Cedar Point 5/20/23 - 5/22/23 - Boardwalkin'

Took the three hour drive with my friend for our annual May visit to CP from Pittsburgh. The weather was gorgeous and the park was packed Saturday and Sunday. The 8:00 closing time each night seemed early given the long lines for food and rides, though I guess staffing may have played a factor.

Ever since Ouimet cleaned up the resorts we’ve stayed on property, this time at Breakers. As usual, it was well kept and very well occupied. On Saturday night the boardwalk was absolutely bustling. My only complaint about the property is that Starbucks is the only option for coffee so there’s usually a long line in the morning. The Starbucks team was absolutely busting their butts, though, so kudos to them.

The new Boardwalk area is gorgeous and was teeming with people. It took many tries to revitalize this area of the park and they have finally succeeded. There are many small details to appreciate, such as period-appropriate music being played at the rides and roaming acrobats.

I’m a big fan of the Grand Pavilion. The food was pretty good. I had the roast pork, which wasn’t overly flavorful but very tender, and the salt potatoes which they topped with melted butter. Not too shabby for park food. Being able to go upstairs and eat on the balcony overlooking the beach and lake was sublime. The bar was very popular. There’s actually a small snack bar behind the bar that no one seemed to be aware of. It sells personal pizzas, nuts, and a few other items from what I remember, though the people who did go through the line just used it as an express drink station. I guess the idea is that it will attract bar patrons who are feeling snacky, though they’ll have to advertise it more so people know it’s there.

I am not, however, a fan of the Wild Mouse. I rode with four adults in the Cheese car and we spun through the second half of the ride like no other spinning coaster I’ve been on. This ride will probably be popular with the younger crowd, but it’s definitely not for me. Spinning aside, it tracks really well and they were able to dispatch cars quickly. I’m cautiously optimistic about the next generation of Zamperla coasters. Just no more spinning, thanks.

Even with the removal of several food stands this year, my friend and I noted that six meals isn’t enough to eat everywhere we enjoy anymore given the addition of the Grand Pavilion and the improved food at Coasters. We ate two meals at The Farmhouse which is probably still my favorite location. The steak is still good and I’m a fan of the chili, though it is surprisingly spicy. I was a little disappointed to discover that they got rid of the sweet potato fries, switching instead to potato wedges. All of their major food locations now serve some variation of potato wedge/steak fry which is definitely not my favorite form of fried potato.

I’m sure they had their reasons for ditching Chick-fil-A, but the menu at that establishment is extremely uninspired. Personal pizzas, cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, steak fries. Hard pass.

Backbeat brought back pulled pork this year which is always a favorite of mine. As a BBQ aficionado, I was a tad disappointed that they got rid of their house BBQ sauce, instead serving Heinz BBQ along with the other condiments. Small gripe but details do matter.

Ride operations were pretty typical for late May at the Point. Most of the rides were open and the crews were already doing a pretty good job with capacity. There was a fair bit of downtime across their rides, including a sizable chunk of downtime at Millennium Force during which time the mechanics seemed to be doing grinding work on one of the drive tires. Maverick kept going up and down but is that ever not the case?

One of the odd coasters to be having problems was Gemini. On top of a lot of random downtime, they seemed to have bad wheels on trains on both sides. On Sunday evening, we noted that one of the blue trains was making a very loud noise every time the train picked up speed. When we rode, we chose the red side for that reason, but ended up having a car with a bad wheel of its own. Even while going slow, our car was visibly shaking compared to the other cars in front of us that were clearly not bouncing around. It was bad enough that I felt obliged to inform the ride attendants, though they didn’t seem to take action on that bit of information. The next day, the blue train was still making quite a racket. While I don’t necessarily believe this was a safety issue, my friend and I were a bit surprised that this was not addressed during the overnight/morning maintenance.

Edit: I forgot to mention how impressed we were with the park's merchandise this year. One thing in particular that we thought was a novel idea that we haven't seen before were Generic Building Block™ coaster trains. They sell the cars separately, having a separate SKU for the lead cars and trailing cars. It's a bit pricey, with the lead cars being $25 and the other cars $20 each, but it's a really novel idea for a souvenir. My friend shelled out the $65 to build a Maverick train, while I opted for the wumbo-sized MF Nanocoaster. Note to past self, 24" doesn't sound that big on the packaging but it's yuge.

I'll be there this weekend. How did opening go? I know the Boardwalk is on the early entry schedule but did the rest of the park open on time?

PhantomTails:

One thing in particular that we thought was a novel idea that we haven't seen before were Generic Building Block™ coaster trains.

My wife bought me a lead Steal Vengeance car as a xmas stocking stuffer then they had an online sale and I picked up a couple Maverick cars. They don't go together perfectly but they were a fun distraction.

Early entry and park open on Sunday were pretty normal. None of the early entry coasters were ready at 9 on Monday, however, though most of them were open by 10 or a little later. We decided to go to the back of the park and were surprised to see that both Maverick (and especially) Steel Vengeance opened promptly at 10.

Is it bad that I'm more surprised that Maverick and Steel Vengeance opened on time at 10 rather than the fact that nothing was ready for Early Entry?

What early entry rides were supposed to be open? Someone posted on here a while back that Gatekeeper was the only headline roller coaster open for early entry ERT this year, and maybe Wild Mouse too.

That was the list but at some point they added MF. Several of the Boardwalk flats are open as well.