Wednesday 13th June
Leaving Cedar Point in the morning there was a traffic/1-way thing going on while they appeared to be doing "stuff" to Steel Vengeance, odd.
Anyway, after some Burger King breakfast (its not all McDonalds out on the road y'know, and I prefer BK breakfasts to be honest) back on the
big road heading North-East.
Park opening hours conspired against me and there was no new places I could get to today that were open, so I had thought I might not even
drop into anywhere on the way, but the idea of a completely coaster-less day on my holiday offended me somewhat, so a couple of hours up the
road I stopped off for a little while at
Waldameer.
Been here before, 5 years ago, nothing new, but a few laps on the big woody since I was passing by seemed like the right thing to do. I turned
up at the advertised opening (noon) but the bloomin' coasters don't run until 1pm (something not clear on the website) so I sulked for an hour
and did a few things that they could be bothered opening.
The drop tower was running and I skipped that last time, so asked the operator where the best view was and got a ride to myself (place was
empty of course) - view from the top was very nice too, all out along the lake shoreline.
The dark ride was also running - not spectacular at all, cheesy might be the word.
And I walked through the walk through too
Which at least was reasonably long
Still killing time, a trip out and back on the skyride...
Hmmmm
Eventually 1pm came around and some gainful entertainment could be had...
Steel Dragon up first, not very Dragon like I think, but they aren't awful rides - the bigger park based models are a bit better
but I had a couple of goes on this anyway.
The old woody
Comet was next, couldn't recall much about this one to be honest so made a point of paying particular attention to it
this time. Unremarkable really, very junior coaster. Its quite old though so we'll forgive it for that.
The main event though was obviously
Ravine Flyer II and since the park was empty I could spend a happy best part of an hour just
cycling it.
Was a LOT rougher than I recalled it being though. Especially the first half of it (until the return over the bridge). Borderline violent
in fact - my first ride really catching me by surprise and causing a lot of defensive riding thereafter.
The middle bit was still very good (the bit immediately after the bridge back over the road) and it was still carrying a bit of speed into
the final brakes too.
Bugger to take pictures of though as there isn't really anywhere in the park you can take pics of any of the interesting bits of the ride.
So still very good I think, not as good as it was 5 years ago because of the added violence of the out-section. Glad I stopped in though.
Didn't ride the kiddy coaster though, as I
already had it am so much above things like that.
Couple of hours drive more North-East and I hit Buffalo and lots of annoying traffic issues again (closed roads, stupid diversions thru the
city centre itself) and then encountering another stupid toll-less toll bridge so I diverted off that (to save myself $1 in the end - it
isn't the money that is the issue as I said earlier; it is the added charges the rental company would apply that annoy me).
Anyway I was staying at the big Casino resort at Niagara Falls, so once I find out how to get into the car park for the place (had to lap the
block to find it, stupid driving directions). I had booked a "view room" with the idea that I might at least have a nice view.
And I did, but you can't really see into the falls much from the US side.
Walked down to get a better look though
The US side of Niagara Falls is a bit of a dead-zone as far as the town is concerned, I went looking for some beer and food places and
there was little going on - did find a craft beer bar but it was literally empty so headed back to the casino which at least had some life.
But even that was a bit awful to be honest, so I grabbed a burger in a burger bar that I thought was going to be a lot nicer than it
actually was and grabbed some beers from the shop to enjoy with my nice view.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54342363/canes.0.jpg)
