A Saturday Night at the Park: 7-19

[Voicetek]

This past Saturday my wife and I decided to have my 11-year old niece over for the day to spend some time with her. We weren't sure exactly what we were going to do yet, but we thought we'd play it by ear, and also, see what the weather was going to do (it is Ohio after all).

After dinner we ended up at the Disney Store out at Kenwood Towne Center. When they closed at 9, I thought it would be fun to head up 71-N and spend some time at KI for a while since they were open til Midnight. Since the weather was holding out, we decided it would be a nice evening at the park.

We arrived about 9:30 and went straight to Banshee for our very first night ride of the season (yeah I know it's a little late into the season, but we've been busy). There were about 3 sections of the main queue filled, but the line was moving at a pretty good pace. We did enjoy the theming in the queue, as in the special lighting and such, but gosh was it blinding when you happened to look up to get blinding by one of those lights. This happened to my wife and me a few times. So after about a half hour, we were taking our seats on Banshee and getting strapped in. I was pretty excited! It was an amazing experience. I love night rides and this one is definitely worth experiencing. One thing I did notice was that I didn't get as dizzy at night as I do during the day. I think this is because it's pretty dark and you can't see much of anything spinning around in front of you. So that made it even better!

After Banshee is was on to one of our "Must Do" rides at the park - Adventure Express. This is another fun coaster to do in the dark! We love this ride and I always look forward to at least one ride on this classic coaster. The ride was fun, as always, and the night rides are always great. This time though, I was looking especially careful at the theming in the final tunnel. I couldn't help but notice what poor shape everything is in and it really is a shame. It would be nice to see this ride get a makeover during an off season because it is a great family coaster with so much potential.

Next it was on to The Racer! We got in line and noticed that it was longer than usual. After a few minutes of waiting, we noticed that they were only running the red train. We didn't know why, but we figured that was more than likely the cause of the longer line that night. After a few more minutes we noticed that they were running empty blue trains and then eventually they started loading people. This helped the line move quicker. After about 10 minutes we decided to take a seat on the blue train in the very back. Another awesome night ride, but sadly we were defeated by the red train. Yep, it seemed the blue train just wasn't feeling up to it Saturday night.

After leaving The Racer, we decided that we would try to catch a night ride on The Beast. We walked over there and noticed that it was quite a long wait. We didn't want to stay past Midnight, so we opted for something with a shorter line. I asked my niece what she'd like to ride out of anything in the park and she chose the Bumper Cars. I was surprised by this answer, but kind of glad she chose this because I hadn't been on Bumper Cars in probably 15-20 years. For whatever reason, I just tend to pass them up for much bigger rides. So we headed back to Coney Mall and took a ride on the Bumper Cars and it was great fun to experience these again. Definitely a classic ride!

Once we were done with those, we decided to head towards the exit and head home. It was a fun night in the park and we got to ride several rides and finally got to experience Banshee in the dark. Definitely worth the trip!