Photo courtesy of Joyrides

Dear Diary, THE THUNDERBOLT IS RUNNING!!! Standing in the Kennywood parking lot to take a picture, Cindy literally jumped for joy when she saw the trainload of riders heading up the Thunderbolt's lifthill! All I wanted was a chance to get one ride on Phantom's Revenge. What I got was the best day I've ever had at Kennywood. The weather was perfect - the temperature was just right, not too warm, not too cool. The skies had just enough clouds to keep my sunburnt arms from baking any further. And the crowds were perfect, too, with one cycle waits on all of the flat rides and ten minute waits on all of the coasters. All I originally wanted was one ride on Phantom's Revenge. It became apparent we would get that and more! We immediately went to the Phantom's queue, only to find at most a twenty minute wait. I can't tell you how grateful I was for this! Listening to Cindy describe her previous week's experience waiting for the Phantom made my sunburnt skin crawl. The uncovered queues must be real pressure cookers on a hot, crowded day, especially when the line doesn't move. Fortunately that wasn't the case for us today, and we found ourselves riding only in the very back and very front of Phantom's Revenge! What did I think? I *loved* it, of course! But then I loved the original Steel Phantom. Phantom's Revenge, however, is a huge improvement. Now it is a bona fide hyper, and in many ways it reminds me of Magnum XL-200, the original hyper. Certainly it has Magnum's abrupt style of airtime. But for some reason it also just feels like Magnum. Even though it doesn't share the same out and back design, it shares a similar kind of ride experience. Others may not feel this way, but I definitely sensed the Arrow connection. I really liked both the front and the back. It would be hard for me to choose which I liked better, but if forced I would say the back. You really feel the wind and speed of the ride up front, but the back has that wicked Magnum intensity on every drop. The double dip was a HUGE surprise! It always caught me off guard since it's hard to see it coming while sitting in back. And the airtime is, like I said, abrupt and violent in the backseat, with slams that made me want to brace myself before every drop. The lap bar is weird. It's one arm that drops from the side and it hits me at thigh level. The bar comes down easily during the ride and requires a bit of PTC style defensive leg bracing. Otherwise I love everything about the lap bars. This coaster sure is ugly! I thought it looked pretty good in pictures, but green and black are an ugly combination! Still, it's better than the steel gray and black of the original Phantom, and it's not garishly offensive and doesn't take anything away from the beauty of Lost Kennywood. So it's ugly but I suppose it could've been worse. So how do I rate it? No. 10 in my top steel. In fact my top ten steel has taken a major shift after this trip: Superman, SFNE Superman, SFA/SFDL Nitro, SFGAdv Millennium Force, CP Apollo's Chariot, BGW Mamba, WoF Magnum XL-200, CP Raging Bull, SFGAm Incredible Hulk, IOA Phantom's Revenge, Kennywood I would rate Phantom higher if not for two things: the ride is a bit short, and the swingaround following the first two drops is rather wide and not terribly exciting when compared to other rides of its kind. Still, this is nitpicking - Kennywood has a *huge* winner with Phantom's Revenge and it's the kind of coaster I will never get tired of riding! After knocking over the yardball in Lost Kennywood, Cindy and I rode Exterminator next. Cindy was thrilled that the outside queue was not in use, which must be unbearable in the heat. We only rode Exterminator once but had a *fantastic* ride - our car spun wildly while going down a big drop and continued to spin all the way to the end! Of course we rode Thunderbolt - many times! A glass wall has been added to the end of Thunderbolt's station, most likely to prevent riders from throwing objects as the Phantom passes underneath them! The Thunderbolt has had *so* much track work done, and the result is a surprising change in the number of airtime moments, at least from seat 1.3. Cindy and I were continually surprised by the good pop of air coming out of the first helix. More airtime followed at the top of each hill. Yessir, the Thunderbolt is new and improved! Sadly, the wood covering where the Mars lights used to be seems to indicate this wonderful feature will never make a return appearance. I wonder what happened to doom the Mars lights following such a brief and welcome return? Cindy loves the Jackrabbit. I like it too, but I got so tired of being assigned to a middle seat I threatened to drop kick the bunny on the double dip. Cindy says I've always hated the Jackrabbit but I just want one front or backseat ride! I will say our final ride of the night was noticeably better, even from a middle seat. Kennywood now has two *must do* foods, in fact both of them will be on my top ten park foods list. Kountry Korn has nicely fillled the spot where the old Steel Phantom's entrance was located. Roasted corn on the cob is shucked and slathered with butter, and a huge variety of seasonings of spices are available for the gourmet corn chef. I had three different kinds. The first I had butter, hot sauce, garlic salt, cajun seasoning and parmesean. You sprinkle the spices over the corn but then you close the wrapping paper and roll the corn around in all of the ingredients. My second ear of corn was very conservative - butter and parmesean cheese only. And for my last one I had butter, salt, parmesean and cajun seasonings. Cindy seemed a bit skeptical at first, but as the day wore on she warmed up to the idea of gourmet roasted corn, starting out conservatively at first and by evening's end covering her corn in a yummy concoction of seasonings. This Kountry Korn is seriously very good - it's something I'll have to have repeatedly everytime I visit Kennywood! The other thing I'm happy about is that the Belgian waffles have returned to hand dipped vanilla ice cream rather than soft serve, and they're back to using fresh strawberries rather than strawberry topping. This was my favorite thing to eat in park until they changed it two years ago. Soft serve and fake topping was just gross. I'm happy they went back to the original, it makes a huge difference as evidenced by the number of people ordering them as the night wore on! There is also one other food item worth noting at Kennywood. Frozen Hurricanes are a HUGE HUGE hit here. *Everyone* is walking around with hurricane glasses! I've never seen these at any other park, but at Kennywood they're clearly THE big thing this year. Cindy and I had two - the mango was out of this world, I would definitely like to have another one (in fact right now, please) and the strawberry which was good, too. I never thought of Kennywood as a food park, meaning there's nothing here I really felt I *had* to eat. But not anymore! Cindy and I did all of Kennywood on this day. Repeatedly. Lots of rides on the Jackrabbit, Racer, Phantom's Revenge and Thunderbolt. We did all the dark rides - Old Mill, Noah's Ark and Gold Rusher. And we did all the flat rides, too, including the Log Jammer, which is such a great log flume! About the only thing we didn't ride was PittFall, and I can't believe we didn't since it was essentially a walkon. Drop rides really do scare me, though, so I can take em or leave em. We also didn't do the Turtle. Okay, I'm going to admit something here, I think the Turtle is a stupid ride. I don't get it! Why do people love it so much! Cindy says its because there aren't very many of them. Maybe there's a reason, because it's stupid! Why do people want to sit in a tub that goes around in a circle at the speed of a turtle and doesn't spin! I just don't get what's so great about them! I HATE THE TURTLE! I also hate the "entertainment" shows at Kennywood. Oh, my. These poor teenagers, *male* teenagers, dressed in shiny red leather and silver sparkle outfits dancing poorly choreographed numbers to badly lip synched songs. Some of the pre-recorded songs are even off key. Oh my, this is not good. What's good about Kennywood is how beautifully it's landscaped. There are so many inviting avenues and hidden little areas. Has anyone counted the number of fountains here? I don't think there's a bad place to sit in the entire park! And speaking of fountains, I DEMAND to know what happened to the fountain in Lost Kennywood! Gone is the offwhite fountain with elephants lining the walls. In its place a boring swimming pool blue fountain with some kinda fish or sea dragon droolling over the side. I *demand* to know what Kennywood's done with their elephant fountain! Kennywood is a park I could easily spend two full days at. There are so many great rides, none of which I could ever get tired of riding. Heck, I even wanted to do Gold Rusher again! Everything here seems magical, and I just love all the little corners and alleys and hidden spots containing rides - the Kangaroo is a ride I probably passed by ten times before really seeing it and going hey! That looks like a great ride! One little girl on the Kangaroo really made my day. She couldn't have been more than four years old. She rode with her "big" sister and friend, and after every kangaroo hop she would of course be tossed way up in the air. Her mouth was wide open everytime and she had a mixture of surprise and shock and giddyish glee with every throw. Then she'd wiggle her way back into riding position just in time, only to get thrown out again. I think it was the most adorable thing I've ever seen a child do on a ride. After our final ride on the Phantom in the backseat, we found the queue entrance closed. We then ended this perfect day with night rides on the Thunderbolt and Jackrabbit. Then the voice of Kennywood came over the loudspeaker and the music signaled that it was time to leave. We leisurely, reluctantly - unwillingly is a better word - made our way out to the car. I commented that this day could not have been better. It could not have been a more fitting ending to what has been the easiest trip I've ever taken. And yet it was the end. Our vacation is over. I don't want to leave. THE END