Re: Cali & Coasters PTR- Day 7 Up! (Knotts and more Disney)
DAY 7- Disney/Cali Adventure/Knotts
I woke up early once again so we could be at the park for opening. In my half-asleep state, I heard a bunch of sirens outside the window and thought it must be the end of the world. But soon, I got out of my groggy state and looked forward to my last day at Disney as well as my potentially last day of life
After another 7/11 breakfast, we were at the park for eight and went straight to Indiana Jones in order to avoid the gross queues it would have by midday. We waited about fifteen minutes before we got on, which wasn't too bad.
Overall thoughts: Indiana Jones- I can see why the queues get so long because it's such an awesome ride. I didn't know what to expect at all and I was pleasantly surprised, despite some of the movements of the car being a little bit too erratic. My favourite part of the ride was at the end when the boulder is coming towards you! I don't know what else to say other than to not miss it when you're at Disney, but to do it early in the day.
I got a picture in front of the Adventureland sign...
As we crossed the centre of the park and headed into Tomorrowland, I took the opportunity to take another picture of the castle, as well as the horse and cart thing.
Ethan decided he wanted to ride Space Mountain since he sat out the first time, so we hopped in line for that and waited about ten minutes or so. He said he thought it was pretty fun, but still liked Big Thunder Mountain better. I had to laugh though, because there's a water fountain at the ride exit , so after he got off he went to drink from it and realized there was a massive pile of puke clogging the drain ahaha.
Big Thunder Mountain was something we both wanted to ride again, so we went back and waited less than we had the first time we rode it. It stopped briefly just because they were putting another train on the track, so I got to teach Ethan some nerdy facts about transfer tracks <3
We noticed that Jack Skellington was out, so we went to meet him and ended up being the last people allowed in the line because he was leaving. He was awesome, and I like that they allow at least some of the characters to talk!
I wanted to do Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh because I love Pooh, so we walked straight onto that!
Overall thoughts: Winnie the Pooh- Awww, I loved it. Winnie has like a bit of a special meaning for me mostly because when my uncle was bedridden from his brain tumor my mom would always go and read him the House on Pooh Corner book, and I'd be in the room as well and he always called me Piglet, so every time I see Winnie, it stirs up a bit of emotion. The ride itself was really cute, and obviously pretty similar to the one in Florida, but I can't help but smile when I see Pooh because he is just so adorable.
I wanted to meet Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore, but just as we got there the characters were heading out, so I was bummed out.
Dumbo is peachy so I got a picture with his statue.
Because Ethan is a Star Wars fan, he wanted to go back a light saber (or a Jedi stick as I mistakenly called them), so obviously I complied because he finally spoke up and said what HE wanted to do instead of letting me plan and choose everything. Little did I know he would be hella annoying and put his light saber together in just about every combination possible. Then, he decided he wasn't even gonna buy it!
After about ten minutes I took a photo of my unimpressed face..
Since that was all we had left at Disney, we said goodbye to it and went back to California Adventure. We got a fastpass for Soarin because I wanted to do it again!
As much as I was a bit too chilly to want to do water rides, I didn't want to miss out on the one at California Adventure, so I sucked it up and we walked right on.
Overall thoughts: Grizzly River Run- THAT DROP. Why can't all rapid rides have a drop like that? It was awesome! Although it wasn't the best rapids I have ever had the pleasure of riding, I enjoyed my experience on it despite the fact it would have been better had there been enough people to fill our big rubber seaty thingy. Most of the fun on those rides comes from being able to laugh at one another, but there weren't many people on the ride so that took away that element. The ride itself is really well done though and I was glad we didn't get too soaked, although my right leg and butt were drenched.
It was time for a cred, so we went to Goofy's Sky School and waited about ten minutes.
Overall thoughts: Goofy's Sky School- Seemed like just a standard Wild Mouse to me, which is sad because things at Disney are usually amazing. Rides like this and Primeval Whirl piss me off because they just seem out of place in parks that have a decent atmosphere. I appreciated the theme because I go to flight school, but I didn't appreciate that it seemed to lack the amazing Disney theming so prominent everywhere else. Oh and Ethan was holding onto his backpack for comfort because he hated it.
Buzz was a bit of a bastard and he just walked right on by me, so I took a picture of his back.
Part of the reason I wanted to go back to the park was so I could buy this fab winter hat. My friends at home know I have a plethora of interesting winter hats, so I had to add this to my collection even though it was so overpriced. The picture of me is gross but the hat is fab.
We wanted to go on Midway Mania again but the queue was long so we just gave it a miss. Damn, I wanted my revenge! So we just walked around the Paradise Pier area and snapped some pictures.
We went back to Cars Land to grab a few souvenirs for Ethan's nephew who loves the movie.
After that, we were getting kind of hungry so we went to Ihop across the street for a meal. I knew that part of the reason I was feeling so badly was because I had maybe one meal that included meat since we started our trip. As much as I wanted the stuffed french toast, I felt like if I got some iron and protein I'd feel better, so I opted for the burger and fresh fruit.
Ethan went back to the hotel to sleep since he was grumpy all morning, so I took the opportunity to go to Knotts. Sadly, I didn't realize the shuttles only ran every two hours, so I knew I'd only be getting about an hour and a half at the park. I had an interested conversation with the driver since I was the only one on the entire shuttle for most of the journey, and now I know only to cook my steak with rock salt!
First thing I noticed were the random chickens running around the parking lot.
When I got to the park, my Platinum Pass gave me grief AGAIN because it's Canadian and won't read on their system. I was annoyed because I had to sit around for twenty minutes which reduced my time from like an hour and fourty minutes down to an hour and twenty. Finally I got in and headed to Silver Bullet which was a walkon.
Overall thoughts: Silver Bullet- WHY does it get all the hate that it does I'll never know. So it's not spectacular, but it does what most average B&M inverts do. It wasn't disgustingly forceful like some of them, and it had a lot of fun elements. I would have gone on it a few times if I had the time! I've been on many inverts and this was certainly not the worst, not to mention that the colours are fab.
Since I decided I'd just go in order around the park, Sierra Sidewinder was next, which was a mistake because I waited like fifteen minutes which used up some valuable cred time.
Overall thoughts: Sierra Sidewinder- It was fun, but it was very meh and I was overall just irritated that I had so little time in the park and couldn't really enjoy anything. It's a good family ride though I'll give it that!
Montezooma's Revenge was in the area so I got in line for that and waited about ten minutes, which would have been a lot longer had I not asked another single rider if I could ride with him, much to his annoyance.
In the line you get a pretty good view of Camp Snoopy, so I was watching the little kids ride the mine carts and noticed that one bratty one kept smashing into all the others and making them angry, which I found hilarious.
I had to take a nerd shot of a piece of track on Montezooma's.
Overall thoughts: Montezooma's Revenge- Other than the kick I got due to the fact it's SO RCT, and the reminiscing I did about making my peeps die on it when I would build one, it was a pretty boring and average ride. The launch was okay but that's about it.
Jaguar was next up since it was right beside Montezooma's, so I pretty much walked right onto that. It was funny because a woman had a go at the ride operator because her son was about half an inch too short to ride, which let's face it, wasn't the ride operator's fault.
I would have thought they put some good effort into the theming had I not been spoiled with Disney for three days.
Overall thoughts: Jaguar- WTF? This was the most pointless, drawn out ride I have ever had the misfortune of riding. I actually thought one bit had some sort of a launch because there was just a MASSIVE piece of straight track that I later found out did absolutely nothing. The kids on it seemed to love it which is a good thing since that's the target audience, but I hated it.
Xcelerator was to be my last ride of the day unfortunately. If they actually ran more than one train I probably could have fit in another coaster or two, but no, their operation was dreadfully slow and I ended up waiting about forty minutes for a queue that should have been fifteen at the most.
I rode with a fabulous group of Chicago people who thought I was fab for ditching my boyfriend to get CREDS <3
Overall thoughts: Xcelerator- Out of Stealth, Xcelerator , Dragster, and Ka, I have to say this was my least favourite. I'm not sure I really saw any point to the overbanked turns really, and I didn't think the launch was as forceful as Stealth's, although statistically it might be.
The park was dead and I thought maybe I could get one more ride on something else, so I headed to Ghostrider. Sadly, I somehow got lost amidst a parade and couldn't find my way which wasted some time. I couldn't tell how long the queue was and I thought the shuttle came at five so I headed back to the shuttle station annoyed at how I didn't get all the creds. I was also annoyed that I had to wait there for twenty minutes, knowing that I could have ridden Ghostrider in the meantime.
Knotts seemed like a pretty run of the mill Cedar Fair park to be honest, and it seems like it could easily be done in half a day as long as it's not jam packed. It was pretty dead on the day I went, and for only having the amount of time I did with half of that time being taken up by the Xcelerator queue, I still got five creds.
On the way back I realized I didn't tell Ethan where I was going to meet him, but thankfully he was at the shuttle stop waiting for me. I was really cold and had a gross headache by then, but I went back into the park and tried to find something indoors to do hoping it could pass the time before World of Colour. I stumbled upon two things I'm actually really glad I didn't miss: Turtle Talk and Animation Academy.
Overall thoughts: Turtle Talk- OMG I loved it aha, it made me laugh <3 I didn't know what it was, I thought it was just going to be boring so I was pretty excited that it was actually really funny. Question though! For those who have done it before, what items has crush brought down to ask the audience what he should do with them? I want to know if it's different every so often!
Then it was time for Animation Academy.
Overall thoughts: Animation Academy- I could have kept doing this over and over to be honest. I thought it was going to be a dull video of how they make things animated, but it was fabulous drawing thing! The look on Ethan's face was priceless, because he hates drawing but I forced him to do it anyway. I was kind of annoyed we drew Phineas and Ferb because I don't even know who they are, but my drawing was amazing. If I can find it I will take a picture, not that they were hard to draw or anything.
We went into the Sorcerer's Workshop too but everyone was HOGGING everything so I just didn't bother because people don't know how to share obviously.
My headache was really bad by this point and I couldn't stick it out for two more hours for the show. It was also really chilly as well which wasn't helping matters, so we got an amazing hot chocolate and left.
That concludes day 7!
