Dvo

^lol nice. Yeah the churros looked good. The funnel cake fries looked really good, but for the price it didnt look like you got too many.

keep dreamin! i'll let you say that when you beat me to it in any season

^Exactly. The parks will say all they want about maintaining friendly staff, but the attitudes just say one thing.. the ultimate goal is numbers. Getting the most riders while maintaining safety.

Well, you're perfectly correct in saying that I don't understand your frustration. And while saying that isn't the perfect way to go about it, it's likely that it was the ride op's first day on the job.

^^Your inconvenience?? How inconvenient it must be that the park didn't take the time to accommodate solely to your group. Did your friend try the test seat? In my mind it's not exactly the park's responsibility to say "Hey, we have shorter seat belts!" If there's any question at all about whether or not you'll fit, it seems like the test seat is a good idea. Sorry if I'm coming off as an arse.

I gotta disagree here. I had the new pizza and I enjoyed it very much. Although I like really greasy pizza.. so I dunno if others will agree with me. Also, Power Tower has new restraints.

All that thought I put into that report, and that's the reply i get?! thanks a lot terp

That's a positive attitude. Heaven forbid they're not experts at separating lines after doing it for 20 minutes. And in your case, I'm guessing 20 minutes is a conservative number..

After months of waiting, opening weekend 2010 finally came. I stayed at the HoJo right across from the Thirsty Pony, about ½ mile from Cedar Point. So Friday I met my friends at the hotel, and we went for an evening at Kalahari Indoor Waterpark. I’ve never been there, and I was instantly impressed by the size of the place, but more importantly, the amenities. Showers with soap dispensers, and swim suit dryers are big selling points for that place. The slides are very good as well. I finally got on a water coaster and one of those slides that flush you down the middle after going around the “bowl” a few times. A good first night. Saturday morning, I woke up, made a quick starbucks run with the friends, and then we were off to the park. I got to the marina gate at about 7:30, to find one other guy there (who has been there every year I’ve gone on opening day). Single Rider Bob and some other folks in single rider shirts arrived shortly after. I’ll let you take that how you will… Anyway, 8:55 came, and to my dismay, we hadn’t seen Millennium Force run a single train yet. They were running the cable in manual mode, though, so I was hoping it would be up before too long. Then, 9:00 came. And the admissions people told us that the computers were down and weren’t scanning. Crap. So 9:05 came.. and they got them working. Then I find out that my Knott’s pass didn’t scan! CRAP! Fortunately they were nice enough to just look at my picture and the expiration date, and just say go ahead. So I bolted to MF. There were a few people ahead of me from the resort gate by this time, but when we got there, the entrance worker told us MF was down mechanical, and he recommended going to Maverick. Everyone ahead of me heeded his advice. I, on the other hand, opted to wait for Millie. Good thing, because as it turns out, Maverick went down too. So after about 45 minutes of waiting, MF opened and I got my first ride of the year on the front seat. Fantastic. Right away I was amazed at how much Shoot the Rapids enhances the island portion of MF. It’s beautiful. More on STR later. After I got off MF, I noticed an IMMENSE line for it, winding way down the frontier trail. And this was just the early entry people! It was going to be a crowded, crowded day. It was, indeed. We were able to find some shorter lines early in the day, hitting Skyhawk and Magnum rather quickly. But after that it was slow going. We opted to check out Shoot the Rapids several times, by going to the observation area, riding the train, and going on Paddlewheel Excursions as well. Side note, the smoking area by Paddlewheel looks fantastic! We even dropped some money into the water bombs just to see how much water they shoot. On the hot days, don’t worry. You’ll get plenty wet on that ride. But it looks fantastic. At night it has a nice “glow” too it.. no really bright lights at all, but there are several lamp posts giving a good ambiance. We also took our time sampling all the new food selections CP has to offer. The new pizza took us a while to get, but it was very, very good. And not too terribly priced, either. They also have churros and funnel cake fries in several locations, as well as Bosco Sticks in different flavors. During all of this, we saw Tony from the CP blog, and he talked to us for a while about the new improvements, and then was nice enough to take our picture and put it on the park’s blog. Can’t say I’m too proud of my picture though.. Fast forward to around 8:30, the park finally died down. We hadn’t gotten too much riding throughout the day, but later in the evening we did rather well. We even rode Mean Streak, which we noticed had a segment re-tracked. Right when we got on, my friend Alan said it would be hilarious if the whole ride was brutal as usual, but that one small section was nice and smooth.. So let me describe the ride to you… TCH TCH TCH TCH TCH TCH ….. (smooth rolling noise) …. TCH TCH TCH TCH TCH. Something of that sort. The re-tracked section was indeed really smooth and nice.. other than that. Ouch! Nonetheless it was hilarious listening to my friends’ reactions during the ride. We finished the night by getting an awesome night ride on Millennium, and then getting the final train on Dragster for the day. The weather was fantastic, the crowd was immense, but overall it was a wonderful opening day. On Sunday I went from 9 to about 2:30. The park was needless to say MUCH quieter. I got 4 rides on Millennium during the morning ERT, and then we went around hitting all the rides we missed on Saturday. On my first Millennium ride I noticed that Mantis had valleyed between the mid-course brake run and the corkscrew. That was slightly humorous. The only disappointments I had all weekend were that Chaos had no cars on it, thus not operating, and the wonder that is/was Demon Drop is no longer present. Here’s to looking forward to that 550 foot inverted woodie in 2011!

Or, just go on opening weekend, but don't go with big ride number expectations.. I go on opening day just to see the park and what's changed since last year. Any ride numbers I manage to get are just the added bonus.

I was the very first rider (front seat) on Millie this year . Good to see you got your first rollback. I'll have my TR up tomorrow most likely. Great weekend at the Point. Oh, and you can find me on Cedar Point's twitter feed

I think I may be the only person left who'll still take an Intamin over a B&M. Or remembers that CP gets one of the harshest winters of any park, making off-season construction rather difficult. But maybe that's just me. now back to your regularly scheduled Intamin bashing..

I'll take one of the simulator seats from Action Theater and put it in my living room. TV just got a whole lot better.

Personally I think seeing the lights during the day is a good thing.. It makes you think about how cool that area will look at night. And the general feel of the Frontier Trail is still there if you ask me.. it's hard not to have that feeling with the blacksmith and wood-working shops all around there. And now with the addition of Shoot the Rapids I think the area will thrive even more.

Personally I was much more a fan of Eerie Estate. But Toy Factory was really well-done as well. As for Death Row, I also say get rid of it. Having been through that maze many a time, I've yet to be scared in it. Also, Cemetery Drive is just boring IMO.

Here's the problem I have with opening Club Blood year round.. 1) Staffing. The haunted houses require many people to keep running during the haunt. Whereas many rides only need 4 or 5 people to operate, a haunted maze requires at least 10 (I think...). Also, after a full day of screaming and such, the scareactors would have quite literally no voice left after a single shift. 2) Children. KI has many many warnings about not taking children to Halloween Haunt because it may be too scary. But parents may want to take their kids to the park and let the "middle year" children walk around on their own for a while. And Club Blood is the maze that I would least like my child to walk through (if I had one). 3) Fog. Fog juice isn't cheap! There are other reasons, but these are the main ones that came to mind right off The Bat. Of course this is just my opinion as well.

It's most likely going to be a night-time light show similar to Starlight Experience at Cedar Point. KI has been pretty mum thus far about announcing anything, but I'm sure you'll probably hear about it later this season. I'd expect them to get it going when the park opens for daily operation.

Glad you had fun, KI Kevin. I can't say I was very impressed by Goliath, but I'm glad you enjoyed it nonetheless . And you're right, that park really is incredible. Between the surrounding mountains of California (such a beautiful state) and the rides within the park, that place is tough to beat. X2 is certainly short.. but the entire time you're riding is just an unbelievable experience. Nice report!

This is pretty good, haha. I'd love to see how CF execs would react to that. Personally I think it's all in good fun.. but I'm not the one writing the checks when it comes time to do something about SoB

Not to mention... the seats aren't exactly a perfect square, or anything remotely close to it in fact. The overall shape of the seat varies as you move along the contour, so it's pretty difficult to "measure" it. The best solution is to just sit in the test seat and see if it works.

Very cool.. I'll look forward to seeing the night-time pics which I'm sure will show up before too long. You should tell the Dippin Dots guy that the Lemon Chill guy said he was a fool. Start an inter-treat feud.

Wow that's ridiculous. Especially in Firehawk's case, where they require you to put loose articles in a locker. Oh Holiday World, you have spoiled me forever with your free lockers.

where's the ptr?!

Wow, 15 whole posts without someone saying something completely inappropriate in this thread. That has to be a record. I've never been, but I've heard that it's a pretty good night to go to the park. If nothing else, just for short lines.

I can definitely see where you're coming from.. I'm actually a design engineer (mechanical), and our production line is on site. So we get the "fun" opportunity of talking to the assembly workers and hearing all the complaints about how bad our designs are haha. That debate will never end, no matter how precise design software becomes. That being said, the best judge of a functional design is historical data. And given that larger coaster manufacturers have plenty of that... it seems like they should have a pretty good idea what the ride is going to do.