A brief visit to Lake Compounce
May. 19th, 2014 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinWe went back to Lake Compounce yesterday on the way home from a little family reunion in Pennsylvania. The visit was shorter than we'd expected, thanks to the two-hour backup caused by a car accident at a terrible choke point on I-84 near Waterbury.
No coaster rides this time. My nerves were already a little jangled by the ride in (though Sam was driving); also, the interesting development is that my daughter Jorie is now just tall enough to ride most adult rides, so it's a lot more fun to do stuff with her. But she's at an awkward point where the coasters at Compounce are still a little too much for her, except for a minute kiddie coaster which is far too babyish. Like many small parks, they're lacking something in the "family coaster" category like a Mine Train.
Also, the water slides and such, which I'd say are at least half of Compounce's attractions, don't open until next weekend (and it was too cool for them to be really attractive anyway).
So the standout ride today was the sky ride, which is pretty unusual for any amusement park, let alone a smallish one: basically a long ski lift that goes 700 feet up the mountain and back down again, giving spectacular views of the lake and environs. There's much more of it than you can actually see from the ground; it's about a half-hour ride. Sam and I hadn't been able to ride this last time, because the only means of evacuation involves a hike down the mountainside, so they can't run it when it's just rained and potentially slippery. This ride was pretty amazing, but was also enough to actually trigger the little bit of acrophobia I have, especially by proxy whenever Jorie started horsing around (I kept remembering that the lapbar is non-locking). She seems to completely lack this fear, incidentally, so she may turn out to be a bigger thrill-seeker than I am.
One of the most unusual things you can see from the sky ride is a colossal forest of satellite dishes, that you also drive past on the way in; I'm used to these being defense or intelligence facilities, but this one turns out to be the nerve center of ESPN.
After that, we discovered that Sam's favorite ride at the park, Thunder Rapids, actually was open, so we rode on that and got wet. It was a walk-on and they just let us ride through three times in a row, so we got really wet. Wet enough that we had to concede the argument we'd had with Jorie on the sky ride about the need to go back to the car and change our clothes afterward, which ate up some more of our precious park time. I've ridden several of these sorts of rides in which you get splashed a lot in a big round raft, and I think Compounce's is actually the best one I've encountered. Kali River Rapids at Disney Animal Kingdom is bigger and fancier, with a small drop at the climax, but Thunder Rapids is splashier and more chaotic, and wins for general soaking.
And then we had our first time contesting with our daughter on the bumper cars.
The experience of going to these parks changes a lot when your kid is no longer in the kiddie-ride category. It's one thing I like about Story Land up around North Conway (now owned by the same company as Compounce): they made the decision to specialize in family rides rather than kiddie rides per se, so that you can share the experience even with rather smaller children. I'd like to get up there again and take Jorie on their new wooden coaster, Roar-O-Saurus; it sounds like it would be exactly her speed.
No coaster rides this time. My nerves were already a little jangled by the ride in (though Sam was driving); also, the interesting development is that my daughter Jorie is now just tall enough to ride most adult rides, so it's a lot more fun to do stuff with her. But she's at an awkward point where the coasters at Compounce are still a little too much for her, except for a minute kiddie coaster which is far too babyish. Like many small parks, they're lacking something in the "family coaster" category like a Mine Train.
Also, the water slides and such, which I'd say are at least half of Compounce's attractions, don't open until next weekend (and it was too cool for them to be really attractive anyway).
So the standout ride today was the sky ride, which is pretty unusual for any amusement park, let alone a smallish one: basically a long ski lift that goes 700 feet up the mountain and back down again, giving spectacular views of the lake and environs. There's much more of it than you can actually see from the ground; it's about a half-hour ride. Sam and I hadn't been able to ride this last time, because the only means of evacuation involves a hike down the mountainside, so they can't run it when it's just rained and potentially slippery. This ride was pretty amazing, but was also enough to actually trigger the little bit of acrophobia I have, especially by proxy whenever Jorie started horsing around (I kept remembering that the lapbar is non-locking). She seems to completely lack this fear, incidentally, so she may turn out to be a bigger thrill-seeker than I am.
One of the most unusual things you can see from the sky ride is a colossal forest of satellite dishes, that you also drive past on the way in; I'm used to these being defense or intelligence facilities, but this one turns out to be the nerve center of ESPN.
After that, we discovered that Sam's favorite ride at the park, Thunder Rapids, actually was open, so we rode on that and got wet. It was a walk-on and they just let us ride through three times in a row, so we got really wet. Wet enough that we had to concede the argument we'd had with Jorie on the sky ride about the need to go back to the car and change our clothes afterward, which ate up some more of our precious park time. I've ridden several of these sorts of rides in which you get splashed a lot in a big round raft, and I think Compounce's is actually the best one I've encountered. Kali River Rapids at Disney Animal Kingdom is bigger and fancier, with a small drop at the climax, but Thunder Rapids is splashier and more chaotic, and wins for general soaking.
And then we had our first time contesting with our daughter on the bumper cars.
The experience of going to these parks changes a lot when your kid is no longer in the kiddie-ride category. It's one thing I like about Story Land up around North Conway (now owned by the same company as Compounce): they made the decision to specialize in family rides rather than kiddie rides per se, so that you can share the experience even with rather smaller children. I'd like to get up there again and take Jorie on their new wooden coaster, Roar-O-Saurus; it sounds like it would be exactly her speed.
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no subject
Date: 2014-05-19 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-19 10:12 pm (UTC)The first time on the Compounce skyride is nerve-wracking and mind-blowing--it still! keeps! going!--and those descents are practically paratrooper drops. It's nice on a good sunny day, though.
My personal opinion OF WHICH I HAVE MANY AS A COASTER ENTHUSIAST is that Compounce could do well by removing the Boomerang--no, "it's the only coaster that goes upside down" is not a reason to keep it--and putting in a nice family coaster, like Dollywood has done with Firechaser Express. That ride just looks flat-out fun.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-19 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-20 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-21 04:01 am (UTC)I realize not everybody has this viewpoint of parks. And hell, the Boomerang can give a really fun ride. I remember the first time I rode one (Six Flags over Texas) and it was awesome. I still like the tiny little crawl they take up the second lift before the release. But it does feel as if you've ridden one, you've ridden them all.
The other two big problems come from lack of maintenance which can honestly doom any ride, and the fact that many parks use older generations of Vekoma trains which cause severe headbanging and other discomforts. The seatbacks on the Boomerang train at the Great Escape had this nub, a little plastic nub of all things, where the back of your head was supposed to go. The one at the park formerly known as Riverside had these strange hockey puck-shaped things on the seat where your junk was supposed to go. (Evidently they were there to keep the wiggly shoulder restraints from constantly smashing down on your junk, so at least there was that.)
Canobie's new paint job on the Corkscrew is so strange to me after knowing it as bright friendly yellow all these years. Looks good, though, and it rides about as well as a nearly forty-year-old Arrow looper will ride. Somebody at that park really loves that coaster and thankfully they've got some kind of pull with maintenance.
The main problem Canobie has with new thrill rides is that they have to deal with not only a local government which rarely grants height variances but noise complaints from angry neighbors, both part-timers with summer homes on the lake and the year-round residents. At least that means Canobie is a perfect position to put in more moderate-to-big(gish) thrill rides. Both Untamed and the Starblaster turned out to be big hits, and they didn't have to be very high or very fast.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-23 11:31 am (UTC)I think the kids looking for extreme thrills can get a skewed perspective about these things: to the average member of the public that's a terrifying ride.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-20 04:05 am (UTC)Roar-a-Saurus especially caught
no subject
Date: 2014-05-20 10:44 am (UTC)(I'm still feeling a bit irrationally ashamed that I went back to Compounce on a day when most of the rides were walk-ons and didn't ride Boulder Dash again, given its legendary status. But I am a lightweight coaster fan and BD, in particular its relentlessly forceful second half, is actually near the top of my comfort zone; I need to be fired up in the right way to ride it. And it was very clear that I'd be riding it alone, which on occasion I still get some social awkwardness about.)
no subject
Date: 2014-05-27 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 02:15 am (UTC)