I live 750 + miles from Cedar Point, and today puts me in the middle of the one week I'm guaranteed off from teaching and school duties till November, if not December. I make my own time off often, but I thought I'd make the most of this situation by going to Cedar Point as often as possible, and also by checking out Geauga Lake.
I went to opening day and took a good friend who needed to have her pass processed. Even that didn't take very long, and I managed to meet up with Magnum Robert and then Roz (whom I know from RRC a bit) in line. M_R and I went over to dragster first, and a long while later got a front seat rollback.
Yay. hehe.
After that, the day sort of blurs in my head. I know I rode almost everything in the park (excluding Mantis) because my friend, Donna, really likes some of the smaller rides. Wicked Twister didn't start running till late, but it did. MF is running two trains still. Dragster rolled back a bit, but did start running smoothly and has ever since. I guess it's having some problems but it seems more up than down, which is good. Corkscrew looks smoother, I haven't tried it yet. Everything else is more or less as it was at the end of last season, with some new restaurants and some new colors too.
What stands out most for me that day of course is running around and getting to meet Hector and hanging around with new people and making jokes. I rode Magnum a lot too (not surprising with the company I keep, neh?)
The main arcade has some new things. They have world edition derby owners club, which is one of my favorites from Dave and Busters. I am making a note to bring my cards with me some time.
That night Donna and I drove to Cleveland with plans of spending all of Sunday at Geauga Lake. We stayed at the Bertram, in a $250 room which I got for $99. Not bad at all. It's a *very* nice hotel, as in, nicer than Geauga Lake's or the Hotel Breakers. It's also right on Aurora Road. Of course, GL has some really neat day pass and season pass deals with their own hotel rooms, so if you are going after May 14th do check them out.
Geauga Lake was *empty.* It was mother's day. We rode everything in the park in 2 hours, multiple times. And then we did it again. And again. Dominator runs great. I love that coaster. The SLC is smoother than I remember. Villian is running very quickly. Big Dipper wasn't as excited as I remembered, but the trains were better padded. I got my friend on X-Flight even though she was kinda scared, and I remembered just how paranoid I am about getting my hair caught in the wheels. But it also is running well, not all that much more rough than when I first got on it opening season.
It then went up to 90. Well, 85. But on pavement, it was 90. And humid. We ate at the new Happy Harbor Cafe, but even after food and rest we were pretty overheated. It was supposed to rain that day and well, that didn't happen. Anyway, at the HHC they didn't have the sauce I wanted on my chinese stuff, so they ended up giving us a free cookie apiece and a free dessert (strawberries). The food was very good, and the free stuff was more than I usually hope for at a park. We also got discounted giant pickles.
The old wild life side is mostly shut off and kinda sad. The ride op at the bermuda trench simulator is a kick in the pants though, he tries so hard to be entertaining. The act he puts on really doesn't work in the GL shirt though--they need to get him some sort of uniform that matches the ride better.
On the down side, the credit card reader at the main gate was down, and it wasn't working right at a lot of the gift shops either, and at least one ATM was just turned off. After paying cash at the gate I really had no money for the rest of the day. And that's just not good.
We left then, and my air conditioning broke. By the time we were on the turnpike headed for Detroit we just wanted to stop and cool down, so we did at CP.
The second day of operation was pretty busy too. WT was just down. But I did manage to get a couple rides on MF, Mantis, and PT before the park closed for the evening. And I said hi to Hector. We also played some games and won stuff.
I skipped Monday. I *am* driving in from 100 miles away at least.
Today, Tuesday the 11th, I went back alone. I've ridden plenty of rides by myself but never really went to a park alone before. I showed up at 9:30, kicking myself for missing Joe Cool (but well, I had some important personal stuff to do in the morning before hand) and the gates weren't open yet, and rides were just starting to test. *cool* it was kinda rainy, so I guess they just hadn't started up. I shoved my iPod in my pocket and went to stand in line.
Once the gates opened I got 4 rides on MF right away. Red train is still out. The yellow still had water dummies. But there was *no* line. I also managed to make the second train of the day even though I had to walk from Maggie's gates. That was neat. At one point I had seen dragster test, and I headed that way toward Magnum not really expecting to get a ride....
except that Dragster had no line at all, so I got a 15 minute quickie (not front seat) and then went over to Magnum, found Robert, and rode with him for the rest of the day. I think there's only *one* day I might have ridden more coasters and had more walk ons than today, but I could be wrong. The park was empty. Got 3 more rides on Dragster. Got a few more on MF. Rode Magnum, a lot. Eventually it got stormy around 6:30 and so I came back to Detroit.... nearly getting killed on the freeway. *grumble*
Does *anybody* know a route from 2 to 75 that avoids the 280 (270? in toledo?) construction? This semi in front of me completely lost control and his back end hit the cement divider and scared the living heck out of me. I'm getting sick of driving that part.
I plan on returning Friday, and maybe Saturday.
Love you all.
~Jill Anne.
Geauga Dog! 
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