Seabreeze/ Martin's Fantasy Island/ Waldameer TR

Three years ago my daughter and I visited Seabreeze and just loved the place. Seabreeze was due to open the weekend before, while we were at Hershey and Knoebels, but never did because of weather. My 16 year old son, Hayden, didn't make the trip to Seabreeze or Martin's Fantasy Island with us in 2013, so it was a perfect opportunity to revisit a park that I really enjoyed.

My daughter, Hayden, and I drove to Buffalo NY on Friday evening after they got out of school. To our surprise there was a carnival going on right next to our hotel. It was a smaller carnival, but they did have a Loop O Plane, and I had never ridden one. Well, I rode my first Loop O Plane and I'm pretty sure it will be my last. My head kept hitting off the inside of the roof. It actually was one of the worst amusement ride experiences I ever had. My kids loved it and actually rode it a few times. There were a few other rides at the carnival like a Ferris Wheel and a round up. We probably spent about a hour or so then headed back to the hotel.

On Saturday morning we headed for Seabreeze on their opening day. We got there right before opening and headed for the John Miller classic wooden coaster, Jack Rabbit. We got the second train out of the station and the kids took front seat. Even though Jack Rabbit is a classic coaster from the 1920's it runs Morgan trains. The front seat is the best seat on it and provides the best pops of air time. The finally through the tunnel is my favorite part of the ride. It's not a top 10 wooden coaster, but just a lot of fun. They had greased the track for opening day, so they could only run half full trains. Jack Rabbit is operated by just one person with nothing but levers. The ride op said the brakes wouldn't be strong enough to stop a full train, so we were getting some really good rides. We ended up with 7 rides on it throughout the day.

Seabreeze also has a spinning coaster similar to Laff Trakk at Hershey and Steel Dragon at Waldameer. For some reason Seabreeze's Whirlwind is far superior to the other 2. It spins better, less trim brakes and just a Wilder ride. We rode it 6 times in a row early in the day with no wait. It went down later in the day, so unfortunately those were our only rides on it.

Seabreeze's other coaster is called Bobsleds, which was originally a junior wooden coaster, but probably was the first ever Coaster to get the iron horse treatment. Its a very fun, quirky, unique Coaster experience. During our first ride I spotted a man taking photos with professional camera equipment. When we got off the ride he came over to us and interviewed us. He was from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. We was tickled to death that we came all the way from Pittsburgh for opening day at Seabreeze. The next day our photos wee up on the paper's web site, along with a brief description of our interview. It was just something that was very memorable. I save the link onto my phone and even made my Facebook profile photo the photo he shot of me.

Seabreeze has a set of flying scooters that are the old classic type, but are a smaller version of the ones at Knoebels. The ones at Seabreeze are a lot like the ones at Conneaut. My first ride was very wild, with some really nice pops and snaps. At the end of the ride my tub came down and actually hit into the structure itself. The ride op actually didn't say anything, but I kind of took easy on our future rides on it. I love snapping flying scooters, but I have no desire to damage such a classic ride. Even though I played nice, we rode them another 5 times. I was just very careful I didn't overdue it.

Some other rides of note is first off their carousel. From my understanding their original one burnt down, but their new one is incredible. Hand carved horses, a beautiful wood deck, and just one of the nicest carousels in the country.

Seabreeze also has a really good set of bumper cars, not Knoebels quality, but good enough where you can spin people out. Seabreeze is much like Waldameer in terms of a bunch of rides in a smaller area. They have a Disc O, a music Express, a swinging pirate ship, a tilt a Wirl, a wave swinger, a very cool flume. They even have a Zamperla ride similar to Aero 360 at Kennywood, and Meteor at Dorney.

The park itself is just beautiful. It sits on Lake Ontario, the land scaping is nice, the rides are in pristine condition, and the staff is awesome. Seabreeze is a gem in the industry and I highly recommend a visit there. I know we will be back again in the future.

We left Seabreeze at 3:30 and drove a hour and a half to Martin's Fantasy Island. I was disappointed in this Park during my last visit, and once again I wish we would have never left Seabreeze. At Seabreeze we ran from ride to ride in amusement park Zen. Martin's Fantasy Island was insanely crowded, and their operations are some of the worst.

Their main attraction is a CCI wooden coaster called Silver Comet. Silver Comet is very smooth and has a great moment of air time right after the first drop and another decent shot of air time towards the end. There are a few laterals, but it losses so much speed in the turns and really craws through them. It's a wooden Twister, so it makes a difference. All in all its a decent Coaster. We got 2 rides on it, both in the back seat. It would just be nice to visit and be able to 5-10 rides on it.

Martin's Fantasy Island also has a spinning Wild mouse made by Zamperla, which is a very sad version of one. My son needed the credit, so we waited 25 minutes for our ride. My son did get the Kiddie Coaster credit also on Max's Doggy Coaster. I got the credit last time, so I sat that one out.

We did ride Mind Warp which is a frisbee that completely inverts and rotates while inverted, and has moments were the seats free flip. It's hard to explain this unique ride, but it is awesome. The wait times were so long with the crowds and the slow operations, we rode their tea cups and that's it. The park closed at 7:30.

Being our hotel was in Buffalo and we have these long days we went to Niagara Falls that evening. It was the first time my kids ever saw it and I couldn't believe how much they enjoyed Niagara Falls. We were restricted to the US side because my daughter's passrt is expired. They loved Niagara Falls so much I'm hoping to do a 2-3 day trip next year that only includes Niagara Falls.

On Sunday we woke up and drove to Waldameer. They opened Ravine Flyer II right on time, so that was our first ride. In fact we rode it 11 times in the first hour and half. Ravine Flyer II is running great. The first 2/3 of the ride is top 5 wooden coaster material, with a moment that has floating air time that feels like 10 seconds and followed by 2 more moments in tunnels. My only complaint about RVII is it does lose a lot of momentum during the end. Now this last section was better than my previous visits. There were some nice little pops of air and laterals. The first 2/3 is just so good the last 1/3 just doesn't match up it. All in all RVII moved from #11 on my wooden coaster list up to #8. I just rode the Phoenix a week before, and I still slightly prefer the Phoenix as PA's best wooden coaster, but by a very slight margin.

Another thing I think of when I think of Waldameer is their dark ride Wacky Shack and their walk through fun house, Pirates Cove. Both are kept in pristine condition and are real gems in the industry. I actually know the guy, Randy, who is responsible for their upkeep, and he does an incredible job. I even like Wacky Shack more than Knoebels Haunted Mansion. It's I'm my top 5 favorite dark rides.

The crowdes were non existent for the first 2 hours, but did get a little busy later in the day. We only got 1 ride on Comet, their Herb Scmeck classic Kiddie Coaster. We sat near the middle of the train and our rides in previous years were much better than this visit.

We also rode their spinning coasters, Steel Dragon once and after riding Wirl Wind at Seabreeze the day before, Steel Dragon wasn't nearly as good.

Like Seabreeze Waldameer is full of classic and modern flat rides, like a Tilt A Wirl, a very good drop tower by ARM, the fastest music Express I've ever ridden, a Scrambler, a Monster, a Disc O, a Ferris Wheel, Tea Cups, a swinging pirate ship, and everything else would expect. We even rode the skyride for the first time. Even though the park got a little busy we were still able to jump from ride to ride.

We ended the day with 6 more rides on RVII for a total of 17. We got have gotten more but by 6:10 my daughter's tooth was bothering her so bad and she was in so much pain, she was no longer having fun. In fact we later found out her infection was the size of pea and down into the bone. She is scheduled for a root canal tomorrow morning at 7:30am.

Well that's about it, another awesome trip. I must admit I'm loving these small laid back parks more and more as I get older. The big corporate parks build the huge awesome steel coasters, but the smaller parks are just becoming more appealing to me. It's awesome to ride something 17 times, rather than wait a hour for one ride. I still love the big corporate parks, especially if we can find uncrowded days. I just seem to be having more fun at places like Knoebels, Seabreeze, and Waldameer. Well tomorrow I get back on the boat for the next 3 weeks. That means I have 3 weeks to plan our next Adventure.

Thanks for reading,
Ken