August 2013 Cedar Point Trip Report

Every year, I take a vacation with my family to a new and different amusement park to ride new roller coasters and rides, and we usually find some unique museums and/or cultural points of interest along the way! This LOVE taking these family trips, and I look forward to them all year! This year, the amusement park we went to was Cedar Point, and I loved it! Cedar Point is rated the #1 amusement park in the country, and I can see why!

August 23rd- Lakemont Park-

We live in Pennsylvania, so, on our way to Sandusky, we went through Altoona PA, where Lakemont Park is. Since I have never been to this park before, we decided to stop there, and it was a great idea!

Now, when I get excited about a new place, like a new arcade or fun center, I usually "talk it up" in my mind, and most of the time, it is not as good as I think it is going to be! But with Lakemont Park, It was even better than what I anticipated! Don't let the size of the park foul you, There are a lot of fun times to be had within the gates of Lakemont Park! The park had tons of historic, old rides that just don't exist anymore at most major amusement parks! What's more, you can't beat the price, Just $5 gets you into the park with a wristband that allows you on all the rides!

There was "Leap the Dips", the oldest roller coaster in the world! Compared to all the modern roller coasters, you can hardly call this roller coaster a "thrill ride', but I really enjoyed it! They say that when you're going downhill on a roller coaster, it's supposed to feel like your falling! But on most roller coasters, I don't feel like I'm falling! But on the "Leap the Dips" roller coaster, I really DID feel like I was falling, a whole lot of fun! The only problem with this ride was that I had to lean far forward to hold onto the grab bar. It wasn't until I got off the roller coaster that I realized the seat could be moved forwards! Oh well, If I ever ride this ride again, I'll remember it!

Another interesting ride at the park was the toboggan. This ride consists of a little car that goes up a pole sideways, then goes down the pole real fast in a spiral motion! I loved this ride, and I've never seen another one like it anywhere! Some of my other favorite rides at Lakemont were Sky Diver, a sort of Ferris wheel with cars that spun upside down, the Octopus, and a ride called The Twister, which was like the Tilt-A-Whirl, but the cars didn't have roofs on them!

August 24th- Drove to Sandusky!

August 25th- Cedar Point

I think that I picked the perfect day to visit Cedar Point. Since it was Friday, and all of the local kids were back in school, the park really wasn't that crowded. There was just vacationers, like me! Because of this, we hardly had to wait in any lines, not even for the big roller coasters, like the Top Thrill Dragster and Magnum!

I rode the new Gatekeeper, a nice winged, inverted coaster with some good barrel rolls, okay, but not as good as some of the other roller coasters! Personally, my favorite Cedar Point roller coaster was the Top Thrill Dragster, once the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, and still a pretty thrilling ride today! You first get strapped into cool trains that look like dragsters while upbeat music plays on the boarding station speakers! Then, your train goes back and forth faster and faster, until it climbs up the tall hill at 120 mph. At the top of the hill, there's just enough time to get a quick look at Lake Eerie from high above before, ZOOM!, you plummet down the hill at lightning speed, spiraling all the while!

Another one of my favorite Cedar Point roller coasters was the Wicked Twister! The layout of this ride is really quite simple, just a large yellow "U"-shaped track. But the ride is no picnic, you are continually blasted up and down the two sides of the "U" at frightening speeds! A very unique ride; I've never seen another one like it anywhere!

Then there was Millennium Force, a roller coaster so big that they had a create a new category just for it, the Giga-Coasters! Up and down big hills at high-speeds, a truly-excellent ride! A nice long ride too, 2 minutes and 20 seconds!

The Top Thrill Dragster, Wicked Twister and Millennium Force were my favorite roller coasters at Cedar Point, but I also liked the Magnum, The Raptor, The iron Dragon and the Corkscrew! The only roller coaster that I sort of didn't like was the Maverick in Frontier Town, it kept banging me against the lap bars and the side of the train for the whole ride, even though it was fun being blasted off at the beginning, and it did have some good barrel rolls!

The only big steel coaster at Cedar Point that I didn't ride was the Stand-Up roller coaster, The Mantis". Those stand-up coasters are never much of a ride and besides, it's always a hassle trying to get into them! You have to lean over a bicycle-seat-thing while putting your feet where the footprints are, AHH!

The roller coasters weren't the only fun rides at Cedar Point! I loved the Power Tower, a drop ride that takes you up a high tower and drops you. The Matterhorn was an interesting version of the Music Express. Because the seats rocked back and forth, you weren't pushed to one side, like on a regular music express! Then there was the Witches' Wheel, a large wheel that spun you around and pasted you against the seat, then the wheel adjusts vertically and turns you upside down. I've been wanting to ride one of these rides ever since they took The Cyclops out of HersheyPark!

August 26th- This was the day we went to the various museums in the area! I visited the Maritime Museum and the Merry-Go-Round Museum! I loved the Merry-Go-Round museum. I got to look at the old carousel horses, and ride an old carousel all at the same place! An amusement park and a cultural-point-of-interest all rolled up into one! We also tried to take a boat ride on Lake Eerie on the Jet Express, but the boat broke down just as it was leaving the dock!

August 27th- Cedar Point again

I rode all my favorite roller coasters again. I also picked up some smaller rides that I didn't get to on the first day, like the Ocean Motion (pirate ship ride), The Calypso and the Max-Air, a large spinning, swinging pendulum! The Calypso was a very interesting ride; A scrambler that went up and down a hill!

August 28th- Stopped at the Dave and Busters in Pittsburgh for some arcade games!

August 29th- Happily drove home!

Well, all in all, it was a pretty good vacation, 11 roller coasters, from the antique Leap the Dips to the thrilling Top Thrill Dragster, the best amusement park in the country, Cedar Point and the smaller Lakemont Park, two interesting museum and some fun arcade games, what a wonderful vacation! I imagine I'll probably be going back to Cedar Point in the future, after I visit some other amusement parks for the next several years (I love the variety, I always want to do new and different parks on our vacations), Cedar Point will probably have at least one more new roller coaster by then! If you're into amusement rides, especially roller coasters, and you haven't been to Cedar Point yet, I strongly recommend you go there! it's a wonderful place!

I would love to find a park with a Sky Diver! They used to be common at State Fairs, but, I think they are too costly to run, due to the slow loading process, as most carnival rides these days are more based on load once, with good capacity. Though the Zipper, and other ferris wheels load about the same. Though, erecting the Sky Diver is probably more time consuming, and bulky to move from place to place. While the Zipper is the easiest.

As for the Toboggan, it's a very common coaster. We have one at the Allegan county fair every year. It's also a traveling ride. The Twister also used to be a fairly common carnival ride, but, it's more big and bulky than the tilt-a-whirl, though a much more intense spinning ride. They used to have a Twister at Indiana Beach. I was kind of sad when the replaced it with a tilt-a-whirl. Though I think they had both, and just relocated the tilt-a-whirl to the twister spot when they took it out.

Calypso is also a common park ride. They have one at Great America called fiddlers fling, and a themed version at Canada's wonderland using kettles. Fun ride. An updated version of the Calypso is the Crazy Dance. Where the cars spin, there are also different versions of that now too, including cars that flip upside down. Would love to ride one of those!! Years ago they also had a version similar to a tea-cup ride, where you could spin the cars by hand.