Took our Prince Edward Island visitors to SFDL on Saturday. Eight in a mini van can be a little cramped when it was built to seat seven. Donna drew the short straw and had to sit on the hump between the boys in the back. We were on the road by 9:000AM and hit the US border around 10:45AM and since it was a long weekend in Canada the line up for US customs at Lewiston was pretty darn busy. I have now driven to SFDL enough that I do not have to check for route numbers or exit numbers. I know the exact amount for the tolls and which line to get into for the fastest route through tolls. I-90 was a constant string of Ontario License plates.

Pulled into the parking lot around noon and the entrance into the campground and Hotel was extremely packed. Unlike PCW, SFDL does not offer a season parking pass instead they offer a strip of five coupons for $17.50 which is not a bad deal considering it costs $7.00 per day. Seven bucks is a lot of money ($10.50CDN) considering it is in the middle of nowhere.

The last time we were at SFDL we did not get our coupon books so I went to get them and they required our passes because they had to punch an ugly hole right in the middle of the pass. Why? I don’t know. There weren’t any real deals that I would want to have extra books for. Speaking of Season Passes some one should tell them that picture taking work best with a light source. The pictures on our season passes are so dark you could easily hand them off to some one. Now we would never condone or encourage that kind of activity.

The poor staff at SFDL probably did know what hit them on Saturday because they keep hearing that "eh" word and the all the guests were so darn nice. The park was over flowing with Nice Canadian guests. The weather was overcast and misty rain all day. The mist did not let up all the time that we were there.

So let’s get into what we got onto or in while we were there. First up was Predator we got a look at the loading platform and it looked empty and then I could not believe my eyes could it be? "No" I said in disbelief. They actually have two trains running on Predator and for the whole day. Excellent! Last visit we only rode once and were pleasantly surprised with the ride after last year’s rough ride. Some people say it is still rough but, I still disagree after riding five times on Saturday. The Reids really liked Predator and do not find it rough. Adam liked it so much so that we bought him a very nice Predator T-shirt. While on the platform for Predator we notice that only one train was running on S:ROS and that the queue was pretty full. So! no S:ROS rides this trip either.

In all my previous visits to SFDL nobody ever wanted to go on the Giant Vekoma Wheel. But, my sister and my niece wanted to go on so Nolan and I decide to queue up for our first giant wheel. This would be a great opportunity to take some nice pictures for the web site I thought. The queue was about half full and they only loaded about four of the cars. Then we hear "Guests in line Clear the Queues". I think I was the only person who heard it because nobody was moving. I had an advantage on everybody because I seen it was "Jim the Nazi Ride Op" at the controls. He finally did say "Because of the weather we are closing the ride". That is all he had to say the first time. So maybe next time we will get to ride the Giant Wheel.

Nolan and I head for Viper while everybody else heads to Loony Tunes Seaport. While in line I recognize a person I had meet at PCW last fall and say hello. Nolan and I take two rides on Viper (no wait/walk on both trains running). While riding Viper Nolan and I discuss the possibility of him trying Mind Eraser , Vekoma SLC, for his first time. On our last visit Nolan had mentioned he wanted to ride but I thought he was too short because PCW’s Top Gun has a 54" height requirement and later found out that SFDL’s is only 52". After our Viper rides we head over to Mind Eraser to check things out. I knew Nolan was marginally at the 52" height limit. But there was nobody at the entrance to check him. After a quick study of the track layout Nolan decides it was time up his coaster count by one. We walk up to the platform and notice only one train running. Nolan wants front seat so we waited about 40 minutes for our ride. The ride op checks Nolan’s height and he was right at the line and he gave him the thumbs up to ride. Now! I had just ridden Top Gun on Friday and I swear that SFDL’s is a faster ride than PCW’s. Nolan loved his first inverted coaster and proudly told his mom and brother that he just rode Mind Eraser.

We found the rest of our group in the area next to Mind Eraser’s entrance and that is where I ran into a very nice young ride op, Chrissy, who had sent me an e-mail a couple of days before. Chrissy and I said "hello" but, she did not have much time to talk because she was running a ride all by herself.

SFDL has a really nice flume ride which is a lot of fun and you don’t really get wet on it. We took two rides on it since there was hardly any wait. After the flume ride it was time to try some games. We really like the games at SFDL and find them a much better deal than PCW’s. PCW want $3.00 bucks to play their games while SFDL still offer 25cent and 10cent games. I was walking past the Dime Game, slide/roll your dime onto a red dot and win a huge bear, and thought that this game was impossible to win. My sister takes out a buck and gets 10 dimes and gives three dimes to each child and hands the extra one to me. I joked with the game attendant that she cheated us by giving us one Canadian dime. I take my one dime and kind of toss it to the top of the game and it then rolled into the middle and landed right onto one of those little red spots. We could not believe it we actually won! Nolan picks out this bear which was all most as big as him. The boys were very proud walking down the midway with this huge bear. We went to another game and my five year old niece had won a Kermit the frog but, wanted a Miss Piggy. But, Miss Piggy was on the next prize level and the attendant said, " I should do this but, here is the Miss Piggy instead". These are the little things that really make your day and allow you to overlook the Jims of SFDL. On the down side of all this winning, Nolan lost his $30.00 hat that his Nanny gave him.

The misting rain had not let up so we decided to hit a few shops before we left. Even though the rain did not let up we still had a very enjoyable day at SFDL. There was no traffic at the Canadian side of customs and we arrived back in Newmarket around 8:30PM. Too bad PCW closed at 8:00PM because we could have dropped in on our way home.

Regards,
Kevin Reid