With Monica leaving for Washington DC and the oppressive heat in our house, I decided to take road trip by myself. I looked up local parks on rcdb and realized how close Lakmont Park and DelGrosso’s Amusement Park were. I loaded up the GPS and headed out with the AC blasting in the car.

I turned on KDKA for the Pirates game and was able to keep the station for the whole trip. The Pirates won in 10 innings, good stuff. Anyway the ride up was pretty boring until I got around Altoona and RT22 opened up some.

Lakemont Park

I pulled off 22 and saw the ACE Coaster Classic Skyliner behind the beautiful Altoona Curve baseball field, I had no idea it would be right outside the park. I found the free parking lot and made my way to the gate where I paid just $5.95 to get in for unlimited rides.

The first thing I noticed about the park is how badly it needs some landscaping, there is hardly any shade anywhere and the grass is burned out. Lakemont has a very sleepy atmosphere, things move pretty slow here and the park is really spread out.

Skyliner

Skyliner was my first ride. Walking up to the station I could hear the young ride operator yelling out directions, warnings and bad jokes. “If your lapbar should fly open and you fall out, Lakemont is not responsible for your death.” This kid was honestly wild and out of control, more on him later.

The ride is in decent shape, and runs just slightly better than Conneaut Lake’s Blue Streak. it rattles, it gives some airtime and its fairly fun. The layout is mediocre, drop, turn, drop, turn, drop turn etc and never seems to start. That said, it is worth the trip.

Back to that young ride operator. I have pictures, which I am sending to the park, of him riding the coaster basically standing up. I also have photos of him riding on the train’s step right up to the lift hill where he then got into the train while it was heading up the lift. I overheard him walking back to what I assume is the break room talking to his trainee saying something to the effect of “If we don’t have fun, the guests don’t have fun.” Great attitude, wrong example for the young kids on the ride.

I ended up taking four rides, one of which was due to a brake overrun. My favorite seat was the front, smoother ride and lots of airtime at the top of each hill.

Leap the Dips

Leap the Dips, another ACE Coaster Classic was closed, it looked like tons of work was being done to it as there were tools and new wood spread out everywhere. I guess I will have to take another trip someday to get a ride or two.

Model Railroad Display

As I was leaving the park I came accross the model train display, it was a 50c donation to see the trains. They had three layouts, and some nice people working and showing off the trains. They are all volunteers.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed my short time, for only $5.95 it is definately worth the stop just to ride Starliner a few times and hopefully get a lap on Leap the Dips.

DelGrosso’s Amusement Park

After the sleepy Lakemont I was expecting more of the same from DelGrosso’s, in fact I was expecting less. Boy was I wrong. Upon pulling up to the park there were people everywhere, and someone was directing traffic into the parking lot. The place was packed! I was impressed with the modern waterslides, go cart track and brand new infrastructure. Everything looked great.

Crazy Mouse

Or Exterminator in the open. The ride is actually quite different in the outdoors, and honestly was just as fun as Kennywood’s Exterminator. I shared both of my rides with a young kid and their parent and we spun and spun. The ride is run well, the trims are wide open and capacity was solid. It was really popular, looks like a real winner for the park.

Final Thoughts

I really liked this park, it was clean, well decorated and cheap. I had a slice of pizza which turned into two, the girl said they cut the pizza too small. Nice touch, and good pizza too.

I made it back home six hours after leaving Pittsburgh and crashed with Penelope in my air conditioned bedroom.

Monica and I recently joined ACE for the discounts and perks for a number of mid-west parks we are going to be visiting this summer. Coastermania was our first enthusiast event, and will not be our last.

After leaving work later than I wanted and dropping Penelope the pug off at the kennel we were on our way. A conversation on the turnpike turned into me calling Cedar Point and asking to change our reservation at Breakers Express to Breakers, a decision that turned out to be, well the best idea ever. We checked into the hotel around 9pm and headed down to TGI Fridays for some beers and ended up seeing a number of entusiasts at the bar.

Coastermania Day

My morning started at 5:30 without Monica who wanted to sleep in. I jumped on the shuttle to the front of the park, bought my ticket and went inside. Everyone was stopped in front of the carousel where a short speech was given before the chains were lifted and we were let in. The bulls started running, me…I went to Doughnut Time for an OJ and a fresh glazed.

I wanted to make Dragster my first ride of the day which had not even started testing yet. It took them until around 7:30 to get the ride going but once it was up it kept running all day. I got four launches and three full circuits on Dragster. Yes, I was on the rollback train in a seat all by myself, good times there but I dont see why everyone wishes for one. It was nice to get another launch though. What a great ride, each lap was just as good as the last! After Dragster I walked quickly to MF and had a pretty blah ride, it doesn’t do much for me early in the day.

I went back to the Breakers, big smile on my face, to pick up Monica. What a great morning! I had fun talking with everyone in Dragster’s line when waiting for the first seat, didn’t get anyones name though.

After breakfast at doughnut time (again) we headed into the park for the day. We took our time through the park, hitting a number of rides including Maxair which we both really liked.

We took a break mid-day to rest and eat. We met some people in the not so hot tub, two from California, and two from Florida. The dudes from Cali were doing a baseball/coaster trip that sounded like a lot of fun. We took a long walk down the beach to Sandcastle and got some photos of Magnum.

We headed back into the park around six to ride some more, and get ready for ERT. Again we took our time in the park, riding each set of the Antiqiue cars, the Turnpike cars, Calypso, etc and had a lot of fun. Our last ride of the night before ERT was Millennium Force where we met an awesome dad and his daughter who came from Baltimore. This was their first time in the park and their first time on the Force! I was really excited for both of them, nothing better than your first ride on a new coaster in the dark, especially when its Millennium. There were two guys there for Coastermania in front of them who joined in on the good conversation and gave them a tip on where to sit. Everyone had a blast on the ride, which to me is much better in the dark.

ERT began right after MF where we had two great rides on Raptor, one on Maxair, one on Blue Streak and a bunch on Magnum.

The rides on Magnum at night were insane! The trim was off and the return section was completely out of control, seriously so much fun. At this point I had been up for 20 hours after a hard work week of travel and early mornings. We both crashed hard once we got back from the park.

Wrap up

We spent our morning with mini golf and go-karts before heading home.

The park is always great, and the resort, while having a ways to go to compete with Universal Orlando, is getting better and better. Having a card to charge food service to your room is great, it would be better if it worked in every place you hand over money, and was your room key, not a flimsy piece of paper. We are allready planning another trip, hopefully with a car full of friends.