Myrtle Beach & Grand Prix 2004

September 19-22, 2004
Myrtle Beach, SC
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For many years Myrtle Beach was my favorite place to visit for vacation. It had everything I want to do; roller coasters, swimming, restaurants, night life, you name it. As a kid my family went every year. My most recent visit had been in 2002. As it was late in the season, it was much different visit than I was used to but I had a lot of fun. I decided to take some time from my new job and head to the beach with my family. Because of a previous engagement, we would be leaving for Salisbury, North Carolina on Friday, September 17 and staying the nite.

Because of Hurricanes Charlie, Francis, Ivan, Bonnie, and Janeen, I was very afraid we were going to be rained out as it started raining late Thursday evening at home, and continued thru our trip to NC. I was happy, though, to see beautiful blue skies when I woke up Saturday morning. We left Salisbury around 4:30 pm and headed south. It was about a 4 hour trip including our stop at Pizza Hut in South Carolina for dinner, but we made it to the Holiday Inn (now Sea Crest) Hotel we were staying at around 9:00 pm that evening.

After checking in and taking our luggage up to the suite, I promptly changed clothes and headed out for a nite on the town. I hadn’t really been out since moving back home, so I was happy to finally be getting dressed up for a reason. I cruised around downtown for a bit which, though it was the off season, was still fairly active as it was the weekend. I didn’t want to arrive at the club too early, so I cruised some more around Myrtle Beach. Then at around 11:30 pm I headed for Club Kryptonite, the hot new club at Broadway at the Beach. I forgot my flyer to get me in for two bucks, so I ended up paying $10. It was “Coyote Ugly Night” so there were loads of girls on boxes and up on the bar dancing and pouring drinks. The DJ was great, loads of good music, and the crowd fun. Getting back to the room, I took a shower and went to sleep.

Myrtle Beach Pavilion 2004

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Myrtle Beach Pavilion | Photos | Videos

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September 19, 2004
Myrtle Beach SC

Since the park was closing early today I thought I’d better get there around opening, get my arm band, and ride rides. I woke up a little after 1pm, changed into my swimming trunks so I could do the water rides, and headed down town. It wasn’t very crowded and the park was in its usual post-season state of deadness. Everything was up and running with the exception of the Carousel and the Top Spin. This is the way all parks should be ran, however, when it comes to cleanliness. There were more handymen around sweeping and cleaning than there were park goers! And as far as I can remember it’s always been that way.

I love a nice, relaxing day at a sea side park. There was a strong ocean breeze and some of the ops were running the rides like crazy since it was so dead at the park. My first order of business was that big heap of steel and wood that is known as Hurricane Category 5. There are a lot of people that said this is the worst there was when it came to roughness. Yes it is rough, but not roughest by far.

The Pavilion staff does a good job at keeping their rides up and running at capacity for the time they are open, but this was the park’s first wooden coaster in many years, and I think they just don’t know how to maintain it that well. That, and those trains suck.