Cedar Point - 8.17.2024

[Hoeter]

Made my first trip to Cedar Point in over 6 years, on Saturday August 17th.

 

Left Northern Kentucky at 6:00AM and arrived at Cedar Point shortly after 10.  As I have a Prestige pass, we got to park in the preferred lot, which is to the right of the front gate, literally right next to the beach and to GateKeeper.

 

Went into the park to get my FLP wristband and were able to get quite a few rides in between 10:00AM and our departure around 5:30PM, we got quite a bit in

• GateKeeper - 20 minutes
• Raptor - 15 minutes
• Valravn Front Row - 15 minutes
• Blue Streak - 5 minutes
• Rougarou - 15 minutes
• Steel Vengeance - 30 minutes
• Maverick - 30 minutes
• Magnum in Magic Seat - 15 minutes
• Gemini - 15 minutes
• Steel Vengeance - 15 minutes
• Maverick - 15 minutes

1 ride each on all of the coasters except Iron Dragon, Corkscrew, Cedar Creek Mine Ride, and Millennium Force, 2 rides each on Maverick and Steel Vengeance

Takeaways

• Upgraded from a Gold Pass in 2024 to a Prestige Pass in 2025 and now currently get the benefits of the latter; the Preferred Parking up there is worth it and especially the Prestige entry lane into the park as the other turnstiles had sizeable lines at open
•  Old style B&M restraints are not friendly to folks with broad shoulders, had to use the double belted rows on Raptor and Rougarou - I can use the standard belt on Banshee and their B&M's with vest restraints - GateKeeper and Valravn
• Have All Season FLP at Kings Island for 2024 and upgraded to All Park FLP for 2025 - FLP cost for those buying single day was $200 so the difference basically has already paid for itself. FLP is worth it if you are coming up on a Saturday and are driving back same day.
• Millennium Force was closed all day, apparently with a catch car issue or sensor issue according to what I'm seeing on Facebook, was concerned about the belt buckling but looks like test seat is a go, hope to be back up sometime in September or October
• Rode Steel Vengeance twice (prior visit was 1 ride in its opening season) - both Maverick and Steel Vengeance are high up on my top 10 and favorite rides up at Cedar Point
• Ate at Corral and had the thai chili chicken tenders - does Kings Island have anything similar?
• If going up I-71 to Cedar Point and taking SR 13/US 250 into Sandusky, be advised there is a detour as SR 13 is closed - you will need to take US 224 to US 250 and continue into Sandusky
• If taking SR 13 across to SR 2 and coming in via US 6 past Sawmill Creek, be advised the overpass is out

 

Arrived back at the house here in Northern Kentucky about 10PM but contemplated stopping into Kings Island and closing out the night

[johnjniehaus]

Man milli being down all day sucks!!! That's happened to me before too...

Glad you got to get back up there though. Maverick and steel Vengeance are both elite coasters. Definitely top 10 worthy!

[IndyGuy4KI]

Wow, you and I were in the park the same day and never saw each other. Glad you had a great day. 

[Hoeter]

Definitely missed visiting Cedar Point - already planning on going back up towards the mid/end part of September.

Visited the park with a friend of mine - he's never visited Cedar Point, but has recently visited Universal/IOA and Busch Gardens Tampa within the past month. As he's ridden Iron Gwazi, was curious how it stacked up against Steel Vengeance and was also curious how Maverick stacks up against other Intamin Blitz coasters such as Cheetah Hunt and Velocicoaster. It sounded like Iron Gwazi edged out Steel Vengeance and Maverick slots between Velocicoaster and Cheetah Hunt for him.

Maverick is usually a front row ride for me, which we took on the first ride of the day. On the second ride of the day, we got assigned row 6. Now, I've sat in row 6 before, but I forgot how much more enjoyable that seat is, especially how it whips you over the drop and how intense it is in the first turns after the drop. Definitely plan on getting more rides in the back row next time I'm up there. 

We did encounter what I believe was an E-Stop on Maverick before our first ride, which was interesting to see happen. We waited in the station for about 20 minutes before the ride started back up. The train was stopped right on the first couple of stators before the start of the lift hill, to which the first two rows were taken off the ride. Once this was done, they had to reset the ride, the train rolled back, and operations continued as normal. 
 
 

[Coastercrush]

Your friend is correct.  Iron gwazi is crazy compared to SV.  Don't get me wrong sv is good just does not have any intensity or the pacing like IG.

[Hoeter]

I plan to make a visit to Busch Gardens Tampa at some point, this is one park that I've always wanted to visit.

[Hoeter]

Went up to Cedar Point again yesterday, leaving Cincinnati about 6AM and arriving back home about 9:30PM - we arrived on Point just in time for ERT (10:00AM) to begin and stayed until about 5:30PM

• ERT - was able to hit Valravn (Row 2) and GateKeeper (Row 8)
• I have All Season Fast Lane. Between 11-5:30, was able to get two rides on Millennium and one each on Maverick, red side of Gemini, Magnum, Raptor, Blue Streak. Even though not on Fast Lane, got rides in on Iron Dragon and Cedar Creek Mine Ride
• Steel Vengeance had a bucket lift up with maintenance working on track; per one of the CP groups on Facebook, this opened right as we left.

 

Apple Maps took me a different way into Sandusky yesterday, which seemed a lot faster. Took I-71 to Mansfield and came out SR-13 as normal, detouring around the closure on SR-13 by going through Greenwich on US-224, back to US-250

Once we got to Olena on US-250/SR-13, it had me take backroads, passing Summit Motorsports Park, and coming into Milan, rejoining US-250/SR-13, effectively bypassing Norwalk traffic.