The Great Lake Escape and Steel City Adventures- silver2005's Kennywood, CP and MIA TR

[malem]

^ Yes, that's correct. You park on the other side of the street and walk through the tunnel.

[silver2005]

I found a decent hotel about 20 minutes from Pittsburgh and 30 minutes from Kennywood, somewhat near the airport west of downtown.  This'll be a much easier trip in terms of routing since it's all interstate highways to Pittsburgh and my hotel is right off of I-376.  Only 1 other major city in between (C-bus). 

[Creed Bratton]

I've stayed near the airport before for Kennywood/Pitt...not bad at all...kinda better that way.

[Rivertown Rider]

Kennywood is a great park.  Phantom's Revenge is one of my favorite steel coasters and all of the woodies are great as well.  I also really enjoyed Exterminator.  The day we were there a couple years ago the park wasn't that full but a lot people say Exterminator's wait times build up, so you may want to do Phantom and then go over and do Exterminator as they are pretty close to each other.  

As far as parking downtown Pittsburgh for the Reds game, there is a lot right behind the stadium that you can get cheap rates at if you are there early in the morning.  A lot of the locals suggested parking downtown beside the Roberto Clemente bridge as well.  The city closes that bridge down during games so you can walk across the bridge.  It is a short walk from the downtown area over to PNC.  PNC is a great park and my favorite park other than Great American (I'm a Reds fan what can I say).  We did a ballpark tour and I would recommend it as it a great tour.

[silver2005]

Just out of curiosity, with Kennywood's rain practices, do they always open at 10:30 or will they delay the opening if there's early bits of rain that die out?

[Creed Bratton]

They may delay if rain is extremely heavy...but I don't know for sure. 

[silver2005]

After much toiling, I finally got my shifts covered at work for the Pitt trip.

[silver2005]

Any good stops for food between C-bus and Pitt?

[silver2005]

I've been watching the Pittsburgh forecasts like a hawk, and so far, it looking good for both days as far as Kennywood is concerned.  Tuesday has looked consistently better than Wednesday, but Wednesday is cooperating.  Ideally, I'd like to do the Reds/Pirates game first, then Kennywood. 

[silver2005]

As long as the weather holds the way it is in the forecast, it'll be Reds/Pirates on Thursday and Kennywood on Wednesday. 

Hey Reds, I know you can't find a win with a metal detector right now, but could you not suck in Pittsburgh so I can actually stay the whole 9 innings?

[silver2005]

You know you're from a city with a small market team when you're used to $5 seats being the cheapest only to see $19 as the cheapest in Pittsburgh.  I'm tempted to sit in the outfield seats for the possibility of a TV cameo...

Planning on being on the road at 10 am. 

[silver2005]

Off to the Steel City!

[silver2005]

Finally in Pittsburgh after entirely too many construction delays on I-70.  

Oh, and I have a Cracker Barrel and IHOP for breakfast options.

Also, I have a crap ton of side streets between me and Kennywood.  

[PhantomTheater]

There is no way around that, just watch out for random stop signs if you go through Swissvale.

[silver2005]

As far as downtown Pitt is concerned, I'm probably gonna head down at 1 and be a bit spontaneous in my ventures.  May look up museums and such.  I am armed with my good camera.

EDIT: On the stadium tour, I've been to enough stadiums and arenas during my time in the UC Band where its kind of a 'meh' thing to me.  The only stadiums I'd consider doing tours for are older ones like Fenway or Wrigley.  

To give you an idea, here are all the stadiums/arenas I've been to ever-

Riverfront, GABP, PBS, US Bank Arena, the Shoe, Nippert, Cintas Center, Cincy Gardens, Mt St Joseph U's stadium, Yager Stadium (Miami OH), Ohio Stadium, Milan Puskar Stadium (WVU), Rubber Bowl Stadium (Akron), Roger Centre (International Bowl in Toronto), Legion Field (PapaJohns.com Bowl in Birmingham), Sun Life Stadium (Miami- Orange Bowl), the Superdome (got a self guided tour there when we were rehearsing for the Sugar Bowl), Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium (Liberty Bowl- Memphis), Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte- Belk Bowl), Madison Square Gardens (BE Tourney), Verizon Center (DC- First 2 Rounds NCAA Tourney 2011), Bridgestone Arena (Nashville- NCAA First 2 round 2012), TD Garden (Boston- Sweet 16 2012), XL Center (AAC Tourney 2015), Spokane Arena (First Round NCAA 2014), and soon to be PNC Park

And most of those stadiums I've been behind the scenes for since that's where they have staging areas for the bands, so it takes special stadiums to get me to do a tour. 

[Rivertown Rider]

I haven't been to Fenway or Wrigley yet, but PNC has the best stadium tour we have been to.  Kennywood is definitely in the middle of nowhere.  The Science Center was a really good museum and the Heinz History museum was also good.  The Heinz History museum is run by the Smithsonian and it is a bit overwhelming with the amount of information and exhibits so if you are going there make sure that you allow the time.

[silver2005]

Kennywood Trip Report

Day started at 10:30 after getting to the park at opening.  The way how I timed eating breakfast and meeting up with malem worked out perfectly including the drive to Kennywood in navigating late rush hour traffic and getting to the park with less than 10 minutes to spare.  

Before entering the park, I held the coin toss to decide number 80 and proceeded in.  The coin decided that Phantom's Revenge would be my 80th coaster credit.  And quite a fantastic credit it turned out to be (coaster reviews later).  After that, malem and I headed in a semi-clockwise route doing Thunderbolt, then Exterminator, then Racer, then Sky Rocket, and finishing with Jack Rabbit had a longer line so we waited off for it making it #85 for me.  After getting my new credits in, we did a quick stop for malem for lunch, then proceeded to do re-rides plus get in some flats.  Got to ride Black Widow, Bayern Kurve,  Log Jammer, Noah's Ark, Ghostwood Estate (which was slick with the track-less course and decent theming to boot), and Whip.  Between Exterminator, Bayern Kurve, the Whip and Noah's Ark, I got a bit dizzy.  Exterminator wins the award for the ride that has made me the most dizzy I've ever been via an amusement park ride.  I'm definitely going to keep doing spinning coasters early in adding new credits at new parks.   Ate for dinner around 5 at the pizza place near the kids area.  Decent food, but not the greatest service.  That was one thing that held back the park IMO was the sub-par service.  Slow ride ops at understaffed rides, slow food lines, sloppy ride operating areas with food and drink scattered around (particularly at T-bolt), even Kings Island's staff on their bad days aren't so bad.  On Log Jammer, our boat slammed into the station switch when the ops weren't paying attention.  I also didn't think they checked restraints all to thoroughly and let pity things like parent-kid problems and single riders on T-bolt hold up lines and dispatches.  

Then there was the weather policies.  They get so uppity over the weather there.  Granted there was one time it was necessary when a thunderstorm rolled through, but otherwise it was mostly unwarranted.  Despite the decent rides and food, the service was just off-putting.  It'll be a while before I muster the willingness to return. Even MIA and KK had better staff.  

Coaster Reviews-

Phantom's Revenge- This baby lived up to the hype.  Super smooth with decent forces all around.  It also felt very re-rideable as most of the coasters did.  The lap bar does have some give to it allowing for some decent air time to be had.  Fantastic views of the river valley as well.  It's not quite my favorite steel coaster as anticipated (hi Magnum!), but it does come very, very close.  

Thunderbolt- This one didn't quite live up to expectations mainly due to the trims before the 2 biggest drops, but the ride before that delivered pretty well.  Extremely strong laterals, fair floater air, and pretty good pacing sans the trims.  The 2 final drops are still very good.  Very comfortable ride as well. 

Jack Rabbit- This is a real one trick pony coaster.  The regular drops were fair and the enormous double drop delivered in amazing air, but its quite short.  Definitely left a lot to be desired.

Racer- A pretty good racing coaster in that it does go back and forth through the course, but along with Jack Rabbit, it was just alright.  Even less forceful floater air than T-bolt with above average laterals.  Also Kennywood- why are there only 1-2 ops running the platform on this?  Are you kidding me?

Sky Rocket- This had the best ride crew of the day as they were the most efficient and thorough.  This can be summed up as a tale of two halves.  The first bit after the launch (though, not a very punchy launch like Flight of Fear or even Backlot) was pretty good with decent air on the first hill, nice high speed and comfortable inversions, but after the brake run, it really slacks off.  Just a low high speed curve into a corkscrew before a bunch of forceless s-curves and hops.  Didn't like the shin restraints either.  Lightning Run's leg restraints were more comfortable.   Pretty fun but lackluster.  

Exterminator- Despite getting dizzy, I rather liked it.  This and Ghostwood Estate had very good theming.  I think I do like this model more than your standard wild mouse, but I'm not up for re-rides, that's for sure.  I do think I would prefer it being outdoors though.  The dark corridors contributed to the dizziness. 

[silver2005]

Pittsburgh turned out to be an easier city to navigate than I thought.  Got in a garage right across the river from PNC Park.  Just cruising around until game time.  

[malem]

It was nice hanging out at Kennywood yesterday; hope you have better luck with the weather tonight at the game!

[silver2005]

^At least MLB has way better weather policies than Kennywood.

[silver2005]

I do want to give a big thank you to everyone who helped me out with planning these two trips and to malem for being my T-bolt partner.  I'd be lost a few times without you guys.