The Amused Family

Kennywood lies just outside of Pittsburgh, but it’s most distinguishing characteristic is not where it is, but rather when it is.  As you emerge from the tunnel that connects the ticket booths to the park itself, you feel like you have been transported back in time.  Kennywood was founded in 1898 as a trolley park (a picnic and play area at the end of a trolley line), and it beautifully balanced the old and the new.

Many of the park’s attractions are from the early 20th century, but they have retained their charm and fun.  Three of its six coasters are over 85 years old, yet all three rank in the top 50 wooden coasters in the world.

They also had two world-class steel coasters: “Phantom’s Revenge” and “Sky Rocket”.  We could have lived without the strange Kennywood characters and the awful “Garfield’s Nightmare” ride.  That said, we loved the Carousel, the Whip, the Turtle, the Ghostwood Estate dark ride, and more.

Food
Potato Patch – No trip to Kennywood is complete with out a trip to the Potato Patch, where the lines can be long, but the hand-cut French fries are the best we have ever had!  They’re available with a variety of toppings, ranging from garlic salt to cheese.  They opened another stand in the Lost Kennywood section of the park called Small Fry’s, where you might find a shorter wait.

Golden Nugget – Very popular stand for hand-dipped ice cream.  Vivian and Joel both declared that their treats were delicious.

Parkside Café – We had lunch here, in one of the remaining original structures dating back to 1898.  We had decent sandwiches, salads, and turkey, but nothing special.

The park opens at 10:30am, but rides open at 11:00am.  We arrived shortly before 11:00am and headed straight for the “VIP Coaster Tour” desk, where there were no employees in sight, even after the rides opened.  I asked a few employees when the VIP Desk opened, and the general response was “Huh.  Usually it’s 11, but sometimes 11:30 or so.”  Nice.  I finally found a manager, who sent for someone to open the booth.

VIP Options

VIP Coaster Tour: For only $15/person, we bought front of line passes for all the coasters, and for an additional $3/person, we got to sit in the front car of each one.  It’s an unusual system: there are six coasters.  You get to ride one per hour in a set order at specific times, and you can’t do the first coaster until 2pm, so you need to stay until 7pm to do all of them and not wait in line (and if you don’t buy the pass in the morning, they can sell out).  You can also buy VIP passes for thrill rides or water rides (full menu here).  The system truly worked – we walked on to every roller coaster, and the system was very efficient.

Parking: Preferred Parking costs only $6 and is very close to the park entrance.  Regular parking is free, but a longer hike to the front gates.

Rides
We did more non-coaster rides at Kennywood than we did at any other park.  They have many others, but here are the ones we squeezed in between coasters:

Whip – A classic oval-shaped ride, where cars “whip” around the curves.  The “Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree” ride at DCA is a take on the whip.  This is one of the oldest Whips in the world and is the only one operating with 16 cars.

Turtle – Known as a Tumble Bug ride, there are only two of these operating in the US.  Up to four people get in the car, which is connected by a rod to a center of the ride, and the cars go around a track that changes elevation.  Much more fun than it sounds.

Garfield’s Nightmare – This “Old Mill” style ride, the oldest in the park, guides boats through a series of dark tunnels (some of these types of rides were referred to as the “Tunnel of Love”).  This has been re-themed several times over the century, but the current Garfield theming makes it one of the worst attractions I have ever seen. The fact that only one group goes in each boat (whether there are two people or five people) makes the queue much longer than it should be.  Nightmare, indeed.

Olde Kennywood Railroad – A slow train ride that shows some of the old artwork from the park.  It also gives a view of the gigantic Edgar Thomson Steel Works steel mill (built in 1872, now part of U.S. Steel) across the Monongahela River.

Grand Carousel – A beautiful (and large) carousel, dating back to 1927.  Music comes from a 1915 organ, the oldest of its kind.  A classic.

Ghostwood Estate – a combination of the Disney Haunted Mansion ride and a shooting gallery.  Similar in concept to the “Lost Kingdom Adventure” ride at Legoland California.  As you shoot the skeletons, paintings, etc., they move or animate in some other way.  Fun.

Noah’s Ark – An unusual dark walk-through attraction – part funhouse, part natural history taxidermy exhibit.  The idea is that you’re walking through Noah’s ark, seeing the animals.  Strange but entertaining.   Go early in the day before the lines get long.

Log Jammer, Raging Rapids, & Pittsburg Plunge – typical log flume, river rafting, and “shoot the chutes” splash rides.   Each is a good way to cool off on a summer day, and there is a $10 front of line pass available that covers all three rides.

The park has a number of other rides commonly found at other amusement parks, and at least two others that are the last of their kind: the “Kangaroo” ride and the “Auto Race” electric cars.  There were just not enough hours for us to do them all.

The music throughout the park was generally hits from the 1980s – Joe Jackson, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, John Cougar, etc.  While I didn’t mind the music, it seemed out of place – I would have preferred instrumental music more apropos of the period the park represented.

For entertainment, the main show was a stunt show called “Undercover”, which had to do with spies and a mad scientist.  It was poorly written, not funny, and barely kept our interest.  It did, however, allow us to sit for 20 minutes, which is the best thing I can say about it.

My only the regret of the day is that the park closed before sundown.  The park is filled with exceptional lighting and is surely stunning at night.

In some ways, Kennywood reminded me the most of a Disney park, beautifully combining the past and present. I had heard wonderful things about this park, and it lived up to expectations.  We had a very special day.

For any roller coaster fan, Cedar Point is a mecca, with 15 coasters as of 2013.  It opened in 1870, making it the second-oldest operating amusement park in the United States.  It has won Amusement Today’s “Golden Ticket Award” for Best Amusement Park for the past 13 years.  Whenever I told people of our trip, the first question I was asked was usually, “Are you going to Cedar Point?”  Anyone I spoke to from the Midwest sighed with nostalgia and a touch of envy when I told them I was.  My impressions of the park: first and foremost, it undoubtedly has one of the best collections of roller coasters in the world.  It is very well run by an enthusiastic staff, and it does a great job of combining roller coasters, thrill rides, kiddie rides, and classic Americana.  It is wildly fun.  Is it better than the Disney Parks?  Let’s just say the Cedar Point is an amusement park and Disney has theme parks.  Apples and oranges.

Much to our surprise, today was the American Coaster Enthusiast’s annual Coastermania event at the park, so thousands of… uh, enthusiatic people had been there since 7am.  This turn of events combined with the fact that we wanted to do everything in 8 hours prompted us to buy the Fast Lane Plus pass, which cuts wait times down to 5-15 minutes at virtually every major ride in the park.  Worth every penny.  If you don’t have a Fast Lane pass, it is imperative to arrive before park opening (and ideally for early entry, which you get by either staying on property or having a Cedar Fair Platinum Season Pass).  The website The Point Online has a great plan.  Cedar Point has a decent official app, and the “Cedar Point Ride Watch App” has crowd-sourced wait times.

I also used a nifty little app called Coaster Counter which not only gives information on each coaster, but also allows you to check them off throughout the day (and maintains a database of all the coasters you have ridden).  It isn’t perfect, but it’s incredibly helpful when you want to make sure you ride everything.  Coaster Counter also has a web version that syncs with the app and also allows you to download your lists.

We had a few minor mishaps – for Gatekeeper and Top Thrill Dragster, the rides broke down right before we were going to ride, so we left the line and returned later, which would have been a nightmare without our Fast Lane Plus passes.

One other thing stuck out for us at Cedar Point: the muffleheads. These bugs were EVERYWHERE. They’re fairly innocuous and don’t bite, but they apparently like to hang out at Cedar Point all summer.

Food
There is a variety of known food vendors at Cedar Point, including Dave’s Famous BBQ, Panda Express, Subway, Chick-Fil-A, and LA’s own Pink’s Hot Dogs.  The food choices were fine overall, and the prices were obscene, as one would expect ($6 for fries or a Sno-cone, $5 for a pretzel or a lemonade).  We heard positive things about the all-you-can-eat Midway Market buffet, but felt it was not wise to eat too much before the rides. Cedar Point is apparently famous for its French Fries, so we bought an order on our way out.  They were fresh and tasty, but nothing extraordinary.  The fresh-baked pretzel I had from Auntie Anne’s (a new addition to Cedar Point) was better, in my opinion.

Shopping
I was amazed by the incredible assortment of Cedar Point-branded items, and equally impressed by the number of people wearing Cedar Point-branded clothing, especially considering that there are no Cedar Point “characters” (other than the standard Cedar Fair association with the “Peanuts” franchise.

Other attractions
We visited the Town Hall Museum, which was a highlight of the day.  It detailed the rich 143 year history of the park, with hundreds of artifacts from its past.  It made for a great mid-day break, but also added a historical context to our day.  Joel also liked driving the antique cars around the track.

VIP Options
Fast Lane: If you’re coming from far away and only going to Cedar Point for one day, a Fast Lane pass is almost a necessity.  It dramatically cuts the waiting time on virtually all the major roller coasters.  The price depends on how many passes you’re buying.  For an additional $15/person, you also get Fast Lane “Plus”, which in 2013 gives access to Top Thrill Dragster and Gatekeeper.  The only adult coaster not on either of these is programs is Wicked Twister, so we rode that early in the morning.

Early Access: Cedar Fair Platinum Pass members and those guests staying at Cedar Point-owned hotels get into the park one hour early, although a limited number of rides are open at that time.

VIP Tours: The ultimate indulgence at Cedar Point, these cost $395 per person (as of 2013) and include front of line access to all rides, a tour guide, preferred parking, seating at restaurants, show seating, and more.  I believe it’s for a minimum of four and a maximum of eight people, with discounts for non-riders.  Call for details.  Considering that the Fast Lane Plus quickly got us onto virtually everything we wanted to ride, we couldn’t imagine paying the additional amount for this, but for those who want everything taken care of, it’s an option.

Our son Joel has always loved rides. Starting from the week he was born, he loved his cradle swing. He would stay in it for hours every day (and sometimes all night). For years, we would go to the park, and he would always want to swing – Faster! Higher! We started going on rides at theme parks on his second birthday (a trip to Disneyland, of course), and he could never get enough. By age four, he became enamored with roller coasters. He carefully monitored his height, knowing exactly how many inches he would have to grow to ride each coaster. He began to read about and research roller coasters all over the country (and the world), wanting to go on the tallest, the fastest, the ones with the most inversions, etc. He put a poster of the top ranked coasters in the U.S. on his wall and memorized all their details. I told him that when he turned 10 years old, I would take him on a trip to ride the best coasters in the country, thinking that by the time that day arrived, he might have moved on to other interests.

I was wrong.

Joel never forgot that promise, and has been counting down the years, months, weeks, and days to his double-digit birthday in May 2013. At school last year, he did a presentation on roller coasters… that lasted 35 minutes. In early 2012, I realized that I needed to start seriously thinking about this. Where would we go? How would we do it? I knew that any trip had to include Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio (most roller coasters of any park in the U.S. outside of Southern California) and Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ (home of the tallest, fastest coaster in North America), but I didn’t know what would be in between.

Then it happened. I opened up the Sunday Los Angeles Times last July (yes, I still get a newspaper on Sundays) and saw it. Brady MacDonald, the Times’ theme park blogger, took his wife and daughter on a roller coaster tour, starting at Cedar Point and ending at Great Adventure. They visited eight parks and his daughter declared it to be the vacation of a lifetime. Most importantly, his wife was still apparently talking to him after they returned. “Honey!” I called out to Vivian. “I know what we’re doing with Joel next summer!” I showed her the article.

“That’s wonderful,” she said with mild amusement. “I’m sure you two will have a fantastic time.”

I was incredulous. “You’re not coming?”

“Well, I don’t like roller coasters, and the two of you can have a special vacation together.”

Fair enough. I started to research the trip, plotting out the 900 mile drive across three states. After our trip to Orlando over spring break this year (where we visited 11 parks in 9 days), Vivian said, “I’ve reconsidered. I would like to come on your trip. I would miss you guys too much.” Music to my ears.

So here I am, sitting on a plane to Cleveland, ready to embark on one crazy adventure. I just hope my back, neck, and stomach all hold out.

This trip never would have happened without three people:

My friend Richard Kraft, who took his son Nicky around the world to ride hundreds of roller coasters. I don’t know anyone who understands how to enjoy every day of one’s life more than Richard does, and he truly inspires me.

Brady MacDonald, who took this trip with his family, and whose L.A. Times article pushed me to do the same. Brady is a great writer (and rider) and has tremendous passion for theme parks and the joy that lies within them. He personally shared his tips and experiences with me, and I appreciate his time and kindness. Check out his theme parks blog here.

My father, Ted Zachary, who took me on trips in my youth that have since become my fondest childhood memories. I swore to do the same with my kid one day, and since Joel was four years old, we have always gone away together at least once each year.

Tomorrow we hit Cedar Point. Look out, Ohio. Here come the Zacharys.

For my family, this is the year of the theme park. We will visit at least 25 theme parks (or amusement parks) this year, including 14 of the 20 most visited parks in the U.S. How do I define a theme park? Anything permanent that has rides, shows, and/or attractions. Standalone water parks count, county fairs do not. Each park has to have a separate entry gate (so Disneyland and Disney California Adventure each count as a park). I know I won’t be able to do a lot of these rides for many more years, and our son won’t be a kid forever, so we are loading up on annual passes and hitting the road. The rest of the world can wait.