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"Cedar Point: Closing Day (First Time!) - Part 3"This is the fourth and final part of my Trip Report. Enjoy! :)
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…We were literally starving at this point. It was time to go get some food. Before we had left in the morning, Alicia and I each packed some food we got at our college. We also stopped at Tops in the morning to get some snacks. We always do this because it really makes the whole trip cheaper.
We didn’t park too far away so it wasn’t a hassle to get lunch. We were facing the park so while we ate, we were able to watch the rides. Watching Wicked Twister is thrilling for me. Like I said, I don’t know what it is about this ride but it’s just awesome.
After getting a bite to eat we walked back into the park. One thing I like about Cedar Point is the entrance. It’s really not that big. You just walk on through and all of sudden, you’re in the thick of things. When we entered back into the park, the “witch” with a microphone flipped out and ran over to Alicia. Both Alicia and the witch had red hair so that’s why she singled her out. It was quite entertaining.
On the way back in we took a quick ride on Demon Drop. The actual drop sensation is really thrilling. The falling on your back element is also fun. The brakes and return to station is loud and brutal though. Still a great ride.
As we were walking down the midway I wanted to take another spin on Raptor. The line was even shorter than this morning. It was about a 5 minute wait, IF that.
This time we opted to wait for the first car. There was quite a line for it but you know how beamers are, great capacity. Before we knew it we were on. The person they gave the microphone to do the live spiel (which I think is a great idea) wasn’t very enthusiastic. In fact, you could hardly understand him. He was mumbling and wasn’t even TRYING. Come on guys! It’s the last day of the season! Aren’t you happy?!
Raptor (Ride 2):The ride itself was not near as good as the first one. The drop, loop and zero-g roll were wonderful. However, I experienced some head banging on the cobra roll and each corkscrew. It was a little disappointing but Raptor is still a great ride.
Ride Rating: 7We hadn’t taken a ride on Blue Streak yet so that was our next stop. Like I said before, except for a few rides, Cedar Point doesn’t have large signs for many things. This was certainly the case for Blue Streak. Once we finally realized the entrance was on the left, we started over. Right then an employee met up with us to tell us the ride had broken down. Bummer. They said it would be running in about 5 or ten minutes though, so I wasn’t at all upset.
We headed over to Calypso and took a spin on that. This ride was kind of weird. It was like a scrambler but tilted at an angle. It wasn’t all that fun to me. However, we DID get two cycles without getting off. Come on CP! You need new flats! I think 2005 will be a good year for that. ;)
From Calypso we saw that Blue Streak was running. Like everything else at the park, it too was a walk on.
Blue Streak:We boarded near the back of the train for our ride on this coaster. The first drop was actually very good, as were the bunny hills and the turn around. In fact, this whole ride was great! It was smooth yet not TOO smooth. It had the perfect amount of wooden “shake” to it. The bunny hills actually provided some nice pops of air. There was an elongated bunny hill on the return stretch that, in my opinion, could be made into two. Other than that, this is a true classic!
Ride Rating: 7I wanted to take some more rides on Wicked Twister so we headed back over there. There was a guy at the test seat who was smaller than me. He was shaking his head like he couldn’t ride. Well he eventually got in line for the ride with the girl he was with and got on the same ride as us. I looked over as we were boarding and he was exiting the queue. I guess the restraint didn’t come down far enough. I didn’t quite understand this because he seemed to be a lot smaller than I was.
I wont’ review Wicked Twister again because I’ve already reviewed rides in the front AND the back. I think this time we ended up riding twice in the back again. It was great as usual. Both times were walk-ons.
Next we headed over to Power Tower. The queue for this ride was unnecessarily enormous. I could never imagine anyone waiting in line that long. The launch UP side was a walk on so we opted for that first. The drop side was a bit of a wait. The ride was actually really fun. It seemed to be a little less powerful than Scream at SFNE. It was still a good ride though. They made me wear my glasses straps on this ride. It’s funny because my glasses feel a lot more secure on my head WITHOUT the strap than with them. I guess I just wasn’t using them right.
We really wanted to ride Dragster again but we still had to ride Corkscrew. We took a quick bathroom break and then entered Corkscrews queue. I REALLY wish we had stopped at Dragster first. You’ll find out why in a minute…
Corkscrew:This ride was also a walk on and the park was running two trains. We sat in the second row. The first drop was fine but the bunny hill was downright painful. The loop was ok and the corkscrews were really smooth. Overall it was an ok ride. The bunny hill was a lot worse than I thought it would be but the loops were surprisingly smooth. My suggestion is to take out the bunny hill and straight away before the corkscrews. Also, take out a chunk of the mile long brake run. ;)
Ride Rating: 4We headed over to Dragster for our second ride. As soon as we approached the queue the ride broke down. The not so friendly queue attendant shouted to everyone to stand along the black fence. Instead of just periodically announcing the brake down, she waited until people got RIGHT up to her to ask her and then she shouted into the microphone. It was SO obnoxious and made me want to strangle her. Fire this one Cedar Point.
After waiting for a half hour for the ride to open, we gave up hope. A lot of people had exited the queue but the station was still full of people. We were standing in line next to a bunch of people talking about the ride. Of course their information was WAY off. One person said that last year the ride had magnets to launch and this year, it was a cable. Luckily for me, there was a person in the group who DID know what they were talking about. She explained to them that the ride always had a cable and was giving pretty accurate information about the ride. Thank God for that. They did say something funny though. Instead of just announcing that the ride is closed they should have a sign above the queue. The sign would say “The ride is [ ] broken” Whenever the ride WAS working the park could just put up a removable “not” sign after the word “is”. That made me chuckle. Even the GP are aware of Dragster’s down time (not that they wouldn’t be).
Well after wasting half an hour outside of dragster, we headed back over to Magnum. Once again, this ride was a walk on. We took a ride near the back and it was awesome. This is really a great coaster.
Well at this point we had done 13 of the 16 coasters. Gemini Jr. was only for kids (although today we DID see adults riding alone) and the Millennium Force seat belts were too small for me. The only other coaster we hadn’t ridden was Wildcat. Wildcat, Woodstock Express, Corkscrew and CCMR were all coasters we didn’t plan on riding. Little did we know everything would be a walk-on and there would be time to hit EVERY coaster. With that being said, we headed over to Wildcat.
They had a film playing on the projector next to Wildcat. The park really looks great at night. As we were walking to Wildcat we saw everyone who was in the Dragster station leave. Earlier we saw a mechanic working in the launch area but I guess it was a lost cause. Dragster was down for the season. Because of this, there were a ton of people around Millennium Force. This made our wait for Wildcat longer than we expected. We ended up waiting about 5 minutes. Of course that’s not bad at all though.
Wildcat:I had ridden a clone of this ride at Martin’s Fantasy Island so I knew what to expect. One of the weirdest things on this coaster is the chain lift. It’s not your typical chain. I really can’t explain. It’s also lifted high off the track when a car approaches. When the car intercepts it, the chain goes back down. It’s very odd.
The coaster was just as I expected it would be, if not better. Schwarzkopf coasters are truly amazing. They are fun and smooth. I really like the helixes on Wildcat. The colors of this coaster are really nice as well.
Ride Rating: 5We wanted to get a few more rides on Magnum but we also needed to get on the down side of Power Tower. We got into the enormous queue and headed on the drop side. As soon as we entered the line we saw a couple people leave. We didn’t think anything of it at first but as the minutes passed, we realized that the ride was not working. It would have been nice for someone to tell us. I really liked the park and all but the ride breakdowns throughout the day were a little overwhelming. At the beginning of the day we were stuck on Raptor for 20 minutes. After that we experienced a break down on Dragster for about 5 minutes. At about 5:00 Dragster had closed for the season. To top it off, the drop side of Power Tower closed while we were in line. Oh well, onto Magnum.
We scooted back over to Magnum for a couple more rides. I really wanted to get the “ejector seat” but there was a line there. We opted for 4.2. Like Wicked Twister, I won’t review every additional ride we took on Magnum. The ride as a whole though was great. We hoped right back in line and THIS time we were able to walk on to the ejector seat. I was wondering what the big deal was until we reached those bunny hills. So THAT’S why they call it the ejector seat. :)
Well we came into the day thinking it would be nearly impossible to finish everything before 8:00. Here it was, JUST 7:00 and we had conquered the whole park. My friend Alicia was feeling sick so we decided to call it a night. However, Wicked Twister was staring at me as we started to leave. I just couldn’t turn down a few more rides. We trotted over to the coaster for two more walk-ons, We took one in near the front and the other ride in the back. This coaster is truly amazing and was a great way to end the day.
Quick Ride Summary:Raptor: Great ride although it was a little rough the second time we rode it.
Top Thrill Dragster: Breathtaking launch and vertical ascent.
Magnum XL 200: A huge surprise. A thrilling coaster after all of these years.
Woodstock Express: Fun family coaster.
Gemini: Provided some uncomfortable airtime.
Cedar Creek Mine Ride: Very boring except for the final helix.
Mean Streak: Rough first half and boring second half.
Mantis: Very rough and the restraints are very uncomfortable.
Iron Dragon: Less thrilling than Cedar Creek Mine Ride.
Wicked Twister: The biggest surprise of the trip. Very intense and very fun.
Disaster Transport: At least it runs in the rain.
Blue Streak: Fast and fun. This is a true classic coaster.
Corkscrew: Take out the bunny hill and you’ve got a classic.
Wildcat: Fun family ride with horrible capacity.
The park wasn’t crowded and all of the rides (except Dragster) were either a walk on, or less than a 5 minute wait. It was my first time at Cedar Point and I was NOT disappointed. If anything, I’m worried that any trip in the future will not be as good as the one I just took.
Overall Park Rating: 9Summer of 2004 was my first summer of “independence” so to speak. I had been at college for a year and wanted to try a bunch of things on my own. If anyone were to tell me in the fall of 2003 that I would take all of these trips, I wouldn’t have believed them. I started this coaster season with my first trip to PKI. Throughout the summer I hit up my home park, The Great Escape, several times. I also took a trip to SFGAdv. and SFNE. While I was home for the summer I took my first ever trip to La Ronde. When I went back to school this fall, I hit up SFDL a couple times and took my first trip to Kennywood. My coaster season came to end almost 2 weeks ago with my first ever trip to Cedar Point. This summer has been amazing and I never thought I would ever visit all of these parks in my life, let alone one summer. Thank you to all CBuzzers for their trip reports and advice. You made this coaster season the best for me. ;)
Edit: Once again... had to change "breaks" to "brakes". Let me know if I missed any. ;)
*** Edited 11/20/2004 2:07:35 AM UTC by rentzy17***
