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I decided Thursday at about 4:00pm to take a vacation day on Friday. I was already planning on going to Geauga Lake with a former co-worker after work, and decided blowing off the entire day and spending the first half at CP racking up a couple of rides before Halloweekends sounded like a damn good use of vacation hours!
So, at 6:30am, I left Pittsburgh for the drive to the Point. I arrived in Sandusky at 8:50 much to my surprise, so I figured I'd just read a little (I had brought a book to pass the time while I waited for my co-worker to show up near GL) until 9:30 when the park (to my knowledge) opened. I get back to the Soak City lot to see people headed in! Cool!
So, obviously, I'm all about this and at 9:01am (59 minutes before posted opening) I'm in Cedar Point! 10 minutes later, I'm sitting in Millennium Force, enjoying a great ride. 15 minutes later, deja vu. Before "official" opening, I had already racked up 2 Millennium Force rides and a Mantis ride (that's 3 rides, 2 installations for the "count").
The parking lot was dead and there wasn't much traffic headed in, so I figured hitting up the front of the park right near opening wouldn't be as bad an idea as that normally is. Stopping for a quick back-seat Iron Dragon ride (still one of the most pleasant surprises in the park, 4 rides/3 coasters), I headed up front to hit Blue Streak and Raptor (6 rides/5 coasters). Raptor was unusually bumpy today, I wanted to grab a bunch of rides as the longest wait all day was about 12 minutes, but I couldn't justify it with the headbanging in the cobra roll - what's up with that?
Headed over to marathon my baby Wicked Twister to find it down - bummer! Hit up Disaster for a ride in pitch black! Disaster is really something to behold when none of the effects are working, none of the lights are on and you can't see a thing! Pretty cool! (this theme of unusually good rides will continue - 7 rides/6 coasters). Wicked Twister's still down, so I head over to grab a quick Corkscrew (back seat being THE best kept secret in the park, wahoo airtime!) and 2 back-to-back Magnum rides (10 rides/8 coasters). Magnum was really hauling today, and the back seats were the places to be! Again, surprisingly good!
Time for the back of the park as I wasn't about to wait in a long TTD line when nothing else had much more than a station wait, if that. A quick Gemini and Mean Streak ride later, I'm up to 12 rides on 10 coasters, and it's only noon! Not bad for 3 hours work. I was going to be a total credit whore and hit CCMR and Wildcat, but decided to pass in favor of more rides on the bigger coasters. Back to the front as I saw Wicked Twister running for 3 straight rides (mid, front, back - 15 rides, 11 coasters). Maybe I'm just hearing it because I agree and I'm keying in on it, but more and more, I hear people talking that Wicked Twister is their favorite ride in the park. Since it's been mine since it was built, this makes me very happy, and I think CP made a marketing mistake when they got rid of WT as part of their "big" coasters (there wasn't a single glass product or magnet that I could find with WT on it).
I was considering another DT ride since my first was so good, but passed on it so that I could preserve the good memory. Plus, going in there actually made me miss working the haunted house in there as I know I won't be doing that this year (who ever though I'd say I MISSED doing work?). Headed over to Raptor and Blue Streak for re-rides (17 rides, 11 coasters) and decided it was time to brave the TTD line. The posted wait was an hour, the line was in the second "block" of queues back from the station, but since the ride was working flawlessly all day with launches every 45 seconds to one minute, the posted 1 hour wait which I was expecting about 1:15 for, took all of 25 minutes! Rock on! Again, Dragster's not the best coaster by any strech of the imagination for me, but it's an amazing experience (18 rides, 12 coasters). Come out of Dragster and head back up front for another Wicked Twister run, but the line got a little "long" (long being about 10 minutes instead of a walk-on) so I only managed one front-seat ride (19/12). Since I was headed to Geauga that night, I figured I'd get my fill of Impulses there, so I could leave WT with 4 rides.
Now things get really good: I headed back to the TTD area, and the line was still long, so I grabbed another Corkscrew and 2 more Magnum rides (22/12). It began to rain lightly after my 2nd Magnum ride, so obviously, TTD shut down. I had some time to blow (it was only 3, I didn't have to leave until 4) so I stood in line with the "hopefuls" just outside the gates waiting for it to re-open. For some reason, they emptied the line when it started to rain, so the 15-20 people in front of me were the only ones in line! I figured I would have waited 20 min. inside anyway, so I'll give it 20 minutes and if it wasn't open yet, I'll go ride something else. Well, after about 10 minutes and 2 rollbacks with empty trains, they open the line and of course, I'm thinking "rollback!". I join the "running of the bulls" to get up to the station, and luckily, half the folks go to the back train. I hop on the first one hoping for that elusive rollback! The rollback was not to be, but what was to be blows away any rollback I could dream up. Now, I've seen the radar gun clock as high as 124 when I've been on it, and the train still creeps over the top hat. I noticed earlier today, the blue train absolutely FLEW over the top without even stopping, and it was this treat I was about to experience. I almost always put my hands up on any coaster I can, so my hands were up loving the speed on the launch, expecting that rollback for the first train after a breakdown. But as we approach the top hat, the train is ... not ... SLOWING! X's first hill is the only thing to this point that has made me swear uncontrollably, but going over TTD's top hat with the force of Storm Runner and having to grab the bar for fear of my life made me do it again! Flying over that top hat and being completely out of my seat on the drop made for one of the most mild-blowing ride experiences I have ever had. Dragster-gasm is definitely an appropriate title, since this baby can be good, it can be great, and like this launch, can be absolutely mind-blowing! Everyone else in the train noticed the speed too as we got to the brakes and the whole train started talking "was that really that fast?" "does it always go over that fast?". After that one, I had to get back in line, but my next ride was nothing special (24 rides, 12 coasters).
At this point it was time to leave and head to Geauga Lake. After getting caught in Cleveland rush hour and making a couple of wrong exits, I made it to meet my friend and we were at the park from 6pm til aout 10:30. The park was absolutely dead, so much so that it was kind of sad, I'd doubt they had more than 1000 patrons last night.
Quick ride rundown (cause this is getting hella-long): Wolf Bobs - horrible shuffling, felt like the trains were going to fall off, 2 ride (26/13). Thunderhawk, Double Loop, Head Spin - HS vallied at some point during the night, but recovered in about an hour (29/16). Big Dipper - running out of control, love the padding on the trains, and it's needed, 5 rides (34/17). Steel Venom, 4 rides (38/18), Dominator running great, no headbanging, 4 rides (42/19), Villain out of control, best wooden coaster in Ohio, 2 rides (44/20), X-Flight, extra cool at night, slow operations, 2 rides (46/21).
It was an amazing day. I covered over 350 miles in one day, spent 11 1/2 hours in parks and managed 46 rides. And to top it all off, in about an hour, I'm headed to Kennywood for the day! Woot!!!111oneoneDen.
Thanks for reading if you got this far, sorry it's so long!
*** Edited 9/5/2004 5:03:30 AM UTC by Antuan***
I am glad you had fun. I was running Head Spin that night, and I wonder if it was you that I commented to about having a great ride on Dragster myself the day before. I know I had a blast at CP the day before, and that was only for a little over 3 hours, getting in 1 Raptor, 1 Wicked Twist, 1 Screw, 1 Gemini, 1 Magnum, 1 Mantis, and 1 Dragster, plus a Space Spiral, and a lot of fun!
-Sam
AvSam - I remember hearing someone talking about that when we were riding Head Spin, but I don't think you were actually talking to me. I was with a middle aged guy and I was wearing a bright orange Zebrahead/Gatorade shirt and we were sitting front seat for our Head Spin ride - I thought you were talking to someone behind me. If you were talking to me, I apologize for ignoring you, thought you were talking to someone else ;)
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