Hello from a Tuesday evening on the bus! A lot has happened but in an effort to keep up with my micro-blogging of this trip, today’s small word bundle will be about Idiot Chooch’s 130 feet free fall on Sunday evening. Tivoli Friheden has a SCAD tower which I did know about going into this but didn’t really think much about it until that day when Tim said that it was included in the park admission for our group if anyone wanted to do it. Chooch was like, “what is it, I’ll do it” and I was like “oh great. I am so excited for my son to fall off a 50m tower into a fucking net, every mom’s dream.”
Love that the only thing he really has to say about it is that he hurt his knee again.
In “Now” news, we are in the midst of an itinerary shakeup. Starting yesterday, the weather has been real rainy and windy. Yesterday was mostly just a rain issue and luckily all the rides were open, but unforch, the forecast for the next several days were bad enough Re: wind that the ferries canceled their service so our ferry for Norway scheduled for tonight was canceled. When we got on the bus after Djurs last night, Tim broke the news to us and told us that we have two options: scrap Tusenfyrd, or drive 13 hours overnight by bus.
It was so dramatic and started to get semi-verbally hostile between some guys up on the top floor of the bus (where we are) and then some guys started shouting the pros of keeping Tusenfyrd and honestly I was in favor of the overnighter too because I want to go to Norway. Anyway, Tim had to walk around while everyone covertly showed him their vote on their phone and it felt like Survivor, like someone was getting voted off the bus. There was an overwhelming majority for OVERNIGHT so that is what’s happening and there are APPARENTLY at least two people who are very unhappy about this and are planning on leaving us in Copenhagen. (Yes, we were all the way super north in Denmark but have to drive all the way back to Copenhagen, get a new driver, cross the bridge to Sweden (which could be an issue depending on how windy it still is when we get there) drive up through Sweden to Tusenfyrd in Norway. Not the greatest but at least we’ll still get there.
Anyway, after we left todays park, Henry made some dumb joke to the bus driver about “can’t you maybe just fly us there? Maybe if we got some winged?” And it was SO UNCOMFY. i asked him to never do that again, his weird “flirting with another professional driver” voice, ugh. Then we stopped at IKEA so Tim could buy us pillows and everyone ate in the cafeteria.
Oh just 70 people unexpectedly storming IKEA 30 minutes before they closed. That was interesting. But it was so nice of Tim to get us pillows!!
I forgot that we went to Kennywood after work two weeks ago, with Chooch this time. We were only there from 6pm-8:30ish so there is not much to report on, but I did take some pictures since it was our first trip of the season as a WHOLE FAMILY. Wow, so sentimental. Cry about it.
Anyway, I’ll try to avoid as many words as possible, but I do want to mention that we split up on the Racer. Henry and I had the back row on one train, and Chooch had the back row on the other one. Because the ops for the Racer are hopelessly slow, we had enough time chilling in the station for the two girls in front of Chooch to turn around and start chatting him up. The one who was doing the most talking was the one named KYLIE but I want to believe that her name is spelled KILEY because KILEY + RILEY.
Henry was trying to get me to stop ogling but I couldn’t, because I love observing how Chooch converses with people who were not responsible for giving him life. It’s always a good reminder that he is….HUMAN.
But yeah, that girl was totally cute and made a big production of saying goodbye to him AFTER THEIR TRAIN LOST. OURS WON, MOTHERFUCKER.
The pizza place got a glow-up!
The pizzas still mostly taste the same but now they’re “french bread” shaped and, according to Henry, cost more. My one complaint was that they were too saucey. Chooch actually agreed with me.
Also, before we ate, I made damn sure that I ran to the restroom to wash my hands real good because in a fit of delusion, I slapped some guy’s hand while I was in line for the Jack Rabbit, as his train rolled past us through the station. WHAT WAS I THINKING. DID COVID TEACH ME NOTHING?? I practically kept that hand in my pocket until I was able to wash it, don’t worry.
(Show me a park that still keeps their hand sanitizers filled. Honestly.)
Here’s Henry coming off of his favorite ride at the park.
You can’t tell because Henry takes the worst pictures, but Chooch and I are in the back row of Thunderbolt. I don’t think I ride this at all last season!?!? I could be wrong.
Waiting for our most favorite ride, Phantom’s Revenge. <3
Henry successfully blocking BOTH Chooch and me. Also, his expression never changes even on roller coasters?!?
This was probably the longest line we stood in and it wasn’t worth it. Bring back the Enterprise. Also, this was my first time seeing in real life….I don’t know how to explain them. But like, young trashy Kardashian-esque influencers?!?! One had really terrible lip fillers. I was scared. It was wild, that’s for sure.
Both Henry and Chooch jumped out of the frame. Wow, cool.
I love the Musik Express so much. “You’re not even trying to hold yourself back!!” Henry cried at one point – like, no shit? I wasn’t trying to pretend like I was?!
On our way to get one last beverage refill before heading out.
And that concludes our second trip to Kennywood of the 2023 season. Perhaps someday we will have time to spend a full day there!
Considering we were only in FunSpot for 4 hours, there isn’t too much to recap in addition to the ArieForce One gushing I put you guys through the other day. I will say that we had such a nice experience with the FunSpot staff and just the park in general, that I was inspired to email them to tell them so. We’re so quick as disgruntled, jaded humans to fire off complaints at the drop of a hat, but I think it’s very important to send compliments when they’re deserved, as well. I only hope that management shared my email with the staff because they’re the real ones!
I’m gonna do a photodump now, ok? Ok.
I didn’t want to ride this but I was just standing there when Chooch started to walk up the steps so the ride operator was like, “Do you want to ride too?” and I didn’t have the heart to say no. It was no WACKY WORM, but it wasn’t too bad for a kiddie coaster.
I guess.
I thought it was so cool/interesting that the bumper cars are inside the arcade/cafeteria! In general, I really liked the vibe here.
Unsupportive Dad not watching us playing air hockey (I pummeled Chooch, btw).
The color scheme of the skee ball machines (I was so close to creating a tongue twister) was beautiful.
The only annoying thing about the arcade was that we spent 50 cents each to enter some “vortex” thing which only ended up being one of those spinning tunnel illusions. We were in and out in less than 30 seconds and Henry’s mustache curled into a WTF. He really thought he was going to have some “me time” while we were vortexing.
He really thought.
You can see how this used to be a parking lot.
My hair was WRECKED on this day. It never stands a chance in the war against humidity.
Waiting for Hurricane, one of the jankiest coasters I’ve ever ridden.
It actually wasn’t too bad for the first 2/3 of the ride, but I made the mistake of saying, “Oh wow, this really isn’t that bad.” Then all hell breaks loose and it started to feel like we whipping around square corners. Not muh fave.
There were young girls that were screaming maniacally on Riptide, so I started screaming too. Then, when we were walking off the ride, one of the girls said, “I heard you sceaming!” to another girl in her group. But that girl fired back angrily, “That wasn’t me! I don’t who that was, but I kept screaming at them to shut up.”
I did the “looking up and whistling” routine at that point, realizing she was talking about my nearly 44-year-old ass, lol.
Chooch’s eye roll here is everything. 100% Chooch.
No one wanted to go on the ferris wheel but me.
You guys. It was a really great trip. A whirlwind, yes. But I have no regertz. And I can’t wait to see what FunSpot has in store over the next several years!
I know sometimes it sounds like my brilliant ideas are born from late nights rolling in a kiddy pool of cocaine, but I swear to BETTY FUCKING WHITE that my “It’s so easy” plan of driving a billion miles from Pgh to Atlanta to ride one goddamn rollercoaster actually ended up being something that was enjoyed in equal parts by ALL.
(OK, maybe more like 50% me, 25% each to Henry and Chooch – they don’t get excited about shit.)
By now, you know (and still don’t care) that my favorite roller coaster manufacturer is ROCKY MOUNTAIN CONSTRUCTION (RMC). When it was announced that they were building a brand new ground-up coaster (they are mostly renown for taking already-standing wooden coasters and making them insane feats of engineering) at this tiny family entertainment center outside of Atlanta called Fun Spot America, the coaster community went wild with confusion, speculation, and of course excitement falling in clumps out of cargo-pockets.
In America, RMCs generally only go to the big name parks, the Cedar Fairs, the Six Flags. This particular Fun Spot (there are two others in Florida) is essentially an arcade with some go-kart tracks and flat rides in an old, repurposed parking lot. The only coasters they already had was a janky jumble of track called Hurricane (the kind of coaster you’d expect to see in a traveling parking lot carnival, actually) and a standard kiddy coaster.
And now, a fucking beast of an RMC called ArieForce One, which just opened last March. I know we’re going on this big trip in a month, but I was like, “HENRY WE HAVE TO RIDE THIS THING BEFORE THE TRIP BECAUSE ALL THOSE THOOSIES ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT AND I WANT TO BE IN THE KNOW!!!” Henry tried to talk me out of it, but in the end, I won.
Oh, and “Arie” is not a typo. It’s an homage to the surname of the family that bought this park several years ago, Arie. LEGEND HAS IT (it’s not a legend, it’s right there on FunSpot’s website), the patriarch of the Arie family was/is very into airplanes or whatever. Love it or hate it, RMC built a BEAUTIFUL ride to go along with the theme of flight and when you see this bad boy looming along the side of the road before the full park comes into view, how do you NOT gasp?? I mean, I imagine even if I wasn’t an enthusiast, if I knew NOTHING about this hunk of red and blue track, I would at least be inspired to look up WTF it was and probably start nagging Henry to pull over so we could ride it.
Obviously, we went straight to ArieForce One upon arrival. IT WAS A STATION WAIT. Actually, it could have been a walk-on if we weren’t trying to get either the front or back row, and even then, we barely had to wait because they were running two trains and we were next!
AHHHH!!!!
Chooch was like, “Oh boy, here we go with the station selfies. I am so excited. Yay me.” I ended up ditching Chooch and running up to the front to ride with Henry because otherwise, we’d have had to wait more cycle. So Chooch ended up riding with the single rider / enthusiast that was in front of us in the backrow.
Dude. I don’t know what to say other than IS THIS MY NEW FAVORITE RMC?!?! Holy shit, the things this coaster does seems illegal, honestly. There is this one part where you do a zero G roll / barrel roll over the arcade and it nearly gave me whiplash every time. It was my favorite moment but holy shit, the way you twirl between the structures, talk about head/limbs/everything chopper. Hoo boy!
DO YOU SEE HOW EMPTY THIS TRAIN IS?? It was like this all night! Walking onto an RMC is unheard of at any other park. I mean, for Christ’s sake, we’re lucky if we can get ONE RIDE on Steel Vengeance every time we go to Cedar Point because the line is usually consistently at 90+ minutes. (When it’s not breaking down.)
But on this day, it was us, maybe about 5 or 6 thoosies, and a handful of GP who caught on to the sheer majesty of this ride and knew that it was worth the multiple re-rides. The ride attendants were so great too!! The one guy asked us at one point how many rides we had gotten in so far and I honestly had lost count. I mean, we would ride 3-4x in a row, walk around and do some other things, and then go right back.
I will say that this coaster is tough to marathon though because the very ending has a quadruple double-down that is VIOLENT. And then it just slams you into the breakrun. Parts of my thighs had red marks on them from the sheer force of the restraints crushing into me every single time we reached that element. VERY EXTREME. I think this could be a one and done for the casual rider. You have to be a psycho to beg the attendants to let you stay on when you come back to the station and see no one is waiting for the row you’re sitting in. They allowed it every time!!
We got really lucky too because the weather forecast was calling for storms all evening. And actually, after we had gotten in our first two rides (front and back – I think I actually preferred the front because it hurt less, lol), we had pissed around a but, checked out the arcade, rode some other rides, when we overheard the ride attendant for the janky coaster, Hurricane, get a call that said some of the rides needed to stop operations because lightning was spotted.
I was literally screaming, “Nooooooo!!!” thinking that we were only going to get those 2 rides on Arie, and were probably going to have to leave the park altogether if it started storming. This was only about an hour after we arrived too! I was big sad.
But then I was like, “Well, let’s just walk toward Arie just in case, you never know,” and right as we were walking that way, we passed someone who looked like he was In Charge as he was telling another park employee, “All clear of lightning” so then I was like “LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO!!” and yep, just as we ran up the steps to the Arie station, they were just about to start sending trains again!
On one of our many rides, Chooch told me, “As we go over the hill, don’t look down, just look straight ahead. It makes it better,” and I thought this was just some dumb thing he had made up to see if I’d fall for it, but I did it and it made the butterfly sensation amplified by a lot, which made me crack up uncontrollably and then spit all over myself. So, then I was laughing even harder, which resulted in me being in tears by the time we careened into the brake run.
At one point, Henry and Chooch wanted to ride go-karts and I said, “OK, I guess I will just go walk around while you’re doing that” and walk around is exactly what I did – straight to ArieForce One!! I rode in the back by myself and one of the loner thoosies was in front of me, so we started talking on the brake run (ops were kind of slow so every time a train came back, it would idle on the brake run for a few minutes while the train in the station was loading). He was really cool but I’m not used to talking to people who actually care about this stuff so WORDS WERE JUST SOMERSAULTING out of my mouth at a pace which made me gasp for breath like an asthmatic. Honestly, I need to come up with a way to tap out of conversations, like putting a paper grocery bag over my head, askin a bee to sting my tongue, or just you know, saying, “Excuse me bye” and walking away.
As it was, we somehow ended up walking out of the station together, super awkwardly, and when he asked what my favorite park is, I BLANKED AND THEN SAID CEDAR POINT??? Cedar Point is NOT my favorite park!??! I feel like if I hadn’t been short-circuiting, I probably would have said Universal / Islands of Adventure or Busch Gardens Williamsburg?!?! And then I was telling him that Kennywood is my homepark and he said he had never heard of it so I was like, “Yeah, you should go sometime and ride Phantoms Revenge, it’s amazing” and he goes, “Who is the manufacturer?” and this is the part that you won’t care about if you don’t like coasters, but I was now in the position where I said to say, “Arrow….and then it was reworked by Morgan” and I could hear myself saying these words while watching the look of skepticism befall his face.
“Oh, OK,” he said.
“Yeah….you should look it up. Well, enjoy the rest of your night!” and then it’s a wonder I didn’t trip and fall into a garbage can in my haste to exit this conversation.
(Arrow is notorious in the coaster community for making pretty shitty, rough coasters and is now defunct. And Morgan is just whatever. So to try and sell the merits of a coaster manufactured by these two companies is pretty insane, but Phantom’s Revenge is the exception, ISTG. LOOK IT UP – COASTER ENTHUSIASTS COME TO KENNYWOOD FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD TO RIDE IT. IT’S CONSIDERED AN ELITE COASTER AND MOST THOOSIES HAVE IT IN THEIR TOP 25-50 LISTS. SO THERE.)
The night rides on this were masterful. CHEF’S KISS, BITCHES.
That ride attendant there in the front was my favorite!!! He never stapled us, he let us pull down the restraints ourselves and then only (GENTLY) pushed until the light on the screen turned green. Bless your heart, sir.
CAUGHT A CHOOCH SMILE. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT.
I love that you can see the ferris wheel from the back of the station!
That other ride attendant over there on the other side of the track is the one who kept permitting us to stay on for re-rides. I loved everyone associated with this ride, you guys. It was an EXCEPTIONAL experience.
Family selfie that only I will forever cherish!
Anyway, I will do a full FunSpot recap another time, but we all were in agreement that as usual, I have the best ideas and that this was 100% worth the 11 hour drive.
I think this was Chooch’s and my 11th RMC, and Henry’s 10th?
Lightning Rod
Storm Chaser
Steel Vengeance
Twister Timber
Outlaw Run (the one Henry doesn’t have because his back hurt, but we still made him drive us to Missouri lol)
Wicked Cyclone
Twisted Cyclone
Iron Gwazi (ugh this one MIGHT still be my fave??)
Goliath
Jersey Devil
ArieForce One
There are two more that we will potentially add to this list this year: Wildfire in Sweden next month, and hopefully at some point before the end of the year, I’d like to make it back out to Hershey to ride the brand new Wildcat’s Revenge but we’ll see how destitute we are upon return from this August trip hahaha ugh.
Please excuse this dorky picture of us, but it was our first Kennywood visit of the season so we had to take a selfie, duh. Henry and I popped over after work on Thursday, mostly just to get our season passes. The park was only open until 8pm since it was still June (god forbid) so we figured we could at least walk around, ride Phantom, be CASUAL.If I look haggard, it’s because I am.Ugh, I need to point out that Henry bought new shirts at Target and they are all variations of “rust” so in every picture I have of him over the last four days, it looks like he’s wearing the same shirt and it makes me actually so angry. He was actually wearing this same one on Sunday and realized sometime after Buc-ees and before Dunkin’ on the drive home that he got a big ass chocolate stain on it and that made me even more irritated. Please someone send this man band tees (XXL) or just any fucking shirt with a design. The only thing worse is when he wears his UGLY ASS GRAY RIP IT WORK SHIRTS. Oh lawdy help me from summoning the devil to do my dirty work. I literally am so annoyed right now and he’s not even here.Anyway, it was a pretty uneventful trip. We got our passes. Saw the new alien-y area (it actually looks great but I will always fucking miss the Enterprise). It was one of the worst air quality days we had that week, so that was a choice. Saw a bitch (OK she was like 14) get a nosebleed on Phantom’s Revenge.
Not pictured: bitch’s nosebleed.
Kennywood went hogwild with the paint on the off season, that’s for sure! Love how poppin’ the Golden Nugget looks now! However, I do wish they would have allotted some of that makeover money to actually THEMING THE THOMAS TRAIN RIDE. And maybe also train your employees on being more cheerful, I dunno. The last couple of years, there have been some real duds working at the Golden Nugget and this visit was no exception.My nug’ was prepared with little care, and I had to put on my own cherry after it was handed to me as an afterthought, but it still tasted like a good ol’ nostalgic Golden Nugget. I’m saying, if you come to Kennywood and ONLY get Potato Patch fries, you are fucking it wrong. I mean, yeah, get the fries, Kennywood is famous for ’em, but as my friend Alyson would say, ordering a Golden Nugget and trying desperately not to drop chunks of chocolate coating on the ground by the fountain and then eating even the parts of the cone where the napkin is stuck, is all part of the process.
Aside from this, we rode the Swing Shot and the fucking brute ride attendant stapled me so hard that the restraint was pressing really hard against my hipbone and I was almost crying. Then we were ALMOST “last ride of the night” on Exterminator (I think there were maybe 8 cars after us) and I fucking swear to god, that ride never gets old. I love it so much.
Honestly, I thought Kennywood had a major glow-up last year, but this year it’s like, “Hey hon, did you go on a medical tour of Korea during the offseason because you’re looking like you had some Grade A work done.” I mean, it was practically shimmering. And they have a new cafe?! Of course Henry was like, “Wow. Expensive” when I stopped by on the way out so I said, “OH OK I GUESS THAT MEANS NO COFFEE FOR ME” and stalked off.
So close to the end without incident, lol.
My one gripe with K-Wood is that they removed the vintage shooting gallery thing?! That has been there at least since I was a kid and probably way before that even! I couldn’t believe it. They put in some dumb remote control truck thing, I don’t even know. It looked stupid.
My friend Alyson asked if we were going to have engagement portraits done. I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, after 22 years of waiting, you’d think I’d have entire portfolios of wedding ideas scribbled out, and there was a while there back in like, 2010-2012, where I really thought Henry was going to ask (I had friends texting him and harassing him on Facebook so I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t!) so around that time I was really collecting ideas in my head.
But then he finally asked me two weeks and every last component I had filed away for my Imaginary Never-Wedding just…blew away on the breeze of the proposal. It’s crazy, just a blank slate up there now and I’m lowkey panicking about it and kind of just don’t want to do anything?? What is happening.
Anyway, the idea of engagement portraits seemed like something that just didn’t make sense for us. We have been together for so long. I feel kind of ridiculous about this whole thing. But Alyson and some of my other friends have been adamant that all these things still apply to us, we deserve to go through the motions and experience the process like everyone else.
Maybe.
I just feel so awkward about it.
Anyway, when we were at Cedar Point last week, I decided that maybe it would be fun/funny to snap a few “ring flex” shots. Casual, at one of my favorite places, taken by Best Son, lol. He was thrilled to assist, as you can imagine!
So anyway, here are a few pictures of us being dumb and trying to hurry up and ‘er done before too many people saw because I was sooooo uncomfortable!
Henry looks shell shocked as usual.
“Wait, let me pretend like I’m going to choke him,” I suggested and then slammed my hand against Henry’s throat before he had a chance to protest.
Selfie. Chooch needed a break.
Wow Henry smiled. Also, photog cameo!
I was probably saying, “Hurry up and take it” because people were walking by and looking and I DID NOT LIKE THAT ONE BIT.
Anyway, we can scratch that off the list now. We are not PDA-types of people at all so I can’t imagine doing anything more in depth than just these, with a stranger behind the camera. No thank you.
Meanwhile, the only thing I have been able to focus on is where I want the honeymoon to be – KOREA OR ROMANIA??? I tried to lobby for BOTH but Henry just frowned and said, “They’re nowhere each other.”
Good morning from Cedar Point! Expecting it to be packed today as usual but at least it’s something to do.
Walking to SteVe, immediately.
Visiting Daddy on Father’s Day! Love you Papa SteVe!!
11:13am: Literally the best experience we had on SteVe. Wait was estimated at 40 min and it took less than that, no breakdowns while we were in line, and they let Chooch and me have the back. I love this stupid fucking psycho coaster so much!
Henry got front row and is so smug about it.
Now he’s making us wait in line for Maverick which is broken down and I hate this gamble!!! It almost never works out well for us.
me: new thing! Since I’m liveblogging let’s take a selfie in every line we wait in.
Thanks Chooch.
11:38am: Fuck you, Maverick. Moving on because I couldn’t take hearing the bitch in front of me talk about her basic bitch interests anymore.
11:54am ditched Henry, now in line for Iron Dragon 🐉
ALSO, Chooch hates my new selfie rule.
iron dragon was way FUNNER than I remember FYI.
12:45pm: got lunch at the new pavilion and the service was TRASH. the roll was the best part of the meal. Views are nice though!
They’re playing retro ragtag covers of shitty pop songs though and a Taylor Swift one is on now so that dragged down the lunch review.
Chooch bonded with a guy in the bathroom over the awful music. “I didn’t think they could make Taylor Swift worse.”
12:54pm Gatekeeper selfie!
everyone hates me!
That was the best Gatekeeper ride I’ve ever had!
1:29pm: Carousel line selfie!
1;51pm: Choochs phone just died and he wants to go home because now he will either have to talk to “us guys” or look at the sky LOLOL.
Waiting for out old car thing! Henry can’t hear.
We got the slowest car here and people are on our asses. Chooch is so pissed. He just said he feels like Janna lol hi Janna!
2:03pm: RAPTOR’S LINE IS LIKE 10 MINUTES!!
Ok I’m saying it: Raptor is my favorite B&M invert. I SAID IT.
now we’re in line for the new Wild Mouse which is an HOUR wait and the guys in front of me are wearing patchouli and chooch is being pissy.
Pissy “I wouldn’t be in a bad mood all day if I had a belt” Chooch.
3:08pm: Still in line. Some little kid the next row over tapped me on the shoulder and said excuse me you have a bug on your shirt and of course I always think I’m the butt of a joke so I panicked but I did indeed have a MAYFLY on my shirt so Henry got it off for me which then turned into me blaming Henry for not doing a better job guarding my person from bugs and other harmful things.
3:14pm: Still in line but maybe another 15? At least people here aren’t assholes like at Canada’s Wonderland.
I asked chooch if he is immediately going to add this to his spreadsheet and he said I CANT MY PHONE IS DEAD. lololol. Also “Call Me Maybe” is on right now!!
3:53pm: that was the best Wild Mouse I’ve ever been on! It was trimless! Henry bit his lip lol. We got the pink car!
Now we’re in line for Gemini which only I am excited for!
The way I have to beg for these selfies though.
ugh stupid Henry has to treat himself.
5:01pm:
Rode MaxAir, it was fine.
Now Chooch is spending money. He won a medium sized prize!
5:11pm: We left! Bye bye Cedar Point!
Some thoughts from the car:
Raptor was a big highlight – from the delightfully enthusiastic dad & 2 kids in front of us to the overall fantastic ride, I declared that it was my second favorite ride in the whole park.
SO MUCH TAYLOR SWIFT WAS HEARD TODAY.
This was the first time we didn’t ride Millie and that felt kind of weird. We were actually only in that area once, even.
This was the best ride I’ve ever had on Gatekeeper. I even grayed out!
I got stapled on Gemini so that wasn’t very enjoyable.
We didn’t ride Magnum! I will only ride it if it’s a station wait bc I do like it but it hurts!
I thought the addition of Wild Mouse to the revamped boardwalk area was really cute and fits nicely with the theme. It just sucks that it’s such a short ride and will probably always have a long wait because even the shittiest Wild Mouses in other parks get notoriously long waits. But I thought the theming was super eye-catching and I also liked that they were playing legit beach music in that area. I did suggest to Chooch that they should play the Back to the Beach soundtrack and he rolled his eyes at me.
Only lowlight really was MAVERICK (so sick of that one breaking down constantly) and the service we experienced at the new Grand Pavilion. The cashier was nice though, I should specify that the coldness was reserved for the people behind the food counter thing. Not a single person made eye contact with us or smiled. It made me so uncomfortable and I almost didn’t even want to order anything from there.
The cookies were back to being good!! I feel like the last time we got them from the bakery they were really dry and stale. The snickerdoodles were sooooo MOIST today.
Overall, it wasn’t really crowded there at all for a weekend. I wish we were had been staying over though so we could have stayed until close because I can only imagine how many more rides we could have made it on. Every time I checked the ride times, SteVe had never gone past 60 minutes which is unheard of. But I was content with the one ride we got on it this morning, especially since we only had to wait about 30 minutes!
Maybe someday, someone will actually want to come with us?? I tried to get my brother to come with us but he promised our dad he’d go over for a visit and, oh yeah, I guess it was Father’s Day after all lol.
Hello, back for a Day 2 recap! I’m going to try and keep it succinct (LOL, me? Succinct? Like I even know what that means) because we weren’t really there that long and nothing outrageous happened. The day started off with all of us waking up surprisingly in decent, amicable moods. Had a hotel breakfast and killed time watching Cash Cab the only way we’re able to watch anything trivia-related: intensely and with the passion of a sports super fan.
Then we set off for Canada’s Wonderland! It was another bright, sunny day. High 70s. I think that the wildfires had already been happening but somehow we had not heard anything about it and the Toronto-ish area didn’t seem to have been affected by it, at least not at that point. It makes me sick and so sad to think about. :(
Well, anyway, here we are back at the entrance, me being dwarfed by Chooch.
The park wasn’t even technically open yet (it opened at 10 and we got there at 9:30) but Leviathan was already running! This was the coaster I was most stoked for because I think now I have ridden all the gigas in North America? IS THAT CORRECT? Millennium Force, I-305, Fury, Orion, Leviathan? Am I missing anything? Erin, do you know how to Google?
I think this was when we were in line for Leviathan? I asked the guy if we could have the back row and he said YES. Again: IT DOES NOT HURT TO ASK, BUT PLEASE TO REMEMBER TO DO IT WITH PRAYER HANDS.
Anyway, I thought this was fun! But as we cruised onto the brake run, I immediately said that I liked Behemoth better and it is now 100% confirmed that I just flat out like hypers better than gigas. AND THAT IS OK. PEOPLE CAN HAVE OPINIONS, THANK YOU.
After this, it was a walk-on for The Bat and I am SO GLAD that we got out of line for it the day before because I had no idea how long that line actually was. And this bitch is not worth even a 5 minute wait. Actually, as far as Vekoma boomerangs go, it wasn’t the worst one I’ve ridden, which is funny because when were getting off of it, Chooch declared that it was absolutely the worst one he’s ever ridden.
We then rode The Fly, which was a Crazy Mouse-type of coaster and also almost a walk-on, which is crazy for these types of rides. The operations are usually very slow and it’s low capacity, which is not great because it’s always a very popular family coaster. The lines for these things can be outrageous. I have definitely rage-stood in my fair share of their queues. Anyway – I thought this one was VERY fun! Not rough at all!
Vortex was next, which I liked because it interacted with the mountain structure and it was just, to say the least, an insane suspended coaster. Like, actually pretty scary! The way the cars were swinging toward the end, I was scared we were going to tip over. This was Top 5 in the park for me, personally, I would say.
Tiem Warp was an absolute piece of shit. It’s one of those coasters were you stand up in a cage and then it lowers so you’re facedown and being jostled around the entirety of the track. I absolutely fucking hated it. It hurt me so bad and the load-in/load-out process was so awkward – first of all, I didn’t realize that we were supposed to get out as soon as the cage was lifted upright when we returned to the station because I couldn’t tell that the cage-part was opened behind me. Each cage is constantly in motion too so I was basically traveling back to the front of the station like I wanted a re-ride. Finally the ride attendant came over and said, “You can get out now.”
Chooch, meanwhile, was already walking down the exit ramp. Thanks for the heads up, son of the year.
I mean honestly this kid coaster was one of the best ones in the park. Very enjoyable experience. I can’t remember what it was called, but I would ride it again. (Silver Streak, maybe?) Also, the kids area in general was just very pleasant.
Literally, LITERALLY, the best wooden coaster in the whole fucking park. And it’s a goddamn children’s coaster.
Chooch trying to outrun my picture-snapping.
Ghoster Coaster Kids.
W-W-W-W-WOWWWWW. Nice, Henry.
He did this one on purpose because I’m always yelling, “NO ONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR BACK FLESH, STOP EXPOSING YOURSELF!!!”
But yes, this required a trifecta of shot because I thought the Kiddy Land entrance/exit bridge was so fucking delightful. Especially compared to what horrors some of those coasters in the main sections had in store for us. Jesus Christ.
I wanted Tiny Tom Donuts.
But Chooch said he wanted to Dippin’ Dots. Then he threw his little Mini Erin fit and said, “NEVER MIND JUST FORGET IT” because they were two separate lines, so he stormed off to sit and probably text all of his friends about how his parents dragged him to Canada to ride roller coasters, boo hiss.
We got him his dumb Dippin Dots and he acted ANGRY about it. “I said I didn’t want it!” he scoffed and I’ll tell you, the boy was almost wearing it as a head decoration at that point. What a little bitch! He did eat it though.
I only had 4 because I originally wanted to get ice cream later (spoiler: I did not because by that point, it was my turn to throw a Mini Erin tantrum…or, you know, an Original Big Erin tantrum) but now I regret it because they were pretty good! Henry ate the rest and got sick lol. We give all of our refuse to him.
In line for Backlot Stunt Coaster, our third version of this ride. I think of all three, this was my least favorite. Henry was pissed because we told the ride attendant there were only 2 people in our party and left him in the dust, lol. He had to ride with some other dad.
The last awful coaster we rode was Flight Deck. I dunno what was going on in my head but the entire time we were traversing the empty queue (it was a long ass queue) on the way to what was essentially a station wait, I was thinking that this ride was a B&M invert, which are usually pretty good and actually one of my favorite types of coasters. But then when we got to the station and I saw the train (ONE TRAIN OPS, BTW), I sighed, “Oh god, this is an SLC….” and Chooch goes, “Yeah, what did you think it was?”
“A B&M invert,” I said, choking on fear, knowing full well how WFRECKED my body was about to be on this piece of shit.
“A B&M?!!? Since when do you think B&M tracks look like that?!” he cried, so embarrassed by my blunder.
All non-enthusiasts just read a bunch of words that they could not care any less about. I’m sorry for wasting your time. We are coaster nerds.
But yeah, as expected, that fucking devil ride broke me. I was in so much pain, my brain was rattled, other children on the coaster were also complaining about how rough it was. You guys. Kids are resilient and do not care about shitty coasters so that will tell you JUST HOW EXTREMELY SHITTY THIS ONE IS.
Once we got the last of the coaster creds under our belts (well, Chooch’s belt – we don’t really count creds), we peaced out and went to Odd Burger for lunch.
Overall, we (Chooch and I) rode 15 coasters, heard 2 Alanis Morrisette songs (“Uninvited,” “Head Over Feet”), 1 Bryan Adams song, 0 Nickelback songs, had decent park food, and procured 0 Canada’s Wonderland souvenir magnets because do Canadian refrigerators not like magnets?! I had to buy an enamel pin for Henry to grind the pinback off of and turn into a magnet. So ridiculous!
CW has a great atmosphere, love the mountain. But their coaster lineup is….not very well-rounded. Maybe of the 17 (2 are kid coasters that you can only ride if you’re accompanied by a child, ugh), there are 5 that are worthy are re-rides. The rest were one-and-dones, some of these were even burn-it-to-the-grounds.
I’m really glad that we went finally, and we did have a good time overall even though it probably doesn’t seem like it, but we all agreed that we won’t be back unless they get some kind of amazing Intamin or RMC. Like, I probably wouldn’t even just pop in if we were in Toronto.
Canada’s Wonderland has been on my TO DO list ever since we became coaster thoosies. I have watched so many videos on this Cedar Fair park, so I was kind of surprised at how underwhelming this place was.
First of all, it has 17 coasters (three or four of those are kid coasters) but honestly only about 4 of those are re-ridable. In fact, I experienced some of the WORST coaster rides in the two days we were at Canada’s Wonderland.
We’ll get to that later. First, let’s do a quick recap of Day One.
We arrived at the park around 2, after driving all morning. This place is about 20-30 minutes past Toronto, I think? My immediate impression was that it was visually stunning. As soon as you walk through the entrance, you’re facing the iconic mountain and waterfall. That entrance is so dramatic and actually might have been one of the few parts of this joint that were actually better in person as opposed to what I had seen in videos.
Lookit! It’s so pretty and there are actually three coasters that interact with the mountain, and I loved all three of them.
Our first coaster of 2023 was actually one of the mountain coasters! It was a cute little family mine ride called Thunder Run, super short – it did two quick laps around a track inside the mountain with some lighting effects, but my favorite part was before the operator sent the train, she made everyone scream CHOO CHOO and you know I practically made my throat bleed with the sheer force of my CHOOing.
Also, I missed the memo that it was Purple Day, I guess. I actually did pack a purple shirt too, which I wore the next day, but it was more of a lavender so I guess I still lose.
Next was Wilde Beast, an old piece of shit woodie. FUCK THIS RIDE. Literally, this fucker set the tone for the rest of the day for me, and probably also Henry. But then difference between the two of us is that I will keep riding things because even though I don’t count credits, I want to ride the same coasters as Chooch especially because it’s the only TOGETHER TIME we have anymore since he is TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL when we’re home and usually only speaks to me in grunts and sneers. (Although he is being SUPER TALKATIVE to me this weekend because he has a project for school that he needs my help with and we will discuss this later.)
But seriously, this was one of the worst woodies I have ever ridden, and I have ridden Son of Beast and Blue Streak in Conneaut, both of which no longer exist. It was so rough, and that paired with the heat of the day and possibly being mildly dehydrated really sent me on a tailspin of nausea and pain that I couldn’t climb out of for the entire day. Trust me, it only got worse.
After this, Chooch and I got in line for the park’s shitty Vekoma boomerang, The Bat. Well, we attempted to get in line. But as we were walking through the switchbacks to get to the end of the line, I turned around to see that an entire group of people were cutting the line behind us instead of walking through the empty queue which I knew was going to happen but there were people in front of us, so Chooch and I didn’t want to be dicks and do that same thing (you know – going under the railing to bypass the empty switchbacks that you would need to walk down in order to get to the end). So by the time we made our way back to the end of the line, there were about 20 people who had cut in front of us but what really set me off was that even now that we WERE THERE AT THE END OF THE LINE, people were still jumping over the empty lines and cutting in front of us to join their fellow linejumpers who had previously cut the line. I just lost my mind and said OH WOW OK REALLY?? FUCK THIS and made Chooch get out of line with me. I’m sorry, but I’m not enduring that type of bullshit for A VEKOMA BOOMERANG. I knew we were coming back the next day and figured we’d just cross it off the list early before it got crowded, because for some unknown reason, these shit-loops are general public favorites.
WHYYYYY???
I was in a foul mood at this point. Probably needed water. Definitely required a feeding. But was determined to persevere and try to get in as many coasters as we could on Day One, despite the crowds. (It wasn’t THAT crowded, actually but it was the fact that the people we were encountering all day weren’t exactly nice, dispelling that age-old Canadian stereotype. However, I think you can also argue that amusement parks in general bring out the absolute worst in people.)
The other thing that pissed me off was that CW’s wait times in the app were extremely off. It said that Yukon Striker was a minute wait so I figured, let’s just get in line for this because this is one of the park’s most popular rides and minutes seemed reasonable. Yeah, until you get so far into the line and realize that there is an entire second section of switchbacks that wasn’t visible at the ride entrance. I guess it wasn’t THAT bad but it was fucking hot and we were essentially cooking under a tent with a horde of strangers. None of them were blatantly terrible at least EXCEPT for this one dad that was a few people ahead of us who got on his phone halfway through the line and started DIRECTING the rest of his crew to his location. I HATE THAT.
I always hope that people in line won’t let the line jumpers through, but it almost never works out that way. In this case, it was the guy’s wife and teenage son, who were shrugging their way through the line with their recently-procured Beaver Tails (um, a delicious Canadian take on fried dough and one of the highlights of the day).
I was so pissed and proceeded to glare at the dad for the rest of our duration in the line. He looked like a Jersey Shore hothead, to be honest.
Other than that, the line wasn’t too horrible but I would say it was at least 20 minutes longer than the stupid app said it would be.
I don’t know that I would say it was worth the wait but it was definitely one of the best in the park, and as far as dive coasters go, I think it would be my #3 (I’ve only ridden 4, lol). Dive coasters just don’t really do it for me, but I so really like the one at Busch Gardens Williamsburg a lot.
s’OK.
My favorite part was actually the loose article bin system! You put your stuff in while you’re next in line, and then as you get on the coaster, the bins (which are made to look like old-school luggage) go up a conveyer system over top of the coaster and then when you return, the “luggage” is waiting for you in the exit!
Jersey Shore Dad was on the same train as us and was screaming, “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY STUFF” or something along those lines that included SWEARS, as everyone was exiting. What a fucking douche-noz.
I ate here! Well, after Henry waited a good 15 minutes for the register to be shut down and restarted so that he could pay.
Vegetarian moussaka! I was so excited for this and it was pretty good for amusement park food! Usually as a meat-free person, I’m stuck getting pizza or whatever shitty veggie burger they might have hidden in the back of a freezer somewhere. But this was nice!
Chooch and Henry went to some place called Lazy Bear Lodge or something, which was actually my back-up plan because I heard that they had Impossible stuffed-peppers.
After eating, I was like HARK, DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR? as we walked past the mountain. Of course, Henry 100% couldn’t because he can barely even hear me when I’m right next to him, but even Chooch was like, “You mean people screaming and a waterfall falling?” So we had to search out the nearest speaker in order for Chooch to hear.
OK, let me back up. The day before, Chooch had said he got in an argument with someone from school about Alanis Morrisette because he seriously thinks she’s terrible and look, I’m not her #1 fan, not a saesang for Alanis or anything, but I do genuinely like her as an artist and really enjoy a lot of her songs (this came later in life though — I didn’t really “get” it in real time when she was a new artist in the 90s and all over MTV, etc. I remember my friend Christy asking me in the car on the way to tennis practice if I had heard of her and I was like, “Yeah, this is not my thing” because I was super into rap and R&B at the time and also never wanted to like the same things my friends liked LOL why am I like this).
Anyway! I got really annoyed with Chooch, especially considering I’m always on edge whenever RYAN REYNOLDS comes up, so I started forcing him to listen to her songs that I like the most and one of the ones I sent him after he escaped back to his room was UNINVITED from the City of Angels soundtrack.
YOU GUYS, THAT WAS THE SONG THAT WAS PLAYING AT THAT MOMENT AT CANADA’S WONDERLAND.
WTF, wow, OK, I get that we were in Alanis Country but that would not be the choice from her discography that I expected, so I was super surprised and pleasantly surprised, because that song is THE FUCKING SHIT.
YES. Back when women sang with their real voices. We love to hear it.
Anyway, that happened.
Then Chooch and I rode some really whack darkride / coaster called Something Mountain Guardians or something. Um first of all, SIX OF THE SEATS in one of the trains were out of order, so Chooch and I got the entire train to ourselves. I had no idea what to expect because I had never seen much content about this in any of the videos I’ve watched, which was good because in the last room, something unexpected happens which caused me to scream SO LOUD like I was being murdered, only for theh door to open and our train to proceed to the exit which was right next to the line of people waiting to get on.
So everyone heard me scream and they were all staring at me.
It made me crack up so bad because this was 100% not a thrill ride but if you based it on my screams….
Anyway, as far as darkrides go, that was very outdated and also the audio wasn’t working. But the beginning and end made up for it, in my opinion.
Already posted these, but here is one of thee first #carouselfies of 2023 again!
Durrrrrr.
I think this is the one that will make it on the carouselfie wall.
OK, whatever I said earlier about Wilde Beast? Quadruple it and that’s how I felt this fucking piece of shit called Mighty Canadian Mindblower or something. What a disaster of a coaster. But first, let’s back it up and talk about that ride attendant up there who BELLOWED, “GET. DOWN. FROM. THE RAILING!!!! at every railing-sitting perp she eye-balled. There was a group of young guys behind us and after she screamed at one of them, his friend was like, “Yo, I would NEVER let someone yell at me like that. ARE YOU KIDDING?” and he was so stunned that this little bitch with the big mouth was flexing her authority with no clapback. I mean, I didn’t really disagree with him. I can see if she was having to tell the same person over and over again to get off the railing – then OK fine. But she was SATAN-ROARING this shit on first time offenders and it was so startling every time.
So yeah, I feel like if she had mouthed off on me in that way, I would have pushed back. I HATE being yelled at. HATE IT.
But also, I know not to sit on railings. So…
There was a young girl in line in front of us with her two friends and at the last second, she wussed out and asked if she could cross over to the exit instead of boarding the train. In hindsight, I wish I had followed her lead because this ride actually completely ruined the rest of the day for me. The jackhammering was unrelenting and I screamed IN PAIN through the entire duration. Even Chooch was in pain and he is a teenager who feels nothing. And it was a LONG LAYOUT too! Torture! Please RMC this abomination!!
Ugh I was so sick after this but STILL got in line for Behemoth, the park’s hyper coaster. One of the things I loved about this one was the CREW! They had a guy in the station who was overlooking the line below and would literally sound off a SIREN and then call out linejumpers over his megaphone. It was glorious.
They were assigning rows but I said, “Can we please have the back?” and made prayer-hands. That is the key. Henry said also “being cute” helps but that’s not me so it must be the prayer hands. They always act like they want to say no, but then they end up sighing and nodding. YESSS. It doesn’t hurt to ask, you guys! Back row is the best row! (Well, mostly.)
Anyway, I think this was my favorite ride in the park. I just LOVE hypers in general. The downside though is that as soon as it came to a stop on the brake run, my nausea and headache immediately came back with a vengeance and all I could think was, “OMG am I going to puke on a stationary coaster?” Literal, I was close. The puke was tickling my ghost-tonsils, is all I’m saying.
Shitty coasters aside (not including that beauty in the background), this park was so aesthetically pleasing. This shot was taken facing the entrance, with the moutain behind me.
I wanted a Beaver Tail all day! Look how happy The Purples look!
I went with the nutella version and it was perfect park snack. Not too heavy, just right. (I did share with Henry, ugh.)
We were going to leave after this, but then we realized we hadn’t walked over to this medieval section of the park yet. There was a coaster back there called Dragon Fyre and Henry pointed out that it was a walk-on. I knew, KNEW, that I should have JUST SAID NO, but I am always trying to prove that I am the parent who can be counted on, so I said, “Chooch, let’s get you one last credit today” and honestly I don’t even think he cared one way or the other. But we did it, we got on this piece of shit corkscrew and it KILLED ME. My brain felt so jostled, my face was hot yet clammy, I couldn’t get my vision to merge back into one. It was soooo bad.
“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Chooch said, all upbeat, as the train returned to the station, and I hissed, “Speak for yourself. Burn the bitch down.”
I had to go and sit on a stone wall next to some fake lake thing while Henry and Chooch went off in search of water for me. I have somehow managed to make it 43 years without ever puking in an amusement park but that streak came so close to ending on this day. I felt so wrecked, you guys.
We left about 20 minutes before the park closed at 8 and the whole drive to the hotel, I was chanting in my head, “Please don’t puke, please don’t puke.” I went to bed at 9:30 that night, you guys. 9:30. Dead to the world.
In summary, day one at Canada’s Wonderland wasn’t the WORST day I’ve ever had at a park, but it still left a lot to be desired. STAY TUNED FOR DAY 2. Was it better? Was it worse? NO SPOILERS.
You guys, I’m reposting this because it’s still so precious (precious??) to me. Wacky Worm 4 Lyfe! Should I take my homemade I’d Rather Be Riding the Wacky Worm t-shirt on our Coaster Crew vacation this summer?!? Speaking of, 12 years later and I am cracking up so bad at the thought of CHOOCH originally being “too scared” to ride the Wacky Worm! He’s come a long way, lololol.
***
I have an obsessive personality, so it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that after riding the Wacky Worm (or, for those in the know, The Caterpillar) for the first time at last year’s Big Butler Fair, the hope that it would return in 2011 was one of the few things that kept me from hanging myself with a hobo’s necktie over the winter.
Who the fuck is this kid in the red shirt and why isn’t he cheering? You’re on the Wacky Worm; get stoked, motherfucker!
As soon as Janna, Chooch and I had our ride-all-day wristbands slapped on (so proud of Janna for sucking it up and going all-out! Henry, however, remains a pussy) I suggested we take a preemptive stroll around the fairgrounds. I was trying to stay cool about it, but the truth was that my pulse was quickening due to the fact that the Caterpillar was not in the same spot it was in last year and I couldn’t even begin to imagine a day at the fair without it. Especially since I spent an hour the night before coaxing and bribing Chooch to want to ride it. (He punked out last year and in that moment, I was no longer looking at my son, but at a 40″ failure. And you better believe I let him know it! And you better believe Henry lectured me for letting him know it.) So while I pretended to be interested in the money-guzzling midway games boasting oversized Rastafarian bananas as prizes and the joyful beam on my kid’s sweaty face as he rode on some kiddie truck ride (which was actually pretty awesome and I should have went on it too, why didn’t I go on it too?), I was actually craning my neck to see overtop tents and pendulating cages of death, in search of just one glimpse of my beloved Caterpillar.
THANK GOD IT WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE, YOU GUYS.
“Why do you keep laughing like Pee Wee Herman?” Janna asked me, herself laughing quite nervously as we embarked on the first of many frivolous journeys.
“I don’t know, I’m just having so much fun!” I answered a little defensively, like I now needed to prove I wasn’t going to whip out my penis and coat the Caterpillar with my gooey joy.
Corey met us there an hour later and immediately joined the fan club. I think we rode it like, 18 times, with no promise of ever slowing down. I’d still be riding it right now, if I could. I think The Law Firm should have one in the building. As a stress reliever. You know. Fuck yoga.
Unfortunately for Corey, who is six-foot-alot, he was unable to join us in raising the roof each time the Caterpillar cruised down the hill.
“I’ll for sure break my wrists,” he announced when he realized how low the track was above us.
I let him believe that that’s what would happen, when I really know that his arms would most likely get gruesomely divorced from the rest of his torso. And it would still remain the best ride ever.
At one point, I noticed that older kids started lining up for it.
“That’s because they hear you screaming and now they think this ride is fun,” Henry mumbled.
“Um, it is fun,” I corrected him.
“No, you’re just an idiot,” he sighed. How would he know when he wouldn’t even ride it? What the fuck, Henry. It’s because he was too scared. TOO SCARED OF EXPERIENCING 60 SECONDS OF SHEER DELIGHT.
It might actually force him to crack a smile, possibly even tack on a few more minutes to his miserable life, god forbid.
So instead of joining us, he stood off to the side like some purse-toting pedophile, while all the other moms stood nearby and encouraged their respective children to cheer each time the caterpillar carried us past. Of course, this made me carry on even louder, like I was single-handedly trying to bring back the Arsenio; sometimes I would even shout Henry’s name and then point at him so everyone would know we belonged together.
He was really enthused about that.
This guy and another younger Mexican were the official Wacky Worm operators of the day, and let me tell you—they tired of me real fast. I mean, REAL FAST. I was about as amusing to them as border-crossing and I’m certain they mistook me as mentally challenged. Or on drugs. Why? Because no one has that much fun on the Wacky Worm? Damn right no one has that much fun on the Wacky Worm! I am the champion of the Wacky Worm!
Anyway, I’m glad he decided to fuck with the ride’s foundation while Corey and Chooch were on it, and not me.
Furthermore, why wasn’t I on it that time?! I have no idea. I’m sure I must have had some sort of reason to willingly pass up a joyride on the back of my beloved Caterpillar, but the only thing I can think of is that’s when I was giving a blow job to the Dunk-a-Clown under the bleachers during the tractor pull.
Let me try to walk you through the glory that is the Caterpillar (or Wacky Worm, whatever you feel most comfortable, as an adult, calling it). It’s like riding in Jesus’s lap (that can go either way you want, holla to the religious porn addicts) as a caterpillar ascends you up to the Heavens, far away from all the grouchy grown-ups, while tiny angel-dusted kitten paws knead biscuits of lost childhood memories on your belly, and all of a sudden you remember what it felt like to score that coveted Scratch n Sniff sticker you needed to fill the page and to not have bills to pay and a house to make sure isn’t exploded by your kid and a boyfriend who might have even been the same age as you, and it feels great. Great like freedom. You absolutely want to ride it 87 more times. Caterpillar, take me away.
I got to do something that I missed out on last summer: riding the Caterpillar at sunset. Nothing is better in life than riding the Caterpillar at sunset.
We never got to ride in the front seat, though we came close on our second-to-last go-around but the dumb bitch in front of us in line caught wind of our plans and pushed her way to the coveted front spot. Or it could have been that her beer-bellied dad was hollering, “GET THE FRONT, GIRL. GET IT!” when the carny opened the gate.
I tried to get Henry to act as a placeholder while we were on the ride. You know, have him stand alone in line, saving us a spot in the front; but he refused, mumbled something about not wanting to be the only adult male in line for a kiddie ride, at which point I had to argue that Powers Great American Midways mistakenly lists the Wacky Worm under the “kiddie ride” section of their website when they obviously meant for it to be under “spectacular rides.”
The next morning, Chooch came over to me and said, “Thank you, Mommy.” The fact that he said this earnestly and with no hint of sarcasm gave me pause.
“For what?” I asked hesitantly.
“For making me ride the Caterpillar yesterday. It was so awesome.”
That was my proudest moment as a parent.
***
Since I’m friends with Powers Great American Midways on Facebook (laugh all you want, it’s informative!), I know that they’re affiliated with the upcoming Fayette County Fair which is happening on my birthday. You better believe I’m going! I went to the PGAM website and filled out the contact form with a very pressing question:
This inspired Henry to sigh heavily and say various interpretations of disapproval, such as: Don’t send that; Get a life; You need help; Get the fuck over it.
They haven’t responded to my pressing inquiry yet. Until then, I will just watch my video continuously until Henry takes the Internet away from me.
(Henry thought I pushed that girl out of my way at the end. I promise you I employed great restraint not to. Also, I apparently wasn’t holding Janna’s phone properly BUT WHO CARES IT’S THE FUCKING CATERPILLAR YA’LL. Henry really wants me to stop calling it that. It’s apparently a completely different ride.)
You guys, the most amazing thing happened after we scarfed down 1.5 cinnamon breads between the three of us: ALL OF THE RIDES OPENED. In this post, we will look at pictures of rides, and us on rides, and I’ll say some things about rides. Sound good? YEAH THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.
Blazing Fury! I love riding this and screaming outlandishly on the drops. Chooch thought the one ride operator looked like Jonah Hill except he couldn’t remember his name so I went through a list of basically every actor affiliated with Seth Rogen until his name was on the tip of my tongue and suddenly, in a moment of the ride when it was pretty quiet and no one on the train was talking, I bellowed, “JONAH HILL!!!!” so now I think that should be my new dark ride battle cry, kind of like when we went through a phase of screaming, “JANNA!” as a way to express mock-fear on kiddie coasters.
Hey man, I had been wanting to ride this dumb kids ride ever since I saw videos of Dollywood’s new family area, Wildwood Grove.
I wanted Chooch and I to share a bear but as you can see, that did play out the way I had hoped.
Wow, Chooch put his phone down long enough for Henry to take a picture, I’m shocked.
Back row, Lightning Rod! This was a station wait ALL DAY LONG. Literally could have just walked on at times if we hadn’t been so particular about front or back row.
SIR. I forgot how insane this coaster is. My very first RMC, back in 2018, and still one of my favorites. However, it either got a lot rougher or I just don’t remember it being so rough, but my organs felt majorly jostled on every ride. The quad-down or whatever thoosie name it has is still easily one of my favorite elements on any RMC I’ve ridden this far. It makes me so fucking giddy!
Chooch sang Papa Roach on this again, for old time’s sake. This time though he looked up the lyrics so he could sing more than just the opening part and then made the mistake of trying to make sense of them. Words in a song written and performed by a band called Papa Roach.
Good luck!
We just kept getting right back in line at one during the day. When you can basically WALK ON an RMC, you gotta take advantage of that shit. I definitely had some minor bruising on my person from the re-rides. Not complaining!
I made Chooch ride these acorns with me. I had to do it for the squirrels, you know?!
I also had to take a picture of this because SQUIRREL. Also, in the background, you can see the lift hill for Wild Eagle. We only rode this once – I don’t know why this one isn’t very re-rideable for me. It’s not BAD by any means, I guess I just don’t care much for wing coasters?
This one just isn’t that memorable to me, although the ride operator certainly was. He was some old dude who definitely was taking FULL advantage of being given a microphone and he turned that station into open mic night.
Except he was the only performer.
Chooch got on the train after us and was able to hear one more joke than we did. He was 100% not a fan of this guy at all, and in his typical surly manner, later relayed to me the “dumbest joke of all time” that the guy told as Chooch’s train was leaving the station.
“What was the name of the reindeer in Jingle Bells? Bob. The bells on Bob’s tail ring — no, don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” Chooch sighed when he noticed that I was cracking up at his retelling of the Not Funny Joke.
Here we are standing in line for the new family coaster in the Wildwood Grove section. This wasn’t when Chooch was retelling the joke, but that was similar to the face he made when I laughed at it. This was a new credit for him since it was built after our last visit!
Um OK, can we hold the phone for a sec? Because I think Thunderhead might be in my Top 5 favorite wooden coasters of all time? I think it might even be my favorite coaster in Dollywood? I knew that this was one that seriously gave me giggle fits last time we were there but I was SO AFRAID that it wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. Maybe I outgrew it! I have been on so many excellent coasters since 2018, after all.
But SHIT SON, somehow this felt even crazier, wilder, and more fucking fantastic than the last time. I was not prepared. Not at all. This was another straight-up walk on so after we rode it once, we ran all the way around and got right back on without Henry, who was reading dumb Reddit shit on his phone while sitting on a bench, even noticing.
I made Henry ride this later in the front row and you guys, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe and came SO CLOSE to peeing my pants. This is what a roller coaster should feel like! Insanity! Giddy! Wild!
Henry sent me this from his terrible phone, but it was a gif so I had to just put a screen shot in here because WordPress is so finicky. Anyway, this is us on the new kiddie coaster that went around like 3 or 4 times – 3 or 4 times TOO much.
Not shown: Tennessee Tornado, which was way less shitty than I remembered it to be so I allowed Chooch to drag me on it twice; Mystery Mine, which I was OBSESSED with the first time we went to Dollywood in 2011! It’s still fun, just kind of underwhelming now. Firechaser Express – I love this family coaster! It’s so much fun and it has a backward launch which always makes me crack up!
Oh wait, I lied! I forgot that I took this video while we were in line:
I think this wraps up the ride portion of the blog posts! I will return at some point with the remainder of my pictures and thoughts, like you care!
Dollywood doesn’t open until 11am so we were able to have somewhat of a leisurely Sunday, which is almost unheard of for us when we’re traveling. There is not much room for “relaxation” with our vacationing style, lol. I tried to read on our little balcony for a little bit, and then we got a C- grade hotel breakfast downstairs. I mean, it was fine for people who don’t care about what they’re eating, I guess. But I am limited. I settled on scrambled eggs and it got the job done. Meanwhile, Henry tried to mansplain to some young girl how to use the pancake machine and she snapped back at him, which he proceeded to dwell on even a day later, like OK bro, god forbid you called out for being a know-it-all man.
Probably replaying the pancake scene in his head on the hotel balcony before we left for Dollywood.
On the tram at Dollywood! We arrived a bit after 10am because usually places will open the lots earlier than the park, so we try to beat the crowds. Sadly, the driver of the tram got on his little speaker thing and said that he was required to tell us that DUE TO HIGH WINDS, SOME OF THE RIDES WOULD NOT BE RUNNING TODAY.
He quickly curbed any and all questions but continuing, “Now look, I don’t have a list of the rides, but I’m obligated to tell you,” and then he went on to list all the non-ride shit that Dollywood has to offer, like meats and shows. Two things that I do not care for. We were pretty bummed about this but I tried to look on the bright side in that we’ve already ridden everything there (except for the new family coaster) and there are way worse places to be stuck at for a day than Dollywood, lemme tell you.
There was a small crowd already gathering at the gates and we were prepared to stand there until 11, but then they played the National Anthem at 10:30 and started letting people in! Let’s goooo!
DOLLYWOOD, I MISSED YOU!
We decided to take a chance and walked straight to Lightning Rod just to see, and there was already a small line that had formed. This gave us hope because there wasn’t a CLOSED FOR WEATHER sign at the entrance or any other type of crowd deterrent, so maybe the tram driver was given FAKE NEWS.
It did seem pretty windy though, which sucked because the rest of the weather was a bangin’ fall day, man. Sunshine, high-60s, bright blue skies. I was actually starting to sweat a little in my sweater and Chooch was mumbling about how this was why he wanted to wear shorts, wah.
I’m sure it’s park policy that they have to wait until the joint officially opens before the ride attendants can come out and give us the bad news, but it was still annoying that they let all of us coaster assholes loiter for 30 minutes before coming out of their hidey holes inside the station to tell us that the ride was not opening due to winds. Actually, they only seemingly whispered this update to the people in the very front, and not everyone was leaving so we weren’t sure what the fuck was going on until some girl behind us walked up and asked. Then we heard her tell her friends that they said NOTHING was running, and they left the line along with a bunch of other people, so we followed like the sheep that we are.
I was wondering if the carousel at least was running, and Chooch was like, “NO, NONE OF THE RIDES ARE, ESPECIALLY NOT THE CAROUSEL” because he has grown to hate carousels thanks to my obsession with carouselfies.
BUT IT WAS RUNNING!!!
I didn’t realize that they were both sitting in the same position, but they said afterward it was because they were both trying to get the seat belt on which wasn’t even required for adults. (I so badly wanted to end that sentence with “lol” but I my new thing is attempting to write more like an adult and not an AIM child. Bear with me, it’s a struggle.)
I love this sweater so much. I almost said I got it from Delia’s because my mind is clearly living its best life in the 90s but I actually got it last year from Mod Cloth. I usually have bad Mod Cloth experiences, but this one was a winner. You know, just a non-sponsored FYI.
I don’t know which one I like better: 1 or 3? Only one can go on the carouselfie wall!
I had been dreaming of this moment. We didn’t know that this was a DO NOT MISS foodstuffs the first time we visited in 2011, because I had failed to do my due diligence, but we rectified our errors the last time we were there and can confirm that this is a park food that 100% lives up to its hype. Holy shit, this damn bread. They give you a whole tin pan thingie of it and it’s like a warm, sticky pillow of decadence.
We got TWO to split between the three of us because last time, we only got one for the three of us and craved more immediately after demolishing the pan in under 5 minutes.
We ate one and half loaves right then and there, and then devoured the rest later that evening because we are pigs for Dolly’s cinnamon bread.
LOL. Also, I begged him to bring other flannels but he of course just brought the one which is so annoying. “My shirts underneath are different every time!” he cried defensively, like that matters.
Then we casually strolled about, taking in the scenery. Dollywood is so cozy and woodsy!
Then something totally amazing happened: EVERY RIDE WAS CLEARED TO OPEN!! The day totally did a complete 180! So, my plan of, “Well, we’ll just have a leisurely, slow day at the park since the rides are closed. We can take it easy and go see some shows or something” turned into, “LET’S GO, BITCHES! GO GO GO!!” as we ran from one coaster to the next. More pictures in the next post!
Henry and I had plans to go to Cedar Point on Sunday for the last day of the season, but I almost let my depressed mood convince me that I wanted to stay home. Too much happened all at once and it was weighing on me big time:
The hawk incident (more deets on this in a separate post);
There was another car crash on my street Saturday night and I’m sorry, but hearing that sickening crush of metal never gets any easier (no one was seriously injured thank god but the lady driving took out about 3 parked cars on my block and then later tried to say she wasn’t the one driving but no one else was with her and she also threw an absolute fit when my neighbors tried to call 911, then her husband came and started yelling at her when she started to make up more stories);
But mostly: the Itaewon incident has really hit me hard. I can’t explain it, but it feels close to home. Anytime anything awful happens in South Korea, I feel it in my heart. Such a tragic, horrific way to die. My friend Jiyong moved back to Seoul last year, but she luckily was not in Itaewon.
So, I didn’t really feel like going to Cedar Point in light of all of this, but Henry was like, “You can’t just stop doing everything because bad things have happened” blah blah, but he’s a sociopath who doesn’t care about anything ever so taking advice from him is not advisable. In the end, I agreed to go but I was a mopey lump in the passenger seat for the entire 2.5 hour drive there. I kept getting news alerts about Itaewon, texting Chooch about the hawk (“IS IT THERE? WELL, ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING FOR IT??”) and crying every time we drove past road kill. At one point, I wailed, “I WISH I DIDN’T FEEL SO MUCH!”
I’m becoming more and more of a fatalist as I grow older and it’s kind of psychologically debilitating, I have to say. I feel like I’m on a fast track to reclusion.
After an uneventful drive with me brooding out the window, we arrived at CP with about 20 minutes of Early Entry left. We headed straight to Millennium Force, because this is the coaster we have the best luck with during early entry. The line was already starting to get kind of long, so I was a baby about that because PROJECTION, but it actually was only about a fifteen minute wait.
“I’m not screaming,” I said as I stood in line for the back row with my arms crossed miserably over my dumb chest.
“OK,” Henry laughed, knowing that this was like, an impossible feat for me.
It was really funny though because when it was our turn, the ride attendant with the mic was like, “If you’re ready….don’t scream.” Henry was like, “WOW” because for every train before that she was of course telling everyone to scream and it was like she knew that I said I wasn’t going to!?
But then as the train started to leave the station, she was like, “OK you can scream” and I forgot that I wasn’t GOING TO so of course I screamed like a lunatic.
And then I grayed out after the first drop! That doesn’t happen to me very often on Millie!
The wait time for Steel Vengeance was listed as 30 minutes which is SHORT for that fucker! We got in line and it was moving super steadily until an announcement came on saying that there was going to be a short delay in order for a train to be removed from the track for maintenance. The recording INSISTED that it was A SHORT delay. So we didn’t let our inner Karens run rampant.
But then, and I fucking swear to god it happened at the CURSED SECTION of the queue, right where the dummy Fast Lane people come in, another announcement came on saying that STEVE WAS DOWN AND THAT MAINTENANCE HAD BEEN CALLED.
Motherfucker, SteVe! Has there been a time when I visited CP when SteVe hasn’t broken down while I’m in line?! MAYBE ONCE?!!? The only good thing about this is that people start dropping out of line like flies. So even though the dumb ride is broken down, we’re still kind of moving up in line.
I killed time by making this sick meme of THE ONE THING THAT CAN PULL ME OUT OF MY MOPEY MOOD. lol. Even Henry kind of smirked when he saw it on Insta.
We finally made it past the Fast Lane spillway and into the last stretch of queue before LOCKER TIME. But then there was ANOTHER ride delay announcement right before we got to the metal detector (riding RMCs is a real experience, you guys). Henry was annoyed because he forgot his dorky eyeglass strap thing in the car and hadn’t bought a new one there yet so he had to leave his glasses in the locker. Which meant he was standing in line, visually impaired. LOL.
Anyway, I would say that in total, we went from a 30-minute wait to probably a little bit over an hour but you guys gotta know that SteVe is fucking worth it.
Mostly, our day was pretty chill. We didn’t ride a whole lot (Raptor / Ferris Wheel / Mine Train Thing / TIKI TWIRL / plus Millie / Steve) because we only stayed until around 4:30 and spent what felt like most of the day roaming around looking for HALLOWEEN TREATS which apparently didn’t come out until the haunt shit started later that night. The one thing we saw a sign for though were two “creepy-themed” cupcakes, $10.99 each! Is that a joke?! I’m sure they were probably just regularly sized cupcakes!
So, here are some pictures from the rest of our day.
I realized that we had never ridden the ferris wheel at CP before so we changed that. We spent the whole time in line trying to figure out the reasoning behind why they don’t load every car. I know it’s a balance thing, I’m not a stoop (mostly) but like, why don’t they fill the whole thing if there are still people waiting in line?
It’s weird how small Cedar Point looks from above, when it feels like you’re walking a half marathon to get from one side to the next.
It was kind of nice to just relax on the dumb ferris wheel for a bit!
After that we rode the Tiki Twirl which is a Calypso-style flatride and I just love these types of rides SO MUCH. I was cracking up during the whole ride and Henry was not amused which made it even funnier.
I love that Cedar Point has a little food truck area – all amusement parks should do this! The truck with the delicious sunflower veggie burger was there again and I was delighted. This was literally right up there with SteVe on the list of reasons I got out of bed on Sunday.
IT IS SO FUCKING GOOD. I also got a maple & brown sugar-flavored coffee from the bagel food truck and that too was wonderful. It was a really mild day with JUST ENOUGH chill in the air to require a jacket and hot bev.
Henry got a pizza bagel or something, who cares.
I don’t care about shows but for some reason we stopped for a few minutes to watch these people do super glam and overdramatic covers of not-great pop songs and it was actually making me uncomfortable; I’m not going to lie. One of the dancers reminded me of Weird Paul but the more I think about, I think he moreso reminded me of one of the guys from ARMY OF LOVERS:
Yeah, the guy on the right. Alexander Bard, apparently.
DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE. Hilariously, I had peanuts in my fanny pack because why wouldn’t I?? So I got to feed a CP squirrel.
This was only our second time riding this and I gotta say it’s actually not that bad and it made me kind of giddy. (I feel like I spent most of the ride screaming OW MY BACK OMG though, lol.)
Henry was not happy about riding it but then admitted it was not as bad as he remembered.
It’s weird – I love amusement parks and I love haunted houses, but I don’t care much for the haunt events at amusement parks. I do like the decor though but I’m not trying to stand in those lines! The haunt crowds were starting to pour in by the time we were on our way out and I was not sad about leaving.
Overall, it was a nice afternoon. I don’t think we fought at all, although he was annoyed that I texted Chooch while we were in line for Raptor to tell him that Henry said he doesn’t like “those hanging ones,” instead of calling them by their real name: INVERTS. Ugh, some thoosie he is.
Before I start this post, I want to express my sadness for the terrible events that took place at Kennywood, the night after Henry and I were there. Honestly, nothing related to gun violence is shocking or surprising anymore, but it’s still very much sad and maddening. It’s very fortunate that no one sustained life-threatening injuries, but the fact that a gun was even able to make it into Kennywood at all is a huge problem. The part that made me angry-laugh was that I actually thought, “Well, it sounds like it was at least just a regular gun and not an assault rifle” Because that’s where we are right now in America, I guess. “Thank god it was a least-bad type of gun.” “Oh, thank god it was just a dispute between people who knew each other and not a random mass shooting.” “Thank god that person was ‘just shot in the leg’ and nowhere worse.” I could go on and on but it’s the same effing story every damn time. Come the fuck on, America.
I hope everyone involved have speedy recoveries and no PTSD, though that’s one hell of a hope. :/
I haven’t been to Kennywood’s Fright Fest, or whatever they’re calling it now, since 2006. And as much as my appreciation for Kennywood has grown over the years, I gotta be real here: I am REALLY glad we didn’t pay for this. Since it was the Pass Holder preview or whatever, the crowds were fairly light and but the lines for the haunts were pretty long. I would have been a lot angrier about that if we had paid to get in.
I’ll save the haunt reviews for my WRITTEN JOURNAL that no one cares about, but I’ll just say here that we only did two – Villa of the Vampire and Malice in Wonderland – and the cemetery walk-thru.
The best part of Villa was standing in line (we did this right when we got there, well, ok, after Henry peed, so the line wasn’t too outrageous yet, maybe 25-30 minutes) was watching this little boy get totally pwned (do the kids still use this word? and by kids, I mean people who are now probably 35?) by the clowns at the entrance to one of the scare zones. He was acting so tough until one of them chased him and then he let loose the mots high-pitched shriek YA’LL EVER DID HEARD. He was super entertaining, especially when he asked some old man if he could borrow his cane to beat the clown!
Highlight of the Villa: Luca, the vampire in the beginning that I immediately imprinted on, and the old ass Vamp King who descended from his throne in order to get in my face and ask me to be his Queen.
“Sure, I’m single,” I shrugged.
Everything else was dumb and by “everything else” I mean the absolute nothingness that happened.
The sign was cool though.
Honestly though the best part was getting to ride the coasters, boiiii. Here we are in line for Jack Rabbit which was almost a walk-on.
Also – Chooch didn’t go with us because he was SO TIRED. And also, HIS PARENTS ARE LAME.
After this, we waited in line for the Alice in Wonderland thing for AN HOUR. Maybe longer. Apparently, it’s an upcharge on normal operating nights? I mean, there was a ticket booth, so I dunno. The line was pretty uneventful except for:
annoying teenagers who bitched about their Pepsi tasting like Not Pepsi, Maybe Poison but still drinking it, taking pictures of each other for a solid minutes using the .5x option.
little kid crying because he lost his spider ring and I totally knew where it was in line because I remember staring at it and willing it to come to life and infecting me with venom while Henry was talking about something dumbz0rz, but then his mom walked back through the line until she found it so I didn’t get to be a hero :(
seeing one of the scare actors and realizing he used to work at Castle Blood.
two skunks scuttling around the Steel Curtain area, looking for a food. An old man security guard kept watch.
Old Man Security Guard asked the line attendant, “Is that group going in next?” she said yes. “Can I go with them?” she said yes. Now annoying teens with their annoying selfies and Poison Pepsi were going through a haunted house with a POPO lololol. They looked very not happy about this but the hilarious thing is that my takeaway from his exchange with the line attendant was that he was on his break and just genuinely wanted to check out a haunt. See what all these civilians were lining up for.
All I’ll say about this one is that immediately I was S T O K E D. The actors were very made-up, super into character, the room designs were immersive and creepy-whimsical, there were genuinely good jump scares, the Tea Party room was chaotic as it should be, there was a really great mirror illusion involving a banquet table, the Queen was scary….all of this happened in the first 5 minutes, so much to pack in! And then after the Queen, the exit to the Steelers County courtyard.
The end.
An hour in line for 5 minutes inside.
NOPE, KENNYWOOD. That’s not how this shit works are you new???
I would have been PISSED if I paid to get in, first of all, and then paid extra on top of that.
Man, so much potential with this one!
Then we had pizza and I was served some old-ass corner piece that was about 3/4 crust and Henry was like, “Do you want me to ask them for another piece?” and I said, “no” in my pouty tone, but then Henry asked anyway and the 12-year-old kid working was like, “I just put in a new cheese pizza, if you don’t mind waiting” and you know what? I did mind waiting, so I took my dumb crust piece and sulked off. Henry picked the pepperoni off of his slice and gave me half because he didn’t want the night to take a turn.
While we were eating, Old Man Security Guard strode by, shoveling the last quarter of a pizza slice into his bent back head and then stuff the paper plate into one of the clown trash cans in Kiddie Land.
“Wow, he is literally having the best night ever,” I said, watching him meander off toward another haunt. Love that for him.
Terrible haunts aside, it’s always nice to be at an amusement park on a chilly fall night, fog in the air, creepy lighting illuminating the paths. The scare zones were pretty fun, I will say.
This is actually where the shooting took place the next night. :(
Everyone knows by now that the real reason we went that night was to ride our One True Love, Phantom’s Revenge. <3
There were two young girls in the row next to us and the older one was seamlessly roping me into their conversation. She was telling me ALL KINDS OF STORIES like how Black Window broke down recently and everyone got stuck upside for an hour. I went along with it but Black Widow doesn’t go upside down and I’m pretty sure she’s confusing it with Aero360 which got stuck for 5 minutes earlier in the season.
I also told her I liked her shoelaces and Chooch would have been melting into the ground from the sheer force of the secondhand cringe.
But OH BABY Phantom in the pitch darkness on a chilly night, plummeting into darkness…this is the best part of Kennywood. This is why enthusiasts ALL OVER THE WORLD have Kennywood on their bucket list.
So damn good, it’s almost disgusting.
And it was FLYING that night. So smooth!! No back-crunching!
After that, we did Exterminator – lights out! I love this ride so much but the last couple of times I rode it, I started to not love it as much. Well, my love rebloomed last Friday because this was hands down the best ride I’ve ever had on it. I was scream-laughing SO HARD, ask Henry. Go on, ask him!
What else – we rode SWINGSHOT which has replaced Aero360 as my favorite flat ride. I love that stupid ride so much and I can’t believe that it was actually the LAST TIME I was at Fright Fest in 2006 that I ride it for the very first time with Kara and then quickly vowed to never ever ever ride that fucker again. I’m so glad I let Chooch talk me back on it when he was younger because wow, a trip to K-wood is not complete without at least one ride on this thing. My only complaint is that I am CERTAIN the cycles are shorter now and that makes me sad.
Also, I thought my ex-boyfriend Jeff was riding this with us but my eyes are bad and it probably wasn’t him. I mean, I haven’t seen him since the year we broke up (2001!!) so I wouldn’t really know what he looks like aside from what I see on Insta.
One more ride on Phantom and it was 10:30 already. Park closed at 11 but I was SHIVERING and Needy Chooch was texting us for food, god it’s always something with him!! J/k we love that pest.
Henry thought I was getting in line to go through the Vampire thing again and then we had a big laugh about that, lol.
The facade was so nice though! Maybe they just did a half-staff thing for pass holder preview but if that’s the case, that’s pretty rude.
P.S. I forgot about the cemetery. It was very very very tame but I enjoyed this ghost bitch wading in the green-lit fountain.
Hello from the second half of our ultra fun day Great America! It was just Labor Day Weekend but they were already setting up for their haunt. I made Henry stand in this tunnel thing so I could photograph him like one of my french bitches.
I think he’s actually opening his little packet of aspirin in these pictures, lol. Can’t ride more than two coasters without it.
For Snack Time, I had this Dole Whip swirl. It was mango and strawberry. It was fine but like, why so much hype for Dole Whip though? Henry got a pretzel for his Snack Time and I had regertz so I gave him the rest of my Dole Whip in exchange for like 3/4 of said pretzel.
In line for the Flash – Henry dislikes Intamin Impulse coasters but I super-love them and he was my riding buddy on this day so SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP.
I always get extremely nervous waiting for the launch but guess what?? It was actually really weak. So weak that I thought they were having an issue but no, it was nervous I guess. Nowhere near as thrilling as my beloved Wicked Twister (RIP baby).
I always enjoy a good fling on the Batman clones! This one looked like it had a really long line but it wasn’t long at all. Really none of the lines were bad all day except for Joker (low capacity) and MaxxForce (this is just problematic and I feel like the line would be long no matter what).
I didn’t get anything from here but thought it was cute, OK.
At some point in the day, Chooch rode his 250th coaster and actually had one of his friends take a picture because I told him MAKE SURE YOU GET A PICTURE because you know me and my obsessive need to document every little moment of his life for the future MOMMY LOVES YOU scrapbook that I’ll be sure to present to him in front of a crowd someday.
OK, I was extremely excited to ride American Eagle! It was Intamin’s first foray into a wooden coaster and all I knew from coaster vlogs is that it is a legit HIKE through this queue, and boy they weren’t wrong. You just keep walking and walking, up and down and up and down, across a ROAD, until you finally reach the station. If that entire queue is ever actually filled, I would be horrified.
Halfway through our leisurely Sunday stroll through the American Eagle queue.
The line didn’t even actually begin until we reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the station. Then we played musical rows because I couldn’t settle on one – we started in the middle row because the only way Henry would agree to ride any of the wooden coasters was if I agreed to sit in the middle and not my beloved back row. But in the end, I had maneuvered my way to the front row and that’s where we stayed. It was right next to the ride op’s room and there were various rubber ducks lining the edges of it which was entertaining to look at it while waiting for the slow AF ops – it’s supposed to be a racing coaster but they were only running one train on one side, which was annoying but I swear this seems to be the new norm anymore – King’s Dominion, Cedar Point – maybe King’s Island but I can’t remember now? – were all running one side only on their racing coasters the last few times we were there.
Our thoughts on American Eagle:
Henry – it wasn’t that bad, I’ve ridden worse wooden coasters.
Me – I FUCKING LOVED IT. It made me laugh my effing ugly face off so hard, it was ridiculous. Not nearly as rough as it looks like it would be, and the HELIX, YO. THE HELIX. Do not skip this if you go to Great America.
HERE IS A PICTURE OF US EXITING THE RIDE.
WHIZZER!!! Holy shit, Great America – you got a super weirdly-rounded coaster collection! This Schwartzkopf (I am NOT looking up the spelling, sorry imaginary journalism degree) oddity was so unique and felt like something the Brady Bunch would have ridden together and Alice would have been screaming into a kerchief while Marsha was making eyes at the muttonchopped ride op.
It’s a toboggan-style coaster where two people sit front to back on one long seat so I would have had to try and sit between Henry’s legs without jamming my knees into the seat in front of me. I was super worried that Henry and I wouldn’t fit in one car together so we had to ride separately because I wanted to spare us from the trauma of being fat-shamed. This was definitely made for two children or a parent and child and I noticed other adult couples were also riding stag so that is what we did too, sorry Henry, I know you were looking forward to squeezing your thighs against my saddle bags. Much erotic.
After this, we passed Chooch and his SQUAD GIRLS! The girls happily waved hello to us like normal functioning humans while Chooch looked like he wanted the earth to open up and engulf him whole. I can’t remember where Henry and I were headed, but we ended up changing our minds and going back to finally face the MaxxForce line which was hovering between 60-90 minutes all day.
GUESS WHO HAD THE SAME IDEA??? Chooch and his squad girls! WOO!! So much to Chooch’s chagrin, he ended up having to live the waking nightmare of standing in the same line with his PARENTS and GIRL FRIENDS for NINETY MINUTES. Yeah, I didn’t even realize we were in for 90 minutes until Chooch was bitching about it later and I was like “There is no way we were in that line for that long?” but he argued that we were, so I checked my phone for receipts because I texted Corey the moment we got in line with them and then I took that picture down there of Chooch right when we were next in line, and yep.
Ninety fucking minutes.
The big TO DO of this line was the fact that Chooch was wearing the same shirt as that guy behind us. His girl friends (Anna and Lexi) were dying over this and I said, “That’s his Dad Shirt” and that made them lose it all over again and Chooch kept making INSANE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR hands motions next to his head like he was willing to swallow a stick a dynamite in order to escape the pain of his Mexico world colliding with MOMMY.
I was super engrossed in what they were talking about, too, but Henry kept gently pulling me back by my shoulders and making a subtle, “Give them space” eye blinks.
UGH.
They were totally talking about CIEE people and I wanted to know!!
At one point, Chooch made eye contact with Anna and then turned and made eye contact with me, and screamed, “STOP LOOKING AT ME!!” and the anguish on his face you guys, the wet glint of agony in his eyes. It was hilarious. Anna was laughing so hard and squealed, “Why do you get so upset when people look at you?!”
Oh, the trials and tribs of Riley J.
(Speaking of, we were very good about calling him RILEY in front of his friends although Anna found my Insta and knows about “Chooch” now so he was like, “And I would like to thank you for that.” LOL.)
THAT FACE THO.
We did not ride Little Dipper for absolutely no good reason. Apparently, Chooch didn’t either and he was pretty salty about it because it’s all about the COASTER CREDS. Guess we’ll just have to go back!?
Somewhere after MaxxForce, we rode Superman and it was excellent (Henry hates flying coasters but admitted it was OK) and whatever their indoor wild mouse is. Gotham something. It was about a 25 minute wait and also the only time all day that I got mad at Henry because I was trying to tell him a really important story and he kept looking past me and I HATE THAT because it makes me feel like he’s not listening to me so then I gave him the silent treatment and he cried and begged me to be his friend again.
Then on the ride, he caught the hat of the guy in front of us and it was probably the most heroic he’s felt since he was IN THE SERVICE.
That ride was actually good too! I think Great Adventure is where we rode the clone and I don’t remember thinking that one was any good because the theming was shit, but this one was SO GOOD. The theming was there and the ride itself was actually really intense and I nearly got whiplash.
Then I demanded Henry buy me a Six Flags sweatshirt because I was legit freezing in a t-shirt and shorts all day. So now I have red Six Flags sweatshirt which was actually a hassle to buy because some asshole family was hogging the whole rack and then I had to ask an employee if they had Mediums and she had to forage “in the back” for one. At that point, I was locked in. Had to buy it.
I have to say though, while Six Flags can generally be so hit or miss (they have major issues, I’m not even exaggerating, basically the Walmart of theme park chains at this point) their gift shop employees have always been EXCEPTIONALLY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. Literally every single park.
Anyway, this sweatshirt was a game-changer. Or, mood-changer really. Because I was really getting cranky but now that I was warm and cozy, I felt like I was given a do-over and was ready to get back out there and have fun again.
Got a late night black bean burger at some place in the Raging Bull area of the park. It was OK but they apparently didn’t have the sauce that was supposed to come with it and I get really mad about stuff like that because I LOVE ME SOME CONDIMENTS. The waffle fries were surprisingly good, but the pretzel bun was very dry and didn’t really do much for me. I would have preferred whatever bun Henry had on his meat sandwich.
Running back to try and get one last ride on Goliath before park closed. I LOVE the feeling of being in a park when it’s nearly ready to close. It’s like, romantic or something, I dunno.
We made it in line for Goliath and GUESS WHO ELSE DID TOO? LOL. They were behind us a bit. I let Chooch know we were aware of his location by texting him a picture I took of him from my spot in line, because I read the Creepy Mom Handbook when I was pregnant and it’s gotten me this far without causing a complete and utter relationship severance, so why stop now.
They ended up getting on the train right after us and I tried to get a picture of them coming onto the brake run but I stupidly moved before it was done so it was just one big blur. :(
We talked to them for a little bit after they got off Goliath, while watching the fireworks. Chooch was sure to point out that his night ride was better than my night ride because the fireworks started when they went up the lift hill.
“I don’t know if you guys realized this about him, but he is VERY competitive,” I said to Lexi and Anna, rolling my eyes, and they cracked up because OF COURSE THEY KNOW THIS. Everyone who spends even a few minutes with my kid knows this.
I TRULY DON’T KNOW WHERE HE GETS THIS TRAIT.
Oh also so that ride up there? Fiddler’s Fling? HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE IT WITH ME. Actually, HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE ANY FLAT RIDES. And this park actually had a pretty unique flat ride collection so I was super sad. I definitely need to go back – with someone else!!
The (weak) Flash.
Oh yeah! We rode this earlier too. It was Henry’s first ever 4d Free Spin and he didn’t hate it as much as he anticipated. I was scream-yelling the whole time. I hated this ride the first time I rode it in New Jersey, acquired a newfound appreciation for it in Massachusetts, and changed our status to IN A RELATIONSHIP in Illinois. You and me, Joker. 4 lyfe.
Oh look another ride he wouldn’t ride with me.
Literally one of the most beautiful amusement park landmarks.
Before we left, I blurted out, “CAN I TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU GUYS” and the girls said ABSOLUTELY while Chooch was quickly looking for a vampire to turn him so he wouldn’t appear in the picture.
I don’t know what else to say – I loved this day so much. I loved the whole weekend. It was weird not being with Chooch all day but I also so happy that we were able to arrange this reunion for him and ugh, sometimes I really am such a mom! See?? I do have the maternal stuffs in me. It’s just sometimes buried by my Forever 16 personality traits.
