June 10, 2017 – Dayspring Disciples

Was so awful.

Awful.

Another yummy breakfast and to the park in no time.
I’d pre-purchased as much as possible to make our transactions smoother and to promote healthy exchange rates.

The day was not smooth.

Here – I shall cut/paste my review from TripAdvisor for your reading pleasure:

No way would I go again.

I hadn’t been there in more than 17 years, and I had fond memories of my frequent visits as a child. I can’t even. It was so unpleasant.

I purchased tickets, parking, meals, and refillable soda cups online a few days before our trip. This saved us some money.

We arrived just prior to park opening. We had no issue with our pre-purchased parking or admission.

By 3:30 P.M. I was sitting on the ground outside guest relations sobbing.

I am a Level 6 Contributor not prone to hyperbole. We travel often and I have a very upbeat outlook.

The park was tremendously busy. Very, very busy. Hideously busy.
And the park was tremendously understaffed. Very, very understaffed. Hideously understaffed.

I’m not sure what they should have done, except to quit admitting people to the park claiming full capacity based on the paltry staffing. The load/unload cycle at the rides was just awful. They also had only one or two vehicles in circulation on many of the rides. Not that I felt they had enough staff to keep more than the minimum going.

Our eldest has a number of food allergies. Prior to visiting CW, I thoroughly read their website which not only includes a information on dining with allergies in the Dining section, but they go so far as to recommend certain establishments in the park for certain allergies. As our biggest concern is nut allergies we used that as a guide. We found a restaurant that accepted our pre-paid meal deals on the list of nut-free restaurants. We waited 65 minutes in line. It was a fiasco. First we were told by not one, but two employees that they did not have ingredient lists for their food. (Is that even legal? It is not in US.) Then they *found* packaging labels for some products (not all, mind you) and these labels boldly claimed they were not peanut-free/tree nut-free. Really.

My son ate a 2.5″ square hunk of chicken and a coke… for $15.99 prepaid.

After the almost two hours it took to order, receive and eat our food we headed back out to the lines of the rides. My family got settled into lines (looooooong lines) and I headed to see if I could start figuring out what we could do for dinner food. After three more kiosks where they could not tell me what ingredients were in their foods, I was encouraged to go to guest relations.

The line was out the door.

It took 19 minutes for it to be my turn to speak with one of the representatives. It was a Very Busy Day in that office. I should know. I was in there for 65 minutes. NOW – to be completely fair, the men and women in that office were superb. There were some Very Crazy Requests being made of them. (For example, teens who lost their group, but didn’t have even the name of the group they were with much less a contact number expected Guest Services to help them find whom they had lost???) The guest service people were so patient and helpful and upgraded dozens of season passes, and corrected scores of over charges, and issues parking permits by the handful. I had asked if there was someone who perhaps oversaw dining in the park whom I could speak with to shore up a plan for later in the day. She took my question and left… for almost an hour. I saw a TON in that time. Sadly, when she returned she suggested he eat a salad.

I will never go back. Ever. The infrastructure in the park was so miserable. We love to travel and we love amusement parks, but I have very little confidence in CW and Cedar Fair as a whole right now.

The one saving grace was that the exchange rate is outstanding right now, so when we got home and looked on our credit card statement the numbers were slightly less painful to look at.
PLEASE NOTE – if you purchase a one-meal-deal it includes an entrée, side and beverage. Every place we went wanted to argue and say the beverage was not included. We had to point it out on the print out each time.

Also – if you purchase the refillable soda cup, please note there are only certain places they can be refilled and the lines are long and they are “self-serve” but you have to have your cup scanned first.

OH – And there was no ice to be found anywhere after 2 P.M.

Six minute swan ride had a 50 minute wait. Crying face

We finally found Stewart safe pizza at 6:30 P.M. Too bad there were no cold beverages to drink along side.

Room temp Coca-Cola is nasty.

I want to time warp back to last week and make other plans. Crying face

Hotel and miserable beds around 11:00 P.M.

“Say goodnight, Gracie.”

Marie and Hanny shared the pull out sofa in our living room of our suite. They were the first kids to wake as John and I went through the morning routine. These ladies, and I, slipped out for some coffee and juice as we waited for the others to rouse.

A short time later the rest of our contingent joined us for breakfast and we feasted. This is one of our favorite parts of getting away.

We made the short, but time-eating, trek back down town and found more parking. We had about half-an-hour to poke around before looking for our tour group in the Great Hall of the Union Station.

Oh – poor Stewart… “No Zoup for YOU!”

The Great Hall is undergoing much refurbishment…

At 10:30 A.M. we met our tour group led by Jody. She is a film-maker and has lived in Toronto her whole life. She was animated and informative and made the tour a lot of fun.

We explored lots of downtown, beginning with the Royal York hotel. She taught us a lot about architecture, the history of Toronto, and the many phases of development and growth the city has gone through. Neat stuff.

A lot of Toronto is underground. The city is connected in blocks under the city with full shopping and dining experiences. Day-to-day activities can be accomplished without ever setting foot outside! Such a different experience than rural NY.

We headed back to where our car was parked and grabbed lunch in a food court. We were happy to find safe meals for everyone, and a variety, at that.

We headed back to the hotel where the gals and Daddy headed for a swim, and the boys, well, the boys had to do some homework for Public Speaking. We had very limited time to execute a fast trip given their aggressive school schedule.

The boys finally joined us and we all enjoyed the swim time. We had the pool area to ourselves.

We headed up to Borden to visit with Cathy and Dave, stopping to grab pizzas and ice cream on the way. It was great to see where they lived and visit the base. They’ve lived Out West for so long, it was never even an option to visit before.