Cedar Point (Sandusky, OH) is the premier park owned by Cedar Fair (the company that also owns my local Valleyfair). Excluding Top Thrill Dragster (which is currently not operating due to an investigation surrounding an injury a bystander suffered), the park has 15 roller coasters. The park is located on a peninsula on Lake Erie that also includes a water park, a hotel, beachcraft rentals, and some restaurants. This was my second time to the park; I went once about 10 years ago with a friend but we weren’t able to ride any of the top coasters (we waited 2 hours in line for Millennium Force, but it shut down twice). My morning began with Mass and breakfast at the Motel 6 along I-75 in Sidney, OH. The drive to Cedar Point took about 1.5 hours. I wasn’t aware of any shuttle to the park (although I saw one later), so I paid the high parking fee at the park. I was planning to meet up with an acquaintance from the Imagineering forum who has a season pass to Cedar Point, but he suffered some car trouble on the way there. I found out that I’d be alone for the day after I rode my first ride–Valraven dive coaster. With a couple of straight-down drops, it was already an improvement over my first trip to Cedar Point. It is difficult to reconstruct the entire visit a few months afterwards, but I’ll try. Many of the coasters did not have a place to leave a bag on them (unlike the coasters at Valleyfair), so I found places to hide my bag while I rode. I rode some of the other coasters on the left side of the park. Blue Streak is an old wooden coaster that still is delightful to ride. There is the Raptor inverted coaster that set records when it opened. Iron Dragon is a suspended coaster that isn’t high speed, but it’s still fun. I rode the Rogarou floorless coaster twice. Millennium Force is worth describing, in part, due to my long anticipation for it. The lines were much shorter this time around–10 minutes the first time, and 20 minutes the second time. There’s some cheesy space-techno music when you get to the show building. Millennium Force was the first coaster (in 2000) to exceed 300 feet. It has an accelerated lift hill that helps get the train to the top quickly. And then it’s all speed from there! Once a world record holder (the first coaster to pass 200 feet in height), Magnum XL-200 is showing its age! This bumpy and jerky ride was not worth a second ride even without any wait! In great contrast to Magnum, the Rocky Mountain Construction designed Steel Vengeance was a ride that I couldn’t get enough of! It’s a steel coaster that uses wooden supports but it does rolls that it seems like it shouldn’t be able to do. Perhaps the first sign that something was different with this coaster is the fact that there are metal detectors in the queue. If anyone (including myself the first time) had any sort of metal (or anything that was not secure like a hat), they had to be locked in a locker (luckily, they were free this time). Those who cleared the metal detector benefited from a slightly-shorter ride. From the first big drop to the end, the coaster rolls you every possible way. I rode it a second time. Maverick had a bit of a wait, but it was well worth it! It is a steel coaster that features a launch up-hill and into a beyond-vertical (95 degree) first drop. Gemini is a racing coaster that features two tracks. The other coaster I rode was Gatekeeper, a winged coaster that I was beginning to black-out on (I didn’t ride that a second time). Although not a coaster, Windseeker was my favorite memory from my first trip. It is a 301-foot tall swing ride, which looks particularly great at night. This time I rode it, a woman got escorted off the ride for having her phone out during the ride. The ride had to re-start. I rode other rides such as the Matterhorn (a circular gondola style ride), Troika, maXair, Tiki Twirl (an ode to an Imagineering friend), Midway Carousel, and Cedar Downs Racing Derby (a high speed carousel-style ride that closed out my day). One non-coaster that I want to describe a little bit more is the new Snake River Expedition. As can be seen in the pictures, it’s a highly-themed boat ride with narration similar to the Jungle Cruise at Disney parks. The boat makes a few stops on the ride where some dialogue and action takes place. Although the narration wasn’t anywhere close to the Jungle Cruise, I’m hopeful that Cedar Point can hone it over time. Food offerings in the park were pretty high quality and had short waits. I had some BBQ brisket for lunch and then an Italian sandwich for dinner. I had considered eating at Melt, which is a famous grilled sandwich shop in Cleveland, but decided against it due to the price and time required. I also celebrated a major Supreme Court decision with a draft beer in the park.
I watched a couple of shows, too. There was a saloon-style show that was well done. The evening ended with what I would best describe as a show choir performance on a big stage. Overall, it was a great day, and I was happy to just get into my room at my hotel (since there wasn’t anyone working the front desk)! The next day, I visited the Merry-Go-Round Museum in downtown Sandusky. I grew in awe of the artsmanship that goes into crafting all of the animals. The visit ended with a ride on a Merry-Go-Round; I rode the papa sea monster.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
Categories
All
|