sharo...@hotmail.com
2021-01-29 13:58:43 UTC
Scene 75 Indoor Amusement Park, Dayton, OH
My nephews turned 12 on Thursday, so on Saturday they were allowed to invite 1 friend to go to Scene 75 for a couple of hours. They also wanted their cousin, my son Ben, to come too, so we were invited.
My sister-in-law thought that crowds might start winding down late afternoon, so we all met at 4:00. The birthday parties were winding down but it was still fairly crowded. The vast majority of people were wearing masks, but it was pretty hard to distance from most other people. They do have hand sanitizing stations sprinkled throughout the building, so you could keep your hands clean. They were also using portable steam units to "clean" between riders on the go karts and roller coaster, and I think on the drop tower. On the carousel they were shutting it down every so often to go over the whole thing.
Previously they were using about 2/3 of the building, with the other 1/3 as storage behind a wall. The tornado ripped down the wall, so they decided to expand. That is one of the reasons it took so long to reopen.
The first thing to do is buy cards that you use to swipe and pay for all the things you want to do. Ben's card was provided by my brother and SIL, and Matt and I bought cards with enough money to cover what we wanted to go on. For me, that was the carousel and the coaster, but Matt also wanted go karts. After gathering the whole group at the very crowded front area, we split into 3 mini-groups: one set of kids ran off to go see
what they could do, another set (plus Matt) went to the go karts, and me, brother and SIL went to ride the carousel.
The carousel is new, and appears to be this model: https://www.chancerides.com/dd28_carousel/ (Chance 28 foot double decker). We all rode on top, and I rode the ostrich. It's not that great of a ride, because the jumping mechanism is slightly jerky and there is no real band organ. They do have an interesting collection of animals (there was a dolphin, a tiger, and a dragon that I remember0) Probably not worth a trip for most carousel enthusiasts (sorry Heather!). Each ride cost $3.
After that we went over to see how the go karting was going, and it wasn't (on the way we spotted boy group #1 doing the new mini-golf course, which looked like fun, for $9 each). Matt was stuck filling out forms at the kiosk to register himself and both kids (Ben and his nephew). You have to have a smartphone, or at least a phone that can get emails. You get a confirmation by email that you have to show. Then they got to join the line after that was done. The 3 of us set up at a table beside the track and just waited. When they finally reached the attendant, the email registering my nephew had come through, but not Matt's, so he faked it and said he was my brother :-)
The go karts are also not that great. It's a nice long twisty track, but the lanes are fairly narrow, so hard to pass. And they throttle the cars electronically to space them out when the "race" starts, so you really can't get close to try to pass, unless the person in front of you goes slow. Go karts are $10 but passengers ride free. Also, if a birthday party comes over to ride, they apparently get to go immediately. I don't know the rules on that, but it happened at the go karts and the roller coaster while we were waiting for those.
After that, Ben and his nephew went to do laser tag, so the adults headed for the roller coaster (except SIL, who doesn't ride). Tsunami is also new, and is a version 5.0 SBF Visa
(https://www.sbfrides.com/en/product/838/MX608_T/COMPACT-SPINNING-COASTER-T-M.html). It's a light blue color, with tons of color-changing LEDs all over it. 5 car train, with 4 riders in each car. 2 riders face one way, 2 face the other. It's not free-spinning - the spinning is definitely controlled by the ride. Figure 8 layout, with effectively only 1 drop. You get 5 circuits on each ride. The train immediately before ours stopped after 3, because one lady wanted off. You can signal you want off by holding your arms crossed in front of you. After she got out, they started it back up and they got their last 2 circuits.
It's a faster ride than it appears while watching it. After the lift hill and 180 degree turn, there's a slight dip in the track, then another 180 degree turn, then the drop. After the drop is a half-helix, then the station.
The drop is zippy and the program has you entering it either sideways, backwards, or forwards. Bro took the backwards seat on one car, and we took the forwards seat, which put us in position for Matt and bro to slap hands a few times. The ride technically has a 6'4" height limit, but 6'8" tall Matt rode it with no issues. If he had been in the seat on the right where I was, he could have reached up and touched the track (part with the dip) as we hit a certain spot on the lift hill. The seats are molded plastic and if you have wide hips, it's a tight squeeze. No real problems for us, other than being really squished. The individual restraints are just a bar that comes down to your hips. I'd ride it again the next time we go to Scene 75, and it's $7 per ride.
Then, because Matt had paid for but not yet ridden the carousel, we loaded more money on my card and went back to it. Unfortunately we couldn't load just $3 - $5 was the minimum reload. Matt rode up top and I rode on a dragon on the bottom (Dragonriders of Dayton?) The carousel is beautiful, but we noticed that already there appear to be maintenance problems with the animals. The rungs that you step on to get on are sometimes missing on one side, or the bottom half is gone.
They also have a drop tower, but we didn't check it out because I was the only one who would have gone on it. The full collection of stuff there is arcade games (scattered throughout the building), a bar & grill, laser tag,
a simulator ride, black light mini-golf, regular mini-golf, go karts, spinning bumper cars, a bounce house area where you can buy 1/2 hour of bounce time, drop tower, carousel, roller-coaster, a bull riding bouncer, a
Wipe Out! style bouncer, batting cages, banquet rooms, and beach volleyball outside for when it's not winter. After the carousel ride, Matt and I used up the remaining $2 playing Minions-themed Whack-A-Mole, then our whole group left for dinner. So we spent about 2.5 hours there.
They made a video about the tornado and the expansion, which is worth viewing:
Sharon
My nephews turned 12 on Thursday, so on Saturday they were allowed to invite 1 friend to go to Scene 75 for a couple of hours. They also wanted their cousin, my son Ben, to come too, so we were invited.
My sister-in-law thought that crowds might start winding down late afternoon, so we all met at 4:00. The birthday parties were winding down but it was still fairly crowded. The vast majority of people were wearing masks, but it was pretty hard to distance from most other people. They do have hand sanitizing stations sprinkled throughout the building, so you could keep your hands clean. They were also using portable steam units to "clean" between riders on the go karts and roller coaster, and I think on the drop tower. On the carousel they were shutting it down every so often to go over the whole thing.
Previously they were using about 2/3 of the building, with the other 1/3 as storage behind a wall. The tornado ripped down the wall, so they decided to expand. That is one of the reasons it took so long to reopen.
The first thing to do is buy cards that you use to swipe and pay for all the things you want to do. Ben's card was provided by my brother and SIL, and Matt and I bought cards with enough money to cover what we wanted to go on. For me, that was the carousel and the coaster, but Matt also wanted go karts. After gathering the whole group at the very crowded front area, we split into 3 mini-groups: one set of kids ran off to go see
what they could do, another set (plus Matt) went to the go karts, and me, brother and SIL went to ride the carousel.
The carousel is new, and appears to be this model: https://www.chancerides.com/dd28_carousel/ (Chance 28 foot double decker). We all rode on top, and I rode the ostrich. It's not that great of a ride, because the jumping mechanism is slightly jerky and there is no real band organ. They do have an interesting collection of animals (there was a dolphin, a tiger, and a dragon that I remember0) Probably not worth a trip for most carousel enthusiasts (sorry Heather!). Each ride cost $3.
After that we went over to see how the go karting was going, and it wasn't (on the way we spotted boy group #1 doing the new mini-golf course, which looked like fun, for $9 each). Matt was stuck filling out forms at the kiosk to register himself and both kids (Ben and his nephew). You have to have a smartphone, or at least a phone that can get emails. You get a confirmation by email that you have to show. Then they got to join the line after that was done. The 3 of us set up at a table beside the track and just waited. When they finally reached the attendant, the email registering my nephew had come through, but not Matt's, so he faked it and said he was my brother :-)
The go karts are also not that great. It's a nice long twisty track, but the lanes are fairly narrow, so hard to pass. And they throttle the cars electronically to space them out when the "race" starts, so you really can't get close to try to pass, unless the person in front of you goes slow. Go karts are $10 but passengers ride free. Also, if a birthday party comes over to ride, they apparently get to go immediately. I don't know the rules on that, but it happened at the go karts and the roller coaster while we were waiting for those.
After that, Ben and his nephew went to do laser tag, so the adults headed for the roller coaster (except SIL, who doesn't ride). Tsunami is also new, and is a version 5.0 SBF Visa
(https://www.sbfrides.com/en/product/838/MX608_T/COMPACT-SPINNING-COASTER-T-M.html). It's a light blue color, with tons of color-changing LEDs all over it. 5 car train, with 4 riders in each car. 2 riders face one way, 2 face the other. It's not free-spinning - the spinning is definitely controlled by the ride. Figure 8 layout, with effectively only 1 drop. You get 5 circuits on each ride. The train immediately before ours stopped after 3, because one lady wanted off. You can signal you want off by holding your arms crossed in front of you. After she got out, they started it back up and they got their last 2 circuits.
It's a faster ride than it appears while watching it. After the lift hill and 180 degree turn, there's a slight dip in the track, then another 180 degree turn, then the drop. After the drop is a half-helix, then the station.
The drop is zippy and the program has you entering it either sideways, backwards, or forwards. Bro took the backwards seat on one car, and we took the forwards seat, which put us in position for Matt and bro to slap hands a few times. The ride technically has a 6'4" height limit, but 6'8" tall Matt rode it with no issues. If he had been in the seat on the right where I was, he could have reached up and touched the track (part with the dip) as we hit a certain spot on the lift hill. The seats are molded plastic and if you have wide hips, it's a tight squeeze. No real problems for us, other than being really squished. The individual restraints are just a bar that comes down to your hips. I'd ride it again the next time we go to Scene 75, and it's $7 per ride.
Then, because Matt had paid for but not yet ridden the carousel, we loaded more money on my card and went back to it. Unfortunately we couldn't load just $3 - $5 was the minimum reload. Matt rode up top and I rode on a dragon on the bottom (Dragonriders of Dayton?) The carousel is beautiful, but we noticed that already there appear to be maintenance problems with the animals. The rungs that you step on to get on are sometimes missing on one side, or the bottom half is gone.
They also have a drop tower, but we didn't check it out because I was the only one who would have gone on it. The full collection of stuff there is arcade games (scattered throughout the building), a bar & grill, laser tag,
a simulator ride, black light mini-golf, regular mini-golf, go karts, spinning bumper cars, a bounce house area where you can buy 1/2 hour of bounce time, drop tower, carousel, roller-coaster, a bull riding bouncer, a
Wipe Out! style bouncer, batting cages, banquet rooms, and beach volleyball outside for when it's not winter. After the carousel ride, Matt and I used up the remaining $2 playing Minions-themed Whack-A-Mole, then our whole group left for dinner. So we spent about 2.5 hours there.
They made a video about the tornado and the expansion, which is worth viewing:
Sharon