Coastermania 2003: 17 hours of Cedar Point glory!

Sean, I'm sorry if it seems to you like I didn't have a good time at CM and wasn't satisfied. There were just a lot of unanswered questions I had coming out of the event, but now that I have the whole story I understand what was going on and for what reason. Once again, aside for a few confusions about rides, I think the event as a whole went fairly well.

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Rob - Who believes it is possible to like both Cedar Point and SFWoA...
"A gun is not a weapon Marge, it's a tool. Like a butcher knife, or a harpoon, or... or an alligator" ~Homer J. Simpson

Rob,

No problem. I understand. Believe it or not, but I did hear a few other enthusiasts ask the same thing earlier in the day. I am sure you had a good time, I just wanted to try and shed some light on some of your questions.

Hopefully you will be back later in the year to give TTD a ride. I feel bad for a couple of those folks that traveled from Scotland and England to ride during Coastermania as it isn't very easy for them to come back and ride.

-Sean

I would have liked to ride TTD, three days at the park, and three days of it sitting dormant kind of just frustrated me. On the other hand Cedar Point seemed like they did everything in their control to get it going ( Or at least fed the enthusiasts and public a good line of bull), but they did replace a great ride for AM ERT so that early risers wouldnt be dissapointed, and they added Gemini and Disaster transport to night ERT. Personally the best rides came at the night ERT, after 1130PM when left only were the die hard coaster fans. From 1100-1230 near walk ons for wicked twister and magnum... awesome!

This was my first CoasterMania, and even with TTD being down, it was still a good time. I was very happy to see that they ran MF in the morning, however, I can understand some of the complaints from others that they did not run it at night. If someone showed up midday expecting ERT at night on MF, they were out of luck. I did not stay for evening ERT once I saw that MF would not be running. The lines for Magnum were pretty long and we had already had a couple of rides on Wicked Twister.

Overall, I think that Cedar Point did a fairly good job of handling the situation and I will gladly make room in my schedule to drive all night again from NJ to arrive at 5AM.

The only flaw that I saw in the handing out of the "X" tickets was that they were handing them out at the ticket window and for those who had sister park passes they were also handing them out at Guest Relations. My wife, being the honest person that she is, told them at Guest Relations that we already had our "X" tickets, but I noticed later in the morning several people who had two and were basically rewarded twice for TTD being down.

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Jim Hansen
Number of coasters ridden: 244

One thing I'm noticing while reading the Coastermania trip reports is that most of the CBuzzers seemed to understand and ENJOY the experience. So who were the ingrates? I'm guessing it's some of the ACE members. Heck, just getting two front of the line passes, including one exclusively for TTD would have been compensation enough for me...and CP opening DT and Gemini would have satisfied me as well!

Guess I'm just easy to please.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/CPLady.htm

I am bumming over not getting one of these "X" tickets. I wasn't there for the morning announcement to hear about them but if they were passing them out when we bought our tickets, wonder why we didn't get one? Anyone else not get one? The girl working the window was REAL new so I wonder if that had something to do with it.

I am a member of ACE, and while it was disapointing that the right was down I understood that it was having problems and I just excepted it and moved on. I had never been to CP before this trip so I was pleased to be able to experience everything. While I can understand some people being upset that the ride is down, I cannot understand why anyone would cause a fit about it. I mean come on, there isn't anything that anybody could've done to speed it up. This stuff happens, we have to live with it and move on. I, for one, have a FANTASTIC time at CM and I am looking forward to going back to CP sometime before the season is over and not because I have the passes either. As far as I know, Catherine, they were only handing them out for a limited time. I met a nice boy and his grandmother during the lunch, and they were die hard enthusiasts (especially the Grandma, whom I thought rocked) but weren't able to make it early in the morning. After I mentioned the passes, they were curious and walked up to the man who spoke during the lunch and asked him about it and he said that they only had so many to give out and that they gave them all out in the morning. While I would've liked to of seen them give the passes to every CM attendee, they had no idea how many were going to be showing. I don't think they were prepared for 2,000+ enthusiasts showing up.

Overall, I had a great trip and I am preparing my TR to post sometime during the week.

The whole thing with the X tickets seemed like it was either a hit or a miss. Some people got two while others didn't get any because they were either out or simply didn't know about them. Like I mentioned before in my TR, we didn't get the X tickets because we didn't find out about them until later in the morning, but the secretary in the marketing ofiice was more than willing to give us the passes, even without the X tickets, around 4 in the afternoon.

CPLady, if I had to guess who was doing all the complaining, I would have to say it was a few ACE members, as not all were, and probably the people who weren't even enthuiasts at all, but just regular park goers who heard their friends raving about CM and bought club passes just to try to beat some of the lines. I can say I even know of a few instances where this occured.

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Rob - Who believes it is possible to like both Cedar Point and SFWoA...
"A gun is not a weapon Marge, it's a tool. Like a butcher knife, or a harpoon, or... or an alligator" ~Homer J. Simpson
*** This post was edited by Millennium Forced 6/9/2003 5:58:26 PM ***

Well, "regular park goers" couldn't attend CoasterMania without some club membership. Each club member was allowed only one guest.

As Lori said, our group had a great time at CoasterMania this year. Yes, Dragster was down, and that was a bit of a bummer, but Cedar Point went to very good lengths to try to make up for that. I even made it a point of thanking Janice at the end of the night for just that.

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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
My page
"Mary Jane, don't you cry, you can give it a try, Again when the sequel comes out" -- Weird Al, Ode to a Superhero

Even if all you got was the discounted park admission and the all you can eat free lunch, it would be a great deal.

I think the term "enthusiass" is a great description of some of these people who can't be pleased and think the industry owes them just because they like to ride. A lot of people pay full price to ride, you should consider yourself fortunate that the park does anything to accommodate a bunch of whiners.

It's not like the park needs the 2000+ club members to promote the business. After giving a deep discount admission, a free lunch and paying the ride operators extra to run the rides early in the morning and late at night, this event is not even a good business decision.

What did this event get CP? A fairly large group of semi-freeloaders that were whining all day about Dragster and some bad press about how these whiners were disappointed that TTD was not running. I'm surprised CP gives these "enthusiasses" the time of day. I'll take busloads of high school students in the park any day over this.

At least I'd like to say that I certainly appreciated the free lunch and the presentation in the convention center. I went to Kelley's Island instead of staying for the evening ERT 'cause I knew CP wouldn't have enough cheese to go with all the whine.

Let me first say that I was not one of the whiners, however, I can understand some people being disappointed. Cedar Point is not just around the corner for many of those in attendance. Personally, I drove through the night from New Jersey to attend the event as did many others from all over the country. People plan their vacation days around this event, in some cases airfare and hotel, and for many, this was their one and only opportunity of the year to ride TTD. I'm not saying that I condone the whining, but for many it is understandable.

I don't know that it is reasonable to single out ACErs, maybe you should be looking at the distance traveled, money put out on all the above mentioned things, and the ability to easily make it back later in the season before being so hard on some of those who were complaining.

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Jim Hansen
Number of coasters ridden: 244

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SJCoasternut said:

I don't know that it is reasonable to single out ACErs, maybe you should be looking at the distance traveled, money put out on all the above mentioned things, and the ability to easily make it back later in the season before being so hard on some of those who were complaining.

I wouldn't point the finger at 'just' ACE members either. I won't mention any names but I do know of one Buzzer in particular (you know who you are) who said some unkind words about CP when MF was opened early instead of night. I also heard another enthusiasts from another club complain about the "horrible brakes" while sitting in the Magnum brake run. Complaining it universal.

I think there were a lot of ticked off people. I witnessed a large group of people leave when Mr. Innes informed us in the morning that Dragster might not open for the day. I was kind of surprised to see that, but at the same time, I do understand.

I do feel sorry for those that didn't get a ride on TTD. I only live 2 hours away so it wasn't a big deal to me because I know I can always come back, but I do feel for those that live out of state, or even the country. I think I would be a bit sad as well.

I went though something similar when I tried to ride Xcelerator at Knott's. Yea, it took me 4 visits to finally get on the thing, but I was so damn happy to finally ride it, I didn't mind how many times it took for me to ride it.

-Sean F.

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Coastermania and BeastBuzz were the last two stops on our trip, so even though the driving motivation was to ride TTD, we planned to be there whether or not it was open. We knew it would be a 50/50 chance considering all the problems it has already had. While I am disappointed that it was down, the front of the line pass made up for it in two ways. The obvious one is being able to legally line jump right to the front. The second is giving me an excuse to plan a second trip to Cedar Point for this year:).

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Eastcoaster Field of 64

We wanted the Mine Ride and Thunder Canyon ERT! How about White Water Landing and the Corkscrew? No, we get the Gemini and Disaster Transport. NICE!

By the way, the crews on MF do switch. They don't expect them (and can't due to safety laws) to work from 6:30AM until 11PM. Lame response...

Some of the complaining Acers were probably coasterbuzzers as well.

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YOUNGSTOWN 2010
*** This post was edited by jkpark 6/9/2003 10:59:18 PM ***

I haven't read all of the replies above, but for the one's that I have read, I wanted to add my 2 cents about CoasterMania with one suggestion and one thought...

Some background info: I live only 2 hours away from Cedar Point and this was my seventh trip to CoasterMania. This past one had the best weather of all past seven. I was somewhat disappointed that TTD was down, but was ready for it since WT was down for last year's CoasterMania. I got to ride and enjoy the heck out of WT this year, because it was new to me. So I figure, I will get to do the somewhat the same with TTD next year...

Suggestion: Don't be the first one their in the morning. I usually arrive about 30 minutes to one hour after they start the morning ERT. By that time, most of the ERT ride lines are almost walk-ons. With the ERT and riding a few coasters when the first open at 10:00am, I get my major coastering (is that a word?) done in the morning. My wife, two young children, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law then join me at the park from around 11:00am until 6:00pm or 7:00pm. During this time I relax and ride many non-coaster rides and kiddie rides as well. We then leave the park and have a relaxing dinner. Then we get the kids to bed at the hotel, and let Grandma watch them. My wife and I then return to the park around 11:00pm, somewhat refreshed. (And this time, we missed the rain!) Once again, all of the ERT rides are virtual walk-ons.

Thought: When I rode Blue Streak, Wildcat, and the Mine Ride during the day, I ending up sitting next to kids who were around 8 or 9 years old. This was the first time that they had ridden these specific rides in their lives. By watching their faces and reactions, I could tell that they enjoyed riding so much that they made me laugh and scream. I was reminded why I started riding and enjoying coasters and rides so much - I get to feel like (and scream like!) an 8 year old. This is what it is all about for me...

I don't see how you CM ers can be complaining. MF was running for 15 and 1/2 hours!!!!! The swap in the morning was only to try to please the enthusiasts and the ERT at night was better than nothing at all. I have a right to complain b/c I had to go to school Friday and miss the biggest coaster event of the year. If I would have gone, there is no way I would have complained about Millennium Force closing after only 15 1/2 hours of operation. If there is anyone who only came for the night ERT they must have already gotten screwed over that day anyway or have gone crazy.

I can't believe there were silent Magnum rides!! I mean magnum was voted the best ride in the world for 10 years running before the Millennium Force was built. Is that not good enough for today's parkgoer? Just because the 2 tallest rides in the park were closed during an ERT doesn't mean the other world class coasters can't still be awesome. I hope this doesn't effect next year's coastermania because I am going to skip school to come and it better be good.

There is nothing CP could have done about TTD. If it breaks they just have to wait for replacement parts to come in. By the way the TTD has been on the news every night since it stopped operating last week. Does anyone know when it is going to reopen? I hope I can ride it when i go on Friday.
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Riding on top of the world with Cedar Point