The Park: My 16th, Martin's Fantasy Island
Crowds: Full of kids (A big "kid's karate" day), but no
huge waits.
Weather: Mostly Sunny, a hot one near 80 degrees.
On Saturday, I headed up to Martin's Fantasy Island on
Grand Island near Niagara Falls. Ever since hearing
that there was a CCI coaster there, I've wanted to go.
I picked up my friends Tim in Youngstown and made the
3.5 hour journey up to the park. We stopped in Erie,
PA to get some gas, and we happened to be across the
street from Splash Lagoon, the new indoor
waterpark/hotel. It isn't nearly as massive as Great
Bear Lodge in Sandusky, but it still looked like a
cool place to stay.
We got to the park around 1, and met up with a friend
of Tim's, who used to be a landscaper at the park. The
admission is $18.95, but I got a $3 off coupon from
their website, so $15.95 isn't a bad deal. Without
hesitation, I headed straight for Silver Comet. As I
walked through the main midway, I noticed that the
park was clean, well landscaped and had some decent
themeing.
We got to Silver Comet and were waiting in line, which
was short. A lady had problems getting her restraint
up, so one of the ops tried to help. For some odd
reason, she didn't try to use the wrench to release
the restraints and stuck her hand under the front of
the car. Well, the other op (yes, only two ride ops),
locked the restraints on the ops hand while she was
still working on the car. She screamed out in pain,
and they finally freed her hand from the car. We had
to wait about 10 minutes for everything to get back to
normal, and for a supervisor to come take the ops
spot.
The ride itself reminded me much of Villain at SFWoA.
It had a double down on the run to the first
turnaround, which caught me by surprise. We sat in the
back, but there wasn't much airtime, so I was a little
disappointed. Overall, my first ride was around a 5
out of ten. We moved along to Wildcat, which is very
similar to the Schwarzkopf Wildcat at CP. The only
difference: this ride was incredibly LOUD as the cars
went through the course. There were only 4 cars on the
ride, so a small line was close to a ten minute wait.
The ride was nothing to speak of, fun, but nothing
special. I'd give it a 4 out of ten.
We decided to get on the log flume, called "The Old
Mill Scream!". I guess they took the name from
Kennywood and SFMM.
Once again, they only had 4
boats on this ride, so a short line was around a 15
minute wait. I wasn't in a hurry since the park was so
small, so it really didn't bother me. The flume was a
fun one, it almost looks like it was done in-house.
The weird thing is, I sat in the back, and only my
right side was soaked, while I got little water of the
left side of my body. It was wierd, for sure, but the
water felt good and cold.
We went over to the water park and chatted with John's
sister, who is a lifeguard there. Their "waterpark"
really isn't much. It has a small wave pool, a water
slide, lazy river and a kids pool.
As I made my way around the park, the Zamperla Nitro,
that was supposed to be new for this year, was nowhere
to be found. In fact, it's not even at the park. I
could see in their boneyard, and all that was in there
was the pieces from the Flying Bobs ride they took
down. It was definitely a let-down not to have the
ride they advertised there, especially a Zamperla that
looked to be fun. The rest of the day, I really didn't
feel like riding flats.
John rode their Chance drop tower, which didn't look
fun at all. It seemed like a very watered doen version
of an S&S Double Shot with a stop. Me and Tim both
didn't care to ride.
We got our cameras and took pictures all around the
park. We hopped on the train ride, since it goes
through Silver Comet's structure. I got some great
pictures, but my battery died on me right as I had a
close-up of the first drop from the train. Figures. I
got some spare batteries after the train ride.
Me and Tim rode the Ferris Wheel and took some more
pictures from there. I got some great pictures of
Wildcat, the Log Flume and Silver Comet from there.
We put our cameras in my car (did I mention they had
free parking?), and hopped on the kiddie coaster,
Orient Express. It's a very small Wisdom kiddie
coaster, but I'm a credit whore, so I couldn't pass it
up.
I was sad to see their Cinema 180 temporarily closed,
as I wanted to try one of those out pretty bad. The
other adult rides at the park are a Chaos, Antique
Cars, a scrambler, a slide, and Patriot, which looks
like a 1970's version of a Zamperla Hawk.
We finished up with three more laps on Silver Comet.
We rode once in the front and twice in the back. The
ride had definitely warmed up by now, and we were
getting some GREAT air and laterals. I even got frisky
and took my camera on the ride(they no rules about
cameras), and snapped a very sweet looking picture of
the ride's layout from the top of the lift. It's now
on my desktop.
Riding this ride made me wish
Villain had PTC's. Silver Comet was a lot of fun, and
the ride is actually longer than it looks. It moved
into my #7 wooden coaster position. I'd give the ride
an 8.75 out of ten after my last three rides. It even
impressed Tim, who is a pretty big critic when it
comes to wooden coasters. In terms of CCI's that I've
ridden, it's behind Legend and Raven, but ahead of
Villain and Twisted Twins. I'm sure this list will
change, since I'll be riding Boulder Dash, Sky
Princess and visiting Indiana Beach and Michigan's
Adventure, pushing my CCI count above 10 by the end of
this summer.
I finished my day at the park by getting some
delicious Strawberry Ice Cream by the main gate. We
left the park around 6 and headed home. Martin's
Fantasy Island is a fun little place, and Silver Comet
alone was worth the trip. All of the ride ops wore red
hawaiian-flower shirts, which I thought was pretty
cool. I'm gonna try out the flats there next time I
go, and get some more back seat rides on Silver Comet.
This place could make a nice night visit after a day
at Marineland or SFDL since it's only $6.95 to get in
after 5. I'd reccomend the park to anyone that is
visiting another park in the area.
-Bryan
hahahahahaha
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