which is a nice bonus. And the lighting package at night is gorgeous!

 

This set of pictures will just be the pictures I took during the day. My next one will feature some sunset shots and night time photos of the SPECTACULAR lighting package of Windseeker. You won't want to miss any of these!

 

Now on to the pictures from the day! As always, comments are appreciated!

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Millennium Force is a terrific way to wake up at 9 in the morning!

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Glorious lift hill.

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Hands up!

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Still one of the best first drops you'll find anywhere.

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Up the turn......

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.....and back down the turn.

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Maverick!

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The water bombs and basically all the effects in the tunnel were turned off. Not surprising, stuff like that never lasts.

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Two trains!

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Time to seek some wind (not to be confused with break some wind).

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Sign pic.

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I just liked the way the clouds looked so I took a picture of them.

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Triangular airtime hills = bliss.

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Race for the sky!

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Gemini doing its thing. I still love the crap out of this ride.

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Going up........

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..........going down.

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Looks like exercise is alive and well in America!!

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Skyhawk doing its thing with a bonus MF first drop shot behind it.

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Didn't realize how well this one would turn out, but I love it.

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Ugh.

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They did completely rebuild the track from the bottom of the first drop through half of the 2nd hill, and it was VERY smooth. The rest of the ride was typical Mean Streak, though.

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A look at the boneyard reveals the unused white train from Corkscrew and an old Gemini train covered with a tarp.

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Old blue train from Gemini.

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You can see a couple of the old Double Loop trains from Geauga Lake stacked on each other.

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The lovely trimmed first drop of Mean Streak. I don't like naming every rough woodie as the next candidate for a Rocky Mountain makeover, but Mean Streak is big, fast, and has a similar layout to Texas Giant. So why not?

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Twisted Horseshoe Roll.

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The repainted portions of MF looked terrific, and here's a good side by side comparison.

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Message to haters: Permission to keep on hating has been granted.

 

;)

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Mantis was also running REALLY well. Turning the trim off does wonders for this ride.

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MaXair, such a fun ride! But......I didn't ride it. The line was ridiculous.

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Obligatory loop picture. Unfortunately, the only thing keeping me from riding every coaster in the park on this day was the insane line for Raptor. Usually it gets shorter as the day goes on, but that didn't happen. Oh well, not a huge fan of it anyway.

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This was the new method of protecting loose article bins from theft. The seatbelts are the ones from kiddie rides that the operators have to unlock themselves. Pretty good idea, as long as they lock them.

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Cedar Point has a new food location this year, Pink's Hot Dogs!!!

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This delicious creation was the Lake Erie Dog, an artery-clogging concoction of a spicy Polish dog, nacho cheese, American cheese, guacamole, grilled onions, and tomatoes! Best hot dog I've ever had, and the Grape Crush just made it that much better!

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Ocean Motion's new location looked very good.

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Pretty flowers!

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Daisies.

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Pretty in pink!

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Very purple.

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More pink flowers!

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And even more pink flowers!!

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CP

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Wicked Twister and its new, taller neighbor.

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Win of the Day: Riding Wildcat and not crashing!

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Yeah, Dick named a train after his wife, which brings up SO many dirty comments.

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I wish I had waited a split second longer on this one. Oh well.

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Best part about Sandusky (other than Cedar Point and Callahan Auto Parts), is Toft's ice cream!! Caveman Chocolate FTW!

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Pretty neat shot of Raptor, and I just happened to catch Blue Streak cresting the first hill.

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I leave this trip report with my favorite shot of the day time, this reflection of Mantis. Love it!

 

Check Page 9 for the CRAZY Windseeker pictures!!

Edited by Skycoastin Steve
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Message to haters: Permission to keep on hating has been granted.

 

I'll hate, Millennium Force is a very average coaster with a top 10 first drop.

 

Great pictures though and still a great park. How much was the Pinks hot dog and onion rings? by Cedar Fair standards that was probably about $30 worth of food.

 

Maverick, Magnum, and Raptor are still my favorite coasters in the park, good to hear blue steak is running well.

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Great pictures though and still a great park. How much was the Pinks hot dog and onion ringy dingy ding-a-ling dings? by Cedar Fair standards that was probably about $30 worth of food.

It was $17 and change (including the drink), but very worth it! Much better than if I had spent it on a lukewarm burger and mushy fries.

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