Coasting the afternoon away

I work for a company that likes to have fun, so every year, the entire company takes a day off together to do so. This year, we spent the day at Canada's Wonderland.

The day started off with the usual rah-rah all-company meeting which was emcee'd by Shaun Majumder, a comedian from Newfoundland who was most recently on 24 as a terrorist - before this, I had no idea who he was since I had never seen him on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the CBC's sketch comedy show. Anyway, he was funny, if a little raunchy - but "it's not sexual - it's corporate!"

I thought he was the special guest our admin was teasing us about on the way over to our meeting this morning. But no. Our special guest was Martin Short, who apparently flew in for our corporate event and left to return to LA soon afterwards. He sang and he danced (well, sort of danced) and brought out Jiminy Glick and Ed Grimley, his best-known original character. It was all very cool and very funny.

This year, they kept the boring corporate stuff to a minimum - there were no(!) powerpoint presentations - and even though the meeting started later than anticipated, they still wrapped it up by noon so that we could head over to our BBQ, eat, and spend the rest of the afternoon riding the rollercoasters.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I was rather skeptical that the day would actually be any fun since I hadn't been to the park in about 10 years. Truth be told, the only thing I was looking forward to was the funnel cake - a yummy treat of calorie-ridden, deep-fried goodness. Ironically, I turned out to be the one leading the way towards the next ride. The weather was perfect, and since it was mid-week before all the kids were out of school, we waited on average about 15 minutes for each ride. (If the wait was any longer, I would have bailed out early to go shopping at the outlet mall next door, which had been my original plan!) In 3 hours, we went on 8 rides including Tomb Raider below:




I hadn't seen any of the movies so I didn't understand the relevance of it being a "flying" ride, but it was quite the thrill. If I had to pick a favourite, it would probably be Shockwave since I loved the sensation of falling and then being jerked and spun around. Other favourites include Top Gun, Italian Job, Drop Zone and The Bat. As with any and all thrill rides though, they were far too short. All time favourite may have to be The Mighty Canadian Minebuster, which is the largest and longest wooden coaster in Canada.

We ended our full 8-hour work day with funnel cake, which was as good as I remembered. If only all our work days could be this fun!