Made the trip up to CP after a 7 year absence, with a friend who had never been before.
It was very hot and muggy on Saturday all day, with clear blue skies and not a rain cloud in sight. We had pre-purchased FL+ for Saturday, and definitely got our money's worth. After arriving to the park right at 10am and not leaving until around 11:30pm, we rode a total of 26 rides. The FL+ was especially valuable on Maverick, Dragster and Valravn, slightly on MF, but on other rides maybe only saved us 10-15 minutes. It was still a solid purchase, considering the line for Maverick was a minimum of 45min-1hr all day long and we just kept literally walking right onto it and waiting 10 minutes of so for the front car.
We ate a late lunch at the Midway Market since their $17 buffet in the air conditioning was maybe a buck or two more than a single burger and fries at a free-standing food shack outside in the 100 degree heat. The salad bar was nice but it would have been nicer to see some other main entree items that weren't all fried or super carby.
I didn't feel so great after lunch, I think the heat got to me, so after unpleasant rides on WT, Gatekeeper and Valravn, we took a couple trips around on the train just to sit and get some breeze, and then stopped into Lusty Lil's saloon show that was by all accounts very enjoyable, but I needed ac and a 15-20 minute snooze, stat. I needed to reset my buttons.
We were able to participate in the Beta testing for Virtual Reality on Iron Dragon. We signed up and were given a time to come back, and we were on the platform and being fitted with the goggles in about 10 minutes. The idea of it is pretty cool, you're in a horse drawn buggy escaping a dragon and trolls and stuff while flying through canyons and off cliffs. Unfortunately both of our headsets were SO blurry, I couldn't hardly make out what exactly was happening, and because of that it started to give me MAJOR motion sickness. It'll be interesting to see if they move forward with the VR. Definitely some bugs to work out.
All-in-all, despite the longer wait times on the more popular rides, I'm very surprised it wasn't as busy as I had expected it to be on a Saturday in July. I don't know if the heat kept the locals away, the heat index was over 100 for most of the day. We walked right onto stuff like Windseeker, Gemini, even Gatekeeper! The normal line for Dragster rarely went past the 1st set of weaving turnstiles all day long. The longest lines of the day were definitely Valravn at 90minutes-2 hours, and probably Maverick at 1hr-ish. I will concede that my perception of "busy" is skewed, as I didn't have to wait in those hour long lines, having the FL+. I remember trips in years past waiting 90 minutes for Dragster and MF, before the Fast Lane system was even rolled out.
Sunday it was was rainy and stormy off and on for most of the morning. We didn't arrive until 11:30 or so after our very long and tiring day before. After being spoiled with the FL+ the day before, and standing in the standby line for Maverick as it moved at a snails pace, we jumped out, went and bought the FL+ at a shop, went and rode Skyhawk and then butted to the front of the line on Maverick, passing the people who had originally been behind us. $149 on Saturday and $105 on Sunday. We justified the cost as we don't pay for flights or hotels. The rain kept up until around 4 although MF was still running, so I dragged my friend to ride it while it was considerably pouring out. I think people coming back into the station were cheering more loudly and laughing more after having ridden it in the pouring rain than they would on a normal sunny day. It was definitely an experience, and we were trying to figure out why the 2nd biggest coaster in CP runs freely in the rain (no lightning) but damn near everything else was shut down. Who knows? From 4pm towards the end of the night, the sunshine came out and we buzzed around riding stuff until giving up on Dragster (which had been down ALL DAY LONG), which would have been our final ride of the trip. We left around 8:45.
Two day ride total came out 41 individual rides including 5 each on MF and Maverick, 4 on Gatekeeper and Valravn, 3 on Dragster (all on Saturday), and 2's and singles on other rides such as the enjoyable Windseeker and not-so-enjoyable ones like the horrid Mean Streak.
In regards to Maverick, I will say that on Sunday in particular, there was a crew of ladies running the whole show that seemed more interested in passing their water bottles back and forth over the train, and who was on the 6pm crew rotation instead of launching trains at intervals that I know they're capable of. At one point the person in the operator's booth was totally spaced out, staring in a daze at the name tape on her water bottle while all the train ops had thumbs up ready to go. She finally got startled back into reality. And then while waiting on our train to launch, the brunette at the outside control podium was talking to the main op through the glass and had to be told by the op on the other side of the train that they were ready to launch. All 6 trains were done, waiting out on the track to pull into the station. She turned around giggling and said "Oh, whatever, it's not like we don't have time." I get the job is repetitive and they don't make much but when people are stranded out in the heat waiting an hour or more for rides, the crew should be rocking and rolling and launching those trains as fast and as safely as the system allows. I don't know if it was just myself and my friend who noticed this, but later on, they were adding a train onto the track and while doing blank runs and then finally filling up the trains with riders, we could see an official looking guy in the booth watching and saying to the main ride op "So-and-so First! So-and-so Second!", watching the ops load and checkout the trains. Maybe somebody else said something or tweeted at CP because I don't think you normally see head-honchos in blazers coming over to the rides for a train addition and commenting on the speed of ops safety checking the trains. It was very interesting. We were annoyed enough having the FL+, I felt bad for the commonfolk stranded back in line having to wait sometimes 2+ minutes between launches, when there are 6 trains on the track and no noticeable mechanical issues.
Favorite seats:
Dragster, Maverick--front
MF--front or middle for max airtime
Valravn--front, farthest end seats
Gatekeeper--front row right side
Raptor and RougaNOPE--I guess front if you really hate yourself
Mean Streak--watch from the ground. I just wanted it to be over. Ouch.
Magnum--showing wear and tear. We were 3 rows from the back and those bunny hops were painful.
Wicked Twister--very back or very front
Side note: If you're looking for a great meal to eat outside the parks, stop by the Brick Oven Bistro. Quite possibly the best pizza I've ever had in my entire life.
You must be logged in to post