Jessica and I headed up to Grand Haven, MI for Memorial Day weekend as a long weekend and fun celebration of our second wedding anniversary. Most of the weekend was dedicated to camping, hiking, and not getting run over by 35 ft. yachts while kayaking along Lake Michigan. All of it was a blast, but we were also sure to visit Michigan's Adventure on Memorial Day to finally say I have visited the park.
So without further adieu:
We arrived at Michigan's Adventure first thing in the morning, as we had been staying at the KOA in Muskegon just 5 minutes away. The park is distinctly unmarked on the roads, with only a few "Amsuement Park This Way" signs to shepherd you along. Once you do finally see the park, Shivering Timbers totally takes over your view - a rather impressive sight!
As you snake along to the parking lot, you drive along virtually the entire length of Shivering Timbers. Really love how the park took advantage of this long out and back coaster to give a great view while driving down an otherwise bleak driveway.
Once at the park, we headed straight for Shivering Timbers for our first ride of the day. Riding in the middle, we got a great ride with a lot of floater airtime and forces. I had heard Shivering Timbers had gotten rougher over the years, but thought it to be on the smoother side; especially at the turn around. I worried the ride would be repetitive and gradually give up (it is a very long out-and-back, afterall), but was pleasantly surprised that variety and differences in the return airtime hills still gave spice to the ride. The final helix was very reminiscent of The Legend's never-ending-helix. All in, a good way to start the day!
From there, we headed right to Wolverine Wildcat. I wasn't expecting much of the ride, but really found a love for the layout. While a simple figure 8 design, the layout still featured some more-modern banked curve airtime hills, a double-up-to-double-down, even a fun prelift tunnel. Some layout designs actually were very reminiscent of Phoenix. Much of the ride harkens back to designs we saw in the first Golden Age of roller coasters, which means while the ride is not forceful nor speedy, it carries a different type of classic wooden coaster excitement.
Next on the docket was Mad Mouse, the park's Arrow wild mouse. I was pretty excited for this as I had not ridden an Arrow design before. I will say, the operation was very clunky here - the ride staff had 5 cars in the circuit, but were especially running one car at a time, which meant for 3 car stacking in the brake run. The ride itself though was so fun! Far better than Mack Wild Mouses I'm used to, I really appreciated the wider variety in elements (read as USING BANKED TURNS). Drops had great pops of airtime, and the trick track finale is borderline hilarious.
After this, we tried making a pass at the Log Flume ride, which seemingly went down operational because... the logs were getting jammed in the station? It was very unclear what the problem was, but the ride was closed for most of the day, with the only perceived error being logs not dispatching correctly from the station... very strange.
Back to roller coasters, we headed for Corkscrew, which I give Michigan's Adventure a lot of credit for keeping in good shape. The entrance is especially good looking, running directly under the second corkscrew with a fun facade feature. While I was expecting a rough, early-Arrow corkscrew experience, the ride was pleasantly smooth, even in the turn headed into the Corkscrews. Definitely one of the smoother Arrow Corkscrews.
On to Zach's Zoomer, it's a good revamp of the classic John C Allen kiddie woodie (found at Kings Island, Columbus Zoo, . While built by CCI, the layout remains the same, and carry's the namesake of the original owner's grandson.
From here, we broke to the water park for some rides on their slides. All in, the water park is a pretty good one, better than most "all-in-one" water parks. Our favorite slide was probably their large raft slide, however riders had to comically carry the raft all the way up the stairs, rather than have an automated conveyor belt.
Back to rides, we headed for the park's river rapids ride, which was ok. Pretty short on actual waterfalls, and rather a lot of bumps and turns to "maybe" splash you.
To round out the back of the park, we rode Thunderhawk, which I was interested to do on two accounts: 1. I recalled Thunderhawk being quite good at Geauga Lake. 2. Every other SLC I have ever ridden is the worst. I was pleased to reconfirm - Thunderhawk is still, by far, the best SLC I have ridden yet. Smooth, good station design, and tasteful landscaping makes this how I imagine Vekoma wanted their SLC to be received - a far cry from Kentucky Kingdom's T3.
To close out the day, I went for a few more rides on Shivering Timbers. While I had felt the roller coaster was top 50 material my first ride, i found myself moving it further up and up the rankings with each subsequent ride. My final ride was in the very back on a relatively empty train. While this can be a death sentence as the upstops catch on each and every drop (which they did), the ride still threw out loads of airtime without being too rough; I have had quite different rides when upstop wheels catch on other wooden coasters with PTCs. All in, I think this is a well thought, well executed roller coaster, that merits around #35 for me, and one of Cedar Fair's better wooden coasters. It's a great take on the out-and-back design, and pretty fun to ride in a world of twist-and-turn design we see from new GCI, GG, and RMC creations.
So without further adieu:
We arrived at Michigan's Adventure first thing in the morning, as we had been staying at the KOA in Muskegon just 5 minutes away. The park is distinctly unmarked on the roads, with only a few "Amsuement Park This Way" signs to shepherd you along. Once you do finally see the park, Shivering Timbers totally takes over your view - a rather impressive sight!
As you snake along to the parking lot, you drive along virtually the entire length of Shivering Timbers. Really love how the park took advantage of this long out and back coaster to give a great view while driving down an otherwise bleak driveway.
Once at the park, we headed straight for Shivering Timbers for our first ride of the day. Riding in the middle, we got a great ride with a lot of floater airtime and forces. I had heard Shivering Timbers had gotten rougher over the years, but thought it to be on the smoother side; especially at the turn around. I worried the ride would be repetitive and gradually give up (it is a very long out-and-back, afterall), but was pleasantly surprised that variety and differences in the return airtime hills still gave spice to the ride. The final helix was very reminiscent of The Legend's never-ending-helix. All in, a good way to start the day!
From there, we headed right to Wolverine Wildcat. I wasn't expecting much of the ride, but really found a love for the layout. While a simple figure 8 design, the layout still featured some more-modern banked curve airtime hills, a double-up-to-double-down, even a fun prelift tunnel. Some layout designs actually were very reminiscent of Phoenix. Much of the ride harkens back to designs we saw in the first Golden Age of roller coasters, which means while the ride is not forceful nor speedy, it carries a different type of classic wooden coaster excitement.
Next on the docket was Mad Mouse, the park's Arrow wild mouse. I was pretty excited for this as I had not ridden an Arrow design before. I will say, the operation was very clunky here - the ride staff had 5 cars in the circuit, but were especially running one car at a time, which meant for 3 car stacking in the brake run. The ride itself though was so fun! Far better than Mack Wild Mouses I'm used to, I really appreciated the wider variety in elements (read as USING BANKED TURNS). Drops had great pops of airtime, and the trick track finale is borderline hilarious.
After this, we tried making a pass at the Log Flume ride, which seemingly went down operational because... the logs were getting jammed in the station? It was very unclear what the problem was, but the ride was closed for most of the day, with the only perceived error being logs not dispatching correctly from the station... very strange.
Back to roller coasters, we headed for Corkscrew, which I give Michigan's Adventure a lot of credit for keeping in good shape. The entrance is especially good looking, running directly under the second corkscrew with a fun facade feature. While I was expecting a rough, early-Arrow corkscrew experience, the ride was pleasantly smooth, even in the turn headed into the Corkscrews. Definitely one of the smoother Arrow Corkscrews.
On to Zach's Zoomer, it's a good revamp of the classic John C Allen kiddie woodie (found at Kings Island, Columbus Zoo, . While built by CCI, the layout remains the same, and carry's the namesake of the original owner's grandson.
From here, we broke to the water park for some rides on their slides. All in, the water park is a pretty good one, better than most "all-in-one" water parks. Our favorite slide was probably their large raft slide, however riders had to comically carry the raft all the way up the stairs, rather than have an automated conveyor belt.
Back to rides, we headed for the park's river rapids ride, which was ok. Pretty short on actual waterfalls, and rather a lot of bumps and turns to "maybe" splash you.
To round out the back of the park, we rode Thunderhawk, which I was interested to do on two accounts: 1. I recalled Thunderhawk being quite good at Geauga Lake. 2. Every other SLC I have ever ridden is the worst. I was pleased to reconfirm - Thunderhawk is still, by far, the best SLC I have ridden yet. Smooth, good station design, and tasteful landscaping makes this how I imagine Vekoma wanted their SLC to be received - a far cry from Kentucky Kingdom's T3.
To close out the day, I went for a few more rides on Shivering Timbers. While I had felt the roller coaster was top 50 material my first ride, i found myself moving it further up and up the rankings with each subsequent ride. My final ride was in the very back on a relatively empty train. While this can be a death sentence as the upstops catch on each and every drop (which they did), the ride still threw out loads of airtime without being too rough; I have had quite different rides when upstop wheels catch on other wooden coasters with PTCs. All in, I think this is a well thought, well executed roller coaster, that merits around #35 for me, and one of Cedar Fair's better wooden coasters. It's a great take on the out-and-back design, and pretty fun to ride in a world of twist-and-turn design we see from new GCI, GG, and RMC creations.
