Matt and I went down today for Mother's Day, since that's what I wanted to do. Ben is now working so he couldn't come with us. We'll have to find a day that none of us are working so we can all go. Or maybe he won't make it down to KI this year but will be at Cedar Point with us in June.

We rolled through the parking gates at 9:40am. Matt chose to go through one with an attendant, even though there were only a few other cars there at the time and the Gold Pass gates were all open. The attendant saw the gold pass and just waved us through. I said that maybe if you chose not to renew you should just keep your pass and still get free parking that way. Not very many vehicles in the lot yet, and absolutely no line getting through the metal detectors or the front gates (after we dropped off a gold pass with customer service that got dropped by someone near the metal detectors.)

We decided not to try to get on any of the early rides (today it was Banshee) and headed for Mystic Timbers. Nobody was trying to take pictures at the entrance, and they no longer have the gold pass "gate" where you would have to show your pass to go back. The person at the place where it would have been said they don't do that anymore and the passes would be checked at the rides. But on the way we hit Boo Blasters and no one checked. It was a walk-on for us, but the middle gun on the car was defective.

There were about 20 people ahead of us for Mystic Timbers and they let us in from the entrance at 10:00. Short trip through the queue area, then we asked to wait for front seat. We actually ended up in the 3rd train (yellow) because there was a disabled person loading in the 2nd train. MT was awesome as always, and this time we got the snakes (my record is now 10 bats, 2 snakes, and 1 tree.)

Since we saw lots of empty seats on Diamondback while we were waiting for MT, we headed back to it and it was also pretty much a walk-on. We think the wheels on the trains (we were on green) need to be re-profiled. The valleys and some other sections feel rough but it didn't feel like it was the track, more like the train was rough.

Next we headed back for Beast and encountered our first line of the day. This may have been the first day it was open for the season. When we got onto it, the line was out to the plaza, and they were using the queues next to the ramp up to the station. As we were leaving, they were also using the other queues, the ones down below the ramp.

The Beast renovation is a huge success. The new wood really makes it much smoother. They were also running it much faster - the brake run after the second tunnel was almost unused. There was only light braking at the very end.. The helix flip is great - it's a lot better to emerge from the bottom tunnel and race around to the top than the opposite. If Matt had really wanted to, he probably could have touched the top of the top tunnel entrance. A person up front who is much shorter stuck their hands up and they were only about a foot and a half from touching. But he said he's not going to try it..

From there we hit the restroom and for the first time I saw that there's also the service dog relief area off to the side. We skipped the Backlot Stunt Coaster and they may have had trouble running it, because even though we saw people going in, we never heard the coaster running.

The Antique Autos didn't have much of a line so we rode it next. No new additions since they added Firehawk Oil. But they need better music - antique autos should be playing something (in the covered bridge) from the early part of the 20th century. Not Taylor Swift.

We did bumper cars next and they were good, then we got in line for the Racer. They had been running only red, then started testing blue (it was about noon when we got in line.) Then they started racing them. We got in line for first seat on red and 2 trains ahead of ours we saw 2 young enthusiasts, one wearing a shirt that listed coaster manufacturers and the other in a Racer t-shirt. It was blue, and had the Blue Racer logo from the front of the train. We teased him about that but he said they got in line before blue started to be tested.

Adventure Express was not running (neither was Invertigo) so we just headed to The Bat. Another great ride, with lots of swing at the end. Another walk-on - other than Beast and Racer, there weren't many lines. I think the combo of Mother's Day and temps in the low 50's at the start kept a lot of people away.

Sharon Bond

Thanks for sharing this.

I've heard a whole bunch of good things about the renovated Beast. Hopefully it's sitll in as good shape next time I make it to Ohio.

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www.superiorsolitaire.com

On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 7:58:21 PM UTC-4, sharo...@hotmail.com wrote:

> The helix flip is great - it's a lot better to emerge from the bottom tunnel and race around to the top than the opposite. If Matt had really wanted to, he probably could have touched the top of the top tunnel entrance. A person up front who is much shorter stuck their hands up and they were only about a foot and a half from touching. But he said he's not going to try it.
>

Its always been bottom to top....