Listen, Linda. When I woke up at 6:30am this morning in some stupid West Virginian town, I really thought we were driving home where I would then stay out for days upon days.
But then halfway thru the drive, Henry offhandedly mentioned that it was the opening day for Kennywood and that Chooch and I still needed to get our season passes.
“Might not be too crowded since it’s Easter, he shrugged.
We did go home first for a bit! We’re not psychos. And honestly the plan was that Henry would just drop us off so we could pick up our passes and check out the sitch while he went to vacuum out the heavily road-tripped car. I told him I figured we’d just stay an hour because even if it was crowded, I’d have at least liked to walk around and check out all the new changes (mostly fresh paint-related). And there’s all these new murals buffeted the walkway into the park:
Dude. This looks GREAT. I’m not mad about this at all.
Anyway, the park was not even KIND of crowded. We walked right onto the Phantom. Peep the purple!!
Great color choice, obv!
We then rode Exterminator and screamed JANNA!!! through it, because that’s just what one does on the Exterminator (it should also be known that Janna hates this ride lol).
It’s not bias, it’s truth that Kennywood has the best screamin’ swing ride in the world. However, it felt like they were running shorter cycles?! Kennywood, we gonna need longer Swingshot action ok.
Noah’s Ark has changed so many times over the years that it just honestly never feels familiar to me anymore.
But it’s still a must-do if there’s no line.
Show-tying interlude.
I bet you already guessed that we stayed a bit longer than “an hour.” Henry didn’t care. He used the free time to go grocery shopping and then he napped in the pick-up lot lol.
The entrance to the Jack Rabbit is so extra now especially considering that there really wasn’t a legit entrance before.
Someone took Chooch’s souvenir drink cup from the loose article bin instead of theirs and he was SO PISSED because we had just filled ours up and now he obviously couldn’t drink from his. It wasn’t that big of a deal. He still has a cup, it’s just not the one he was given at the season pass holder window and we honestly shouldn’t have been using them anyway without washing them first, so. Cook on, Chooch.
Before the cup incident.
We also rode Racer which was, you know, the Racer. Steel Curtain wasn’t running (shocker) so we hit Aero360 and of course someone on the ride before us puked so we had to wait for them to clean it and then pointedly avoided that area of the ride. This used to be my favorite flat ride and now it feels so foreign to me?! It was still fun but it wasn’t how it remembered it so did it change or do I just go to too many parks, who can be sure. We both agreed that this flat ride also seemed to have a very short cycle.
When we got off this one, chooch asked if Golden Nugget was open and if so, were we going to get any ice cream. It was definitely open and we were definitely getting a cone because last summer we made a BAD CHOICE and got stupid Millie’s (only because they were bragging about their Kennywood-exclusive Eat n Park smiley cookie flavor) so we actually went an entire season with NO GOLDEN NUGGET.
REMEDIED.
Upside of going to Kennywood on a chilly day is not having your Golden Nugget drip down your wrist. (Best amusement park ice cream cone, not accepting opposing opinions 🖐🛑)
Honestly though this is, to quote from my friend Alyson, part of the process. You cannot come to this park and not get the famous square ice cream! It’s a Pittsburgh tradition so if you are an out-of-towner thinking about collecting some coaster creds from Pittsburgh’s Kennywood, DO NOT LEAVE WITHOUT A CONE FROM GOLDEN NUGGET. We always choose “all of it” as our topping, pro tip.
It’s so instagrammable too!! You better tag me in that shit.
We got in line for Sky Rocket but it was one train ops so the line was kind of long-ish. I was like, “dude we rode some of the best launch coasters in the world this week, do we really want to end with Sky Rocket” and Chooch was like, “no, no we don’t” so we ended the day with another ride on Phantom and yeah, that coaster still ranks top 10 in my heart. It is SO GOOD. I get so stupidly happy when the enthusiasts include it in their Top Whatever lists. It deserves the recognition!
So one hour turned into three – what a great way to spend an Easter afternoon!
(Also this ended up being park number 8 since last Saturday, I am SO FUCKING TIRED AND MY FEET ARE WORTHLESS SLABS OF BRUISES AND BLISTERS.)
(Actually I don’t have any blisters but I wanted the alliteration.)
(I do think I have nerve damage or something happening in one of them though.)