Cedar Point: Closing Day (First Time!) - Part 2

...continued from "Cedar Point: Closing Day (First Time!) - Part 1"

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...After getting off Top Thrill Dragster both Alicia and I were experiencing a high. It was truly remarkable. Our on ride photos were hilarious but we didn't bring enough money to buy them. I really like how they take your picture WHILE you're launching and also when you're coming to the end.

We took a quick bathroom break and I called my parents to let them know I made it to the park (I forgot to call them earlier). We left the stuff in the locker and decided to continue around the loop.

Next up was Magnum. Its queue kind of popped out of no where. I wonder if this queue was ever completely filled when this ride first opened. That is one thing I noticed about most of the queues at Cedar Point. They are HUGE. Well to our surprise and delight we walked all the way through the queue, up the stairs to the station and right onto the back car. Nothing like a walk on.

The seatbelts on this thing are HUGE. I doubt there are any people who have ever been turned away from magnum for size reasons. The actual restraints were a little confining and I knew that they would be uncomfortable if the ride was bumpy.

All of a sudden... "dispatch".

Here we were, riding the world’s FIRST hyper coaster! The pure history of this coaster made me so excited.

Magnum XL 200:

The climb to the top was pretty long and the view was amazing. The lake was so beautiful and crisp. Now, I didn't expect much from this ride. I figured it would be fun and nothing more. Boy was I WRONG! I never knew why this coaster always did so well in polls until now. It's a pretty forceful ride! The first drop was 10 times better than I had expected. The speed was great too.

The climb over the second hill is very slow and going down it is rather bumpy. Definitely one of the low points on the ride. The tunnel and third hill are great but boy... that pretzel is rough. One thing I don't like is going into that element already banked. It feels weird traveling straight while tilted. I was pretty surprised at how fast that element is taken though. Good speed.

The return stretch was so much more amazing than I ever expected. Those triangular bunny hills are phenomenal! It's like a combination of floater AND ejector air. The tunnels are definitely great on this ride because they are completely dark. This coaster is just awesome. It was one of the biggest surprises on the trip. A hell of a ride.

Ride Rating: 8.5

After being pretty successful with our counter-clockwise trip so far, we decided to continue the trend. We were making our way to Gemini when we spotted Camp Snoopy out of the corner of our eyes. I knew Woodstock Express was there so I wanted to take a stroll through.

Camp Snoopy is actually VERY nice. I know Cedar Fair hasn't been known to be good with the "theme" aspect of amusement park, but this kiddy section was so cute. On our way to Woodstock we saw the Tilt-O-Whirl. Now Alicia and I are both Tilt-O-Whirl FANATICS! This was very exciting for us. This Tilt-O-Whirl was one of the

best I had ridden. It gave a nice long ride and the spinning was great. A+

As we left the Tilt-O-Whirl I noticed Gemini Jr. on the right. I watched it for a second and saw an adult, WHITHOUT a child, riding in the second row! As we walked closer to the entrance we saw a bunch of Peanuts characters. So despite the fact that they were obviously letting adults ride today, we opted to skip it in fear we would be stopped by the Peanuts gang. ;)

Finally we made it to Woodstock Express. It's a small little coaster but it's really nice. The sign they have for it was really cute. Like most of the rides in the park, this too was a walk on. My friend and I decided to take the very back seat (we are rebels). Now picture this. I am by no means HUGE but I am certainly not skinny. My friend Alicia is average size. Putting us together in the same car is downright hilarious. We had to squeeze and squeeze but finally, after my right ribs were fractured and my pelvis broke in half, we were in. ;)

Woodstock Express:

To our surprise we left with a full train of people. The ride itself was really nice. Being in the back, we got some nice airtime going over the first hill. I wasn't expecting this ride to take your picture but sure enough, it did.

Ride Rating: 4

Next we headed to Gemini. It had been in our view ever since we left Magnum and now it was time to ride. The queue and the station for this coaster are really nice. One thing I like about Cedar Point is that all their grass is nicely trimmed. There's just something

about freshly cut grass that makes the landscape THAT much better in my opinion (I'm really not a psycho).

Gemini was also a walk on. They were running both sides with two trains each. However, the red side wasn't loading people. Instead it was just equipped with sand bags.

One thing that I noticed about this coaster is how quiet it is. While in the station I looked up and realized there were two trains traveling overhead. However, it was SO quiet. It was almost eerie. I think the fact that it LOOKS like a wooden coaster makes the fact that it's quiet that much weirder.

Gemini:

We hoped in the very back seat and headed on our way. The lift hill was nice. It's cool how the red train catches up with the blue one by the time you get to the top. The first hill was CRAZY! I was certainly not expecting the airtime that I got from it. It was a lot steeper than I had imagined and it just threw you up into the restraint.

The rest of the ride was good, but kind of violent in my opinion. There was one drop before the final turnaround that was longer than I had expected. It was definitely surprising. The helix at the end was rough, but I was ready for that. I could see while waiting in the station that it definitely gives you some jolts.

Overall the ride was just okay. I expected it to be a lot better. I'm kind of disappointed.

Ride Rating: 6

On our way to Mean Streak, we saw Cedar Creek Mine Ride. I really like the setting of this coaster. You get a nice view of TTD from here also.

I like the whole mine theme for this ride. The fact that the ride is set on the water and around trees helps that.

Here's my beef with the capacity. They were running two trains on this coaster but one was solely for sand bags. We decided to take the middle of the train so we had to wait one cycle. It's not BAD it's just that I expect Cedar Point to have a more than 1 train operation for all of their rides (minus Woodstock Express and Gemini Jr.).

Cedar Creek Mine Ride:

This coaster was not what I expected. I didn't expect it to be thrilling but I didn't expect it to be too boring either. It was probably the least exciting mine train I've ever been on. That fine though. I'm sure this is a big winner for families. Other than that final helix though, I was disappointed.

Ride Rating: 3

The area around Cedar Creek Mine Ride was really nice. In fact, the whole area in the back of the park was beautiful. One thing that surprised me was that the water rides were still open. It had gotten much nicer out but this was surely the first park I'd been too that kept water rides open past August.

We made our way past their car ride to find the entrance to our next coaster.

There it was. Like they say... "Look like a butterfly, sting like a bee." You all know what I'm talking about...

Mean Streak has got to be one of the most beautiful coasters I've ever seen. No picture can do this ride justice. Finding the entrance to this ride was kind of difficult. One thing that I noticed at CP was that most of their coasters didn't have huge entrances. They just kind of sneak up on you. They have a small ride restriction sign at the entrance but that's about it.

Once we finally found the queue to Mean Streak, we headed on in. The queue for this ride is gorgeous! The landscaping in the middle is wonderful. It's like you’re in a forest. I could never imagine that entire queue being filled though. Once again, Cedar Point went a little over board in that respect.

This ride was a walk on but they were running two trains. I think they were running the red train and the green train. We boarded near the back and headed on our journey. I really liked the trains on this coaster. They are certainly the most comfortable wooden coaster trains I had been on to date. A+ for that.

Mean Streak:

The lift hill is BIG. Not big like what you see in pictures. It was more of the "you had to be there" kind of big. Just as I was expecting, the first hill was hindered by trims. They were definitely noticeable. The first half overall was ok. In terms of G's, it was forceless. However, it still ran really fast. The second half... well forget it. Still forceless except this time, it was slow. I felt like we were on Cedar Creek Mine Ride again going through the second half of this ride.

Every time the train negotiates a curve it makes this intolerable screeching noise. The park should look into fixing that. The ride was certainly rough also. I really can't explain the TYPE of rough it was. It didn't throw you around or toss you side to side but instead, it shook vertically. The only thing it hurt was my head. I felt like my brain was pure mush by the end of that ride.

Ride Rating: 5

After that I was downright nauseas. It wasn't that Mean Streak was a nauseating ride, but it shook my head so much that I felt like I had a migraine. Certainly not a good thing. We continued our walk around the loop into Frontier

Trail. It said "Fright Zone" or something but we certainly didn't encounter anything scary there.

Frontier trails is a nice section of the park. It has a lot of shade and is very clean. I think it would be great to put a flat ride here. Something that would attract some people to the area but not disturb the beauty of that section. The view of Millennium Force from this area is awesome. That first hill is flawless. We were off to that next.

I walked up to the Millennium Force entrance and headed right for the test seat. I certainly had HIGH doubts for this one. Like I said before, I came to the

park not expecting to ride TTD, MF or WT. I was one for one already and really wanted to get on. I sat down in the test seat and took grab of the seat belt…

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Do I get into Millennium Force? Stay tuned for Part 3!...

*** Edited 11/13/2004 1:57:18 AM UTC by rentzy17***

Fright Zone happens at night. WOF had one and it started at sunset.

-Cal

The Mean Streak que filled in its first year for a four hour wait, that was before it was so nice too. When I waited in its first season they didnt even have canopies yet.

Nice TR's, rentzy17.

I love magnum, and I am a little sad that it's hype has died down. I think that the tilted straightaway before the pretzel was designed to cause some extra thrill and confusion. You're going pretty fast on that section of the ride and It is one of my favorite things about Magnum.

I worked at Camp Snoopy for a season and a half. It's themeing is so much fun, but the music sucks. Each morning I would usuially get to test ride WE and Tilt-O-Whirl, among others. Ahhh...Memories.

When are they just going to rebuild MS's track with plug and play technology? Really...This ride has SO much potential. It could be as good as Beast. If it aint broken, don't fix it...Mean Streak IS broken-Fix it, CP. A giant Mean Streak sign on the park side of the train tracks might help people find the ride a little easier also.

If CCMR runs a train without enough weight, the train may not make it back to the station. That may be the reason for running one train. I rode Mine Ride 3 and a half times one day because of that.

Nice cliff hanger...I wonder if you got to ride MF?

I really agree with you on Mean Streak. For me, at the bottoms of all the hills, it basically bounced up and down- very painful. However, I was in the back, which probably made it rougher, but jeez! I felt like my ribs were going to break. It was intolerable.

I like how you rate the rides. Many people also use a 1 to 10 scale but rate all rides above a 5. They don't use all the numbers.

The Magnum I just don't get that ride. I went on it once in 01 and it was just so rough. I'm talking worse than Mean Streak. Then I tried it in 03 and wow it made up for it. Turned out to be a great ride.

Well Magnum WAS very rough. Just the fact that I didn't expect much from it made it great though. It was a lot faster and more fun than I thought it would be.

What made the ride better for me was the way I held the restraint. I put my hands under the lap bar and held from below as we soared over the bunny hills. It was SO awesome. I've yet to find airtime like that again.

Nitro gives great floater air. S:ROS at SFNE gives amazing ejector air. Magnum seems to give a little bit of both. You are thrown up into those hills but then kind of float over them. It's hard to explain really. ;)