Themepark road trip , live

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SUMMARY and RANDOM THOUGHTS

Car hire and driving

We drove 2508 miles through 8 states.
I spent $309.80 on fuel , we had a full tank included in the hire and I returned it with approx quarter tank left.

I hired the car from Hertz through Holiday Autos , at the time they had the best price by far ( around £900 ). I chose Jeep compass or similar and we were given a Chevrolet Trax. For the 3 of us it was fine , we had 2 cases, 3 hand luggage and a couple of carrier bags of snacks . More people or luggage would have been a squeeze. Out of the few cars I've hired I preffered driving this one, maybe because it was on the small side , it just felt nice to drive.


I really don't enjoy driving, especially in the UK. It's something I do because I have to ( we live rurally )and where possible I'll use A roads rather than motorways, I hate being boxed in in lanes of fast moving traffic, I also hate being stuck in nose to tail traffic going nowhere, it's all so stressful.
Driving in the US was mostly stress free ( still wouldn't say I enjoyed it &#128513 the only minor panics were caused by Google maps going blank with no warning , happened 3 times, and on a few occasions the spoken directions couldn't keep up, especially with several lane changes and exits in a row , a couple of times I 'kept left at the fork ' only to end up exiting before I was told to 'now keep right ' . But it was easy to get back on route, in the UK you'd probably be going miles in the wrong direction before you could turn around.
We noticed that the minor roads and roads around town were mostly well maintained, but the state of some of the interstates was bad, verging on dangerous. Small pot holes, badly filled cracks, one stretch seemed to have been repaired with concrete panels glued together with tar that formed mini speed bumps ! What we call the hard shoulder ( not sure of their term for it ) was always littered with rubber from blown tyres and plenty of dead deer and racoons. I'm guessing no one cleans up on a regular basis. And there were often people parked on the hard shoulder, either having broken down or rearranging a load or just standing talking. 😐
No one observed the speed limit. I tried for a couple of days ( and when Google told me a mobile speed camera was up ahead &#128521 but even trucks were passing me, so I was soon doing 70 when the limit was 65 or 60 when 55, same as everyone else.


Accommodation

This is where I went way over budget. I wanted hotels close to the parks wherever possible, I wanted the option to walk instead of driving every day , but mostly that wasn't possible. I wanted breakfast included and clean rooms in a safe area. The options I'd picked out in 2019/20 had all gone up in price and many had gone down in reviews, possibly due to staff shortages thanks to covid . The cheapest hotel was £109 pn ( Tru by Hilton in Ashland ) it was beside the interstate with nothing nearby to walk to which kept the price down. The most expensive was £282 pn ( Hotel Breakers at Cedarpoint ) and didnt even include breakfast, but of course you are paying for the location. The average was £150 pn which is quite a bit more than I've paid before anywhere. Only one hotel ( Creekstone in Pigeon forge ) provided daily housekeeping, and that was just new towels, soap, toilet rolls and plastic cups. Good that it was available, but totally unnecessary to replace soap and cups every day, we hid them so we could reuse 😄 everywhere else had signs saying ' no housekeeping, ask at reception if you require anything ' , which was absolutely fine and we didnt need anything, except for our first stop in Pittsburgh ( Hampton inn ), 3 people staying 2 nights were left 2 coffee sachets, 2 creamer sachets and 1 minuscule shower gel . We had our own t bags and toiletries, but seemed like an excuse to save money. We still tipped the housekeeping staff, but they got it at the end of our stay .

The Parks

We visited 9 parks and rode 71 ( I think ) coasters. After the first three parks they began blurring into one.😆 I took notes at each park as I guessed I wouldn't remember details later.
All the parks were clean and litter free. We were lucky that queues were short ( 15 minutes or less)almost everywhere , the longest we waited was 1hr 15 minutes for our 2nd ride on lightning rod at Dollywood, apart from Holidayworld where we met a coaster club from the UK, we didn't hear any British accents and hardly any non American accents.
We struggled with the food offered at the parks . I knew we were going to be eating alot of junk food, but not that it would be so overpriced and such limited choice. Of course the dining plan at the Cedarfair parks and Busch Gardens limited us to 'entrees ' only , so we couldn't replace a meal with a snack or dessert. But I never expected a burger patty on a dry bun with no trimmings, served with a side of fries to be classed as an entree and cost $16.99 . All the parks had the same choices and same prices, with the exception of Holidayworld. They were a breath of fresh air . We only had lunch but the 'build your own burritos ' were tasty, full of whatever you wanted to put in it and the vege version only cost $8.99.
That and the free drinks and free parking might have nudged Holidayworld into first place on my list of parks . It didn't have much theming, but it felt genuine and The Voyage and Thunderbird are in my top 10 coasters.
The majority of my favourite coasters are wooden or wood/steel hybrids . Jack rabbit at Kennywood was fun. InvadR at Busch gardens ( though The Griffon is up there with the best ) Twisted Timbers at Kings Island, Lightning Rod at Dollywood, the back row of Storm chaser at Kentucky Kingdom is in my top 5, Mystic Timbers and The Beast at Kings Island and Steel Vengeance and Millennium force at Cedarpoint.
Our least favourite park was Kentucky Kingdom, even though it had one of my top 5 coasters. It lacked atmosphere ( maybe because it was so quiet ) had little theming, and a weird layout with a road and pedestrian crossing dividing the park. Carowinds didn't rate very highly either, I think because we were comparing it to the previous 3 and they all had better theming.
Worst rides for me were Phantoms revenge at Kennywood , the only time I've worried my back or neck could be injured. And Vortex at Carowinds, a stand up coaster that bruised my tail bone, it's still slightly sore now.
DH and DSs favourite park was Kings Island, they say it had the most high scoring coasters.
DS' favourite coaster Mystic Timbers

Totally random observation

The smell of marijuana seemed to be everywhere ! We smelt it in the elevators in hotels, in the carparks, walking to restaurants and even while driving it would occasionally waft in via the air con😆 The B&B we stayed at had signs up warning they wouldn't tolerate it being smoked on their property. I think we smelt more marijuana smoke than cigarette smoke.