PHOTO Two Day Trip Report to Cedar Point by Ashers & Kjkjkj

[Ashers]

Cedar Point Two Day Trip Report

July 10th & 11th

Ashers & Kjkjkj

This is a trip report by Ashley & Kyle(brother & sister). We had gone on a family trip to the Sandusky area about 5 years ago. Ashley remembers getting on pretty much every rollercoaster except for Dragster(it was broken down of course!) Kyle was too short and/or scared to get on most things but he did ride Millenium Force & Magnum and liked them! Ashley’s favorite coaster at the park was Millie and she even got to ride in the front seat. We decided to plan this trip kind of on the spur of the moment and it was just Ashley & Kyle this time around! We were definitely excited because now that Kyle loves coasters we knew we wanted to experience everything that CP has to offer!

Day 1 July 10th 2008:

We leave Ashley’s house in Columbus at about 6:30am with only about 4 hours of sleep! We stop at a Tim Horton’s for a quick breakfast of cinnamon rolls, bagels & iced cappuccinos. We stopped at a gas station to fill up and get some ice for our cooler. Gas=$3.89/gallon…it cost $25 to fill up half a tank! We plan on getting to the park before 10:00am. The song that started off our trip was Brainpower by Freezepop! The weather forecast for our two days at Cedar Point is supposed to be 80 and sunny on Thurs & 84 and partly cloudy for Friday. After a pit stop at McDonalds for a quick bathroom break we were on our way again. The trip took about 3 hours(we took mostly back roads!). We arrived at Cedar Point right before 10:00am. The lake looked absolutely gorgeous. We were extremely excited to see the skyline of the park. We had forgotten just how tall Millie looks in the distance! We paid for parking and parked pretty close to the front entrance.

As we started walking up to the front we were so excited! The weather was beautiful and the breeze coming off of the lake was great. We used our pay once visit twice tickets and walked into the front entrance. First things first bathroom break! We then headed over to rent a locker for the day because we didn’t want to carry our cameras around with us all day long. That took a little while but after that we were on our way. We walked past Raptor and noticed right away that there was a sign in front of the entrance that said “This ride is temporarily closed”. Hmmm.There was also a crane near the lift hill, but there was nobody to ask why it was closed so we just assumed that there were mechanical problems. We had hoped it would be fixed by the end of our trip! We had been talking about making TTD our first ride of the day so we walked back that way and surprise, surprise TTD was CLOSED. We asked the person at the front of the entrance and he just said “no idea.” and was actually being kind of rude but oh well. We spotted Matterhorn and decided to go on since we’d never really been on that type of ride before. Not an AMAZING first ride of the day but it was really fun! It got us pumped up to ride the bigger rides! We then walked back towards Magnum and saw that Witches Wheel was also closed but we had no clue why. At that point we were talking about how we wish it was like Kings Island how they have the sign at the front of the park that will tell you what rides are closed for the day. But we digress. Magnum was posted at about a 15 minute wait but it was only about a 5 minute wait so we decided to wait for the front car. All we can say about Magnum is WOW! We had both ridden it before but had forgotten how much fun this ride is. The airtime is spectacular! The airtime in the tunnel totally caught both of us off guard. What a great coaster to start the day on! And the view of the lake going up the first hill is awesome! We would definitely both agree that this ranks in our top 5!

After Magnum we headed over to Gemini. About a 15 min wait time. They were only running one train(red) and we sat somewhere towards the middle. We got stuck on the lift hill and the lady behind us was freaking out going “This is SO not cool. I want to get off this is SO NOT COOL.” We were cracking up. It was like only halfway up the tiny lift hill..lol. So we were only stuck for 30 seconds and on our way again. Once again the airtime on this coaster was so much fun. We didn’t remember that one being as entertaining as it was! After Gemini we decided to go ride Mean Streak even though we’ve heard nothing good about it.

Well it turns out most everyone else was right! What. A. Horrible. Coaster. We kept talking about how much it would suck to have to wait through the miles & miles of turnstyles they have just to ride that piece of crap. First of all, why do they stop you at the top of the hill? Second…we know it was probably fun back in the ‘day’ but it feels like it goes slower than Little Bill’s giggle coaster. It felt like we were going to get stuck at every turn and it was just a plain boring ride. Luckily we only waited about 10 mins or less for this ride, but that was 10 mins we’ll never get back! The workers were like “How was your ride?” and everyone just kind of went “mmmmeeehhhh.” No cheering. No nothing. Our nickname for this ride for the rest of the trip was “Butt Streak” LOL!!

Well after that we needed to go on something FUN so we headed over to Maverick. The approximate wait time was an hour & 45 minutes but we definitely wanted to ride this so we got in line. It was so exciting to get in line for something we’d both never been on! Even though everyone says it has minimal theming we loved the whole look and feel of the queue and the whole area around Maverick. The music was great! By that time it felt like it was about 85 degrees outside but it was still a gorgeous day! So we waited probably about 2 hours(the line was out past the entrance sign and down along the outside of the first turnstyle). We decided to wait for the front car and it was well worth it. We loved the OTSR on this ride and the style of the trains. We were both extremely excited when it was finally our turn! That first drop was amazing. The videos and POV’s of this ride definitely do NOT do it justice! Definitely awesome and worth the 2 hour wait! We called this the BUTTER COASTER all day because we kept saying it was SMOOTH AS BUTTA! LOL

At this point it was about 2:00pm and we decided to make our way out of the park to go eat lunch. On our way out we stopped at Skyhawk because there was only about a 10 minute wait. This ride was really fun but way too short! They need to have a couple more full swings on this ride. After that we stopped in to check out the CP Museum. The scale models and old pictures they have in there are really neat. Kings Island should definitely consider putting one of these in! On our way out of the park we noticed that TTD was running!! We stopped to watch a couple of the launches because this was the first time we’d ever seen it running in person! Wow, watching that got our hearts pumping and we were so pumped to ride it later! It was a 2 hr wait or else we would have ridden it at that point but we were too hungry & thirsty to wait in that line. So we went out to Ashley’s car and ate a picnic lunch and then headed back in about 45 mins later. We had decided while we were eating that we would take some time to walk around the park and take some pictures while our food settled, so we walked over to the WT area and took some pictures for awhile. Before that though, we saw that Demon Drop had no line so we got on that since last time we were at CP we didn’t ride it! That ride is much better than it looks! I would say we even had more fun on that than we did on Power Tower. I don’t know if it’s just exciting because it feels rickety and like it will fall apart at any second…but it was fun! We walked around for a bit and took some pics of the Giant Wheel and WT. We decided to go on GW(about 20 min wait) to take some pics from up there. Before that we took a short ride on the Space Spiral to get some pics but they didn’t turn out too well. After GW we spotted Chaos and decided to try that even though it looked like it would make Ashley puke. As soon as we got on Kyle decided that he thought it would make him feel sick but too late! It was actually a really fun ride unlike anything we had ever been on. And there was absolutely no line for it! We went on WT(10 min wait) after that which Kyle hadn’t been on the 1st time we went to CP. The launches were great but we definitely didn’t consider it a ‘must ride again’ type of ride.

We were going to ride Disaster Transport but the line was about a 45 minute wait so we decided to cross over the park and go for a ride on Blue Streak. We skipped this ride last time because our other brother said it looked ‘stupid’ but I’m glad he wasn’t with us this time because what a great little coaster! It was a walk on too. After that we rode Calypso which kind of made Ashley feel sick but she said it was still a fun ride.

After that we decided it was time to go take some pics of TTD and then we were going to put our stuff back in our lockers and go ride it. Well on our way to do that we stopped in at a gift shop and Ashley was looking at sweatshirts and our locker key must have fallen off of her wrist at that point because we got all the way up to the Corkscrew area and after taking a few pics there she realized that the key was missing! Well, panic ensued and luckily Kyle remember we were in the gift shop so we raced back over there and luckily enough there it was right in the corner where she had been looking at shirts. We didn’t have anything in our locker at the time but the $10 fee to replace the key would have sucked. So we went ahead and skipped taking pics of TTD and put our stuff in the locker and headed back to TTD to ride it. Well as soon as we got up there we realized there was nobody in the station anymore and it had obviously broken down. The lady in the station said they had no idea what was going on and it would probably be down for the rest of the night. Well we were so mad, not at the park, but at ourselves because we had spent all day doing other things instead of just getting on it and then it was closed! We kept our fingers crossed that it would be open later, but we didn’t keep our hopes up. So after that we decided to go on Power Tower which only had about a 10 minute wait. We chose the launch up side and that was so much fun. We’re used to riding Drop Tower so the sensation of being shot UPWARDS was a great thrill. Also we were sitting on the outside 2 seats facing the lake…what a great view!

We decided it was time to head over to Millenium Force. We thought about riding Wildcat but the line was really long so we just skipped it and headed for Millie. The posted wait time was 1 hr 45 minutes but the line was constantly moving so it only took us about an hour to get through it. There were 2 guys in line that were dancing to the techno music….it was hilarious and very entertaining..lol. We didn’t know CP had an entertainment staff in line! LOL! It was about that time we noticed the air was getting cooler and there were some clouds rolling in off of the lake. Well we decided to wait for the front car but one of the ride attendants made us fill a spot towards the back of the car after we volunteered when he asked for ‘2 riders’. We were kind of ticked but oh well. The ride was still….UH.MAZE.ING. LOL!! We had forgotten what that free fall is like on that first hill…WOW. Definitely our #1 coaster!! On a funny note….on our way up the lift hill Kyle got pooped on by a seagull. Hilarous. The funniest part was at the end of the ride the 2 guys behind us were like “Uhhhh..did you get pooped on during the lift?” LOL! Apparently the seagulls had it out for us this trip…..see day 2….

Well after Millie we were going to get on something else but it started raining. We walked all the way back to Maverick and it was still a 2 hr wait so we just started walking to the front of the park. Then it started POURING. So we just decided to call it a day because it didn’t look like it was going to let up any time soon. So we returned our locker key and by the time we made it out to Ashley’s car we were SOAKED. We headed to our hotel, which was about 15 mins away. We stayed at the Microtel Inn in Huron. What a great hotel! The check in was a breeze and the rooms look exactly like they do in the pictures. We headed across the street to Wendy’s to get a quick dinner and then came back to the hotel and decided to go for a swim. Their pool is open 24 hours which is awesome. The hot tub felt AMAZING on our tired feet (both of us wore flip flops all day..ouch!). We decided to go back up to our room around midnight and take showers. After that I think we both fell asleep right away and slept like babies until Ashley’s alarm went off at 9:00am.

Day Two July 11th 2008:

We went downstairs at the hotel and ate the “continental breakfast” which was really just some muffins,bagels & cereal…..but it was fine for being free. We went back up the room, got ready & packed everything up. We ended up leaving a little bit late, but we made it to the park at about 10:30am. By the way, the back way into CP from the hotel was a gorgeous drive in. We arrived at the park and decided not to rent a locker that day and just carry our stuff around. We noticed right away that Raptor was STILL closed…which was really disappointing because Kyle had never ridden an inverted coaster except for Invertigo & Runaway Reptar which don’t even count. Oh well, better luck next time. We decided to make a beeline for Chaos and as soon as we got up there they closed it down. We also noticed that TTD was still closed also. Actually a lot of things were down…we noticed that the Sky Ride was also closed. We were wondering if this was an everyday occurrence to have rides closed for most of the morning….it kind of put a damper on things but we weren’t going to let it ruin our day. So we went on Matterhorn first just like on day one, then headed over to Magnum. Once again, a great ride! We went on Gemini and rode on the blue train this time(they were actually racing in the morning!). It was fun to watch everyone slap hands around the turns. I think we ended in a tie though! After that we went on Maverick(after stopping to fill up our souvenir cup and eat some DELICIOUS Cedar Point fries). The wait for Maverick was about a 1 ½ hr wait this time, but well worth it once again to ride in the front seat! Some clouds rolled over at about this time and we thought it would rain again, but it went past and it ended up being MUCH hotter that day than the first. We decided to buy our picture on Maverick because the faces we were making were HILARIOUS! After Maverick we walked over near Millie and we were going to get on Mantis but the wait was about an hour and it just didn’t seem worth it. Around that time another seagull tried to divebomb Ashley’s head and she ducked out of the way but it actually skimmed the top of her sunglasses…everyone around was laughing and we decided that the seagulls really did not like us at this point!

We wanted to relax a little bit so we decided to take a ride on the train. We got some good pics and videos from the train…but we were both kind of in a bad mood because it was getting late in the day and we still hadn’t seen TTD running. We were both so mad at ourselves because we didn’t want to miss going on it! WE wanted to get on something fun after that so we went over to MF after we got off the train.

We put our stuff into the lockers and went on MF. The wait was only about 40 minutes tops. As we were waiting in line for MF Kyle was staring off in the distance toward TTD and noticed that it was RUNNING! It was only doing test runs, but at least there was some hope that we would get on it before the end of the day. We were going to wait for the front car on MF but it would have been another ½ hour wait and we wanted to get over to TTD to see if it was running yet. So we opted for the second seat and it was great! After MF we decided to go over to TTD…..and as we got up there we saw people in line! Hooray it was running, finally! We got in line and it was a 2 hr wait, but we wouldn’t miss out on it this time! Out of all of the rides we went on, TTD definitely had the worst queue. Every other ride had good landscaping and coverage,but this one had no relief! Basically the sun was just beating down on us. Ashley felt like she was going to pass out at one point because we hadn’t really eaten anything decent all day and it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. But we weren’t going to get out of line for anything! We even waited the extra time for the front seat. As we got strapped in to our seats, both of our hearts were beating so hard it felt like they were going to EXPLODE. I don’t think either of us have ever been that scared/excited to go on a ride before! Then we saw the lights go from red,yellow to green and HOLY S***!!! For a 17 second ride that was quite a rush! We had never experienced anything like that before in our lives! And on ride picture…wow….so funny. We were going to buy it but decided to wait til later. After TTD we decided it was definitely time to eat some dinner….so we just walked over to get some pizza near the Sky Ride after getting our stuff out of the locker. We wanted some more CP fries but made the mistake of getting fries from Hot Potato(I think that’s what it’s called) and we weren’t really paying attention that they were THICK CUT fries….needless to say they were pretty disgusting. But at least we didn’t feel sick anymore!

By that time our feet were killing us and the whole trip was finally catching up with us. We decided it was almost time to leave, but we wanted to get a couple more rides in. We walked over to Disaster Transport…and even though everyone always says how horrible it is we wanted to at least give it a try. It was only about a 10 minute wait, and that’s about how long anyone should wait for it. It was fun just because we were laughing the whole time about the horrible theming and everything. Did we see aluminum foil crumpled up to look like rocks at one point? LOL! After that we took one last ride on Chaos since it was open again. Then we decided we couldn’t leave the park without getting the picture of our very first ride on Dragster, so we walked back there and bought our picture..so hilarious. You can see our skin just flapping in the wind…LOL!! We were going to ride the sky ride back up to the front but it was broken down so we just took some pics on the way out and right as we were getting ready to leave we saw that Demon Drop had no line whatsoever so we decided to make that our last ride of the trip! Neither of us really wanted to leave but we were so exhausted and we had a 3 hr drive home, so we took our last pictures of CP from the parking lot of the sunset and said our goodbyes! It took about 3 hours to get home, and we were definitely tired but we couldn’t stop talking about how much fun we had on our little 2 day trip!

Our favorite top 5 coasters at CP:

#1-Millenium Force

#2-Maverick

#3-Top Thrill Dragster

#4-Magnum XL-200

#5-(this spot would have surely been filled by Raptor but alas it was closed so..)we would probably have to say either Blue Streak or Gemini!

Overall we had a WONDERFUL time at Cedar Point. The landscaping was beautifully done, and we appreciated the fact that they had so much natural shade and coverage for pretty much every ride. We loved how the park was laid out, and the fact that CP has kept so many flat rides and midway rides. We also noticed that there are so many places to sit & relax away from the crowds, and that there wasn’t too much congestion at all along the pathways except for in front of TTD because everyone was trying to stop and watch it. We were very pleased at the amount of food/drink stands & gift shops and most of the employees we met along the way were extremely nice and helpful. We also loved that every time you got on/off a ride the employees tried to get you pumped up and always asked how your ride was! We have decided to make this an annual trip for just the two of us if we can, and we can’t wait until our next visit to CP!!! Definitely a wonderful trip!

~Ash & Kyle

Here is the photobucket link to the pics Ashley took and Kyle's will be up shortly.

http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l274/ash...r%20Point%2008/

[corn4ahead]

sounds like you had a good trip...his does kinda make me ervous though because i am goin to CP this thursday and you are saying that there were 2 hr lines ON A THURSDAY...thats crazy...

[Browntggrr]

Sounds like you had a good time despite some rides being down.

From what I have heard, Raptor had a issue with the lift. It is rumored that they were replacing the lift chain since it took so long to fix. And issues with Raptor are rather unique. I can only remember a handful of times it was down, and most of those issues had to do with wind. I am also assuming that it was an "emergency" repair due to the time of year. Besides Halloweekends, the couple weeks around the 4th of July are traditionally the busiest weeks of the season. And from some of the wait times you described, it seems the same way this year.

As far as Witches Wheel goes; apparently the entire ride just stopped while in the up position. It is back in service.

And in response to the rude ride op in front of TTD: yeah I have ran into those ops before. While they should not have that type of attitude no matter what, I would not want their job of telling a guest every 15 seconds that the ride is down, and they have no idea what is wrong with it.

Nice TR.

[kjkjkj]

Yeah, this was an awesome trip! The majority of the employees were really helpful and nice! So it's nothing to really complain about. Chaos now has to be one of my new favorite "thrill rides". It seems underated since it didn't really have a line both days. I wish Kings Island would get one of these! It could fit in as like a "UFO" ride in X-Base or something lol. An AWESOME 2 days!

[Browntggrr]

You like Chaos huh?

That is one of two rides (the other being Tilt-a-Whirl) I am very happy to watch my wife and kids ride from a comfy park bench.

I just know how to avoid the gulls...

[Tomkatt7]

Red, yellow, HOLY.......

Thats perfect!!!

I've never ridden TTD, but just reading that line makes me want to go!!!

[kjkjkj]

Yeah TTD was AWESOME! The open air seating just makes you feel like you could fly out when you are 400ft off the ground! The launch on TTD was pretty intense! I wish we could have gone on it again, but we were EXHAUSTED especially knowingwe had a 3 hour drive to look forward to. Do you guys like the pictures?

[The Interpreter]

Thanks for writing that! I read and appreciated every word...if you two ever get to Great Adventure I hope for two things:

* Your charitable attitude for closed rides continues, and

* There are no closed rides for you to see if it did or not!

[Ashers]

http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l274/ash...r%20Point%2008/

I fixed the link to the pictures but here it is again just in case! Hope you guys enjoy. I love the one of Millie through the trees and also the sunset pic of the rides. Glad you guys like our report!

And...I don't think I would be as forgiving of the ride closures if I hadn't ridden Raptor already 5 years ago

~Ash

[DropZone99]

Great pics Ashers & Kjkjkj

[Dvo]

First off, I really like this picture...

http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l274/ash...nt=DSC01391.jpg

Got that out of the way. Second, sounds like an awesome trip! And I go to CP every summer, but that sounds really crowded for a thursday! And also, the most important thing.. I was at CP on opening day, and I waited at the gates with some other CP enthusiasts early in the morning... and I managed to get on the FIRST TRAIN on TTD of '08! (which also resulted in my FIRST ROLLBACK!) Incredible

Glad you liked TTD and I'm also glad you liked MF the best. It's my favorite too, and I've made it my goal to get 500 laps on it in my lifetime (only up to 51 so far... 21 of which came on opening weekend haha).

[corn4ahead]

Thats what i was saying about a thursday...then again with TTD and raptor closed most of the day...

[yournamehere]

I went for my first time in early june but my favorite was Maverick. I only waited about 45 minutes and 2 minutes for the front row.(The lines were nothing all day)

[BavarianBeatle]

Your trip reports make me wish I had another adult who I could go to parks with..... I love my kids, but it would be nice to go without that pressure every once in awhile.........

[markalan]

...I was at CP on opening day, and I waited at the gates with some other CP enthusiasts early in the morning... and I managed to get on the FIRST TRAIN on TTD of '08! (which also resulted in my FIRST ROLLBACK!) Incredible

Yeah, that was incredible. I was on that train too!

Great trip report, and some great pictures. Glad you had a fun trip!

[kjkjkj]

Here's the link to my pictures from the trip! Sorry it took so long http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm319/K...nav_album_album

[The Interpreter]

Ummm....you didn't make it public so it is wanting us to log in.....

[kjkjkj]

fixed, I forgot to set it to public, I was changing it as you were replying lol.

[The Interpreter]

and now it works fine. Thanks!

[Kawana]

Yeah, this was an awesome trip! The majority of the employees were really helpful and nice! So it's nothing to really complain about. Chaos now has to be one of my new favorite "thrill rides". It seems underated since it didn't really have a line both days. I wish Kings Island would get one of these! It could fit in as like a "UFO" ride in X-Base or something lol. An AWESOME 2 days!

I totally agree with you. Chaos is one of, if not my favorite flat ride ever. It's just too fun. I hope my trip up to the point in August is as fun as yours seemed. Thanks for the TR, guys.

[kjkjkj]

No problem! I hope you have a good trip!