Fathers Day at CP 2023 (This is Part 3)

As always, press play for the full effect.

Happy to be Home

If you read parts 1 and 2, you might not be surprised to learn that after getting home Thursday night the last thing on my mind was hitting the road again. After driving through that storm for two straight hours I just wanted to crawl into bed for a day. Or two. That said, Father’s Day was happening on Sunday, and I was just looking forward to relaxing. Then on Friday, after we finally woke up, my wife asked me what I would like to do for Father’s Day, and she came armed with an idea I couldn’t say no to.

The plan?

Head to Cedar Point for Father’s Day and open and close the point, and this time instead of pitching a tent…

....As I was saying, this time instead of pitching a tent we would book a room somewhere close by, and on the way home on Monday we would stop at Boston Mills (Cuyahoga Valley National Park) to take a family run and have a picnic. Yes, we take family runs. Also, since we enjoyed the dining plan so much (see Part 2), we would get a plan for Mom and Dad, and a plan for the 2 girls so we could really enjoy all the food all day. This will become somewhat important (and/or amusing) later.

OK wife, you convinced me. Happy Father’s Day to me!

Father’s Day

Truth be told, Father’s Day at Cedar Point has quietly become somewhat of a tradition for us. While we don’t go every year, we have spent numerous Father’s Days at the park.

We love the pride-vibe going on at the park and the crowds are typically great as far as Cedar Point goes. We snagged a great deal ($135) for a night at Breakers Express, so the plan was in motion. Father’s Day at CP did not disappoint. Since we had the dining plans we started the day at the Pavilion with some good food and a Bumbleberry for me. There are two wonderful bartenders on the second floor named Vic and Hunter who know their stuff. Hunter added some blue & blackberries to my Bumbleberry without me even having to ask. Pics or it didn’t happen:

With the light crowds, we did a lot of riding, and with our dining plans we did a lot of eating. I’m still a little shocked that the food has leveled up as much as it has. Park was open from 10 am to 10 pm, and we were well on our way to having a full fun day at the park

The Dark Side of Churro

I know, it’s Churro. He’s adorable. But about five minutes after this picture was taken he proceeded to repeatedly spit food at my daughters and a small group of kids after throwing an angry tantrum in the pen.

Two kids cried and screamed and ran away. My girls thought it was funny at first, but then the 15-year-old (Kylah) got all introspective and mentioned that maybe we would get pissed off to if we were locked in a little pen and made the center of attention. I probably would spit my food at the audience every once in a while too.

She wants to be a vet.

Stuck in the Middle

There is a first time for everything. During parts 1 and 2 of our adventure there was one ride we were never able to ride, and that ride is Maverick. So much downtime. My girls love it, my wife can take it or leave it, but I also love it so during this surprise return trip we had one goal; ride the Maverick!

After a disappointing morning of it not working, it finally opened after a lap on Steel Vengeance. After a 30- minute wait we were sitting in the train ready to ride, which at that point seemed like a minor miracle. It was a great ride. Until…

We rode into the tunnel and the train noises started as usual. After about 10 seconds or so, the sound effects stopped, and my wife looked over at me and said, “Is this new?”. I laughed it off and said “Maybe”, but then we quickly realized we were stuck in the middle of Maverick. Of course for my family this was now a running inside joke, but after about 20 seconds of silence I loudly stated…”Well, we got to ride half of Maverick!”. The joke killed, and the train laughed. Until 10 more minutes went by and we were still stuck in a dark and pretty hot tunnel.

Eventually a worker came in and said that we would eventually be launching. He was good at working the disgruntled train (even though I’m pretty sure my kids thought this was fun, which to be honest so did I). He also said that this was the third time this had happened today, and that the launch from a complete stand-still would be even better than the normal tunnel launch.

He wasn’t wrong. After about 20 minutes he gave us a countdown from 10 (of course launching us at around the number 7), and that was hands-down the best Maverick tunnel launch I have ever had.

What’s funny is that in over 4 decades of visiting Cedar Point this was the first breakdown I have ever had on a roller coaster. Fun times, and goodnight, Cedar Point. After this we rode and rode and ate some more until we were all ready to head to Breakers Express by around 9:00. The pool awaits, after all, and that’s what the kiddos really want.

Breakers Express (or, “It can’t Hurt to Ask”)

If you remember the plan (above), we wanted to hit the road and go for a family run at Boston Mills the next day. That said, we were exhausted from a full day at the park and, to be honest, still tired from our earlier adventure. So I asked for a late checkout. That’s all I asked for. I was expecting a kind “no”, since this is Cedar Point, and they are likely booked, but it can’t hurt to ask.

Somewhere in the conversation I mentioned we were also celebrating our anniversary that week at the park, and the front desk worker (Andrew) said he wanted to go speak with his manager about the late checkout.

OK.

Within a couple minutes, the manager (Brianna), told us she would be more than happy to help us with late checkout, and kept going on about how happy she was we decided to celebrate our anniversary and Father’s Day at the park. She and Andrew then said they wanted to make our visit even more special and offered us 4 individual all-day-dining-passes and 4 all-day-drink-passes for the next day. What?

This is going to sound beyond sappy, but I’ll just put it out there. Cedar Point is more than just a place for us, and this was an awesome reminder of how a simple gesture from the park’s employees can remind one of that. While our kids were splashing around in the pool we decided to say “screw it” to our earlier plans and agreed to go back the next day (Juneteenth). I had to go to the lobby to get a new t-shirt (I didn’t pack for an extra day unlike my wife who always packs for the apocalypse), but we ended Father’s Day on a surprising gift for the park.

I only asked for late check out.

Juneteenth

Armed with our bonus dining and drink passes, the Meyer family spent an unexpected bonus day at the park. It was really busy, which meant long lines on most of the big rides, but we had a blast as a family slowing down (whether or not RCMAC believes it or not!) and just taking in the atmosphere of our happy place. I’ll just leave these pics here of our girls having the time of their life, which is about as good as it it gets.

Time is fleeting.

My girls are growing up.

Thanks for giving me an extra day to play with them, Cedar Point.

The End.

Awesome conclusion and final photo. Especially since we started this whole thing off with a photo of you and your wife from years ago.

I’ve been trying to make a larger effort to participate and enjoy park attractions outside of coasters and it was awesome you focused your report mostly on non-coaster activities. Great story about the story at Breakers. I think many of us can be jaded in that companies want to do whatever they can to charge for everything, but small gestures like that mean a lot. I’m glad y’all had a ball. Can’t wait for the report in 2024.

OhioStater:

My girls are growing up.

Our first-ever visit as a family to CP was with a toddler and a preschooler; we stayed in the dearly (?) departed Sandcastle. The toddler has a history of not liking food but convincing himself over and over to try them because his big sister loved them, and he wanted to do whatever she was doing. These included carbonated beverages, french fries, ice cream, and chocolate. For real.

His big sister has loved every ride she has ever been on, and she would ride anything as soon as she was tall enough to go. True to form, he was Not A Fan, and it took him a good 10-12 years before he finally turned the corner*. But, that first trip he was not a fan of much of anything, and truly scared of a few things. We worried that we had scarred him for life (we were Relatively New And Over-Educated Parents).

As we walked back to Sandcastle, right along that very same stretch of beach, he looked up at us and said: "Nice day."

Now he's a 6'2" graduate student who lives in West LA and owns a surfboard. But the memory of him in that stroller will be one I hold on to for a very long time.

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*: Our metric for "is he a fan" was never to ask "Did you like that?" because he thought he was supposed to. Instead, we asked "Do you want to ride that again?" and the answer was most often no, with a few lukewarm I guesses thrown in there. Imagine my surprise when we got off Apollo's Chariot in a back-row ride when he enthusiastically answered "YES!" and ran around to get in line again.

He will never be an enthusiast--he'd rather go hiking (we did this one today), surfing, or golfing than hit an amusement park. But, he's good to go on most anything these days, and will usually take a second lap.

Great report(s). I had been saving these because I didn't want to breeze through them. Good reads, all three.

Taking my kid for our annual camping trip late July and hoping for a better weather experience than yours! (Other child and wife going to see ManU in NYC. They may have the better trip planned.)

And we also do the same thing with the dining plan. Get one and graze all day. It's great for a hot day, you never get too bloated or filled up. Glad to hear that the food choices are improving. We've focused on BackbeatQue the last few times and although it's great for park food, it's barely average for a BBQ place.