Alright, here's the scoop on our last day. We slept in a bit, as we were beat from the day before. We'd thought about getting up a bit earlier and making a quick run to Millenium Force for a quick ride during Joe Cool club, but in the end, we slept in.
We grabbed breakfast In Sandusky, and it was interesting watching ALL of the traffic heading the opposite direction that we were.
We made it to Geauga Lake just past 11:00 am. We had about 9 hours of driving ahead of us when we left the park, so staying until evening ERT wasn't an option. We planned to hit the coasters, and any flats that caught our eye, and then head out. If I had been SMART, I'd have done my homework beforehand, and gotten opinions on the best seats to ride the coasters in. Alas, I wasn't, so on a few of these, I now know I wasn't sitting in the optimal place.
We headed to our right once we entered the park. I was actually using a prak map for the first time in a LONG time. The two coasters that I wanted to ride most were Big Dipper (because it is so old,and I'd heard good things about it) and Dominator (because I'd never ridden a floorless before) I'll go through the rides in the order (roughly) that We rode them.
Time Warp- (walk on) Awful flat ride. Painful automatic restraints taught me how the walnut feels when it's in the nutcracker. And once the ride started, it wasn't much fun.
Big Dipper- (walk on) Rode back seat, and it seemed pretty bumpy in the valleys. I now know that this coaster deserves a front seat ride, which we almost did later in the day, but we needed to get on the road.
Head Spin-
Warning- members of the Vekoma Bashing bandwagon should skip this paragraph Just like the other boomerang I've ridden, it was a short, but fun ride. Always worth a spin if the line is short, and this one was a walk on for the back seat.
Americana- (one cycle wait) Typical Ferris wheel, but it give a nice view of the lake and the other coasters, and I was checking them out, making sure that they were running. From the ride, I saw every coaster operating except Raging Wolf Bobs.
El Dorado- (one cycle wait) Nice falling star ride. the '59 Caddy looking gondola was pretty cool. More of the auto restraints that i learned to hate that day, but these were the most tolerable of them.
About this time, we headed over for the Coastermania EXT free lunch. We joked that they'd probably serve us the same thing that they'd served at CP the day before. The joke lost all of it's humor when we found out that they were, indeed, serving what we'd had the day before at CP. Still, it was free, so I'm not going to complain. besides, I always had the option of a twenty dollar corn dog, ten dollar fries and five dollar coke out in the park. We decided that hot dogs and potato salad two days in a row would be just fine with us. Sat near an annoying woman who unfortunately wouldn't shut up. When she pretentiously mentioned that she is "a negative G kind of gal," My lunch almost became a negative G kind of lunch.
After lunch, we headed back to our riding.
Thunderhawk
This paragraph is also not intended for consumption of the Vekoma bashing bandwagon We waited three cycles for the front seat, but one of those cycles was to allow a disabled guest to ride. Our ride host was none other than TN's Magnum Kelly (who does NOT get to change her name to Thunderhawk Kelly, but is welcome and strongly encouraged to lose her awful avatar) We rode front seat, and it was a great ride, just like the other SLC I've ridden. The double heartline at the end is an awesome element. Just like T2 AND RAPTOR, when you're hanging below the track and getting very twisty, it can bang your ears if you're not holding your head against one side of the restraint. We had an excellent ride.
Dominator- Two cycle wait for the front seat (I now know that the rear seat gives some excellent forces. I'll just have to go back and try it. My first floorless, and I sat in the far left seat, front row. Nice ride, very smooth, and from the front row, you can't see any of the car. I can now be considered a fan of the B&M floorless.
Texas Twister (top spin) This one was another walk-on. The closest I'd come to riding a top spin was the old Earthquake at SFKK. I was expecting the arms to articulate separately of one another and was a bit disappointed when they did not. Still it was a decent ride, even though it had more nutcracker autorestraints.
Double Loop- Walk on for the back seat. The most boring Arrow looper I've ever ridden. The launched shuttle loopers at least give some airtime if you sit right.
Villain- Walk on for the front seat, and again for the back seat. I was expecting a lot from this coaster, and was a bit disappointed. like Big Dipper, it seemed pretty bumpy in the valleys, more so from the back. The airtime was decent, but I'm spoiled from Voyage and Magnum. The Millenium Flyer trains are pretty comfortable. I think I'm glad I never rode it when it had the Gerslaughter trains. The straight flat sections of track where the trick track has been removed looked a bit odd. Even though I expected more, I still liked the ride.
From there, we headed back to Raging Wolf Bobs. I was really looking forward to riding this one, because i just had to know if it is as awful as everyone says. Unfortunately, I still do not know as the entrance was chained off and a park toady was sitting there telling people it was closed. He didn't offer any explanation as to why, nor as to when it would reopen. I noticed that the coaster is in DIRE need of a coat of paint. it looks like a coaster at a park that has been abandoned for twenty years.
It's no secret that GL is in money trouble, and we saw signs of it while there. The lack of paint of RWB was one sign. The waterfall ride was closed, and looked like it had been for a while. The observation tower looks as though it hasn't been open in a long time, and won't be anytime soon. The removal of X Flight was due to high maintenance costs that the park couldn't absorb as well as KI can. We also noticed a SERIOUS abundance of "guess your age or weight" games, and roaming photographers taking your picture so you can buy it. These are certainly attempts to raise quick easy revenue. I would suggect taking about half of the age/weight guessers and 3/4 of the photographers and sending them back to RWB with paintbrushes!
All in all, we had a good time at the park. I'm certain that our intense riding marathons of the two previous days had left us a bit jaded. looking back, I wish we'd had more time to experiment with different seats in some of the coasters, but that (and getting to finally ride RWB)just gives us a reason to go back next year.
Linear Mode
