What
would it be like today if HBJ had bought it in '86?
For
the past three weekends I've gone to Cedar Point. Cedar Point is a great park,
even in large doses, but I was ready for a change. Unfortunately Kings Island
has not been open, and when I was considering my options on Saturday night,
I discovered that Camden Park is open this late in the season, but not on Sundays.
So, figuring for driving range, my next best target was Geauga Lake.
The late season is "-Fest" season at Geauga Lake. I think I just missed "Oktober-" which, like its namesake in Germany, happens in September, and I arrived a week before "Fear-", which is the annual Halloween event. As I am not much of a beer drinker and I have little use for Halloween, my timing was perfect. I encountered some minor difficulties during the drive up (specifically 30 people ahead of me in line to buy gas) and I stopped for lunch, so it was almost 2pm before I entered the park. When I did, I could see that they were well into the Halloween decorating. Cobwebs, spiders, a mausoleum with a sign proclaiming, "Please don't wake the grave keeper" or something like that. Tombstones around the fountain, the whole bit. But it was just decorating, as the Halloween event doesn't go until next week. I particularly liked the use of "KEEP OUT!" signs on the FastLane booth...which was closed because FastLane wasn't in use this day.
For the first time in ages, I didn't head straight for the Big Dipper. Instead, I went left, through the games midway, and past the log flume. The weather was just about perfect, but a little cool for a flume ride. Besides, I didn't like the look of the water. You see, in the water in front of the ride was a shark with some poor guy in his mouth. I speculated that this was one of the sharks guaranteed not to be on the beach in Hurricane Harbor [Footnote 1].
I
went 'round the corner past the shop that doesn't sell waffles anymore, and
made a beeline for the Villain. I walked through the desserted queue,
up the stairs, and onto the platform, where the train had just left. They were
running one train, but they were begging for people to fill it. I took a seat
in the front of the last car when the train came back, and a moment later we
were off.
The
more I ride this thing, the more I like it. Going up the lift, you can see the
park's extensive boneyard to the right (WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO PUT THE ROCKET
SHIPS BACK UP?). At the top there is a quick rollover and a hint of airtime,
then at the bottom it's a little rough on the pull-out, violence magnified by
the effectively-unpadded seats in the Gerstlauer train. The second hill is inline
with the first, and at the bottom is a bit of trick-track that actually feels
more like a mistake. I think the park may be slowly straightening this element
out a bit, as it seemed that it wasn't as violent as I remember it. It still
feels like a mistake. The third hill is a turnaround, followed by a return run
with a couple of smaller hills, leading up to the mid course no-block no-brake.
It's
a break in the action clearly designed to facilitate the installation of a block
brake for 3-train operation. But since the third train is running on Raging
Wolf Bobs, that isn't likely to happen any time soon. There is a bit of
a lull up here, but the ride makes up for it with the long, fast dive off of
this straightaway and an action-packed return run. The ride doesn't slow down
(of course not, it's a CCI) and when it smashes into the block brake at the
end of the ride it feels like it has the energy to go around the course again.
Well, maybe not...but it finishes up with energy to spare, anyway. I got off
and went around a couple of times, riding in the back, up front, and in the
middle. So long as I was careful to keep my back off the seat, I don't think
there is a bad seat on this ride. Overall, it's a great ride spoiled by a not-so-great
train. And to that end, I actually like the Gerstlauer train from a design perspective...it
runs fairly well, it's nice and solid, I really appreciate all the extra grab
handles, and in many ways it is far more accommodating than the PTC trains.
But once the ride starts, it's just so damned uncomfortable because while there's
lots of foam padding, none of it is actually soft.
After a number of rides on the Villain, I decided I ought to see what else the park had to offer, so I went next door to the Double Loop. With nobody waiting and the train still half empty, I took a seat in the last car just before the train left. As I approached, the operator kicked the shoulder bar release pedal on my car, then went up front to secure the rest of the train. When he came back, he locked my car, and I pulled down the bar. We exchanged a few pleasantries at that point, and he knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned the "Arrow dance" practiced on busy days [Footnote 2]. Double Loop is one of the reasons we Ohioans are relatively clueless when people start making sweeping generalizations about how rough Arrow's looping coasters are, as Double Loop is a smooth-running coaster with decent transitions and pretty much no headbanging. When local experience with Arrow coasters includes four mine trains, two suspendeds and three loopers [Footnote 3], and of those three loopers only one is particularly violent, it can be hard to understand the complaints. Double Loop is a great ride, just terribly short.
It's
a great ride, but not a particular favorite. So instead of riding again, I continued
on around Coyote Creek. In the center of this part of the park is the park's
large Mangels-Ilions carousel. 
It's
well-known for being an unusually fast ride (I clocked it at just over 6 RPM
on my last visit compared with 4 RPM on Cedar Point's machine), and through
last season it was also known for having a mute band organ. This year, some
company whose name escapes me at the moment (but which is posted on, appropriately
enough, a post next to the entrance) has taken over the maintenance of this
organ and now it sounds absolutely FANTASTIC. So now the machine is worth
a ride just for the chance to hear the organ in action. Something else has changed
on Geauga Lake's carousel not just since last season, but since my
last visit back in July. Each horse now has a nylon strap looped and stitched
around the suspension pole, with a side-squeeze buckle on the end. Huh? I thought
that if these things weren't illegal in Ohio, at the very least they were strongly
discouraged. Then the accompanying announcement: Anyone sitting on a horse was
to have the belt fastened around him. Here we have a ride that still has stirrups
only on randomly selected horses, but everybody gets tied to the pole. I don't
understand it. At best, the straps are silly. At worst, they're dangerous, particularly
where small children are involved. I guess they wanted to do something to make
the ride look safer, and nylon belts are simpler and cheaper than steel footpegs.
I
just hope nobody was sitting on the affected horse two rows ahead of the one
I was on when the crank arm broke...or at least wasn't tied to the thing. The
fact that everybody else seemed to be just as confused as me suggests that the
belts have been added VERY recently.
On exiting the carousel, I encountered another of those Ohio Park Frustrations. There seem to be some unwritten rules about Ohio parks that I just don't understand. One is, of course, that apparent rule that no wood coaster in Ohio taller than 50' is permitted to have a decent train. The one being dealt with this time around is that in the month of September, all bumper car rides must be converted into haunted houses. Why the bumper cars? Have they no picnic shelters? Do they not understand that park visitors like bumper cars? Maybe Kings Island will still have bumper cars this fall. Cedar Point and Geauga Lake have both shut theirs down for the fall. Grrr.
Exiting
Coyote Creek, I passed the Silver Bullet, Geauga Lake's Enterprise.
It consisted of a queue, a fence, a main boom, and a center hub. Though it was
listed on the "closed attractions" board at the park entrance, the
park did not apparently think it necessary to post a "CLOSED" sign
in front of the ride. I've often wondered why other parks tend to do that. At
Darien Lake, their Seesturmbahn was mostly torn down, many of the tubs
off, parts everywhere, wiring hanging out...and they had to put a "Ride
closed today" sign on it. Kennywood's Musik Express didn't even
have any seats on it but a sign on the entrance ramp said, "Sorry...Closed."
At Cedar Point the Monster was completely torn down so that only a foot-tall
piece of electrical conduit sticking up from the concrete remained, and yet
the park felt a "Ride closed today" sign was needed. Are park
visitors that dense, that they have to be told that the ride which is mostly
absent is closed today? Apparently Geauga Lake doesn't think so. Whether
it is because they don't want to bother or it's because they don't feel a need
to insult the customer's intelligence, Geauga didn't bother with the totally
unnecessary sign.
Across the midway, Batman Knight Flight was a walk-on...and it was running two trains. I took my first-ever front-seat ride on this B&M floorless coaster. You know what? I still think the floorless train is a dumb gimmick, and I still think Batman is an uninteresting headbanger. I still think that if they want a really good gimmick for this ride they should give up on the floorless idea and go with the Speed Coaster train. Anyway, it's not that Batman is a bad ride. It isn't a bad ride. In fact it's a pretty good ride. It just isn't an outstanding ride, either. It's a bit like Double Loop in that regard. It's a showpiece ride, it's popular, it's high capacity, it's beautifully situated on the edge of the lake, and it just sort of is. It's fun, but you just don't think about it much.
For the time being, I proceeded up the hill, stopping to take a very close look at the Skycoaster. The attraction was closed for the day, but from the midway I looked as closely as I could. This particular unit, like the one that had the recent accident, has the rolling staircase, hence my interest. What I noticed was that the staircases (it's a double model) were pulled all the way back on their tracks and secured in place with a strap attached to the equipment housing (brake unit?), wrapped around one of the legs of the frame and hooked to itself with a carabiner. So hooked, the staircase isn't going anywhere. But I didn't see any sign of a prox switch, photo eye, cat's whisker, or anything else to operate an interlock to make sure the ladder is clear before the rider gets hoisted up. So assuming the unit that suffered that little incident is similar, it appears that a procedure wasn't followed properly, and the design of the system is not configured to mechanically prevent such an incident. Interesting.
On up the hill, past the closed rapids ride, is Raging Wolf Bobs. The early Summers/Dinn coaster was conceived as a taller, faster, smoother interpretation of the Riverview Bobs. It seems to have been a test-bed for a number of failed ideas, most notably the PTC trailered train. Well, that thing is gone this year, but its legacy lives on. Actually it isn't entirely gone; on my last visit I saw the cars piled up in a disused picnic shelter beneath the Double Loop. Anyway, this year, Raging Wolf Bobs is running a Gerstlauer train stolen from the Villain. They have taken a heavy train that actively fought against the curves and replaced it with a lighter train that doesn't deal with curves at all. They've also re-tracked the back half of the ride...not just re-capping the track, but totally rebuilding it, strengthening the structure, dramatically increasing the number of track-ties, and applying wider track steel. When the train reaches the new portion of the ride, in addition to a significant change in the ride quality, there is also a distinct change in the sound of the ride. What is particularly interesting, though, is the behavior of the ride in the first section, where the track has not yet been replaced. The trailered train had a distinct shuffle to it, a constant back-and-forth motion in the curves which seemed to be a periodic motion with a frequency defined by the length of the car. This makes perfect sense, as it describes with some precision exactly the mis-tracking that should be inherent in the trailered PTC train. It follows, then, that the Gerstlauer train, not as heavy as the PTC, and constrained with an inability to rotate at all relative to the curve, ought to slide more smoothly around the curves. The surprising thing is that not only does it not track significantly better than the trailered train in the first half of the ride, it exhibits exactly the same shuffling motion as the trailered train. There is no logical mechanical reason why it should do that, just based on the ride profile...if there were, the train would do the same thing on the new track at the end of the ride. My hypothesis, then, is that because the motion of the trailered train was periodic and predictable, the damage that train did to the track is also periodic, creating a wear pattern on the curves that pushes the Gerstlauer train to behave like the old trailer. It's only a hypothesis, mind you, but it seems to fit.
 The first pass through the helix hasn't been repaired yet... |
 ...Directly below, notice the closer track tie spacing for the new track. |
Raging Wolf Bobs was operating with a "walk on and stay on" crowd. I rode in the back, then rode up front, and even returned later for another ride or two. Next year, once they get the first half of the ride rebuilt, Raging Wolf Bobs should be a decent coaster again. I just wish the Gerstlauer train had a little padding in it.
I took the quick walk alongside Raging Wolf Bobs back to Sh***'s Happy Harbor, and rode the flat rides back there. I missed the Spider and the Balloon Race, and the Yo-Yo was in about the same condition as the Enterprise (and again without the insultingly obvious sign). They have a Chance Sea Dragon which has clearly seen hard use and better days, judging from its appearance. But that's a poor way to judge this ride, as it runs high, smooth, and fast. In the words of Han Solo, "She doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts." I can make almost the same comment about the Scrambler. Scramblers never seem to look quite as good when painted as they do in their natural aluminum skins, but this one doesn't look bad. There is an interesting innovation on the tubs, as a Lexan™ sheet has been attached to the outboard side of each tub just below the pin latch so that the safety pin won't bang up the paint. I also noticed that the operator was balancing the ride with the help of a seating chart hand-written on a post next to the entrance gate. She was balancing the ride...and according to my notes, the Scrambler is a ride that doesn't even have to be set up level! Anyway, it runs nice, with very little of the bumping and jerking that often plagues older Scramblers in need of pins and upper unit pole bearings.
On through the park, I realized what a convoluted mess the paths are in the former Sea World, no doubt an attempt to disguise the fact that it really is a very small park. The twisty paths and short sight-lines are a sharp contrast to the Geauga Lake side. Speaking of sharp, I stopped over at the big tank to say 'hi' to Shouka, the park's orca.. She wasn't performing at the time, but her colleagues were running her around the tanks a bit, and at one point she was tossed a handfull of fish. Most of those fish missed their mark and landed short of her open mouth. Initially I was thinking it looked like Shouka had an eating disorder, but it really isn't her problem if the person with the bucket can't manage to hit a gigantic mouth from 3' away. Hmm...maybe if the whale training gig doesn't pan out she can get a job with the Cavaliers.
Now that I think about it, the trainer's poor aim IS Shouka's problem, it's just not her fault. 8-)
When I approached the Bee Bee, a small version of the Huss Swing Around, the ride was not operating. The reason quickly became apparent...a man in a blue shirt was busily swapping out the amplifier for the ride's PA system. On his say-so, the operator graciously allowed me a ride. No real need for a PA with only one rider. I like the larger Swing Around ride better, but the Bee Bee has a more interesting ride program. This one came from Kentucky Kingdom. I wonder if they miss it down there. It fits in real nice here.
The ride I am sure is not missed from its former home at The New Six Flags Marine World Africa USA Theme Park is the Starfish, a Chance Wipeout. As I approached, two kids and (presumably) their Mom were attempting to board, but were having a little trouble because, thanks to problems experienced with the ride in the past, the ride has a rigid NO SINGLE RIDERS policy, and they were the only three people waiting to ride. I was happy to solve their problem for them by riding with 'Mom'. She was not familiar with the ride. Personally, I like the Wipeout except for that one bit at the end of the cycle where the disc spins at full speed, the boom comes down about half-way, and the turret moves very slowly in the same direction as the disc. That part is a bit much, but otherwise, the Wipeout is a pretty neat ride.
Having visited all of the rides on this side of the lake, I returned across the floating bridge which took me to the boardwalk right behind the waterpark. The waterpark was, of course, closed for the season. This year's expansion of the waterpark has resulted in some interesting shifts, in that the monorail station and the observation tower are suddenly both positioned within the bounds of the waterpark, so neither one was operating. I got a bit of a chuckle out of a couple of signs; the first was posted on the entrance to the waterpark: "Closed for Hurricane Season." Of course the wording was chosen because they call the waterpark "Hurricane Harbor" or some such, but knowing that Isabella had just blown through the mid-Atlantic coast a couple of days earlier, it seemed somehow appropriate. Then, a little further down was a sign claiming to point the way to the first aid station...with an arrow pointing right at the Mind Eraser exit platform.
The Mind Eraser is, unlike all the other Mind Erasers out there, a Vekoma Boomerang. As there was no wait, I took a ride, and as has always been the case with this particular Boomerang, it runs smoothly, with a minimum of rider abuse. To the extent that a Boomerang can be considered "good," this one is.
Right
behind the Mind Eraser is Superman: Ultimate Escape, the first
Impulse coaster with a twist on the forward spike. Something about it wasn't
quite right. The train was parked halfway down the launch track, actually at
the spot high above the Go-Kart track. A maintenance man was standing on top
of the train, examining something in the overhead track, climbing over all the
seats as he did so. So the ride was out of service, but repairs were underway.
I went around to the Big Dipper.
The Big Dipper is the oldest wood coaster in the State of Ohio, one of two coasters in this state built by John Miller, and this season the only one of those two coasters actually operating. Other statistics are that it is one of only two operating coasters in Ohio with skid brakes, and one of only five with drop-down lap bars. Its train is a reproduction of a NAD train. While it looks decent, if a little silly with the extended seat backs, I think when the train was built it must have been shortened a bit from the original design. The "door" opening is only about 6" wide and is nearly useless for getting in and out of the train. Likewise, the space between the seats is really tight. The padding is very thick and very soft, and Geauga Lake thoughtfully provided a pad right in front of the seat and below the lap bar for your knees. Now if Sea World had only done the same on "Mission: Bermuda Triangle" [Footnote 4]! I squeezed into the train, pulled down the lap bar, and shortly was on my way up the lift.
Since my visit to Conneaut Lake, I've about decided that these NAD-type trains, while they are nice and cushy to ride in and are, in their fully restored condition, beautiful to look at, I think they must be hard on the ride. They're heavier, as I understand it, than PTC trains (which are REALLY heavy), they have a longer wheelbase, they don't track well, and they seem to cause the ride to develop a rhythmic bounce which is not entirely pleasant. Big Dipper suffers some additional indignities as well. It's an out-and-back ride, with the lift hill folded in between the station and the return leg. There is a bit of a dogleg in the layout, and the combination of the folded lift and the teardrop-shaped turnaround at the far end mean the outbound and return tracks are side by side. It's a nice coaster with lots of airtime, but it also suffers from bad track. It's a really rough ride beyond the violence inherent in its profile, and the far end turnaround curve is...er...well it isn't really a curve at all, more like a series of splines, a little like Raven's first turn out of the station in its opening year, only longer and faster. In the end, it's a good ride that fails to be a great ride due to is unnecessary roughness. Speaking of which, the Big Dipper train uses an unusual style of coupler, with dual interlocking drawbars, held apart by a compression spring. That way, when the train goes up the lift, for instance, the train actually stretches out, compressing the spring. The springs on my porch swing work the same way. It's an interesting arrangement, and seems to work OK when forces are pulling the cars apart. But in the station, the computer applies the brakes to the front of the train, and the cars all bump together and bounce a little. Furthemore, because people who write coaster control systems seem to be obsessed with keeping train speed to a minimum while moving through the station, the run from unload to load causes the couplers to telescope and bump together four or five times. Hmmm...Perhaps there should be an internal extension spring to prevent that...
Having ridden the Big Dipper, I'd finally been all the way around the park. I had planned to skip X-Flight as it isn't a particular favorite, and I keep having unpleasant experiences on it. Instead, I went around the park again, walking on to Serial Thriller. Serial Thriller, a Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster, when it opened was the first one of the model to not...stink. Its ride quality has deteriorated a bit over the years, though some of that may be related to the application of rideability "fixes" that this particular SLC installation didn't really need. Like the ear pads on the shoulder bar, for instance. Anyway, today the ride was a walk-on, but oddly enough they were operating both trains. One train was cycling empty, but both were running for no readily apparent reason. Once on, I could stay on board all afternoon if wanted. I got on in the back row, then moved to the front, since the other people aboard had picked a random seat in the middle. After I got off, they sent the train around with one rider. If the park weren't so dead to begin with, it would be sad to see so few people riding. But there are reasons for that which have little to do with the ride. Serial Thriller is beautifully located right on the shore of Geauga Lake. No, that's not quite right. Serial Thriller is beautifully located right on Geauga Lake's swampy, soggy, Federally protected total lack of shore. Much of the ride is supported on large poured concrete blocks sitting atop pilings driven into the muck. This puts the ride a good 20 feet or more below the midway, and quite some distance back from it. So getting to this ride is only slightly less of an excursion than getting to Top Gun at Kings Island. And this is "only" a Vekoma "hang-'N-bang". Better than most, but still fairly standard fare. So with better options to choose from, most people...choose other options.
I took a few rides, then went back up the hill. Wrapping around, I took a ride on the Haybaler, which is a Mack Matterhorn ride. A few years ago, Geauga Lake mysteriously welded a seat belt buckle to the side of each car and attached a short belt to each of the non-latching lap bars in an effort to make the bars kind of latch. Since my last ride they have also put seat belts in the tub and added a clear plastic foot guard to the inboard edge of the tub. What is missing is any kind of damping device for the lap bar similar to the cylinders on the ones at Cedar Point...let go of the bar on this one and it SLAMS HARD into the seat under its own weight. Gotta be careful with that one, but at least it explains all the banging noises during the load cycle. The ride runs well enough, certainly giving a much smoother ride than the Chance version (Flying Bobs).
It was about 5:30 when I returned to the Villain, figuring that in the not-at-all busy park I would get quite a few rides on the park's very best roller coaster. Unfortunately I was mistaken. I mounted the platform and took a seat in the next train. The platform attendant came along to check lap bars, and when he got to me he said something which caught me completely off-guard:
"Sorry, Sir, I'm afraid I can't let you ride with your glasses."
Excuse me? Why was this perfectly OK just a few hours ago? Those who know me know that of all the potential issues that come up in a park, this is the one...probably the only one...where I am particularly inflexible. I don't ride ANYTHING without my glasses. It's a matter of my safety, because they provide a bit of protection from the debris that I usually end up scraping off of the lenses, and it is a matter of the safety of those around me as if I am unable to see clearly I am more likely to blow my last meal all over the train. And finally, it isn't a loose item issue, as I've had them properly fitted, and it would take a stick of dynamite to knock them off...and if that is happening we've all got big problems.
Unfortunately, this attendant was in the mood to be equally stubborn. So I told him to let me out of the train, which he finally did. My next stop was the customer service window at the front gate. They couldn't come up with an explanation for what the policy actually is, or why it changed in the middle of the day. They did offer me a "skip any line" pass for my inconvenience, but I pointed out that there were no lines in the park on this particular afternoon for me to skip. I just hope they get their act together on this. Attendants should not be making up rules as the day goes on, and a rule that applies to a significant portion of the population ought to be posted somewhere. Or, they should adopt the same policy as elsewhere in the park, where it's my problem as a rider, not theirs as a park, to make sure that I don't lose anything on the ride. When are parks going to realize that many of us nearsighted people are accustomed to wearing our spectacles at all times (the only thing I wear more than my glasses is my wristwatch...) and we know how to not lose them? Sheesh!
Well, so much for the Villain. I went back the other way, and made the mistake of riding Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall. I haven't ridden Demon Drop this season yet, and Mr. Hyde reminded me of why I haven't. I walked up to the platform and boarded, pulled down the badly-designed shoulder bar, and waited. We rattled backward into the elevator shaft and cruised to the top. At the top, with more clanking and banging than should ever come from any ride, the car pulled forward and aligned with the drop track. With much metallic fanfare, the car dropped, gently lowering us onto our backs as it pulled into the brakes. We passed the switch, then stopped so suddenly I think I must be 3" shorter now. Oh, never mind that...the car reverses onto the switch and turns upside-down for an instant as the lowering conveyor fails to catch the bottom of the car with a mighty crash, the car swings to an upright position and lands on the return track with a thud. We then rattled and banged our way back to the unload point. This ride has fewer redeeming qualities than Son of Beast! I got off and high-tailed it for the end of the midway.
Superman: Ultimate Escape was operating until I showed up. I hadn't planned to wait around for maintenance to repair it, but I met up with some unaffiliated coaster nuts (well, not totally unaffiliated...they were former park employees) and we talked for a half-hour or more about the park. Finally, the maintenance man replaced the thingamajig and adjusted the whatchamacallit that had been making unpleasant noises, and the ride reopened. Compared to Wicked Twister, Superman is a great front-seat ride, although in the back you get to hear the LIMs straining on the back spike when the train holds at the top. The ride is a showcase of all the neat things you can do with LIMs...drive them in either direction, run them at stall, inch forward and backward...all neat stuff. A number of rides in a number of seats, and I realized my day was nearly over. I would have preferred to spend the end of the day riding the Villain, but clearly that was unlikely to happen, so I opted for the Big Dipper instead.
As with everything else in the park, Big Dipper was a walk-on, and once aboard, I just kept riding. It was a half-dozen rides or so, then it was time to go home.
The park is severely understaffed right now, and they'll hire just about anybody with a pulse. For that matter, people without a pulse can sign on to work the Halloween attractions. Anyway, they're severely hurting for people. Heck, on this day they were severely hurting for customers, too, in spite of the beautiful weather. And yet every coaster was operating, most of the shops were open, many of the games were operating, and there was food to be had. The only rides that were down for the day were down for reasons of mechanical disassembly (Enterprise, Yo-Yo) or because of their location inside the water park (Observation Tower, Monorail). Okay, the Skycoaster was closed, too...how often do you see a park sacrifice an upcharge attraction on a low staff day? And yet that is precisely what this park did. And as for the quality of the help...well, I saw a few examples where the park could have done better. But except for that one guy on the Villain who was apparently making up rules as he went along, I honestly didn't have any problems with anybody. There are noticeable improvements in the park in many areas (did I mention they've cleaned up the gum walls on the Double Loop and Raging Wolf Bobs entrances?) and it looks like the park is finally starting to grow into the showcase that Six Flags wants. They still have a long way to go, and I doubt they will ever surpass Cedar Point as Northern Ohio's amusement park. But if they leverage their strengths carefully, it won't matter. The important thing is, they have taken positive steps over the past two seasons to stop chasing customers away. With the small crowd, I would expect far less of the park, but on this September Sunday, I ended up having a pretty good time.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: A sign in Hurricane Harbor proclaims, "Guaranteed shark-free beaches! (No guarantees in the water)" [Return to text]
Footnote 2: STOMP! 2 3 4 STOMP! 2 3 4 STOMP! 2 3 4 STOMP! 2 3 4 STOMP!...turn around...KICK! 1 2 3 KICK! 1 2 3 KICK! 1 2 3 KICK! 1 2 3 KICK!...turn around...Reach! Stretch! Step! Step! Stretch! Reach! Step! Step! Step! (repeat 4x) Knock! Knock! Turn around...Pause...walk 30', repeat entire sequence. [Return to text]
Footnote 3: Mine trains--Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Gemini, Magnum XL-200, Adventure Express; Suspendeds--Iron Dragon, Top Gun; Loopers--Double Loop, Corkscrew, Vortex. [Return to text]
Footnote 4: A simulator so bad that I skipped it on this visit. [Return to text]
--DCAjr
Next: Paramount's Kings Island (#7)
Back to Trip Reports 2003
