Cedar Point

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

Great trip report. I agree with you about your statement, "the world's biggest amusement park filled with mundane rides.".
I only live about 5 hours away from the park and yet I have made no real effort to get there. I have yet to visit the park and will only visit if my family takes a trip there or a coaster trip passes by the park. To me, it just looks a little too big for its own good. I would gladly pass up all those coasters for a visit to a smaller park like Lake Compounce, Kennywood, Silverwood, etc.

You must be one of those who rides in the front or back of the cars on Magnum. In those seats, it sure is back splitting. However a seat in the middle row serves to be smoother than most wooden rides but still just as intense. You dont even feel the bone-jarring arrow transitions because the vibrations are not felt when you arent over the wheels. You have to ride in one row than the next to prove it.

For someone who loves wooden coasters, and classics at that, I would find it hard to believe that sitting in the middle row could be worse on you than wooden coasters. Im a wood coaster fanatic - so its not like Im preaching steel here.


As for MS, it was never reprofiled. They did retrack the exit to the MCB because it shuffled ridiculously, but the trims destroy what laterals and airtime there was - which was remote. Its just not a classic wooden ride, never was and never will be.


I agree with you Mantis. Its not B&M's crowning acheivement, thats for sure.

[Brtnboarder495]

I find all of CP's major coasters to be enjoying to some point. Yep, MF is quite fun and fast, but can't compare to SROS @ SFNE. Sounds like you had fun on TTD, good thing. When I rode in the front row, we had no air (ok some, but we crawled over). I was dissapointed but nevertheless fun. I can't believe you don't like magnum but you like SROS, they both have lots of air, of course magnum jerks you over the hills. I actually love it personally! Anyway, sounds like you had fun!

Originally posted by Real

You must be one of those who rides in the front or back of the cars on Magnum. In those seats, it sure is back splitting. However a seat in the middle row serves to be smoother than most wooden rides but still just as intense. You dont even feel the bone-jarring arrow transitions because the vibrations are not felt when you arent over the wheels. You have to ride in one row than the next to prove it.

As for MS, it was never reprofiled. They did retrack the exit to the MCB because it shuffled ridiculously, but the trims destroy what laterals and airtime there was - which was remote. Its just not a classic wooden ride, never was and never will be.

In fact, we sat in the front seat of the last car. We were trying to ride with someone else (who was in the back seat of the next-to-last car, and he ended up in the train ahead of us anyway. Worse, he had to go sit on a bench because his back hurt. I didn't get off Magnum feeling like my back hurt; I just don't enjoy the kind of airtime it delivers. Or maybe it's because I don't think they intended it - it's just bad hill designing (in my opinion). Of course, generally, I like Arrow rides. I just never "got" Magnum. Maybe if the seats were padded the way most woodies are....

As for Mean Streak, I'd heard they called in John Pierce to re-do portions of it at the same time he re-did (and ruined) Hercules. I think the only thing he did to Mean Streak was to increase the banking on the first couple of turns after the first drop. However, that was unnecessary with the horrible braking on the first drop. IF in fact those turns were rebanked, and I believe they were, that's the reason I termed it "reprofiling".

Ahh, that could be. I dont see how it ever pulled enough lats and like you said, with the trims it seems to defeat the purpose.


As for Magnum, next time you are ever there ride the middle row. The airtime is actually quite different. I just remember how much I hated the ride till someone suggested that to me and it was a totally different ride. Airtime is still abrupt, but the shock value is reduced and you actually arent crushed into your bar like normal.

Sitting on the axels is NOT fun, I never reccommend it.

^What about the 3rd row? (where they all say has the most airtime) I was going to try it this year but never got to it since I was busy with TTD and MF.

The thrid row is very bumpy, but like it's ejector seat name, It has loads of airtime (if the trim before the turnaround isn't working). It's up to you whether the extra airtime is worth breaking your spine. I recommend rideing in the second row. Get a lot of the wind that the front seat has, and a lot of the airtime the ejector seat has, and it's much less bumpy. I was there yesterday, I know how it's running.

^Yeah, that explains why the corkscrew wasn't so rough, I was in the rear seats of the car when I rode it. I remember riding the very back of Magnum one year, it was pretty painful.