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First stop, Seasons Pass Processing office, this was not the headache I anticipated. I stood in line for about 5 minutes and the lady took my picture and handed me a shiny new Platinum Pass in about 10 seconds. Sweet! The sign says Hurler, Drop Zone and something else are closed for the day. No big deal, I knew Hurler was down til May, and I don't care about the other 2 closures.
I should have snapped a few shots of International Street as you enter, since they have Spring in Blooms thing going on right now with a lot of flowers around the fountain, and since it's the 40th Anniversary most buildings are painted shiny and new looking. Nice touch. I start by heading off to the right past the log flume and river ride and head straight for the Grizzly.
It's been a while since I've been to KD so I was really looking forward to this one. It didn't disappoint. It was a little rougher than I remember, but it is 15 years older, and it wasn't uncomfortably rough. It also seem to run faster than I remember in parts, as if a trim may have been removed/unused. It was a walk on so I went around for another lap. Still my favorite ride in the whole park, and will stay that way for about 2 and a half more hours.
Next I headed to the Rebel Yell, it's a classic and I try to ride it at least once every time I go.
It's a simple out and back racer with plenty of airtime hills. They only had one side running, so the race was a little lopsided. And here is where I get confused with KD's decisions. Remember the shiny new paint on International Street? In the weeks leading up to opening KD teased a new paint job and the return of the chase lights. Apparently, the new paint is for the park facing pieces. Other spots when you are one ride showed very heavy exposure.
Here is shot of Shockwave taken as I walk past on my way to Safari Village. It's a stand up and I'll be glad when these things are gone. I only ride it once or twice a season so I can say I rode it, and today wasn't it's lucky day.
Once over at Safari Village it's time for Avalanche, the bobsled coaster. I absolutely love this one and wish I could have gotten some good shots of it. Not a high thrill level, but it makes me smile every time, and that's enough. Very short line, 2-3 train wait, so I went through again.
Getting pretty hungry at this point but decide to hit a bigger ride before lunch and since I'm right beside I decide to get it out of the way. Nope. The solution to ridiculous line lengths seems to be parking an employee in front of the line when it gets too long. Anaconda, then. Nope. Not open. It's not listed as one of the closed rides so I head off hoping to get on later. Dominator it is, then.
It's my first time on this one, and the first ride I had to wait in line for. About 45 minutes later I'm finally able to ride it and sorry Grizzly, I have a new love in this park. It's not as smooth as I expected, but I wouldn't call it a rough ride.
Lunch time (I'll talk about food and Cedar Fairs new Meal Pass later) then I decide to let it settle by waiting in line for Volcano since there is nobody blocking the line. This coaster has terrible loading and the line is perpetually long. I don't ride this one very often because of the wait and I just don't feel it's worth the wait. As one my Facebook friends said "It's a one trick pony, and it does that trick in the first 15 seconds". The rest of the ride doesn't really measure to the launch. It's a better ride than I remember from 15 years ago, but it's still nowhere near the top of my list.
Anaconda is open now, so I dash off to ride that one.
About a 20 minute wait for this, probably due to it being closed half the day and having people wait for it to be open. New paint job on this. I'm guessing they had some left over from I305. Why else would you paint 2 coasters side by side the exact same colors? I don't remember this one being too rough, but others have said the it's smoother than it used to be now, so I guess they did some needed maintenance to spruce it up for the 40th Anniversary. It's about as rough as I remember. I still think the MCBR before the butterfly slows it down too much, but they didn't consult me on it.
The line was too long for Flight of Fear, I305 was not in my plans for today for several reasons, and I was starting to get a headache (which indicates I am getting close to my limit for the day) now so I decided to call it a day and hit Dominator one more time on the way out. This time, to my surprise, it was a walk-on so since it isn't really a trip to an amusement park unless my exuberance wrestles my common sense into submission, I rode it 3 more times headache be damned. The only thing keeping this one from being my #1 coaster over all is that Alpengeist is a B&M invert. I love inverts. I love B&M. I <3 Alpengeist so much.
I take a pass down International Street looking into the shops, and discover a Cinnabon nestled into the candy store. Heathens. That is just not fair. Marking it on my mental map for later, I head out the gate.
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