Kennywood

Kennywood is another park that is held in high regard by fellow enthusiasts. Opened in the late 19th century the park has grown from strength to strength collecting awards along the way. It is one of the few parks that allows you to bring in your own food although it does make some very nice fries. If someone comes up to you and says "Kennywood's open" they aren't advertising the park but telling you that your flies are undone!

An early start as we were going to have an ERS on Thunderbolt, one of the parks wooden coasters. I can only assume Jeff skipped breakfast and was finding something else to eat when this was taken.

The stand out coaster is Phantom's Revenge, a huge green steelie famous for its second drop which dives through the wooden Thunderbolt coaster.

And so it was onto the ERS, Thunderbolt, a coaster that rates quite highly but it won't be by me.
It differs from most rides in that it drops straight out of the station rather than off a lift hill. The park uses the terrain really well in its ride design.

Interesting Sign #17
"Smaller Riders Enter First".
The ride features a lot of right hand turns so if you're on the left you're going to be squished by the person next to you. For this reason they also don't allow riders to ride on their own. Quite odd!

It was on this ride where several people injured their ribs. It was also on this ride that I injured my neck in what I'll forever call "The Tickling Incident". If you're ever riding this ensure that when your arms are up in the air, the person behind you doesn't tickle you because if you crunch your neck (the usual reflex action when tickled) at the bottom of a drop, it'll hurt. In fact it got so bad that I was close to sitting out several days worth of rides, I'm glad I didn't because it was almost a week before the pain went away. Apologies to anyone who had to listen to me grumble about it, but it was bloody sore!

Leaving the ERS I went onto Phantoms Revenge. This used to be a large inverting coaster called the Steel Phantom but it underwent a design change a few years ago into the great ride it is now. Although it doesn't turn the riders upside down anymore it's very smooth and a joy to ride.

As you can see from this pic we were still at the mercy of the elements and the big rides were all closed down when the storms came in. The park did have an indoor coaster so I headed over to that.

Nice ornamental gardens along the way. Phantom's Revenge closed shortly after that train returned back to the station.

This is Exterminator, the rides indoor mouse ride. The barrier is just theming however the ride had been closed, not due to the weather, but due to a "technical issue". So all the coasters were down, so I thought I'd go and ride the drop tower, which was running. In hindsight this wasn't the cleverest move as I got completely soaked.

In the end I hid from the rain inside the Noah's Ark attraction. A really good walkthrough ride, that originally opened in 1936 but which was rebuilt sixty years later. I did get wet on this but being soaked from the drop tower I didn't care.

At lunch we were joined by the big cheese people in the park. One of the guys tried to test us by being able to identify the countries where our local parks were. However he failed to identify the accents of some of the group so the test was quickly abandoned. It was a nice welcome however and they were willing to answer any questions we had on their park and its history. Here Justin is handed a sign to "poomwhuuax", which I think means good luck in Inuit.

Racer is a one of only 3 mobius coasters in the world. We have one in the UK (at Blackpool) and there is one in Mexico (not been to that one yet). For those that don't know the mobius rides are ones where you leave one station and arrive in another. So the red train above would end up where the blue train is and vice versa. As a racer however this wasn't very good as one train seemed to have a clear advantage each time.

Now Jack Rabbit, Jack Rabbit, Jack Rabbit. This is the one ride that had me screaming expletives on the trip, and I apologise to Tim Galvelis and his Father for having to listen to my outburst. I was fortunate to get a back seat ride and they were sat in front of me. Towards the middle of the ride there is a double drop where I swear I thought I was going to be launched out of the ride. Oh my god! It was mental. Considering this ride is 85 years old, I was totally blown away by it. Definitely the biggest surprise of the trip.


More nice ornamental theming...

In the afternoon I had another go on Phantom's Revenge. I do like this ride!

As well as having new rides the park also has some classics such as this kiddy whip ride.

The newest ride for this year was another powered swing this one given the unimaginative name "Swing Shot". Only one side was running on the day we were there. It was an OK ride but not as good as the one at Lake Compounce.

Even so, it was still really popular with the public. The guy responsible for this ride, Stan Checketts was inspired by his childhood and trying to get as high as he could on a swing. A truly inspirational guy that takes simple ideas and makes great rides from them. I just hope his childhood didn't feature seeing if you could endure chinese burns...

Late in the afternoon we were given a guided tour under the Thunderbolt coaster. Taken into small groups we were shown bits of the park that the public don't usually get to see.

Inside the Thunderbolt ride and the group pose for another group shot in front of the sign. I got it in front of the car. Why wasn't I in the group shot? I really didn't want to be photographed in front of this ride.

Here's a shot from the back side of the station of the train going down the second drop.

and here's the big turn around on Phantom's Revenge.

and here's a shot of the next group waiting to be allowed into the back area. I took this by putting my camera over the gate so if you're one of the people waiting who was wondering who was doing this, now you know!

The longest queue of the day was for the Garfield boat ride. In the past it has been the tunnel of love and similar attractions but on this occasion it's a 3D boat ride themed around the dreams of the big fat cat. I couldn't get the 3D effects to work and so wasn't pleased with this ride.

It was on the way out of the park that I noticed this sign welcoming us to the park. Most people missed it completely. With about half an hour left before departure I thought I'd grab some food and take some pictures outside the park.

All signs point to Kennywood, a great park with some stunning rides.

The swing running at full power hits an angle of about 120 degrees.

Kennywood is a really really great park and for Jack Rabbit alone I will not forget this park in a hurry. I should also commend the security at this park as they were the only ones to spot a marker pen in my bag. Not something I was doing as an intentional test but when you have gone through security barriers and the guards take a quick look in the main compartment without checking the rest, its good to see a park be a little more thorough.

Time to enter Ohio and the unpronouncable Googoo Lake.