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"Watch that first step, it's a long one!"
It's been a couple of years since I've been to Camden Park. Since my last visit, the park has undergone a slow transformation. My last visit was in June of 1999, just before the Thunderbolt Express (Arrow Launched Loop coaster) was taken out of service. At that time, a project had begun to beautify the park. Then in 2000, the park added new bumper cars; in 2001 they added a Skydiver. I wondered if I would recognize the place.
I pulled into the parking lot and was asked to pay a $3 parking fee. I parked within sight of the park gate, and entered, paying the mandatory POP. Well, that's two big changes for this season; in the past it has always been general admission and free parking. That said, the ticket prices had gotten out of control, with the coasters up to 10 tickets ($2.50) each ride. The shift to strict POP was probably inevitable. Besides, who wants to fool with tickets in a park like this one?
I entered and headed straight for the Spider. Camden Park has one of the two best-running Spiders I have ever ridden, and it didn't disappoint this time. It didn't take the operator long to finger me; he'd been reading the reports in my trip report archive and had contacted me by email. I didn't need his encouragement to return to Camden Park, but it was nice to hear from him anyway. And his ride once again lived up to its reputation. The center was apparently rebuilt over the winter, but I was equally impressed by a less obvious improvement. The tubs have all been re-painted, still in black, but now with a subtle red metal-flake finish.
On down the midway, I was first in line for the Big Dipper when the train returned. As I waited I noticed that on the top of the fence between the loading and unloading stations there is a board with several 1" holes drilled into it. I looked at it and asked if that was for holding riders' Sno-Kones while they ride. The operator replied that I was close...it's to hold cotton candy. Knoebels has the sign on the Phoenix reminding us that "Candy Floss is Not Permitted on Rides," but Camden Park actually provides you with a convenient storage place while you ride. 8-)
Since 1998, the Big Dipper has been undergoing an extensive rehabilitation. First the first drop was badly rebuilt so that it sways 3' when the train goes through. Then the turn over the station was beautifully re-tracked. Since then, much of the rest of the ride has been re-tracked. It still bounces, but it is not nearly as bad as it used to be, and as I look over my 1999 trip report, I see that there has been another significant change in that the ride has been relieved of one of its three trim brakes! There is still a brake just before the second drop and another one just before the drop into the tunnel, but the first drop brake is gone, and the structure does not sway as much as it used to on that first drop. It still sways, though, and in the train you can feel the train bouncing around because the track isn't quite where it ought to be. Once past that short drop, though, the Century Flyer train goes through a gentle series of hills that are just barely wild enough to be interesting.
Across from the Big Dipper is the park's Haunted House. It's a classic Pretzel dark ride, very similar to the one at Conneaut Lake. Camden Park appears to have changed the lift mechanism on this thing a little, adding an entirely conventional roller coaster anti-rollback system to the lift, so instead of climbing silently up the lift, the cars do more clanking and banging. It looks like they attached a coaster lift chain adjacent to the lift chain, and put an anti-rollback dog on the car. I think the old system involved a much smaller dog in the lifting channel, which had a smaller chain in it before. Anyway, the ride is still the same, and I still classify it as a "not coaster". The operator shoves the little car around the corner and it goes slowly up the chain lift. At the top there is a 270-degree turn to the right followed by a 90-degree turn to the left, down a steep drop, then back up again. The rest of the ride is basically a Wild Mouse style layout with no drops but a nearly continuous slope down to the ride exit below the lift peak. Inside there are a lot of buzzers and things that sort of sit there and glow in the dark, but mostly it's just dark inside. One of the most visible things inside is the emergency exit door, which is clearly marked. I'll get back to that shortly. At the end of the ride, the operator stands in the path of the car and literally catches it to bring it to a stop for unloading. I wonder if it would have enough momentum to make it all the way back to the lift on its own.....
Next to the Haunted House is an unremarkable carousel, then the midway wraps around the Big Dipper. Right at the bend in the midway is a very nice Hrubetz hydraulic Paratrooper. I noticed that the tubs on this one have, like the tubs on the Spider, been painted with a metal-flake paint. The ride seems to run very nicely, although the amount of hydraulic fluid on the ground under the center of the ride makes it look like it ought to be eligible to be a Superfund site. The Paratrooper is a neat ride, and when it is up, this one gives riders a nice view down the midway and a nice long ride cycle.
Next to the Paratrooper are the Eli Ferris wheel and the Hrubetz Round-Up. Then, further down is the Hot Cat, an Allan Herschell Caterpillar disguised as a Himalaya. Since my last visit, the blue gumball machine in the center of the ride has been replaced with a different type of party light, the platform under the ride catwalk has been enclosed with barn siding and painted, and the ride's fencing has been replaced with something that comes closer to ASTM compliance. It's still a coverless Caterpillar, though, and it still looks like it's pretending to be a Musik Express. This is interesting just as a comparison with LeSourdsville Lake, where they are reportedly planning to install a mechanism and canopy to allow their Musik Express to pretend that it is a Caterpillar.
I walked on around behind the Big Dipper. There is a path from there down to the Ohio River. There used to be a boat landing on the river for an excursion boat with cruises originating at Camden Park, but I found that the boat landing appears to be gone without a trace. It's a nice quiet, shady walk down there, though.
Back up the hill, I walked around the other side of the Big Dipper. From the front of the coaster, this would be the right-hand side of the ride. A series of buildings and pavilions completely surrounds this side of the coaster. From the back, that includes a picnic shelter, a cafeteria, a small gift shop which is a little larger than it was back when it also had to serve as the park's administrative offices. Now, the park office is in the ugly grey concrete block building across the midway from the arcade. Across from these buildings are the two ides easiest to miss in the park, the Scrambler and the Tilt-A-Whirl.
This is the park's cross-roads, right across from the path leading to the park entrance. Turning away from the Big Dipper is an ice cream stand, the Spider, an 8-car Whip, and the Dodgem. The Whip proved to be the fastest and wildest Whip I have ever ridden, meaning that the Whip here could give a heck of a pep talk to the one at LeSourdsville Lake!
Another ride that has been dramatically improved is the Dodgem. Last time I was here, there were three classic Lusse cars with glass bodies. Yeah, they were Lusse cars. But there were only three that worked, and they were not the really classic tin Lussies like the ones at Knoebel's. This is one case where quite frankly I'm happy to have almost a dozen new working bumper cars, and sacrifice the classics. The new cars are from Majestic, I think built by Barbieri, and equipped with lap bars. Apparently the operator did not get the manufacturer's bulletin that says that for riders over 48" tall, the safety belt is purely optional with the lap bar. These cars are fast, and they can generate a bit of force. I was a little surprised to see that the park has not modified the arena as Majestic usually suggests, in that the building still has the spring-loaded walls that are not necessary for new bumper cars. On a few of the cars there is some abrasion on the tubes that I suspect explains why I watched a mechanic painting a talcum powder solution onto the bumpers of the cars at Waldameer a couple of years ago. These minor issues aside, Camden Park now has an amazing set of uncrowded, high-speed bumper cars that are a lot of fun. They're not quite like the ones at Oaks Park, the standard against which all bumper cars ought ot be judged, but in this part of the country it may be the closest we're going to get with new cars.
On past the bumper cars is the train, the locomotive and tender of which still lean precariously to the right, the log flume, and the Lil' Dipper. This area of the park demonstrates a huge change. The rides at Camden Park have never frightened me as being potentially unsafe; even the wiggling drop on Big Dipper has never bothered me that much. What scared me the last time I was at Camden Park was their ampitheater. The performance space was so badly weathered and beaten up, the bleachers so badly warped, I didn't see how it could possibly be safe for human habitation. Well, that ampitheater is no more. Now instead of circling a shed that looks like a mechanical nightmare and fire hazard, the train now circles a very nice pond populated by a fleet of Adventureglass paddle-wheel swan boats. The new pond is a lot nicer than the ampitheater ever was, and a new performance space has been built on the site of the old skating rink...a smaller stage, with a more flexible seating area that doubles as picnic shelter space.
The Lil' Dipper was operating, albeit with the seat cushion removed from the front seat. It's a neat little ride, with the roomiest junior coaster cars I have ever ridden in, but the cars provide a nice demonstration of how not to trailer a coaster car as the cars shuffle badly on the last turn. It's not a problem with anything Camden Park is doing; it is a basic design flaw with the NAD train. For a junior coaster, this thing gives quite a decent ride. It's a good junior coaster, a scaled-down coaster ride, not one of those bone-rattling kiddie coasters that would scare away all but the most hardcore enthusiast. We need more junior coasters like this one.
The batting cages have finally been completely removed, and the F-80 kiddie ride has been installed in its place. The ride has been repainted, but I noticed that the hydraulic lift mechanism seems to be missing. Looming over this part of the park is the Thunderbolt Express. Folks, it hasn't run since 1999, the park is now starting to chop it up and re-use pieces of it elsewhere in the park, it's patriotic color scheme of rust, white and blue is really ugly...this ride is history. I spent the whole day in the park and didn't miss it. What is left now is for the park to tear the thing down. It was nice while it lasted, but the one-time Screamin' Demon is history.
Along the parking lot fence, on the back side of the concessions building, is the kiddie ride midway. This is a set of hand cars, a wet boat ride, ermmm...I think there is a kiddie whip back there, and a tracked car ride. Above the car ride there is a door in the back of the building that backs up to the ride. It's kind of strange looking because the door is unmarked, and positioned about five feet up from the ground. Suddenly I realized that is the clearly marked EMERGENCY EXIT door in the back of the Haunted House. Note to self: When escaping from the Camden Park Haunted House, watch that first step, and try not to land on top of one of the kiddie cars!
I had visited the whole park, and so I went through and visited it all again, this time buying myself a new T-shirt. I was supposed to be meeting my parents here for the evening, but they never showed. I finally found out that they'd had some car trouble and hadn't made it down. Ah, well, they visited the park the following day.
I mention this because there was one recurring problem that I kept encountering. All over the park I kept smelling a very strong scent of sewage. I don't think it's anything the park was doing because I smelled it elsewhere in Huntington and along my trip home. But it has been a hot, dry summer, and this is a hazard of building a park right on a major river. My parents made it to Camden a couple of days later, and they didn't smell the bad smell, but I think there was some rain in Southern Ohio overnight. It was the one unpleasant thing I encountered on my visit. Apart from that, Camden Park is as it has always been: A neat little traditional park. The park is on the mend; it's looking better than it has looked in years, and it looks like it's having some success. It's really worth a visit. It's out of the way, but if you're going from Holiday World to Busch Gardens Williamsburg on IR-64, make a stop at Camden Park. Or better yet, take the trip out of the way. It's worth a visit.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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