Over the Edge://Canada's Wonderland and Niagara Falls 2023

                     Date:7/26/2023-7/30/2023

Destination: Ontario, Canada

Goal: Canada's Wonderland, Niagara Falls, Six Flags Darien Lake

Distance: 78  Miles

Means of Travel: Driving

Potential Credits: 3

Ah, the Cedar Fair Platinum Pass, something that's in its last season. At Dungeons & Dragons one fateful night, my buddy Grant, who plays Bruce the Barbarian, asks us all if anyone has a Cedar Fair pass, announcing he got a platinum pass to go to Cedar Point with his girlfriend over the summer. And the previous week he'd been showing off the new passport he'd just gotten, and I needed an excuse to renew mine myself, so everything just sort of fell into place.

Since 2018 we basically knew Canada's wonderland would get a dive coaster, as a piece of track was spotted sticking out of a tunnel beneath Vortex's water feature constructed between the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Normally whatever big coaster Cedar Fair gives their parks is an automatic plan for me each year, but I passed on Yukon Striker when it opened in 2019. Busy season, lots of things I wanted to do, it just didn't take priority. I was never a huge fan of the dive coaster concept. When I was 13 I rode Griffon with my dad and sister at Busch Gardens Europe on family vacation and I was proud of myself for dealing with such an imposing coaster, but as I became an enthusiast and got picker about my coasters and broadened my pallet, I became less and less a fan of them. In my eyes, it's a giant scary drop followed by a colossal waste of momentum bar a few cool things. It's no secret I'm more of a pacing and airtime guy, and even other similar takes on the concept, such as Cannibal, typically impress me way more. Hate to be the Intamin douchebag that has Boring & Mild as one of the five phrases I say when the string in my back is pulled, but I am currently not a fan of their dive machines. But I'd heard Yukon Striker was different, and I loved its Canadian theme, and this seemed like a good excuse to head up there and give the B&M dive machine one more chance to actually enjoy it.

Day 0- Leaving Our Quiet Redneck Mountain Town

The plan was for Grant to get me as soon as I was off work that day and head up to our AirBnB in Mississauga that night. Because my boss is the GOAT, he let me out early and I was able to head home and shower and run all my stuff to the curb for Grant to get me. He was there before I would've even be off work and we got all my shit piled into his car and headed north on I-75!

Drive went pretty smoothly, we stopped in Perrysburg for a little Burger King before continuing on through Marijuana, USA, also known as Michigan. I went here earlier this season and noticed just how much legal weed there is getting sold to Ohioans, there's dispensaries and billboards advertising dispensaries everywhere near the border they've got no shame about what they're doing.

The gas station, and its bathroom, legit looked like something out of The Last Of Us. There was trash all over the floor, random things placed inconveniently to create an obstacle, and nobody was there.

Drive into Detroit was smooth but there was a ton of traffic on the bridge, so it rerouted us downtown and into the tunnel instead. I think the Mixing Bowl freaked out Grant a little trying to make sure we went to the right place.

And before we knew it we were over the border! Enjoy a little car convo as we drove through the tunnel and out onto the other side.

I wasn't sure how border patrol was gonna go, usually the Canadians are super super chill so I wasn't too worried at least going into Canada. But to my surprise, while we just kinda passed him our passports and he handed them back no hassle at all, the guy seemed pissed off and annoyed which is a change from the usual smiling friendly welcome you get into the country.

The drive from Windsor is a whole lot of nothing all the way to London, and then another whole lotta nothing all the way to Toronto. So we killed time with fun car activities, such as What Your Parents Think Your Music Sounds Like by Con on the Cob legend Worm Quartet.

(Ashley, Grant's girlfriend, asked us what the hell we were listening to when I sent her this video. I can't even blame her.)

We swung by OnRoute, aka a Pokemon Center in real life. These Canadian travel stops are so convenient and have an assortment of restaurants and a souvenir shop as well as a gas station out front, think a mall food court but on the highway. Much more than America's "bathroom, pop machine, crackhead asking for a ride" rest areas. They're everywhere too!

As the sun went down, we had some thunderstorms, which made for some scary yet powerfully beautiful driving conditions. Watching the skies flash over the fields, vineyards, and wind turbines of Ontario after a heavy rain was very atmospheric...so naturally we put on some soulful music to add to the mood.

Eventually, we got into Mississauga a little after midnight, and had to drive around a bit to find the place as their street number was not illuminated. And of course, there was a skunk right out front so we had to wait for it to leave before heading in. But we got into the humid little AirBnB basement I had rented us and crashed for good, and all was good.

Day 1- Into A Dark Wet Hole

We got up early enough to somewhat gate crash on day one and drove on over to the park!

I've been here twice before, once in 2014 and once in 2016, so it had been a bit and a return trip was warranted. A bit has changed, most notably Yukon Striker and Frontier Canada. And knowing how dive coasters usually get huge lines, we decided to hit that first, especially since there didn't seem to be many gate crashers.

Yukon Striker, let's go! Not even fifteen minutes into our day at Wonderland and we got jumped in line basically as soon as the ride opened, but it wasn't that much distance and it happened near the entrance so I brushed it off. 

Yukon Striker is easily the best themed major coaster at Wonderland. This area under the station resembles a mine office, a mine cart sits nearby, and there's a little wooden aqueduct leaving the water tower. Only gripe I have with the theme is that they don't have matching music, some of that backwoodsy Quebecois music you hear at Busch Gardens Williamsburg would do this area some good.

I've heard about this loose article system but seeing it up close was super cool, this thing rocks! All coasters should have something like it if it's feasible! There's no excuse for Twisted Timbers not to have one that station is huge and has a ton of overhead space and they could've easily themed these as crates of apples.

Our first Yukon Striker ride was up front, let's break it down!

The worst part of Yukon Striker is the turn out of the station, there's a bit of a kerchunk in the turn, but that's a mild gripe on a part of the ride that's not really supposed to even do anything. You head up the lift, getting a great view of the park and the surrounding Toronto metro area, before turning, and then this is where it starts to not feel like just any ordinary dive machine.

When you creep over the precipice of the drop, this isn't just a dive coaster on flat ground: you're diving into a pond at the bottom of a small valley, and our morning ride after a rainy night made it somewhat cool, hazy, and atmospheric as we stared into that underwater tunnel we were about to be dropped into, threading Vortex's helix. The drop is by far the best of its kind, both because of the size and associated visuals. What sets this apart as the best drop is that you aren't dangling over the track you're about to safely glide down on, you're dangling over fucking water. You dive into a cool dark underwater hole that doesn't look big enough (LOLOL said the immature readers among us when they read that) before soaring back out into a pretty typical B&M dive machine Immelmann. But out of that, the ride starts to get interesting. The following flat spin twists you through beautiful floaty weightlessness, it feels a lot like GateKeeper's. But then Yukon Striker shifts gears and flies through that loop with gusto, something you might expect more from an old school B&M floorless or maybe even Thunderbird, something along those lines. This loop is not Boring & Mild and it has force through it, and while I'm not the biggest "this ride sucks unless you black out" positives nutcase, I do think this ride executes them well because after the drop it feels like a progression of the elements getting faster paced and more powerful. You go from a good drop, to a standard Valravn Immelmann, then into a smooth floaty wing coaster inversion, then a more powerful loop that hits you with positives, it's varried and scattered and doesn't all feel quite the same. And the trend continues with the following inversion, which isn't quite as intense but it does flip you up nice and high in those wide floorless trains before rolling into the MCBR. From here, you may get interaction with Tundra Twister which enhances the ride with the visual you're going to get struck by a ginormous mining hammer, before you dive down and around a helix over the midway and into the brakes.

All in all, it's a coaster that maybe doesn't have the most balls to the wall layout, but it puts that in some pretty nice surroundings with decent theming and a very cool drop, and that's what makes this the best dive coaster. It's different, it does more than just the three-four elements associated with dive coasters, and it uses a pretty gimmicky concept in a creative way to keep it fresh and unique. This is the kind of dive coaster I've been wanting to see since Cedar Point got Valravn and I was not disappointed. If I'm Mr. Krabs telling all the lame ass dive coasters to get out, Yukon Striker is the "except for you, you stay."

We did Skyhawk, my favorite flat next, but sadly I didn't enjoy it like I used to. I couldn't get it to spin like a propeller like I could in 2016, maybe I just lacked the wind today or maybe they've stiffened the pivot point, but I think Udara Aviators just defaulted to #1 flat ride spot.

(Psst...Kings Island...Flight Commander Returns...Area 72...make it happen!)

From one crazy drop to another, we went to another ride I was very excited to ride for a different reason: Wonder Mountain's Guardian. Considering Grant and I know each other through Dungeons & Dragons, I was going to ensure we got on this one, and even more sure Grant didn't know what was really going on! "It's a video game," the ride op told him, I told Facebook not to spoil him because he didn't know, and then some little shitstain getting off tells him, "there's a drop at the end." So I was partially busted, but Grant's like "it's just a drop I'll be fine."

Well, he didn't know what kind of drop it was, so that kept the surprise somewhat fresh. This ride definitely has lost some of its luster, there's no 3D anymore and the preshow doesn't play on the queue TV anymore. But it was still good fun riding the coaster portion and shooting the monsters...and seeing the drop still freak Grant out good was more than satisfaction enough! It's no Volkanu, to be fair it never was, but it's a good unique experience and all should experience it if they come here.

We also had an issue with the lockers not working, remember that. They ate $6 of my money and $2 of Grant's when he tried to get one for these girls in exchange for a Twoonie.

Snack time! We used our first charge of the dining plan at Lazy Bear Lodge, this beautiful new high capacity restaurant built for Frontier Canada. It's barbecue food like you get from most Cedar Fair parks, but they have a few more fringe options like vegetarian Bolognese sauce and Korean BBQ chicken. But I got the sausage, hoping to come back more than twice this trip.

We just ate, let's get on a big twisty thing! Soaring Timbers, the ride that was being teased for 2017 when I was there in 2016, was next, and it's some kind of Mondial thing. Pretty landscape, we rode it in the sprinkling rain so that was fun, and you get some intense flips when it's coming back down. I really liked it!

Tundra Twister was next, New For 2023 here at Wonderland. A large, imposing, beautiful, but somewhat redundant addition to the iconic flat ride collection here in Vaughan, this was the subject of one of those clickbait "WOULD YOU EVER???" reels of somewhat normal amusement rides that make the rounds on social media. Tundra Twister is essentially an A-frame not unlike those used to hold up a HUSS Frisbee, holding an arm with a counterweight on one end, and what boils down to two flipping rows of Top Scan seats, as a whole it resembles a large mining axe swinging over the park. And while it's large, scary, and imposing, the ride, while great, isn't as terrifying as I guessed. It's weighted to keep you upright at rest, so while you do rock forward and backwards, it's more pretty and graceful as opposed to Soaring Timbers's chaotic experience.

We headed back to Behemoth next, a sister coaster to Grant and I's hometown hero Diamondback, though I always considered Behemoth better. We had another instance of line jumping here (though they left the line without needing to be told for some reason), and Grant somewhat got me back into Pokemon Go. Coaster was amazing! We tried to get the back, we couldn't but we did get row 14, and it still delivered like I remember. There's some very good stronger end floater on this B&M hyper, that and the water setting always made me see this coaster and Mako as rivals somewhat. Bit of a rattle but nowhere near as bad as Kings Island's rattlesnake herself, I still consider this a top tier B&M hyper alongside Mako, Candymonium, and (yes, dead serious) Raging Bull. Skyrush will always be the GOAT hyper I think until Intamin comes back with something truly special, but these are still good.

Grant made the interesting remark that it's like Magnum but better, claiming that when he was at Cedar Point he wasn't a fan of Magnum's skinny lap bars.

Sledgehammer was running, something I've been told in the past is rare, so we did that as it's the only one in the world. My last ride on it in 2016 it was kind of rough and I wasn't a fan, but I think being prepped for that helped. Plus the ride op we had made the ride, singing MC Hammer and Flo Rida on the mic for a laugh.

Oh Grant, you sweet summer child...

Grand had wanted to "experience everything" here, a sentiment that I truly get, particularly from his point of view, but when I told him that there were coasters worth skipping because they were "bad," I don't think he fully understood where I was coming from.

So I took him on Flight Deck.

It was probably the first warning sign when there was a decaying magotty dead bird rotting in the empty queue, possibly the most ominous welcome I've ever gotten to an SLC, but he thought it looked cool and we strapped in, him excited for a fun ride, me having flashbacks to getting my neck smashed in half on Nopuko just a month ago. And honestly, this is better than Nopuko, and it's supposed to be one of the worst ones of its kind out there. Maybe I've just learned to brace since riding it as my first SLC in 2014, maybe the Iowa relocation job that justifies the Air Nomad genocide really is that bad, but it's by no means good. It's a lot of side to side roughness, and those old school Vekoma restraints are pretty unforgiving when it comes to that. Awful coaster, would not recommend, Grant now understands what a "bad coaster" is, he fucking hated it.

C'mon, Canada's Wonderland, just tear it down already. This whole side of the park has so much potential!

With a quick loop back around we found ourselves back on International Street just in time to see some stunt diving! These guys are crazy jumping off Wonder Mountain, it's the kind of thing you see in the Olympics.

Then we found a gift shop over in Medieval Faire where they were selling these Marvel statues for thousands of dollars. And my daughter Dillysalleigh went on her usual post-karate class rampage of destruction.

Then I got eaten. Or we rode Dragon Fire. Same thing, according to Grant. I don't mind this smaller Arrow looper at all, it's far from butter smooth but I've ridden much worse and it's got some fun kick to it. But he didn't like it, despite me telling him it's "like a smaller version of Vortex." This trip report brought to you by Grant's finger over the lens.

Time for the big dogs! We did Leviathan next, Grant's third giga despite not being an enthusiast. He needed to use the restroom before we got in line so I took the time to stand around and shoot Leviathan from the Faire midway...and Deadmau5 comes on the radio! So I'm listening to one of Canada's sickest artists while shooting this drop dead gorgeous B&M, photos didn't come out but I had fun with it!

But the coaster is still great. Yes I consider it the weakest of the gigas, but it's still pretty good. This coaster walked so Fury could run and Orion could...hustle, and it feels the most conventional of the three, but it still hits every airtime moment (looking at you, 305 crawling over those hills) and some of the non-airtime elements are great. It's a bigger hyper, at the end of the day, but isn't that the whole point of a giga?

Getting water afterwards, I saw some thoosie wearing a Velocicoaster shirt in line for the food stand, so I told him, "that shirt of yours looks fucking stupid." He looked down, saw we were both wearing the same shirt, and had a good laugh about it.

We then did another circle back to the center of the park and hit Yukon Striker again, and to our pride there were children making fart noises in line so Terrance and Phillip are now canonically real Canadians. Coaster was pretty damn good though! I like it in the back, not quite like Valravn where it's better in the back, but it's fun getting whipped over that drop and into the tunnel!

Dinner next up was the smothered sauced chicken strips they sell around the park, though these were from Chicken Shack in World's Fair and eaten in Backlot Cafe for the A/C.

We wanted to do something else next and hit up Wilde Beast, something I was dreading. I always thought it had a pretty decent layout but just rode really rough in spots. And this was no different this time, it rattles your spine in the valleys and farts around the turns. I know RMC can't legally work in Canada due to construction laws, but Martin & Vleminx can! Psst psst!

Got a sunset ride on Leviathan to close out the night...or so we thought. Gorgeous ride, sadly couldn't see the CN tower due to the wildfire smoke, but it was still really nice seeing the sun set through the skyscrapers of the Toronto metro as we zoomed along the teal track.

Then on the way out we wanted to do some merch shopping, and their shop basically screams "yes Canada legalized weed" with this window decal.

I should have bought this.

Story time!

Grant and I were instructed to swing by guest services by the person at Wonder Mountain's Guardian to get our failed lockers refunded. So we did that and we're directed to rentals to get our money back, and in rolls this huge family with ECVs, complaining that one of them wasn't locking the seat rotation. So me being Repair-It Jarrett, and with the park basically not taking this pissed off family seriously, I pulled out the flashlight on my phone and got on my hands and knees diagnosing the issue, and comparing the broken ECV to a working one, I found that there was a pin that should've been sliding into a gear mounted to the bottom of the seat to lock the rotation, but on the broken one, the pin had been moved down the rod somehow and was not engaging between the gear teeth. When they got the head honcho manager out the family even said "this nice gentleman looked at it for us," so that made me feel good and helped me end the day on a high note. She got our refunds and all, but that paled in comparison to getting rented a dangerous ECV so fuck it, I was proud to have been part of the solution. The family was refunded the money.

Good night, Canada's Wonderland! See you tomorrow for some waterpark fun and morning ERT!

We headed out, ADHDed our way to a gaming store on the way home that had all kinds of cool D&D and Pokemon shit, and got back to Mississauga. Grant was lamenting on the way home about "I want a cold shower and clean clothes," and I couldn't help but smile knowing he now knows the thoosie struggle of being gross and sweaty after a day at a park in the hot sun.

Day 2- Michael Phelps Goes Cliff Diving

It was an early morning with passholder ERT on Thunder Run and my favorite, Vortex, so we had to be up somewhat early (we were bad about getting to sleep, we stayed up and battled Pokemon way too fucking late) to get on the road.

Oh yeah. And a semi rear ended a city bus on the drive there so that was interesting. But we got there early, not at rope drop but early enough to enjoy reduced waits on both, and got into the park!

Plan today was to enjoy this morning ERT and then head into the waterpark for some fun, most notably Mountain Bay Cliffs. This very unconventional waterpark attraction, especially for a Cedar Fair park, acts as a cliff jump simulator, simple but terrifying.

Ah, Vortex. It's Bat but better, not Wonderland's bat, our Bat. Our Bat was basically this coaster but Roller Coaster Tycoon'd off into the margins of the map with a ridiculous path high off the ground leading out to it. I always thought this one not only rode better, but the surroundings made the ride. You have diving off that canyon, flying through that valley, now the interaction with Yukon Striker, and that beautiful finale skimming along the water. Little jackhammery, like suspendeds have gotten sadly, but that's a very mild complaint compared to how great this ride is.

Making up the second half of the coaster ERT lineup was Thunder Run, the park's beautiful Mack mine train that runs through Wonder Mountain. I rode this in 2016 with the VR and felt it would be a downgrade without (I LOVED VR as a concept, this ride executed it amazingly with the hot sunny portions being magma and the cool shady indoor tunnels looking like ice), but now I think it's an upper tier mine train! You get two passes around the layout weaving in and out of the mountain, there's a dragon or something in one of the tunnels, and it slid me from one side of my seat to another once so that freaked me out. Love this thing and Grant seemed to enjoy it as well.

Fan favorite Yukon Striker was next since we were kinda? that way. And it was awesome, we opted for row 2 this time just to get a sense of the ride in that seat and while it lacked the front's insane visuals or back's floater, it's still a decent seat. 

Grant suggested we do "the one that goes down" since we didn't have my big heavy camera bag on us or need for a locker. So we did Wonder Mountain's Guardian, and this time he kicked my ass.

We went over to Behemoth next to take advantage of a smaller queue, and got in the very back this time. This seat was TIGHT, like the ride op needed to run and charge into it to get it to lock my thicc thighs in place (calm down, ladies, there's more than enough Jarrett to go around, way more than there's demand for, I know that visual makes you hot and bothered), but Behemoth is still kickass back there! Now why can't Diamondback just run as well as this beaut does?

Wanting lunch before the waterpark, we went to Backlot Cafe hoping for some of that good looking Italian they had going on. But the line for it was fucking ridiculous, and we got there with drink plan cups from elsewhere as Backlot doesn't have fountain pop. They were twenty minutes late to open it, which I might have understood three or four, but this felt like they missed their mark. And no "sorry, we're running a bit behind, we'll let you in in a little while" from the staff, nothing.

Fortunately it was worth the wait, this chicken parm was to die for! So glad I got this, it's some of the best theme park Italian I've ever had. Chicken was nice and juicy and you got enough sauce and noodles with it, pictures don't do it justice but there was more sauce that had been spooned under the noodles. And my ace ass obviously loves garlic bread.

Side note: That cup of red pop? Canada has this strawberry punch stuff called Fruitopia in their fountain pop and it's fucking amazing. Definitely try this if you come here from the States, I vaguely remember seeing Fruitopia as one of those "childhood foods" memories with the zanny action-packed late 90s/early 2000s packaging that made it seem SUPER SUPER X-TREME!!!!!! right alongside Heinz purple ketchup and Danimals XL that only the cool kids could drink but I had no idea it had been just above us all along...and just as good!

In the Backlot washroom I changed into my waterpark shit and we returned to the car to drop off anything we didn't need.

Our first water ride was Whitewater Canyon, which had an annoyingly long wait in a themingless queue that just stretched super far out into the woods. But I like rapids so I figured it would be worth it. And sadly, I was wrong. Beautiful forest setting but these rapids, pardon my French, but they fucking suck. We barely got jostled around and water barely got sprinkled into the boat. My feet got a little wet which wasn't even an issue since I was wearing flip-flops, but Grant put his feet up near the ring to keep his sneakers dry and he walked off almost completely dry. Frontier Canada is beautiful, this could easily be a huge draw there, but I'm sorry this might be the worst rapids I've ridden. Give it the Mystic River Falls treatment, throw in an elevator/drop, enhance the theming, higher capacity boats, this could be so good! Make it good, Canada's Wonderland!

Onto the water park!

We headed in and went for some funnel slide, but I was over the weight limit, a little disappointing but granted I've never managed to get below it even on 1000 calories a day and the fact that I've heard of people flipping out of tubes on those and getting hurt, I understand. Oh well, I rode a better version of this slide in North Carolina back in 2012.

Grant and I headed for the lazy river next, which is a lazy river, not much to it. On the way in this poor lifeguard was guarding a turd at the exit to keep disembarking riders from stepping in it, I told her "should be cleaned by the time we get off let's hope." Few water curtains but nothing earth shattering, at least it was clean because not all lazy rivers are. But oh wait, it wasn't, the poopy was still there when we got off! Same lifeguard telling people not to step in it!

We did Mountain Bay Cliffs, our main reason for coming here, next. As a ride, there isn't much to it. You jump off a platform themed with rockwork and a waterfall, with a choice of 5 15 or 25 feet, or just 5 and 25 for us as the 15 foot platform was closed. Grant and I get in line, I've was both on a competitive swim team and a certified lifeguard when I was in high school, Grant's father put him in swim lessons when he was 6 months old, when we were asked if we were good swimmers we shrugged it off knowing we were...

...why the hell is anyone stupid enough to jump off this damn thing when they can't swim??? We saw three rescues in our time at Wonderland, all in this diving well, one of which being on a man who needed a life jacket and still thought this was a good idea.

Personal experience with this ride: it's the longest wait of your life. I think I waited about forty minutes but it felt closer to two hours because it's one person at a time and every now and then someone is afraid to jump. And the queue is behind the facade so you can't even look straight down at the water until just seconds before you drop, it really messes with your head and drives up that fear factor. But you can hear the loud, smacky, crackling sounds of people splashing at those speeds but not see them, it's incredibly psychological and I'm not sure it's by design but it's definitely cool.

And I get to the top, I look down and see just how high up I am, 25 feet isn't that bad but at the same time, it's the highest I've ever jumped into water over a standard high dive. The whole thing happens so fast, you get there, the lifeguard asks you again if you can swim, then the canned auto spiel just rattles off the safety instructions and the "3...2...1...jump!" you heard in the queue. So I said fuck it, put one foot at the edge of the platform, and took a long step away from the edge. Looking down it feels like you're falling in slow motion but you can tell it's just a few seconds as an experience, seeing the water from the falls fall at the same rate as you is pretty cool. And then, it hits you that you're still accelerating, and as you realize it, SPLASH!!!! The water pressure hits you like a ton of bricks, if you've ever actually swam in a diving well you know that once you get around 8 feet you start to feel it in your ears and the like, and here all that gets piled on in less than a second. I've always wanted to cliff jump, I never did, not because I'm too pussy to jump but because you never know what's in open water and I don't know what I might land on, at least here in Ohio where it's done in rivers and quarries and the like. So this was a good, safe, fun way to do it and appreciate that thrill! Grant, as I learned, has a thing for falling and diving and the like. So this was right up his alley and he loved it!

We then did the large 8 lane mat racer slide, and it was great, but the laugh of the day was the girl behind us wearing a white see through bikini top that hid absolutely nothing, it was astounding someone would wear that in public at all. No pictures, for obvious reasons, but imagine two googly eyes floppily glaring at you in line. It looked like that. So many questions, not sure I want the answers. I enjoyed the slide, but I was not the only thing to flop around the waterpark at this attraction...

We headed back to Lazy Bear next for dinner and I changed in their washroom. This time around I opted for the Korean BBQ chicken Grant got the first time, which I understand the appeal for and every Cedar Fair park needs this dish. It's delicious! They smoked the chicken leg like always but with like a Chinese five spice blend on it and topped it with a Korean sauce, it's delicious.

Fuck it, we're right next to this death trap, let's do it.

And it's not bad at all! My experience with Mighty Canadian Minebuster, Wonderland's other wooden coaster, has been horrible in the past. Sadly it still misses its airtime moments completely but it's smoother and the pacing itself feels alright, so I'll count that as a win for a coaster that used to be so shitty. Most Improved award, anyone?

After a quick return to the car to drop our moist pool stuff off, we did Shockwave (the Top Scan, I loved it, Grant loved it, but he complained it hurt his shoulder) and then Bat. I don't like most Vekoma boomerangs, but this was an exception in 2014, and this time around she was almost butter smooth! It's fast, it's intense, easily one of the best boomerangs now.

With the sun going down, we opted for yet another spin on Yukon Striker...at sunset!

Okay, so it ended up being more of a night ride, but I'm not complaining! Yukon Striker is sick after dark, you can just barely make out the bottom of the drop in the low light but there's enough mystery in the shadows to add to the experience. Not to mention the back half with the inversions is pretty dark, and the view of Toronto at night is always appreciated from the top of any Wonderland coaster.

Where do you go after dark at Canada's Wonderland? One ride left, let's close out the day on a high note!

They were a little camera shy, but we encountered a family of skunks on the way to Medieval Faire.

Grant and I played Pokemon Go in line, putting appropriate Pokemon in the gym for Leviathan.

Leviathan at night is always a great experience, and I've done it all three times I've been. I love the view, you can see the CN Tower, and just the feeling of getting to the top, slowing down, feeling that cool breeze amid the cityscape view, and then plunging into darkness with only those two dragon eyes lit up. It's special, and in a quality you can't really describe in words or rank coasters on.

Though I did take accelerometer data on this one!

We drove back, I got my ass whooped in Pokemon again, and headed to bed, planning on another full day, this one focused largely on non-riding stuff.

Day 3- The Rain on the Line Jump Parade

"Question," Grant asked first thing in the morning, "you like wet rides?" Apparently rain popped up overnight and it was now projected to pour until 2 pm. But me being stupid I didn't listen, Accuweather said we only had until 11, so I went with that and we drove to the park in the rain.

Plan was to focus largely on Pokemon Go, me taking my stills, and shopping as we'd already started to get burned out on the park with two kickass days there. However, I need sunlight to shoot good photos, and I did still want to ride a few things. We stupidly did a rain ride on Yukon Striker and I ended up fucking soaked, then did a rain ride on Vortex, while epic, but it still got me pretty damn wet. So we took the L and headed up to Lazy Bear Lodge with hope of drying off in the future.

Thanks a lot, now I'm all wet. Shoes were thankfully dry (I HATE wet socks), but my t-shirt and button down were completely drenched so I ditched the latter.

We made a Pokemon Go lap before coming back to get food, and I got a beaver tail, which is like a flattened funnel cake topped with sweets. One of my favorite treats to get here.

But hey, can't hate on a Bloody Caesar*! This one even had little bits of shaved up clam in it, sounds horrible probably but I assure you it was pretty damn good!

*Bloody Caesar- Canadian cocktail similar to a Bloody Mary, but made with Clamato instead of regular tomato juice. Has a slightly more briney and acidic taste to it than a Bloody Mary. Imagine if Manhattan Clam Chower were turned into an alcoholic cocktail. Don't knock it til you try it.

Chicken strips from Lazy Bear Lodge were pretty good, not quite Farmhouse but almost there. This place needs Farmhouse chili!

We waited on the rain a bit more, Grant talked about Fly but it was down and I told him those Wild Mice are a dime a dozen and not worth messing with. The other coaster we hadn't ridden, Time Warp, I had already warned him about and his shoulder was still bothering him from Shockwave so he (intelligently) decided against the Zamperla SAW contraption.

I got the Leviathan shirt I wanted! They had a nerdy stat shirt that glowed in the dark but only two left not in my size, apparently the girl put one out for me when I said I would be back but someone bought it first thing that day, so I settled for this groovy shirt with the stoner font instead.

Eventually the rain let up and I got to take my camera out of the park to shoot Leviathan in the parking lot in all her glory!

We headed back to, you guessed it, Yukon Striker next. And to our horror, we saw a line jumper, grown ass man jumped a switchback to catch up with his group. So I text the number with a description of the offending guest and the guest he was catching up with, and to my surprise, security was there within ten minutes and removed the idiot! Kings Island will come out but usually just tells the person not to do it again, Wonderland doesn't play around! It made the ride that much sweeter, up front and getting the whole blow dry treatment.

It even inspired a meme.

We wanted to do a little Pokemon Go next, and Grant had discovered one of the new Routes (walked paths between two Pokestops) you could do, that ran through Kidzville. We head to Kidzville, following a red waypoint at Ghoster Coaster, and can't seem to get it to engage us on the route. So here we have two grown men scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off in Kidzville, doing something strange on their phones, people giving us strange looks, and then to add insult to injury...the radio changes, and I hear, "I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST," the fucking Pokemon theme comes on as we're struggling to figure out Pokemon Go! Oh and what we did wrong? We went to the end of the route, not the start which is by the waterpark. So we have to walk all the way back to basically where we came from to get to the start of the fucking route. It was a fun feature, I enjoyed following the route, it's relatively new and there aren't many around, and that's a damn shame because each park alone could cram a few of these in there.

While over there, I stumbled upon Snoopy's Racing Railway while arguing with Pokemon Go. You need a kid to ride, and that's not embarrassment I was about to subject Grant to, but it looks cute. Nothing worth a ton of trouble for, honestly I'm starting to realize just how much I've seen credit counts used in shitty coaster gatekeeping, I wasn't that upset I couldn't ride, but I think it looks like a good addition. Hopefully Snoopy's Soapbox Racers looks just as good!

It was about that time for munchies again, and strangely, most of the food places today were closed. No Backlot, which I thought was the most unusual. But Grant had been talking about Coasters, which sucks at Cedar Point, but I was open to giving it a whirl because I love the concept of it. And I'm glad because so far, this is the best one I've been to. They had the fish we were hoping for in the waterpark that was closed (we went back there earlier to get Behemoth shots), so that was a pleasant surprise. It was pretty good too! You can tell it was hand breaded, Grant noticed this too that it was somewhat uneven in spots, but still damn good.

Oh. And a friend joined us for dinner. And he was adorable.

Dinner dealt with, we went for one last yeehaw on Behemoth!

Never ridden this past afternoon, and it's a pretty good sunset ride. Looser fit this time than yesterday, and it was beautiful just cruising over the waterpark getting flung out of my seat into the sunset. Fantastic B&M hyper, there's no question it's among the best of its breed.

Grant wanted to do some shopping last minute and I wanted one more ride on Leviathan, so we split up not knowing what was about to happen...

GRAND FINALE TIME: I'm in line for Leviathan in front of this group of ~6-7 teenagers, I'm playing Pokemon on a dying phone, and I feel a shove sharp forward. I turn around to see these kids roughousing, shoving each other around, and I tell them, "knock it off." So we go back to minding our own business...and I get shoved again! They're doing aikido back there and having a shoving match, and one of the little shits gets thrown into my backpack holding my expensive camera equipment. I throw a hand up to tell park security, and this girl with them pleads me not to tell and promises they'll stop. I tell them they need to because I have an expensive camera on me. So they actually start behaving, I'm catching these dinosaur Pokemon for their event thing, having a good time, when I get to the stairs, I hear more scuffling way closer to me than I would like. "K," I rattled off, "texting the park now." Then one of them shoves past the others and screams at me, "we didn't do anything!" Not wanting a confrontation in a foreign country, I let it roll off, but when I get to the station I told the ride op, who pulled the kids aside and got security. I was free to board, but I elected to stick around and see this through, willing to defend my story and make sure I gave them all the info they needed. I wait in the front load corner of the station for security to show up, he speaks to me, I show him the expensive equipment I was toting around that they shoved each other into, he speaks to them, then speaks to me again. He sides with me and offers to kick them out of line, and while I'm usually all for punishing imbeciles like that, I strangely had to mull it over in my head, for reasons I still don't understand. I gain nothing out of them being kicked out of line, but at the same time, this park has a huge queue line conduct problem, and horseplay is a no no. Deciding that an example needed to be made and a lesson needed to be taught, I told him, "yes, I think that's fair." He didn't want them kicked out of the park because they were at least remorseful, but they were walked out of line and completely kicked out of Leviathan's area.

What a finale to Canada's Wonderland! Even after all that stupid insanity that ride kicked tons of ass!

I tried the tripod thing at the front of the park as I waited for Grant to meet back up with me so I could spill the tea. Photos didn't turn out so I gotta learn to play with this a bit more.

I mean...it's okay? Little bit more focus might be all I need to make this decent.

We left early so I could swing by the LCBO and get a few drinks for tonight...THEY HAD A FUCKING RUSH BEER!!!! You bet your ass I listened to Clockwork Angels as I sipped this bad boy once we got back. Tasted pretty good too! If you've ever had Kona Big Wave it's a bit like that but with higher alcohol content because Canada. The perfect way to celebrate our last night in Canada!

Day 4- Plans Niagara Fall Through

Up early again, it's almost like if you take two neurospicy dudes and have them be roomies for half a week, they keep each other up, who'd have guessed? But we were opportunistic and cleaned the place and left early, with kind of a packed day ahead of us. Today's agenda entailed driving to Niagara Falls, swinging by Six Flags Darien Lake so I could run in get the Tantrum credit and use my dining plan, and driving home, with Six Flags being the sacrificial lamb.

Toronto to Niagara Falls isn't a bad drive at all and I didn't realize that up until now. We had a nice, early morning, minimal traffic drive to the Buffalo metro. We even had time to grab Tim Horton's on the way, sadly no doggy bags for Bernard, my Raichu. Gift shop also had some cool shit so I got a few souvenirs including maple syrup for my parents.

Oh no it's the Rona! Wear a mask!

In no time at all we were in Niagara Falls, saw this sign for Marineland and while "Everyone Loves Marineland," we didn't have time.

Anybody who thought Barbenheimer was the biggest crossover event in history, I present the Subway that's also a marijuana dispensary! Get your sub topped with whatever you want, meatballs, provolone, olives, lettuce, tomato, oregano, or "oregano!"

Grant noticed a tall plume of white haze rising into the sky over the city, almost like it came from a barbecue restaurant. But it wasn't, we were at Niagara Falls!

Grant just put "Niagara Falls" into the GPS, which took us to the city, but not where we actually needed to park and get out to see the falls themselves. We wandered around town lost til we ended up in the backside receiving area to this hotel, where the lady was nice enough to let us get out and shoot a photo from there before giving us directions to the main parking lot, which serves the little chalet looking thing on the bottom right of this photo.

This thing! Very nice looking visitors center they have going on here.

I went to Niagara Falls on a trip from Detroit to Boston when I was very young, and I remember seeing it, but I couldn't have been older than 5 so there's a lot of seeing things I didn't understand as a child. I thought it was so cool it was built sort of in conjunction with the now decommissioned Niagara Falls power station.

I've seen the hydroelectric dam in Lewiston but this was the OG!

The setup to Niagara Falls is a bit like Riverscape Metropark back home in Dayton, where it's a long path that runs along the water where you can look at stuff, though Niagara Falls is a much more impressive view than heroin needles floating down the Great Miami River!

What's that up there?

I pointed out what appeared to be a shipwreck in the falls, and Grant said it was probably just driftwood or something. But I slapped the zoom lens on my camera and used it as a spyglass and sure enough, we had straight lines and 90 degree angles, it was definitely man made and looked just like the shipwrecks on Isla Mujeres when my family went to Mexico. When I got home I did some digging and turns out this is a gravel scow from 1918 that got separated from its tugboat and almost went over the edge. The power station had to completely open their turbines to keep the water level low enough to rescue two men on board and local legend has it one of them had white hair after the accident due to how terrifying it was. It's actually been slowly on the move since 2019 and its days may be numbered.

Grant went ahead needing to pee so I took my time and got photos.

It's both a natural wonder and a historical attraction, lots of cool stuff up here. Way more than just "pop out and see the falls," to do everything there was to do you'd need easily a whole day, possibly two.

Niagara Falls puts up a big plume of mist, rising high into the sky.

I made my way around the corner and to the visitor center where the crowds were concentrated and Grant was using the restroom. And it gets PACKED near the edge!

It's one of those things that photographs well, but doesn't photograph well if you get the whole thing. This close, the mist is so thick it's just a soupy fog instead of that lovely atmospheric perspective I was hoping to play with.

But hey, I was able to make it look like a bottomless misty abyss to nowhere so that was fun!

Me with Niagara Falls, totally not looking like a fatass American tourist! 

Grant and I did some shopping and the girl who rang us out was really cool, turns out she's getting into photography. So I showed her this shot and she tells me, "that looks like the ones we sell upstairs!" I gave her the info for this blog, shoutout if you're reading this! Your compliment made my day!

They had those Maid of the Mist boats that go to the falls themselves, this one is American but you can tell which country the people are from because the Canadians have red ponchos as opposed to the blue ones here. Loved that it was named after Nikola Tesla, he's one of my heroes in STEM and turns out he had a lot to do with this power plant, it was the first real means of mass distributing alternating current.

Eventually, the wind started blowing the mist back towards us and it was like a rain, so bad I had to put my camera away, and we needed to get going anyway.

Not gonna lie, people say the Canadian side is urban and tacky, but I do think the city nearby adds to the look of the park as a whole. Nice architecture on some of these hotels.

Popped into the power station on the way back, it costs money to do it and it took a while so we didn't but it was cool to even see the inside of the plant.

They had one of the turbines out on display.

We got back to Grant's vehicle, put Six Flags Darien Lake into the GPS, saw the time to get 30 miles, and said NOPE. Too long a wait at the border, next stop was home. Sucks to miss out on Tantrum and shitty Six Flags food, but I've ridden Iron Shark and I doubt it's as good without the water so I wasn't too miffed by it at all. Time to call it a trip and get home without incident! Right!?

...right?

Canadian Tourist Trap- The act of building the tackiest shit money can buy across the border from the US to get all the Americans to go spend their money there. Canada needs more money, and this rakes in way more than some bubblegum and Bennigan's coupons.

Rainbow Bridge might actually have the best view, didn't want to hop in and out of a car at an international border but I did what I could from the car with a railing blocking my view.

Border patrol was a breeze, Grant picked up right away that you go to the line that's moving, not to the line that's shortest, because the short line usually has an asshole stamping passports that wants to harass you and hold you up and make you nervous. The Americans are dicks. The lady just asked us what we were bringing back and if it was drugs or weapons, we said no, she let us back in no problem. New York side of Niagara Falls is dumpy though.

We needed gas NOW, so we drove around for a bit, and found a gas station, but they had no bathroom. And at the same time, the cooler was out of ice, so we needed to get more. After driving around for a good twenty minutes trying to find a restroom, we find a Sunoco and a Mobil next to each other in Urinetown, New York. Sunoco had a sign up saying their bathroom was out of order, so we went to Mobil and saw that the bathroom there was for paying customers only. I'm buying ice! So I plan to head in, take a piss, buy my ice, and get back on the road. I head in, make a beeline for the bathroom, and the ASSHOLE behind the counter stops me all, "SIR!!! Can I help you?" So I explain I'm peeing and getting ice for the cooler. And this asshat, this mother father, has the nerve to respond with, "oh, you have to make a purchase to use the bathroom. When you ring up your ice you'll get the key to the bathroom." So I grumbled, bought my ice, took the key from the lady leaving, did my business, and "passed the torch" to another lady as I headed out. Should've left him an upper decker, this is straight out of Urinetown.

Oh, but I found the number for the place. So out of respect, do not prank them. Especially not if you're Ownage Pranks or Phone Losers of America or a professional in the art of crank calls.

Seeing 21:12 as our ETA home from Canada made me happy.

Rest of the drive was slow and boring, but Grant got me home in a sprinkle and I got all my stuff inside. The CN Tower has joined the wall of landmarks in my room.

And this made me happy to see at work the next day, first wholesome thing my coworkers have ever done for me!

Grant, thank you, THANK YOU for the amazing idea to do this. I had a blast and it might be the highlight of my summer season! Love me some Canada, the park and the country as a whole, and Niagara Falls was a very pleasant surprise. Looks like we gotta go to Dorney next year so you can get your fix of falling on Iron Menace!