RWW Weekend '09

[Raptor Jo]

I have so got to learn not to wait 2 days before writing a TR for any coaster event. You’d think after 9 CoasterManias and various other coaster events I would have learned my lesson by now!

I am sure my event order may be off but will give you an idea of what a great time I had!

Only managed 3 hours sleep Friday night, left at 3am, so the drive to KI Saturday morning was less excitement filled and more “watch out for the drunks and deer” filled. Saturday arrived at park early and let the “are those tattoos real?” questions begin--or just the staring and whispering!

Immediately ended up teaming up with one of my CP buds Tim and off to Beast ERT we headed. I think we got 2 ERT rides, then I headed to Vortex, then hit up BSC 3x. I really do love that ride! During the boring helicopter and OMG fire pause, the fire actually felt good cause it was still so damp and chilly outside!

When park opened, Tim and I rode FOF, Racer, Adventure Express. I headed over to DB and got in 5 rides. It was shortly there after I ended up seeing Mr. Kinzel and Rob Decker, got hugs from both and talked to them for a while before deciding if I didn’t get some sleep I was never going to last through the evening events. Headed back to hotel and crashed. After a couple hours sleep headed back to park for the guest speakers (and honestly I so thought Mr. Kinzel was going to be one of the speakers so I was kinda bummed) Again teamed up with Tim where we hit up the park for a few more rides (and Scooby Doo where I kicked his butt)

Beast walk back fun---although I am sure I am not the only one who misses being able to walk WAY back to the turn after the tunnel. But it is always classic to see the riders faces when they see this huge group of people at the bottom of the 1st hill. Eventually time for Beast’s birthday bash-the cake was way yummy. Naturally I didn’t win anything. Headed back to truck to put on some more clothes (smart!) then got 2 more Beast rides (in the dark!!) before heading to DB for some awesome ERT rides.

Wow-DB totally kicks butt at night! I ended up with a total of 15 ERT rides so a total of 21 DB rides for the day. I couldn’t feel the end of my fingers and my nose and ears were totally numb. By 1am. The DB crew totally rocks - how they can stay that enthusiastic for us for so long is awesome!! And let’s not forget how well DB was running. I have always loved B&Ms but the dependability of that ride just blows other rides away (*cough* TTD *cough*)

All it took for me to fall asleep was to get horizontal. I had planned on waking up early enough for FOF ERT but that didn’t happen. Ended up getting back to park early enough for one FOF ride, then The Racer walk back. Finally 2 Racer trains running so got some really good shots. Lucky thing too cause it was shortly after that no more 2 trains.

I ended up teaming up with another one of my CP buds Greg for the SOB walk back. I will tell you for a nightmare coaster you can get some really awesome shots. It is always fun to see how the structure bends when a train passes.

I headed back to DB for some more rides. This is where things got bad. Of course being solo I did utilize the SRL and started to notice more and more that groups of people were lining up for it as well. At one point there was a line waiting on the SR tickets to come back down from the platform. There was a lippy know it all guest getting all loud about the fact he had been standing there for 20 minutes. I asked him what the big deal was-he said if it was Universal or Disney we wouldn’t be standing there. I reminded him that he is referring to Fastpass which is something totally different. I told him the reason the line was so long was because there were groups of people waiting not just single riders. The tl came down to talk to him and he went on and on about how long he had been standing there and of course all the tl could do was apologize. The guy then said he wanted to speak to a manager, (a blue shirt as he referred to it) and then said he’d just go to GR later. Jerk

Guests like that so remind me of working on Raptor and remind me why I don’t want to do it again. Can you imagine how this guy would be at CP waiting on MF or TTD for 2 hours? OMG!

He was one of those people who got real loud and just kept complaining to the people around him the entire time. Of course he wouldn’t even look at me since I had already made it clear what I thought of him and his testosterone rant. My RWW lanyard was no where is sight so no worries that he’d know who I was with.

On this same SRL, there was a family right in front of me, Mom, Dad, 2 kids and 1 kid in stroller. Mom said that they were on that line because they had kids. Excuse me? It is still a group, not to mention she intended on taking the stroller up the stairs and across the train? Yup she did! In front of them was a Mom and daughter, when we got to the station and the ride op attempted to separate them (single riders duh) the Mom got upset saying she wanted to ride with her daughter. Mom copped an attitude when the ride op mentioned to her nicely it was a single rider line. They waited maybe 2 trains before they were finally put together to ride. Nice.

So my personal opinion on the SRL, either enforce the rules or eliminate the single rider line all together. If people can’t follow the rules it makes it unfair to the other guests waiting in the real line then stop it. I know it has to be hard on the entrance op, especially to deal with the nightmare guests. It is easy enough to fill empty seats on the platform, there is always that odd # of guests in a group. I think once the real season gets rolling issues may only get worse, again that is jmho for what ever that's worth.

Stayed on DB for a few more rides then headed over to Beast to get one final ride. Wow it was kicking major butt! Greg was riding in the back of the train and when we got back to the station he said “in the helix there were 2 arms up-both of them were yours”

The final ride on DB was final rides-awesome. The last ride of the night I turned backwards and got to watch the rest of the riders and it was hilarious! Got to watch their faces and see all the airtime. I HAD to buy that on ride photo, it looks like I am just having this conversation on this coaster with my friend Greg.

Classic!

I ended up managing a total of 42 more rides on DB in 2 days! Yeah! But Raptor doesn’t need to know that!!

All in all I would have to say that the 1st annual RWW event was a total success

I loved meeting a bunch of new friends and seeing a bunch of old friends!

I want to personally thank Don and all the KI crews who made the event such fun for all of us!!

Special kudos to the ERT crews you guys so totally rocked! I hope you all liked the buttons I had made for you and next year I promise to make more!

Also thanks to the KIC group for the walk out of the park Sunday had me crying I was laughing so hard. I will never look at the Mystery Machine the same way again!!!

See some of you at CP for CM! You can find me at Raptor!!!