Cedar Point TR

So in the summer of 2011, while visiting some friends I made teaching here in Korea, I was given an amazing surprise birthday gift, they were going to drive me to Ohio to visit Cedar Point for 2 days. Normally I have a lot to say on parks since most of them I have season passes and I've visited them regularly enough to comment but this was my first trip to a Cedar Fair park so i'll let the photos do the talking. I had a really great 2 days, the weather wasn't great for one day and great on the other so the crowds were nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be, although I was really surprised to see a 2 hour wait for raptor and a 1hour wait for mantis in the mornings when both were walk-ons later in the evening. I think the only slight negative I had was the Maverick single rider line, we did this at the end of the day and realized if we split up and used single rider we had 30mins before the lines closed for Millennium force (i was desperate to get a second ride and try it at night) the lady on the line was super friendly and chatty but we saw so many empty seats going by in the end feeling a big rude I had to point and say can we please take those empty seats, although i'll take friendly staff over rude or non-caring any day.

A quick note about the pictures I shoot in raw even though i'm not a professional photographer ever since I found my Korean store-display laptop had Photoshop cs5 installed on it I have enjoyed editing pictures, there was something fun about editing a picture or 2 in my 5 minutes between classes. My knowledge of cameras makes professionals weep, I have a lens that does zoomy stuff and one that doesn't, these were edited on a laptop purely because I enjoyed experimenting and trying out different things and these photos are for my enjoyment. I got some criticism for them elsewhere about how there was no consistency and how over edited ugly etc they were, it's probably true for some but I do it because I find it fun not because I want to go professional, it's only because i'm having fun, I don't spend much time on these and I will never splash out on expensive hardware to make sure my screen is calibrated correctly.

The poor weather also made it quite difficult to clean up these photos but I do welcome constructive criticism though, what you liked, what you didn't like, what could be improved, i'm always willing to learn so please any suggestions are welcome before I start on the photos from my Japan tour since my school kindly put a bigger screen in my room for teaching with I may hook up to that for future editing instead of this super bright gamers laptop.

I have been told by some due to said brightness the pictures can come across quite dark, if it's a problem let me know and i'll work on it for next time. If it's a really big problem then please turn up your own screens brightness or turn off the lights.

I had one chance to get this picture, sadly I missed the T, it's always been called Cedar Poin

Never thought i'd get to see this skyline

Not sure if that's more Cedar Fair interactive queue line goo (see windseeker picture below) or old paint streaking the roof

Raptor was super busy in the morning, thankfully it was a walk-on later in the evening

I really enjoyed Raptor, not as much as Nemesis but more than Inferno, i'm not sure if I liked it better than Montu since I was 8 when I rode that

One thing I do regret is that I didn't ride Blue Streak, it sat in the corner quietly and none of the group wanted to ride it but I hear good things and wish we'd chosen this streak over the other.

All this to come in parts 2 & 3.

I found Max Air really nice to look at and photograph compared to the other frisbees i've seen.

I think the back drop of the lake is what made me like photographing Maxair so much

I'm going to spell it maXair this time so i've covered all possible ways of typing it.

Troika Troika Troika

Maybe I just have BBW syndrome but I actually enjoyed disaster transport

I heard space spiral going to run upside-down next year when it comes back from the B&M factory

Off to Windseeker next

This ride had varying reactions in the group, some found it extremely scary, some found it boring and some found it a really nice new type of tower ride. I'm not too bad with heights but the wind did make it an interesting ride.

So these seagulls gave windseeker the most amazing interacitve queue disney engineers could only dream of. They would both crap on only one specific part of the queue-line each and you would stand in line watching as people nervously approached the drop-zone and then had to run the poop gauntlet to rejoin the queue and then eventually it was your turn, I saw a direct hit and a few near misses. I wanted to get back in line just to watch people go through it again.

Wicked Twister was a great fun ride, i've always enjoyed the launches on these when they pack a punch.

Part 2:

Next stop the midway

Corkscrew, Sadly I also never rode this one either

Maybe if I hadn't been so busy taking pictures I could have ridden more.

Time for my tallest S&S tower yet

Iron Dragon was next, every time I see an arrow suspended I can't help but think of all that yellow rusted track sitting on the hill of Everland and how I never got to ride it.

Top Thrill Dragster was definitely a highlight of the trip, it was having a few problems on the day rolling back fairly often and having the line closed when we arrived but I finally got to experience it on the second day.

Mantis was another fairly busy in the morning but quieter in the evening ride. This was quite a forceful ride in the back and I enjoyed it but the group declined to re-ride this.

I know there are a few B&Ms that have had yellow color schemes but I do love the yellow and red of Mantis

Loop de loop

The incline loop was definitely my favorite part of Mantis

Nice TR! It disappoints me too that you never got on Blue Streak either. however you aren't missing much with Corkscrew.

Final Part:

How popular is this ride? Most of the people I went with really didn't like this ride, we sat in the back and they found it very uncomfortable

I love flat rides, I was kind of sad that I didn't get to experience a Chaos or Zipper ride while I was in America since i've never tried either of them.

I didn't give this ride much love with the camera or Gemini which is a shame because for a ride I hadn't heard too much about, I really really enjoyed Gemini

This was a great ride, I really loved Skyhawk, one of the few rides I did go round and ride again

It was really hot so the water rides were pretty popular when I went.

Sadly I never tried shoot the rapids, it was broken on the second day when I went to ride it.

What can I say about this ride, it was awesome and lived up to every expectation although strangely I actually enjoyed the mega-lite I experienced recently almost as much.

This was one of those photos I just didn't know what to do with so I decided to be artsy

Before the ride my friends couldn't believe an almost 3 minute long roller coaster would have no line.... after the ride however everyone knew why

Maverick for me was easily my favorite roller coaster of the trip.

I can see why it gets some hate though, my taller friends found it really uncomfortable and only enjoyed it the second time when they knew what to expect and tried to lean into each side of the restraint before the turn when they knew what was coming.

We ended our trip with a night-time ride on windseeker so I'll end my update that way too with the now signature shots of windseekers light package

Great TR - have Cedar Point on my watchlist for sure. Maybe 2015...

This ride had varying reactions in the group, some found it extremely scary, some found it boring and some found it a really nice new type of tower ride.

Never ridden a Windseeker so far but I guess the Starflyer are better because these are "real" chainflyer and you swing freely in them. Love them inside cities like Copenhagen or Vienna. Would love to see more downtown Starflyer instead of the ferris wheels....

This was a great ride, I really loved Skyhawk, one of the few rides I did go round and ride again

I prefer the old pirate ships as you're not that stapped in on those and your backside really lifts off...

Great TR! Can't wait to get back to CP this year!

Very nice photos. Shame you missed Blue Streak, as that was a very nice surprise. Maverick is definitely the best coaster in the park.

Gemini is definitely a wonderful coaster. It is very underrated. I really love the shot of Maverick in black and white. Put a watermark on it and you've got yourself a great phone wallpaper!

I noticed that the water cannons on the swan boat pond were actually working! I haven't seen those work very often since opening in 2007. Also seeing how much Millennium Force looks better this year with the paint job. Didn't realize how many rust spots there were looking at your pictures!

Great pictures and trip report! A lot of your pictures are great even though some are overexposed. Overexposure at least you can mainly fix, it's the underexposure shots that you really can't do anything with. I'm hoping that I can go back down to Cedar Point sometime this year for Gatekeeper and testing out my new camera. I still haven't testing it at park yet as the times I was at one, I was working or the weather was crap.

I really enjoyed scrolling through these pictures! Most of them were breathtaking, and I especially liked the Windseeker and Millennium Force ones. It seems you had a great time, which is good!

Nice trip report!! Next time, you must ride Blue Streak, it's my favorite there.

Great pictures, love the emotions you captured on some of the riders. Like some have already said, shame you didn't get to experience Blue Streak. It is a quite surprising little coaster. Great TR!

Wow, super pictures!! Cedar Point rocks!!

Took me right back to the trip I took there last year and made the trip back this year seem so far off. Nice pictures that you don't always see other places.

I noticed that the water cannons on the swan boat pond were actually working! I haven't seen those work very often since opening in 2007. Also seeing how much Millennium Force looks better this year with the paint job. Didn't realize how many rust spots there were looking at your pictures!

 

Great pictures and trip report! A lot of your pictures are great even though some are overexposed. Overexposure at least you can mainly fix, it's the underexposure shots that you really can't do anything with. I'm hoping that I can go back down to Cedar Point sometime this year for Gatekeeper and testing out my new camera. I still haven't testing it at park yet as the times I was at one, I was working or the weather was crap.

Underexposure was a huge problem, I tried to clear the first set of photos up but it was hugely overcast and there was a fair amount of rain during the morning, it worked out nicely because it kept the crowds down and it was super hot and sunny in the afternoons.