It's been a long time since I've been to Cedar Point - in fact, the last time I was there, Mantis hadn't been built yet. So Friday was finally the day. I've never been overwhelmed with CP; to me, it's like the world's biggest amusement park filled with mundane rides. Don't get me wrong - I like it. I just don't love it. I certainly think it's a park every enthusiast should visit. But they've always lacked that ride that just stands above everything else. I think Gemini was supposed to be it, but that failed. Then they built Mean Streak which had all kinds of potential, but they saw to ruining that real quickly.
It's a 9 hour drive from my house, so we left around 12:30 a.m. Thursday night/Friday morning, and just drove until we got there. We walked into the park at 10:45 a.m. on Friday. We had to stop for breakfast and to get gas along the way.
First up - Top Thrill Dragster. Heck, it was running, and we figured the line could only get longer as the day went on. We waited an hour, which was much less than I'd feared. Later in the day, we waited another hour, so the line remained consistent. I don't think one ride on a coaster is a fair way to judge it. After 2 rides, I must say I liked it. It's still not the crowning ride they need, but it's smooth, very fast, and great fun. In fact, the back seat proved to be a little more intense than I'd expected - I really like the ride! It ran throughout the day, too! I think Volcano's launch is better, but overall, this is my 2nd favorite launched coaster - and so much, much, much better than PKD's awful Hypersonic.
Next up - Millennium Force. I've heard so much about the ride, but trusted a close friend's opinion the most. He proved to be right. It's NOT Superman at SFNE. It's too tame. The drop is good. It's long. It's fast. But it just doesn't do anything noteworthy for me. I like the extreme neg. g's and intensity of Superman at SFNE. MF is like a tame version of that - built for grandma. I rode it twice. It's in my top ten steel for sure. But the best I can do is rate it #5. It was an hour wait each time.
On to Wicked Twister. Blah. I've ridden 2 others of these, and don't think much of the whole concept. Disaster Transport was fun for what it is. The wait was longer than I'd expected. MaxAir. More blah. Frisbee is far superior in my opinion.
Rode Raptor. I never liked it. Still don't. Rode Blue Streak (practically walk on) - fairly smooth and fast. Just too small for such a major park.
We ate lunch at the Midway Market - $11.95 for a very decent buffet. I especially liked the desserts!
Tried Mantis. Never again. I don't like and never have liked B&M, but this seemed very violent and painful to me. Sorry - but I wish B&M would go out of business. And I know few agree with me.
Iron Dragon looks kind of odd in its new colors. It's too vibrant and obvious for such a small and slow ride. It certainly ranks as the poorest suspended coaster.
Magnum had about a 10 minute wait. I have never gotten into Magnum. Still don't. Badly shaped hills, a poorly engineered ride - it just bangs up my back. Yes, it has airtime - but mostly as the result of pointed hills because Arrow didn't seem to know how to bend track. Once was enough.
To their credit, CP had max trains available on everything (except the mine ride). I don't know where the 5th and 6th trains are for Gemini - 4 were running. But it was walkon. Gemini is ok - nice racer, but again, suffers from Arrow bumps, and poor padding. No brakes though - I've never ridden it brake-free from lift to ending brake run! The spiral was really fast at the end - as was the EXTREMELY abrupt stop when trains were in the station. On one ride, no train was ahead of us so we just zoomed into the station.
Mean Streak - so sad. So slow. Fairly smooth and seems taken care of, but why is it so SLOW? and so banked for so slow???? It's capable of so much, but CP had to be sure to add brakes, wreck the profile, and bank it so it has no force to deliver. They had 3 trains running with no wait whatsoever. I don't know if the lack of wait is indicative of how they've ruined the ride or the fact that no one was in the back of the park.
The mine ride was ok.
In all, it was fun. CP looks good. It's kept up, the landscaping is attractive. It definitely needs more shade trees. But they run to capacity well. The employees are not out-of-their-way friendly, but they're not rude either. It's still the world's biggest collection of fairly mundane rides, but TTD and MF help that. They need a dark ride of quality desperately. And they need a classic merry-go-round building instead of that hideous thing they stuck inside the front gate. I'm glad I went, and really glad to have been on TTD and MF. Next - Six Flags Great Adventure.
Bob Hooley