cont............
After Top Thrill we hit up Magnum XL, Gemini, and the mine train, with what seemed like half the crowd being inline for Steel Vengeance and Maverick the older rides were pretty much a walk on.
I found Magnum and Gemini to be rough and we came off of these coasters feeling pretty beat up the mine ride was much smoother. The girls had other plans today, good job as I don't think they would have enjoyed the beating we took.
Lunch was calling so we hit Coasters Drive in, the place very much reminded me of Mel's at USH, only problem was this place was a rough as the coasters we had just ridden. The whole ordering process here was a mess with neither staff or customers really understanding the system, once you had figured out how to order you go through to wait whilst they pit your order together, the area is small and also contains a fixings bar which was hard to get to as so many people were already in this area waiting for their orders, also the fixings bar was a mess with empty sauces and salad items. We eventually got our food and sat down at a rickety table to eat what turned out to be the worst burger I can remember ordering in a theme parks, soggy bun and a cold patty wasn't enjoyable at all.
After a disappointing lunch we headed back out into the park. We made over towards the Gate keeper which according to the app was a 30 min wait, this is about my limit for standing in line but when we got there the actual wait was 45 so we skipped it deciding to try and hit it on the way out of the park later in the day. Wicked twister however had only a 10 min wait so decided to that instead. I had little to no interest in this ride before we got in line but what a surprise package it was, it was a fun ride and we both came off having enjoyed it.
We headed over to the opposite side of the park where Raptor was down to a 15 mins, again the app had this wrong as it stated well over an hour. Unlike
@Mad Dog I love B&M inverts so whilst John got his 421st soda of the day ( It was baking at CP) I hit up Raptor. Fantastic ride, fast and intense with some incredible Gs round the helix some inversions and a great first drop and smooth, everything you expect from a B&M. After Raptor I hooked back up with
@Mad Dog to ride Blue Streak, again we had no wait and we soon found out why, that thing is brutal and once again we came off a ride feeling beat up.
Not long after a huge storm cloud descended on the edge of the park it didn't dump any rain on us but the lightening was close enough to shut down the rides for a while, this gave another opportunity to take on more yet fluids. spent a small fortune between us on beverages but they were needed as it must have been over 100 in the park that day and with all the concrete and steel it felt far hotter. Valrayvn was running well over an hour and as good as it looked I wast going to stand in that heat for any ride for that amount of time. Top thrill however was still only 15 mins when we walked by, would have been rude not to ride so I took my 3rd ride of the day, just as much fun as the first.
Corkscrew was up next, Alton towers had a version which was taken out in 2008. As a kid I loved it it but in it's later years it had become painful to ride, because of this I was apprehensive but what the heck, it had no wait so we gave it a blast. My apprehension was correct and once again we came off a coaster feeling like we had been ten rounds with Mike Tyson, this wasn't a fun ride. We headed down to Steel Vengeance but unsurprisingly it was still running over 2 hrs and it neighbor the Maverick not much less. The only way we were going to get these 2 rides was with a fast pass, No way was I going to pull out $100 for these 2 rides, so we decided we would make gate keeper the last ride of the day no matter what the wait. We got there to find it down to 15 mins, in reality it was a walk, winner. I took 2 rides, left side and right side, the left is best but both give a good, thankfully smooth ride. It was now 6 pm so we decided to make tracks and get in the road for drive back down to Pittsburgh. The drive home was a bit slower as we hit a storm and some road works but we got in around 10PM having had a good day out but feeling tired and a little battered and bruised.
Final thoughts on Cedar Park.
A fun coaster park with some decent flats too, the landscaping and planting is a little sparce I thought more could have been done in this area to break up with vast areas of concrete. Shade was hard to come by, especially in some of the lines, luckily we had walk ons for the majority but on busy days this could be a real issue for those who don't like the heat. Some of the coasters, mainly the older ones, are rough to ride and because of this had no re readability for me, the newer coasters were naturally better and I enjoyed Raptor and Millennium Force, however the star of the day and my main reason for going was Top thrill dragster, this was everything I hoped and more and I would have paid the admission price alone for my 3 rides on it. We missed out on 3 of the coasters but whilst I would have liked to have gone on these I wasn't going to wait in line in that heat or fork out for the pass, this didn't detract from the day though as we got in a good ride count for the 8 hours we were in the park
A fun day was had all round and I am glad I went but Cedar Park is one and done for me.
Stay tuned for photos of the day