Well, I graduated from high school this weekend, that was great, and to celebrate, a few friends and I took a trip to Cedar Point for the day.
We arrived at the park around 10:10-10:15 to the most perfect weather you could possibly ask for for a day in the park: sunny and 75, and I got my season pass and we headed into the park. The park was pretty much empty as we got there, but Raptor?????????s line was almost an hour, so we figured everyone in the park was there. We headed back towards MF, but we stopped at Wildcat on the way because we felt like it. This is a fun ride as always. It's small, but it's worth a 10 minute wait or so in my opinion.
Then, we took the train back to Maverick, even though there was a 20 minute wait for Force (we really wanted to ride Maverick, and we figured since it was still early, that it?????????d still have a short line). We were right; it did have a short line. Of course, it was also broken down for the time being, and given the fact that there wasn't anyone in the queue at all, we figured it had yet to open for the day. They were testing, though?????????
As we walked up to our next ride, Gemini, we discovered that that, too, was down. So we went to Magnum. This is definitely a must ride if you've never been to CP. It has a load of great airtime and some stunning views of the lake. Unfortunately, no pics of it, since I forgot [:(]
After that we hit Top Thrill Dragster, another must ride. The power of the launch blows me away every time I ride it. We were lucky enough to arrive at the ride just as they were starting to test it for the first time of the day (everything seemed to be breaking for some reason) so we waited at about the launch area for like 10 minutes before they finally let us in the queue, and then it was 15 minutes from there. Of course, you can't pass up a front seat ride with that sort of wait time, so one of my friends joined me in the 20-minute-long front seat queue. Incredible ride, as always, and the front seat lets the wind flow so freely through your hair and face that it's almost unreal.
After TTD, we headed back to the Chuck Wagon for lunch, expecting $5 pizza slices. What we found instead were $15 plates of ribs. Discouraged and slightly pissed off at the outrageous prices, we headed across the way to the chicken finger and burger shop, where our anger was lessened slightly by the slightly-less-outrageous prices for chicken (it's $9.25 for 3 chicken fingers and fries). So we ate, and when we looked at Maverick?????????s queue, it was well over an hour, so we decided to hold off on that one until later. We walked along the Frontier Trail over towards Millennium Force, hoping the line would still be 20 minutes of a half hour, and we were right! Of course, with our luck, it broke down almost immediately after we entered the line, which bummed us out a bit.
Fortunately, because of the breakdown, people were leaving at a faster rate than they would have been getting on the ride, so we actually gained time by waiting out the downtime. After it was back up and running, the wait had been cut to about 10 minutes, which made us very happy. The ride on MF was?????????well not bad. Riding with your best friends definitely enhances the experience because you can shout profanities at each other without young children looking at you strangely , but it is still and always will be a mediocre ride compared to Maverick.
This one was from the train, but still an incredible shot!
After Millennium Force we hit up the Dippin????????? Dots stand, and then it was off to Mantis. I still hate this ride, and probably always will. It's not that it's bad, per se, but it's just so meh?????????but who cares; it's perfect for photo?????????ing:
Notice anything weird about the lift in this picture?
And this one?????????s not really of Mantis, but it was taken from the Mantis queue, so?????????.
I did some simple editing on it to make it look better; it was horribly out of focus when I took it, so I had to do something. As perfect as the weather was, CP?????????s sky isn't actually that pretty.
Anyway, after Mantis, we finally decided that it was worth it to wait a while for maverick, so we did. The wait was just over an hour, which we didn't think was too bad, and all of us thought it was totally worth it, even the MF fanboys in our group!
Maverick is literally the perfect ride. It combines speed, intensity, relentless pacing, length, everything. It's just incredible. Plus, I managed to slouch a lot when the rideops came by to check my restraint, so it was really loose for the drop [:D]
[/img]
The loser with his thumbs up is one of the guys in my group?????????
The freak with his hands up in this shot is one of the other guys in our group?????????
This was taken at the same time as the previous 2 pics, but after some simple editing, I managed to make it look like a beautiful sunset shot! I just love Maverick at sunset. Somewhere I have a shot through the corkscrews with the sun shining through. Absolutely breathtaking, so if you go on or around Memorial Day, be sure to look for that!
On our way out of the park for dinner, we hit up Raptor since it had a 10 minute wait. I don't like this ride for some reason. Either it's too rough, too repetitive, or to something. I much prefer Talon over Raptor, even. However, you should ride it if you get the chance to go to CP since it's sort of a park staple. After Raptor, we left the park for dinner at East of Chicago Pizza, a buffet next door to the Breakers Express hotel. It's a much better value than the park food, and tastes much better; $7 for an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet with every kind of pizza you could hope for. After dinner, my ankle that had been bothering me all day finally died on me, so I hung out in the Donut Time internet cafe (hands down the best deal in the park: $2.25 for bottomless Starbucks coffee, and free wifi!) near the front of the park while the rest of my group rode something. I think they went to Blue Streak and Wicked Twister, but I'm not sure.
After a while, some of them came to get donuts, and we hung out for a little while then I garnered enough strength to make it back to MF to give it another ride in the evening. But as we walked up, we found out that the other half of the group was already in line, but that it?????????d only be a few minutes (well, that's what they told us anyway) so we waited it out so we could all ride together. by the time they got done, they didn't want to ride it again, plus it was almost 10, so we headed back to Maverick to get one last ride on it. But, as our luck would have it, it was broken. AGAIN. We were told it wasn't going to open again for the night, but since my ankle was killing me, we stayed to wait it out, just in case. At 9:59, they began loading the trains, but they still turned us away from boarding the ride. Obviously, that wasn't cool, so we complained quietly to ourselves for a while about it. But whatever, it gave us more time to wander slowly through the Starlight something-or-other along frontier trail.
This part of Cedar Point is wonderful at night. It's peaceful, with classical music playing and the lights dancing all around you. It's also wonderful for photos if you have a decent camera, which I didn't, but I did my best:
Even though Shoot The Rapids isn't open yet, it's still a nice addition to the park, especially in its location, day and night:
So there you have it: my first trip report, and definitely not my last! I hope you enjoyed it!