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Part 1: Cedar Point 5/17
We started our long drive to the Midwest a lot later than expected on
5/16 due to a leg waxing catastrophe. But about 4:30 or so my
girlfriend, Erin, and I left for Ohio. Brian (razzle dazzle) was
going to let us stay with his family, but as it was going to be around
1:00 or 2:00 in the morning when we got into the area we decided to
just find a cheap hotel near the park.
We woke up around noon the next day and moseyed over to the park.
Erin has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which basically means she can't wake
up in the morning and gets horrible headaches if she over exerts
herself or exercises too much. This was a big factor in my planning
of the trip, and the spacing out of the coasters and drive.
The parking lot seemed kind of empty, but I usually use the soak city
parking lot so it was hard to tell. We went to the front gate and I
bought Erin a Maxx Pass as a birthday present (really more a birthday
present for me when you think about it) and after a quick processing
we were in the park.
We went to Demon Drop first. Erin had never been on a 1st Gen
freefall, but she's a big fan of drop rides in general. We both loved
the ride, and I shed a small tear for stuntman's freefall at GrAdv.
We skipped raptor because the line was a little over an hour and
walked to disaster transport, of course buying the 3D glasses.
Disaster Transport may be one of my favorite amusement park
experiences ever. The terrible themeing of the line, the swinging
robot arms back and forth, the reject light that keeps flashing, and
the welcome to Alaska at the end all come together to make this ride
crack me up the entire time. The ride itself is fun, but I'd probably
skip it if it was outdoors.
We decided to wait the 20 minutes for Wicked Twister, but after 5
minutes in the line she broke down. Instead of waiting it out we left
and walked over to Iron Dragon. I'm not a big Wicked Twister fan, so
no big loss (except Erin's credit, she will hit 100 by the end of the
summer, I promise).
Iron Dragon is not worth a paragraph. Fun, but mostly just boring.
We went next door to Mantis and after a 30 minute wait we boarded the
second row. I like Mantis a lot. I have since the first time I rode
it. The brake on the first drop was not noticeable, and the midcourse
was on pretty light as well. They were running 2 trains and doing a
decent job of keeping them moving. I love the quick side to side
snaps all over the Mantis course, especially the one before the
midcourse. This was Erin's first stand up coaster and she loved it,
it ended up being one of her favorites in the park along with TTD and
Magnum.
After we got off Mantis we went across the way to my favorite ride in
the park and favorite steel coaster, millennium force. On the walk
over I realized that my keys were not clipped to my belt loop like
normal. I was hoping that they were locked in the car and not lost on
a coaster, but either way I wasn't going to stress over it until our
day at the park was over. No sense letting something you can't do
anything about ruin a good time.
I was amazed at how big of a line this ride still keeps 7 years after
it opened. With all three trains running and good intervals the line
still turned out to be about an hour. The last few rides I've taken
on MF have been in the front seat, so I decided to grab a ride in the
back this time. The ride was smooth and graceful as always. This
ride seems like a ballet to me just the way the turns are and the
forces you feel throughout the ride. Everything is stretched the
perfect amount to handle the high speeds and keeping solid forces on
you the whole time. S:ROS at SFNE is an amazing coaster, but for me
it can't touch the grace and charm of Millennium Force. I do like the
front side of the train better, especially the front seat, but the
back did not disappoint. Erin liked the ride a lot, but it wasn't her
favorite ride in the park.
After getting our on-ride picture we continued walking to the back of
the park, stopping in a few specialty glass and wood stores on the
way. The back area of the park is really beautiful. I love the walk
from MF to the mine train. We stood around and watched them take the
barrel roll off of Maverick. Now that me and Erin both have CF
passes, we will definitely be coming back sometime before the summer
is over to ride this awesome looking coaster. We also stopped in the
museum and looked at the old pictures for a few minutes.
Then we headed to the Cedar Creek Mine Ride and walked onto a seat
near the back. It was a little bumpy, but overall a nice, fun ride.
Not one of my favorite mine trains, but I like the wood structure and
the final helix is fun.
Right past the idle Maverick and walked on to Mean Streak. It shook,
it squeaked, it was slow and bumpy. Beautiful coaster but hardly
worth a ride.
After Mean Streak we jumped on Gemini after a 3 or 4 train wait. They
were only running the right side (standing in the station facing the
direction of the trains) which took out a lot of the fun, but it was
still a great ride like always. I got some pretty good air on a few
of the drops which was a very nice surprise.
The park was going to close at 7, and it was about 5:15 by now, so we
started to pick up our walking pace. The only coasters left that we
really had to hit were Magnum and Raptor, but I was hoping to get a
ride on Blue Streak as well.
Magnum was a 2 or 3 train wait for a seat near the front. I think we
ended up in 2-1 actually. Really fun ride with air all over the Vs, I
mean hills. I've always liked the ride, but I've never found it that
impressive. It's a pretty harsh contrast to the gracefulness of MF.
It ended up being one of Erin's favorite steels of the trip.
On the walk to raptor I noticed corkscrew was a walk-on, so we grabbed
a quick ride. I like the hill before the loop a lot. Nice fun
coaster, not much head banging.
We also stopped and grabbed a ride on Cedar Downs. Erin ended up
winning, that jerk.
Blue Streak was a walk-on as well, so we snagged a quick ride on the
classic woodie. Nice air over most of the hills, overall a smooth
ride. I liked it a lot and it remains one of my favorites in the park
(I like it better than Magnum). It's just a lot of fun.
Raptor was up next and the wait at this point was down to 2 cars. We
rode in the back, but were stuck on the left side. This is one of my
favorite inverts. Actually, B&M inverts in general are probably my
favorite type of looping coasters. This one falls somewhere in the
middle of the B&M inverts, but is a really great ride. The intensity
level remains perfect for the course, and the ride is long enough and
covers a lot of ground staying interesting the whole time.
It was only about 6:30 at this point so we RAN over to try and catch a
goodnight ride on Dragster. The line was just barely out of the
station and in about 15 minutes we were seated somewhere toward the
back. I don't know what it is, but I love this coaster. I'm not
really a Kingda Ka fan and tend to skip it on my GrAdv trips. It's
probably the lack of shaking, the much more efficient
loading/unloading procedure, the lack of those uncomfortable and
cumbersome OTSRs, and the much better view from the top that make me
like this better than KK. Erin didn't really care at all about KK on
our PPP trip last fall, but she LOVED dragster.
I was also excited that I got to ride because on my trip last year it
closed due to rain after we waited 30 minutes, and that was after
spending all day warming up to it and convincing my two friends that
it wasn't that scary. Erin doesn't get scared of coasters, we just
walked past early in the day because we had more important things to
ride than a near KK clone. I was happy we got to ride it at the end.
The launch is so exhilarating.
We stopped to press a penny and then went to lost and found to see if
they had our keys. We actually went to the locker rental place who
called Lost and Found for us, but no luck. We went out to the car and
couldn't see the keys anywhere, but called triple A anyway, thanks to
some nice guys parked near us in the lot (our phones were locked in
the car for the day). AAA told us that CP had their own car rescue
service and gave us their number. 10 minutes later we were let into
the car where the keys were sitting under my bag! Score!
Stopped at Fridays for dinner (sadly they didn't have a view of the
park) where I got the staff to sign Happy Birthday to Erin (it's
actually this Sunday, she's finally 21!) Then we drove over to
Brian's (thanks again for letting us stay!) and watched lost before
heading to bed.
After a bumpy start with the waxing fiasco, the first park-day of the
trip turned out to be an absolute blast. I love Cedar Point and Erin
felt the same way. She can't wait to get back there for Maverick (and
her other 3 credits on Gemini, wicked twister, and Woodstock Express)
so we'll definitely try to get out there once more this summer.
Up Next: day 1 of Holliwood Nights. If that doesn't come out later
today you can expect it early next week. Hopefully I'll be able to
type out the whole trip before the memories are too far away. Hope
you liked the read
Back in my bus driving days, we would go into the park and everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) was close to an hour wait. And a lot of those bus trips were sanctioned school trips that went out during the weekdays during the last week of school.
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