USA 06/22 – Adventureland + Arnolds Park
Day 7 – Adventureland
And here it is. Where focus was lost and fatal mistakes were made.
We got complacent and started ticking stuff off in an unordered fashion, starting with the grimly low capacity #1 Phoenix. Shelf model Maurer spinner. Meh.
I didn’t even know what half these coasters were, coming in. Something wood, something steel.
#2 Outlaw turned out to be an unremarkable CCI with some fresh track in places.
Dragon Slayer had apparently broken the previous day and was gone for the foreseeable. Don’t care, got the clone(s).
#3 Tornado was another woodie with more hills and less corners. For some reason in my head at least one of these was supposed to brutally murder us. Neither of the first two did, so that only left…
#4 Underground, the indoor dark ride woodie. It had a preshow at the batching doors to the station, with this bloke waffling on inaudibly for a good while. Don’t go in the mine? Do go in the mine. Is it flooded?
Hilariously the operator asked if any of us were first timers and then put the fear in us by saying the first drop is real bad, but it’s alright after that. Considering the restraint had at least 12 inches of play, and the fact I still thought we were overdue a bruising, we spent the entire ride bracing for said drop.
The joke was on us, there ain’t one.
We headed to Monster, the main event, which had been running all morning. It was now closed, with staff doing stuff in the station.
This lead to collapsing on a bench outside, overheating, for at least another couple of hours, with endless noises of air venting that would get our hopes up but unfailingly mean nothing. Eventually the station was abandoned and we asked what was going on.
Oh, it’s not technical, it’s the wind.
Naively assuming that it would open again at some point over the next 10 or so hours that the park was due to be operating for, we bounced between the car park and the bench fruitlessly killing time in relative despair at the most significant spite of the trip so far. Eventually something started to feel off, all of the rides were closing down around us, also due to this ‘wind’ phenomenon and that exact same atmosphere of guests being disgruntled at not being able to do anything was brewing once more.
We went to guest services for a second opinion as there was still a good 9 hours to go, right? The response was ambivalent.
It’s the wind mate.
Do you know the forecast though?
Fair play to them, they openly offered us tickets to return the following day, which we had to decline as this was the only day allocated to the park.
Back to the bench, where eventually some maths was performed. We can’t come back tomorrow but we could be within striking distance a few days later, at the expense of a minor cred run and because something else was brewing. It would be stupid, but it could work. We also had somewhere to go this very evening that would have to be sacrificed if we did just stick around all day, potentially for nothing.
Umm, so…
Ahh, but…
Umm, so…
Such a crisis. The reason we’d killed ourselves in St. Louis was essentially to open up Arnolds Park as an opportunity and it felt so silly to throw that all away by sitting here for another 8 hours with no guarantee of results.
Back to guest services. We’ll have those tickets, but for later in the week please. “Sure! You guys came to ride the monster, and you can’t ride the monster!”
It was so refreshing to meet someone who gets it.
Back to the car, now with two open-dated tickets and a couple of free arcade passes for the crate.
3 hours of corn fields later…
Arnolds Park
And we made the right decision, eventually. This place was lovely.
#5 Legend was the main draw of course, a particularly ancient woodie that kicks some particular ass. By far the highlight of the day, good, clean, old school fun. Better than the other Legend.
Construction, get excited.
The other piece of history was the Allan Herschell #6 Wild Mouse, who must be so proud that there’s now ten thousand of these in China, delighting generations.
It was pretty brutal, but fun, as all solo rides should be.
What they said.