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"This place will never be Cedar Point."
I slept later than I had planned on Monday morning, but I wasn't going to let that spoil my plans. I knew that Six Flags at Geauga Lake was only scheduled to be open until 7:00 pm, but I figured I could make it in three hours. This is the park that a few years ago I arrived when the park opened and bailed by 2pm, heading for Cedar Point where it was less crowded, having ridden all the coasters. So even if I didn't get there until Noon, seven hours ought to be sufficient.
I don't make it to this park very often. Partly it is because of the major Ohio parks, it is the furthest from me, at about 125 miles, and it is the most difficult to get to. While Cedar Point is nowhere near an Interstate, it is at least a straight shot to get there. Getting to Geauga Lake, on the other hand, requires driving up IR-71 and then either negotiating an enormous heavy-traffic 35-mph zone of poorly engineered intersections and traffic signals, or it requires literally driving past the park twice to get there. Six Flags is running an advertising campaign right now in which a family claims, "We actually drove past Cedar Point to get here." As I approached the park entrance I considered the path on the map and realized, "I actually drove past Six Flags TWICE to get here!" Dave Bowers suggested last week using the second Solon exit so that the approach to the park would be all right-hand turns. While that's true, it actually goes a very long way out of the way when approaching from the West, and goes over a section of US-422 which can only be described as "in poor condition." So getting to the park is a bit of a challenge. I pulled into the parking lot, something that has improved a bit over the years, but I see they still haven't repainted the stripe down the entrance drive in white, so people turning left off of OH-43 are still afraid to turn into the left-hand entrance lane, on the "wrong" side of that yellow line. I see there is a major retail development being built across the street, so I guess the chance of them putting in a jug-handle as at Darien Lake is pretty much zero now. That retail development is going to have to hire security to monitor their parking lot or they're gonna find it full of Six Flags customers trying to escape the $7 parking fee. I figure one of two things is going to happen ultimately...either Six Flags will ultimately drop the parking fee in response to pressure from the developer across the street, or they will close the parking lot on OH-43 and eliminate the North gate altogether, making everyone park at and enter through the South gate, making the current main parking area available for park expansion.
I paid the $7 parking fee, seeing no readily identifiable alternative. For $7 they ought to wash and wax my car for me while I am in the park! Just how do we send a message to parks that they are charging too much for parking? Protesting the insult of a $3 bottle of pop is easy; simply don't buy the product. But if we are willing to visit the park and don't have another way to get there......It's particularly galling when you have to walk past a petroleum pipeline pump on your way into the park and you know you're not the only one being squeezed here. I collected the camera from the trunk, dumped my knives and headed for the gate.
On the advice of a uniformed officer and the sign he was controlling, I crossed Geauga Lake Road, which got re-routed, but NOT around the back of the parking lot, when X-Flight was built. It was high noon, and I had to choose from two very long lines. One line led to the customer service window; the other led to the entrance gate. Not knowing which line I needed, I bypassed them both and inquired at the entrance gate, and was told that I did not have to stop at the service window. So I joined the long line to enter. Who thought of this setup? High noon, and only one gate open. On top of that, a bank of magnetometers has been set up immmediately inside the gate. All but one of the magnetometers had a trash can sitting in the middle. I removed my camera from its case. The attendant started to give me the spiel about what to remove from my pockets because of the beeping machine. After some prodding I finally got her to hold the offending camera so I could make it through. Talk about making a lousy first impression. No gate staff and a 20-minute wait to get through the front gate. Who planned...or rather, failed to plan...this? I also saw what they were doing about bag searches, and it's a complete waste of everybody's time and effort...not because the search is poorly done, but because it serves no real purpose. And I have a philosophical objection to a search which does not indicate what it is the searchers are searching for; after all, how are they supposed to know when they find it, whatever it is? Do amusement parks really want to feed their customers' lingering paranoia?
Fortunately for me, the tone of my visit was about to change dramatically once I was inside the gate. But before I get into that, I think a bit of full disclosure is in order. Primarily this: For varying reasons, by the time I entered the park I was suffering from a split callous on my right heel. This meant that normal walking was extremely painful. I unconsciously adjusted to this by walking on the ball of my right foot, which threatened to cause a blister on the front of that foot by the end of the day. I was more than a little worried that my right foot would be totally disabled by the time I had to drive home. In fact as I write this on Tuesday night I am sitting at my desk with my feet in a bucket of warm water. Given that Six Flags is a gigantic park with an incomplete loop and no in-park transportation [Footnote 1] you can see that I was in a bit of pain all day long.
I entered and turned to the right. That route would take me into a long loop through what used to be called "Rockville" and down the "50's Midway." Rounding the bend past Mr. Hyde's Nasty Control System...uh, er...Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall, I passed through the gate and under the crane to X-Flight. There was a bit of a line, and I inquired at the entrance. I learned that even though my camera bag will fit very nicely into the seat, I would not be able to take it aboard the ride, so I made a note to come back. That would prove to be a wise decision. Instead, I circled the ride again, and went past the Go-Karts. I noticed that the red ink on the sign in the window had faded so badly that it read, "YOU MUST BE TALL TO DRIVE." Well, it seemed funny at the time. Next to the Go-Karts is the circular fence where the Yo-Yo used to be; that space is now occupied by one of those ubiquitous extra-pay 4-in-1 bungee trampoline thingys with a 200-pound weight limit. Interesting; the top of the sign indicates a 200-pound weight limit; the bottom of the sign gives the elastic configurations for participants up to 240 pounds. Go figure.
Anchoring the end of the midway is Superman: Ultimate Escape. It's funny; it's not that much shorter than Wicked Twister, is it? But somehow it just looks...well...short! Wicked Twister is best ridden in the front of the last car, but I think S:UE gives a better ride up front, so I walked-on to the third row; that is, the front of the second car. I was able to easily buckle myself into the seat, and what I really noticed was the incredible amount of heat being blown off of the station LIMs by the cooling blowers; I have never noticed this much heat coming off of Wicked Twister. Granted, this was one of the warmest days that I have been in a park this season, but still...I wonder if it has to do with the much less efficient parking procedure used on S:UE. On cue, we took off and blasted up the first tower. No, it doesn't hit as hard as the launch on Wicked Twister. But the end of the track comes a whole lot quicker when you go up the tower. And that holding brake at the top of the back spike...well, that's something else entirely. I've ridden both with no wait, and quite frankly I don't think I have a real preference between them. Except that I know each park has a better coaster that I would prefer to be riding.
At Six Flags, the Mind Eraser, a Vekoma Boomerang, is not one of those coasters. But with no wait, how could I resist? I had to laugh when I saw the Corn Nuts sponsorship sign at the ride entrance, the one that said, "Hold On To Your Ears." How appropriate for a ride notorious for being a headbanger! I walked up the ramp to the platform and boarded the train in my favored seat, the front of the last car. This coaster has a Vekoma train, and I found it to be roomy. Even once I pulled the shoulder bar down, I found that I had ample space between the shoulder bar and the side of the train, and thus was able to brace myself against the front of the car. This is the most comfortable train of this style I have been in all season. The trip up the first lift is smooth, and this Boomerang wastes no time at the top. The station brakes open and almost immediately the hook lets go and the train cruises smoothly through the station, through the three inversions, and up to the second lift. The second lift starts smoothly, drops away with a bang, and the ride goes through the whole thing backwards, slamming hard on the station brakes as the train goes through. Of course since the train is running backward at that point, riders are shoved straight back into the seat so as sudden as it is, it's a fairly comfortable stop. Yes, it's yet another Vekoma Boomerang, but it may well be one of the best of its kind.
I walked on around, past the Music Express and the tower that now anchors the end of the park. Walking past Shipwreck Falls I noticed that the signage on this new-for-2000 Hopkins Shoot-The-Chute ride is now consistent. It's Shipwreck Falls, and there is even a shipwreck sitting in the catch basin. I walked on around and through the remodelled waterpark, finding that I could get some good views of Superman in operation that way. The park is filled with some really neat details, and the detail in the waterpark is as well done as the street scene on the 50's Midway. In particular I like some of the signage. Next to the wave pool is one of my favorites...a sign that guarantees "SHARK FREE BEACHES" but has the caveat that there are no guarantees in the water. I noticed that the ferry boats were not running; I noticed that there is now an Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips stand; I noticed that the KFC logo is gone from the chicken stand, though you can still get chicken there. The old ballroom is still standing, and inside is a season pass only restaurant with a menu of pizza and pretzels. It's dark and very quiet inside. I didn't care for it; I went back out to the park. My path took me through the Loony Toons Boom Town kiddie area, which is very nicely done, more than loony enough for just about anybody. About the only way they could make it loonier might be to install vending machines that take Canadian dollars.
I backtracked under the monorail track to the Big Dipper, and took a ride in the last seat of the lead car. This is a most inconsistent coaster. I find that I fit into the seat by myself about as well as I fit into the seat on the Sea Dragon thanks to the thick padding on the seats. I don't care for the headrests on this one, but I can live with them so long as it still has the divider-less seats with the traditional lap bar. That's the good part. The bad part is that while Dave Bowers apparently got a good ride a week ago, I got a pretty lousy ride. The thing was bouncing almost continuously through the ride, behaving as though it is in serious need of major track work. I am beginning to think this ride just doesn't like warm weather. I've had much better rides from this coaster. This time it was terrible. I hate for it to be that way; it really is a better coaster than that, but on this visit it was almost unrideable.
That completed my loop around one side of the park. I crossed over behind the North gate and past the odd fountain forming the main midway. I saw that the T1me W4rp (Chance Double Inverter) was actually running, but predictably only on one side. What a, um, surprise. Not being an Inverter fan, I skipped it. On around the corner I took a quick front seat ride on Serial Thriller. When this Vekoma SLC opened, it was the best-running SLC I had ever experienced, and it demonstrated why the ear pads on the shoulder bars are absolutely unnecessary. Well, the shoulder bars have been changed again. They now come down lower arond the shoulders, more like the original bars that were on Mind Eraser at Adventure World the first time I rode it, though the ridiculous ear pads are still there. I took a front seat ride, something I have not done on an SLC in a while, and it was a good thing to do. The visuals up there, particularly on some of the "thank God for the inversion" moments where it looks like you're about to get your legs chopped off, are tremendous, and it was a good reminder of why I actually like these things. It was also a refreshing experience because the last few SLCs I've ridden haven't been very good. This one is pretty darned good.
I guess this part of the park is now called "Coyote Creek." I walked through the candy shop and made some snide remark about wanting a waffle [Footnote 2]. Double Loop is still out of commission because of whatever rehab it is getting for this year, and that brought me around to the Villain.
The Villain is an outstanding wood coaster from CCI. It's a long ride, meaning that with only one train running, even with few people waiting in line the wait is long. The second train is on the track now, filled with water dummies, but it wouldn't operate all day. The ride is obviously a CCI; you can tell because it just keeps going faster and faster and faster. In the back car, the airtime on this thing is just insane. You know something, though? I never really minded the Gerstlauer trains on Twisted Sisters or Cheetah or even on the Legend. But for some reason, the Gerstlauer train on Villain just doesn't feel right. I don't like it at all. It bangs and scrapes on every turn, it screeches through the twist on the second hill, and I think a big part of my problem with is is that the seat has pretty much no padding on it, and in fact a day later my tailbone is still a little sore from that ride. It just feels like the seat isn't deep enough and isn't cushioned enough for that ride. The trains look great, they just sound wrong and feel wrong. It doesn't make sense, but that's all there is to it.
On around the corner is Roadrunner Express. It's a little kiddie coaster, but with a 20-car train it gives a very odd ride. The last tall hill on the ride has a pair of motors on the peak, and from the ground it looks like the train gets boosted over that hill. But I noticed this is an honest coaster. Yes, there is a pair of motors up there, but there are no drive wheels. So for the moment at least, the ride is all gravity from the top of the lift to the station. I wonder if a shorter train would require that booster motor to operate. Beep beep!
Geauga Lake has a beautiful Mangels-Ilions carousel sitting in Coyote Creek. It's dimly lit because all of the lights have been replaced with these interesting little lights that have many tiny lights inside. It's really quite attractive. Mechanically it's interesting too, as instead of the tipped platform we may be familiar with from Dentzel machines, it has a flat platform and a mechanism that allows the horses to swing outward as the machine picks up speed. Speaking of speed, this thing has that, too...I clocked it at just over 6 RPM, which is really quite fast (Cedar Point's Midway Carousel runs at about 4 RPM, and it's a smaller machine!). I also noticed that this is an all-jumping machine with no standing horses on the outside. It could use some basic restoration, but generally looks decent. Many of the horses have stirrups on them, and the park did something interesting. These are the steel stirrups attached to a leather thong hanging down from a staple in the side of the horse. Used to be all carousels had those things, but on most those have been removed, as they tend to bang around, chipping the paint, damaging the wood and occsionally injuring the riders. Six Flags came up with an innovative solution, welding a steel bracket to the riser sleeve under the horse and attaching the stirrup to the bracket so that it can't move. The only trouble is that the position is way too low on the horse I had. 8-) Anyway, I took a ride, which I clocked at about 7-1/2 minutes, which is the opposite extreme from a Cedar Point flat ride. The one glaring problem with this carousel is the lack of a working band organ. That's a real shame as the last time I heard the band organ operating on this ride it was playing a spectacular roll and it sounded fantastic. I do hope they plan on getting it working again! Add the band organ and this could easily be Ohio's best amusement park carousel!
The Texas Twister (Huss Top Spin) is still out of service. Dave Bowers reported that when he visited the shoulder bars were off. The shoulder bars and lap bars were back, but all the back cover panels are still off. It looks like they are getting closer to finishing whatever it is they did to this thing. It would be interesting to ride this again a short time after riding Tomb Raider to see how they compare.
Batman Knight Flight is the floorless coaster right across from Texas Twister. It's a B&M floorless coaster, and The Other Paper was dead on when they said that it looks better than it actually is. It looks spectacular, particularly built as it is almost entirely over a freshwater swamp. I guess it doesn't count as wetlands removal if you just drive pilings through the muck and build a coaster on top. It rides well enough, but quite frankly, it's a bit dull, and the floorless gimmick adds exactly nothing to the ride. Here's an idea: Let's do away with the floorless gimmick on this ride and replace the train with a Speedcoaster train. There's a gimmick that would add a LOT to this ride! 8-)
As I approached Raging Wolf Bobs, I got an immediate shock and disappointment Right there in front of the ride is the large stone with the words, "Raging Wolf Bobs" attached to it. But on top of the stone, it appears that Bob the Raging Wolf is missing! Hey! There was nothing wrong with that wolf that a little bit of black paint couldn't have fixed. Where did he go? Six Flags, what are you doing? Bring back Bob the Raging Wolf!! The queue structure has been enlarged, and I took a ride in the front of the last car. I chose that seat carefully...remember, this is one of two coasters I know of [Footnote 3] still running the PTC trailered train. The last car is the one car that is actually able to track more or less correctly on the curves because there is no hitch on the back end to drag it the wrong way. I got a halfway decent ride, and in fact the coaster was running better than Big Dipper. I have never seen this thing run two trains; I would so like to get together with people skilled in the art and modify the second train to make it run right just to prove it would work.......
Raging Wolf Bobs sits at a fork in the midway where the back of the park used to be. To the left is an asphalt path squeezed in between Raging Wolf Bobs and Geauga Lake Rd. To the right, a wood-planked floating boardwalk is anchored along the marshy shore of Geauga Lake. These paths extend past the coaster and a house (?!) and reconverge on opposite sides of a Chance Sea Dragon ride that I failed to ride. I walked back on the boardwalk, and was first greeted by the park's Spider, freshly relocated to Shouka's Happy Harbor [Footnote 4] where it, along with a strange looking Zamperla Balloon Race and the park's old Yo-Yo, has replaced a small children's pirate ship climbing attraction.
The Spider was down mechanical with one of its pulley sheaves removed and its countershaft partly dismantled. Although this is a park model ride, I was surprised to see that it has control cables rather than rigid rods. Interesting. The ride looks great, but it isn't running at all.
Next to the Spider is a strange looking ride. The center is a Zamperla Balloon Race, but the tubs, instead of being balloons, are pirate ships. A neat little ride, but when the hydraulics got it up to maximum height, the center started making a very loud rattling noise. The noise quit as soon as the thing started coming down, so I wonder if it might have something to do with a check-valve on the lifting cylinder. The Yo-Yo sits next to the new ride, now sporting a new paint job in blue and white, though the "YO YO" signs are missing. I was also a little disappointed in that the head didn't tilt over, so the best part of a Yo-Yo ride was missing on this ride.
I wandered back into the wildlife portion of the park, but I didn't go very far because my foot was really hurting. I opted instead to take a ride on "Mission: Bermuda Triangle". As simulators go, it really isn't very good, but it is an early version anyway. I think it's similar to the boxes used in the Busch Gardens parks, only the boxes are still in their original configuration with the film projector under the platform and the steeply angled projection screen. I emerged, wandered through the shark exhibit, noting how much nicer it is with the moving walkway turned off so that you can take your time watching the sharks, then headed back for the rides. There was one more ride in Shouka's Happy Harbor before I took the long walk down the asphalt path towards Raging Wolf Bobs. It's an Eli Bridge "Scrambler" although the signs around the ride indicate (with a little translation) that it's apparently to be called "Sw?LE?TSOUPD?". I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. [Footnote 5].
I crossed back over to the ride side of the park. There I stopped at the Mr. Hero Express and got a cheesesteak combo for a little more than $8. That's about what I would pay for the same thing outside the park, except outside I'd get the 12" sandwich instead of the 7". Deduct an outrageous $3 for the drink (packaged with the combo) and it's only $5-something which really isn't a bad deal for halfway decent food. There was still one coaster I hadn't ridden yet, so I adjourned to the car to make proper preparations...ditching my camera in the trunk. I returned to the park and was ready for X-Flight.
As I approached the ride I noticed that while both stations were open and both trains were running, the outside station (left queue) was dispatching empty trains. Suspecting a protien spill, I chose the right-hand queue (inboard station) and after a very short wait (the queue had been half-full earlier; now it was barely to the bottom of the stairs) I was boarding the train. The boarding procedure is quite a lot faster than it was last season. For one thing, the platform crew is noticeably larger. For another, the crew is not bothering with the shoulder harnesses...the rider sits down and fastens the belt, the crew comes by and verifies that the buckle is fastened and shoves down on the lap bar. After all, the shoulder straps are on a retractor and will self-adjust. For me, this means that I was able to leave the straps a little loose and let the lap bar do its thing. Even though the train still reclines in the station, I found it to be much more comfortable than last time I rode. I was still thinking in terms of "positional asphyxia" but mercifully they were quick about getting the train dispatched to the lift. It's a neat ride, but I think Vekoma put the rider's head too close to the track to really get a "flying" experience out of it. Contrary to others I've spoken with, I actually kind of like the pull-out from the vertical loop and the massive forces there, but what I don't like is the downward helix at the end of the ride. Again, you're going head first in a head-down face-down Tomb Raider-type position and it would be a lot neater to fly through it in a head-up position. It's over quickly and you roll head-first on your back into the station. It's a neat ride, but by no means my favorite, and I am very glad that I waited five minutes for it at the end of the day rather than a half hour at the beginning of the day.
When I got off, the day wasn't quite over. I headed over to the Villain, easily the best coaster in the park. Unfortunately I wasn't the only person thinking that way. It had about a 25-minute wait and was still running only one train...though the second train is sitting on the transfer table, filled with water bodies. Maybe it isn't quite ready for the season to start. I love the airtime on Villain, but I really don't like the train. It could be fixed; if the seat padding were like the seat padding added to Son of Beast this year, it would be okay. But landing on that unpadded seat isn't the most pleasant thing in the park.
One last issue. Six Flags has been running television ads in this market that take on Cedar Point directly; the one I have seen features someone saying, "We actually drove by Cedar Point to come here." Well, if the park is inviting comparisons to Cedar Point, it's working. Many times during the day I heard people making comparisons to Cedar Point. The most common comment was that the park isn't Cedar Point, can't be Cedar Point, etcetera. In my opinion, the comparison is unfortunate because the park ISN'T Cedar Point, but it doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be. Six Flags is an entirely different park, and it is a very nice park. Oh, it has its problems, certainly, like the long empty path between Raging Wolf Bobs and Shouka's Happy Harbor; the nasty bottleneck in Gotham City; and the total lack of useful in-park transportation. The fact is, it is a darned nice park, it's a great place to spend a day, and they seem to be doing a better job with basic operations this season. Six Flags doesn't have to be Cedar Point. Instead, it needs to be Six Flags at Geauga Lake, and it needs to get that down perfect. They don't need to be Cedar Point, they need to try harder. If they concentrate on being Six Flags, and if they do that well, they can't lose, no matter what their neighbor to the West does.
They're on the right track. Quite frankly, the biggest complaint I have with the park on this visit is that in order to get home I have to drive down the Leap Frog Highway, IR-71, which is my least favorite stretch of Interstate highway in the State...and it's got huge chunks of it under construction. Personally, I'll be at Cedar Point a lot more than I'll be at Geauga Lake. But for me, it isn't an either/or proposition. I went to Geauga Lake and I had a great time. I hope I can manage to make it back there again this season.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: Actually there is a ferry that runs across the lake, but it wasn't running on the day of my visit. [Return to text]
Footnote 2: Coyote Creek Candies and Fudge used to sell an odd-looking Belgian waffle. Made out of waffle batter (of course) it looked more like a hot dog bun, and was served with strawberries and whipped cream. Delicious. I miss it. [Return to text]
Footnote 3: The other is Predator at Six Flags Darien Lake. [Return to text]
Footnote 4: Now that the park has an Orca again, I presume her name might be attached to Happy Harbor. That name isn't official. Not yet, anyway. [Return to text]
Footnote 5: The first character means "Strong Wind" or "Hurricane"; the second, fifth, and twelth characters don't appear to mean anything at all, and the fourth, sixth, and ninth characters appear to be upside-down. [Return to text]
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