Fall 2018 Theme Park Trip-Day 11

Last full day here in beautiful Sandusky Ohio.

Being a Sunday, I needed to do a longer run for my marathon training. Not being familiar with the area I did a run, but didn't do the total mileage that I wanted. Running along the causeway that leads out to the park, it gives you a different perspective than you would as you cruise along at 30 MPH getting ready to ride the coasters. At home, along my route I know there are places with restrooms in parks and water fountains. Not so with this run. So I ended up cutting it short. But, at least I got in something.

The weather today has been really warm. I have been using a long sleeve shirt and then I have a second layer of a short sleeve shirt that buttons down but I leave open. It got warm enough that I went into the restroom and took off the long sleeve and just used the short sleeve shirt.  To keep the ladies at bay, I made sure to button up the shirt.


With yesterday's purchase of the season pass, I was allowed into the park an hour early. Immediately head to the back of the park to take in Steel Vengeance. Hiking back there takes time and even with just the passholders in the park, the first ride took 1 hour to complete. But able to take in a few more coasters before the park really got going.

Nice thing about days like this is you have your goals done and you can just relax, walk around, take in some of the smaller details. Go over to the petting zoo and pet some of the llamas they have there. They had the indoor haunts open and I did a couple of them. They were good. The lighting was such that you could see the scenes and the actors which was so nice as compared to the outdoor mazes of the previous nights.

As I walked around the park and rode the rides, the staff seemed to be very efficient, but in terms of friendliness, they were focused. Let me get your your drink, food or up and running on the ride. The associates just did what they needed to do. For me, that meant that I was able to get on and off the rides quickly.  Except for the Giant Wheel. I waited in line and when I got to the front, was told they don't allow single riders. That was the first time that I've been rejected for the number in the party as compared to the weight/size of the rider.

Cedar Point has a long history and that includes a train so a train ride was necessary. They had some scenes set up to add to the experience, but there was something else that really caught my eye. There are so many coasters at the park and as you ride the train, it really becomes apparent. The excursion leads you next to so many parts of the track but more so the support structures. Up along the midway the area is designed so that you have lockers and booths and buildings. But there in the back you really get to see what is making up these rides. It was a fascinating look behind the scenes.

The one ride that I wanted to do a second time but wasn't able was Top Thrill Dragster. It had been marked in the app as being closed. There was staff on the platform and trains on the track, but there was nothing going on not even test runs of the vehicles. I was hoping to see some testing with a possible roll back, but...nothing.

While the park was open until 8pm, I decided to call it a day around 5pm. This is such a long trip and with limited clothing with me, I ended up back at the room and did laundry. At home I line dry my clothes so it was a change of pace to end up using a dryer for the first time in ages.

I thought about going to Chet and Matt's for dinner, as I've heard lots of good things about this location from other coaster enthusiasts but decided that the diet needs to keep some semblance of order so I decided to pass on this trip.

Laundry, packing and getting items lined up for Orlando's adventure that starts tomorrow.

Fall 2018 Theme Park Trip-Day 10

Today was day two at Cedar point.

The goal was to finish up the coasters that I didn't get yesterday. I didn't spend any time trying to repeat anything. I ran into two problems. The first was with Wicked Twister. It was listed as closed on the app. When I went over there, the sign said one hour, but the app still said closed and there was a sign saying closed but there were people in the station. The other was Wilderness Run. That is in Camp Snoopy. The problem is that if you are an adult over 54 inches you can't ride alone unless you had a small child with you. So on the latter, it was a no go. With the former, I was at Wicked Twister at the right time and got on without a wait when they reopened it.

So from opening until 6pm I was able to get the coasters and some of the flat rides. Mission accomplished!

One of the items that I think would be very helpful is if Cedar Point would standardize what you do at the coasters. Some of them have no bins, some have bins, some only have lockers, some have bins but the sign says leave in locker, some have bins that are only for loose footwear. It would be great if they could get the signage to match what is at the coaster at least.  With the lockers, they need to put up some barriers so that there is shading on the screens. There were several times when I had a real hard time trying to use the screen as it was washed out by the sun.

I also tried a couple of eating locations and couldn't find any place that had unsweetened iced tea. For those of us trying to avoid sugar, the only option was for water.

Lastly,  if I had paid for the Halloweekends event, I would have asked for my money back. I tried the event tonight. I went through another scare zone and then two outdoor mazes. To me the mazes were horrible and the scare zones weren't much better. The biggest issue is the way the lighting and the fake fog interact. The lighting blinded you so you can't see any detail in the sets they had set up. All the details were lost. The players, you couldn't see any details about them. They were backlit and their faces and the makeup or masks were obscured. There was confusion as to were areas began and how the lines were supposed to be lined up. The app didn't give much clarification on these items. again, it was a good thing that it was included and not a separate charge item.

I'm going to head to the park tomorrow. I had purchased a two day ticket. For a third day, I'd have to buy a new ticket. I'd also pay for parking. BUT, Knott's is a Cedar Fair park so I talked to customer service and made the decision to upgrade to a platinum pass. So I'm covered for two more park days and have the parking covered. Weird to be a pass holder for such a short time.

One aspect of the fall season is how the parks decorate outside of the Halloween theme. I really liked all the pumpkins, corn stalks and squash and bounty items scattered around. Due to the difference in the seasons in Hawaii, these sort of decoration really aren't used. It brings back a lot of memories growing up in Massachusetts.

Something I have to give Cedar Point a big thumbs up about is the mark parking spot portion of the app. When you park you can go into your profile and click the save parking location. It shows a google map image of the parking lot with a dot of where you are within the huge parking lot. When I left the park, it changed to Return to Car. I click on that it and showed the dot where my car was parked and another dot where I was. It was very helpful!

Tomorrow will an attempt to run and at the park repeat rides on a couple of coasters and then probably call it a short day so that I can get a bit of rest and updates processed before flying to Orlando on Monday.

Fall 2018 Theme Park Trip-Day 9

Well, I have day 9 listed but the last post was day 4, what happened to the days in between you might be asking? Well, those weren't days spent at a theme park or traveling to/from one. I went back to the Boston area to visit my family. It's been 6 years since the last time I saw them which was when I returned for my mom's funeral. Briefly, it was a emotionally weird trip as I spent most of the time cleaning up my old bedroom. I moved to Hawaii in 1990 with the idea that I would be returning. That didn't happen. This trip makes trip six back and each time I've shipped items back. I have a number of items that I'm shipping back to myself in Hawaii so that I can scan them since I have the devices and software to be a good job doing it. I'll cover issues and feelings while home in another post later.

Meantime, today was a very exciting day. I flew into Cleveland for the second time in my life. The first time I was visiting my Walt Disney College Program trailermate Jim and that was back in 1988. But it wasn't the fact that I was in Cleveland, but that fact that I was on my way to Cedar Point, the East Coast Roller Coaster Capital of the US. The park was open tonight for their Haunt event. My goal is to get my coaster count up.

I arrived and got misty eyed. It was so excited that I finally am doing something that I talked about doing for a long time. As I was driving into parking lot I had that night before Christmas feeling about it. I'm walking in feeling like I'm walking on air as I had an electricity just exciting me as I moved to walk under the Gatekeeper keyhole structures. As I walked in, my head turning left and right looking around taking it all in for both the coasters that surrounded me and the park being decked out for their Halloween event. I also had chills due to both the excitement and the temperatures. I'm really glad I brought the long sleeve shirt.

I figured I'd get the newest, most popular ride out of the way first and Steel Vengeance is all the way at the back of the park. Even though I got there when the park opened, I still ended up waiting for the better part of an hour to ride. I don't know the exact time as they don't want to see any cell phones in line and I put mine in a locker. I did start a conversation with the group of people in front of me. One facet that I have going for me when I do talk to people is that I live in Hawaii. People want to know about Hawaii.  While waiting in line, the park was showing promos on monitors through out the queue . I was surprised that my old In the Loop co-host, Adam House was featured. Unfortunately, I was too far way from the monitor and holding a conversation to hear what Adam was discussing.

In the next line for Maverick I started a conversation with a family who comes from Michigan and the kids in college coming from New York join up for a family event. They highly recommended doing the Haunt events tonight and the rides tomorrow as they said the park will be crowded. I walked around a bit and did one maze and was not impressed. The scare area and the maze had, in my opinion, poor lighting. I couldn't see the objects or people as I had lights flashing in my face. Due to the back-lighting, I couldn't tell if the person coming towards me was a monster or a fellow park attendee. I could hear grunting and yelling and other noises, but couldn't see how the monster was decorated.

The rest of the night was spent riding coasters and doing a bit of shivering as the chill winds blew in from Lake Erie. I know that tomorrow I'll make sure to bring a third layer to have with me. I'll leave it in the car. I'll also be talking to park staff to see if I might save some money by getting a 2018 season pass as I'll be going to Knott's Berry Farm who has Cedar Fair as their parent company as well.

Until then...

Fall 2018 Theme Park Trip-plans and planning

Looking back it's been two years since my last post. Time to fix that.

Well, I have another big trip coming up and am totally ecstatic about it. I am about to get a full month off from work. I've been working to make sure there is another person in the office that knows my skills. I'm one that I'm not afraid to share everything that I know.

Travel plans include Dollywood and Pigeon Forge area attractions, going to Boston to visit family. Heading to Cedar Point to the East Coast coaster capital. Time in Florida will include Universal Orlando and Halloween Horror Nights, the Disney parks including Food and Wine Festival and Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, Legoland, Florida Zipline Coaster, Star Flyer, and Fun Spots. In California the West Coast Legoland there in the San Diego area and their SeaWorld plus Belmont Park in the "extreme south" are the plans. Traveling north to Anaheim and the Disneyland resort including Mickey's Halloween Party, Knott's Berry and Scary Farms, Santa Monica Pier, Universal Hollywood, Six Flags Magic Mountain the West Coast coaster capital...possibly their Halloween event and then the Warner Bros Studio Tour and their Halloween event. So Heartland, East Coast, Mid West, the South and West Coast will be covered on this trip.  I am so appreciative that I have the ability to do this.

Along the way I plan to meet up with a number of people. Some are coaster buddies, some are Disney pals, others are college friends and some are former co-workers and podcasters. So while I may be traveling solo, I won't be doing everything as a single.

Surprisingly enough, when I was trying to make the travel arrangements, I wanted to maybe do trains between say Sandusky, OH and Knoxville, TN or Knoxville, TN and Orlando, FL as a way to see the country. Those options weren't viable due to how far away trains stations were from starting or ending points needing buses. I looked at maybe buses outright, but the amount of time and transfers were rather awkward and cumbersome. Luckily I was able to make the flight arrangements through one carrier, United, although several legs will be with code share partners. Learned that it is difficult to try to book a trip with more than five legs to the trip. All totaled, I have nine segments. The first leg I have to travel from Honolulu to Newark which is a ten hour flight and then back up to Knoxville. Blissfully the LAX to HNL flight is six hours.

In my big 2010 trip, I had business cards that I gave out for people going above and beyond in their work. Back then, I gave them a card recognizing them for their effort, took their pic, blogged about them and their actions

and then made sure I wrote back to the companies involved to give the person credit. While I don't have the cards ready to go yet, I plan on doing that again this trip. It's really easy to fall into the negative and those cards helped keep me looking for the positive.

During my fall 2016 trip, I lost my wallet while riding Mako at SeaWorld Orlando the day before I was to fly to LAX. Still haven't heard back from SeaWorld if they dredged the pond where it dropped  and recovered it with the $700 still inside. If I ever get that back, really need to make sure to make big noise about that! But with losing my ID, I want to make sure on this trip that I have backups like maybe making sure that I bring my passport and not keeping all the money on my person. Also I need to make sure that I follow my procedures and not rush when I get on a coaster to make sure that I have everything really secured.

One of the other challenges that I have is with the rental car portions. I have a valid drivers license, but don't own a car in Hawaii. When I rent I must do the responsible action have have some insurance and the costs add up quickly. So the RAC company would look at say Friday noon to Monday 6am as just three days, the insurance company says it's four so on those transfer days, I'm having to pay for insurance twice. Plus the insurance itself isn't cheap with charges that have been 15-25% of the daily rental rate.  But, it's something that I have to do since I don't have my own policy.

I use Flickr instead of Instagram. When I would post to Flickr, it would automatically post to Twitter and then a bit later to Facebook. Something has happened to the interface and that no longer happens.  If you want to see pics during the trip, goto flickr.com/frikitiki. For quick updates I'm @coconutwireless on twitter.

If you have comments or questions, let me know. The fall 2018 Coaster Trip begins on September 20th!