What Puts the Wonder into Canada’s Wonderland?

 

Canada’s Wonderland is the Canadian answer to Disneyland. It has over 300 acres of vertigo inducing rides.  

 

Opened in 1981 with only 2 roller coasters. It was visited by the Cornell family on the opening day of the 1984 season. Tip, never plan to go on the opening day for anything. My memories of that visit were of the horrendous traffic jam to get parked and what frosted my cake was they charged us for parking.

 Photo: Toronto Guardian 1981

So fast forward 40 years and having gotten over my disgust for the parking fee incident decided to take our granddaughter along with her mom, brother and a friend to Canada’s Wonderland to celebrate her 16^th birthday.

 

I quickly discovered that they still charge for parking and I started to wondered how they could justify charging $35 for parking in a gravel lot after charging us $60 per person entrance fee.

 Photo: themeparkarchive.com

I wondered if there would be lots of changes from our first visit when I was informed today’s challenge for the kids was to ride not 2 but all 18 roller coasters. As I suffer from a serious condition of kinetosis it would seem that this grandparents job  for the day was to hold bags, coats and personal paraphernalia while the kids rode their brains out.

 

I did wonder if I could handle the Teacup ride as I have had previous positive experiences on the Teacups at Disneyland and Disneyworld but alas this was no Disney Teacup. 

 Photo: Cornell's at Disneyworld 2014. See blog February 2014

As I stood in line waiting, I watched the teacups and it soon became apparent that these cups were barrels and were spinning a lot faster than those tame cups at Disney.  I began to wonder if I could even do this ride as my kinetosis was beginning to act up just watching.  I bailed.

 

The roller coasters all have different names. The Behmoth, Leviathan, AlpenFury and DragonFyre, to name a few. It made me wonder how one named a roller coaster so while I was killing time guarding possessions I tried to log onto the Wonderland’s internet service that was available on site and see what Wikipedia had to say only to find that there was a service charge to login. My wonderment went unanswered.

 

As the day wore on I began to wonder if I could get a cold beer and yes there was but only available in two locations with one closed for some reason. I had to hold my nose to buy a beer at $12. I did perk us when I saw an option for a $19.99 “All you can drink package” but it seems beer was not included.

 

It was a long day and sadly not all 18 roller coasters were ridden so I had to wonder, did everyone have good time. 

For that answer  and to the question “what puts the wonder in Wonderland” just check out those smiles.