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I have been delinquent in posting about my trip to CP last week with my 4 kids, so in response to this is as good a time as any! We were there at the park on Thursday, the 19th, in celebration of my Birthday that day! I hadn't actually been to CP since mid-2018, for a variety of reasons, but prior to that, I'd been every years for decades, often multiple times. So this was a long overdue return. At any rate, as it pertains to your questions NegativeGLover, the operations at the park seemed pretty good, for the most part, and as Mike240SX mentioned, the only main rides down were TTD and maXair. When it comes to the crowds, at least on that day, the claims of not being able to have a good day at the park without Fast Lane proved very untrue that day, as it was not very crowded at all, with the only real wait of the day on Steel Vengeance during our first ride at park's opening to the public, and even that was less than 45 minutes. My kids waited about 30-45 for Valravn as well (I didn't ride, as I was with my youngest who is too short for the B&Ms still), but that was the only other wait over about 25 minutes. Most rides were walk-ons or station waits. The three older kids actually went to SV for their final ride of the night, and instead of getting only 1 ride, they got 3, back to back to back, as the wait was only on the stairs each time. 3 NEAR WALK ONS OF STEEL VENGEANCE IN A ROW! Amazing! So yeah, I'd definitely say, at least based on that Thursday visit last week (which was when Michigan schools were still out, which seemed to be most of the people there), crowds are way down from their insufferable Summer levels. Getting back to my mini-TR, it was an absolutely awesome day at Cedar Point, and a great time as a family was had by all! It also reinforced what I've stated repeatedly over the years about the best way to visit CP being smart about WHEN you go, vs. going in the Summer, and wasting (in my opinion) two or three times the gate price on skip-the-line passes. Sure, some people have no other option about when they go, and what they do with their hard earned money is their business. But as I've maintained for decades, if you're willing to be flexible about when you go to CP, and can go when schools are either still in session or have started up again, you're going to have a much better time at the park, AND your pocketbook will thank you as well! We hardly spent anything at the park last Thursday (other than a fabulous meal our first time at the wonderful new BackBeat Que restaurant! A great addition!), and had what we all felt like was arguably our best day ever (cue groans) at Cedar Point! I have a lot of negative things to say about Cedar Fair as a company, and am one of their sharpest critics, but there were definitely a lot of positives to take away from the visit, and given what I'd heard over the past couple of years since I'd been, I was expecting a bad day at the park, and it was anything but that. Their absurdly awful policy of not letting kids who are too short to ride, wait in line with their parents and walk through at the station makes the mentally ill patients I work with daily look sane, and they are woefully out of sync on that issue with literally every other park I've been to over the past couple of years that isn't a Cedar Fair park. However, unlike Michigan's Adventure, which appalled me with a laundry list of negatives when I finally returned there this year as well, that was pretty much the only negative from the day. It exceeded expectations, and left my kids and myself very satisfied! One last exciting thing from the trip I wanted to share, was that I went in fully expecting not to be able to get a final ride (at least at CP) on Wicked Twister, which has always been one of my favorite underrated coasters there. I was unable to fit on the coaster back in 2018, the first time I'd ever been "Walk of Shamed" on a coaster, and tried the test seat on Possessed earlier this year, and didn't fit, so I figured even with my recent healthy lifestyle change, weight loss, and inches lost around the belly, it would be a no-go. I tried the test seat out for the heck of it though, and fit! I then made it on the coaster itself, in a glorious final comeback, and it was awesome, and so satisfying to be able to ride it again! So, all the work and the foods I love that I've given up for the past couple months paid off, and it was a very exciting and rewarding moment! Just know that if you saw me at Holiwood Nights, and you saw me at a park now, you would definitely see a different me, and one who is in a lot better shape, and will make his Dr. happy next month when checking in! It was actually that weekend (including KK) that was the final straw in showing me I needed to get serious about getting healthier, and losing weight, or I was going to ruin my enjoyment of parks, and also continue ruining my body. Thanks as well to those who have encouraged me in my weight loss from this site - you know who you are!

Its a much more direct route to Motocoaster, and the campground. Not a huge deal, just another thing thats been repaired and re-opened this year, along with Sleighride and Pirate. Shows that they arent ignoring things and is progress towards further improvement.

I shall call this still life: "people shitting on plastic toilets on the beach" It can be the title of the debut album by Murderous Steel.

Photo (-TR), August 19th through the 21st So, I was at Cedar Point the above dates. Nobody really needs to hear my wait times, and there really wasn't anything notable about the trip (aside from what I'm about to mention), but here's a bunch of photos! I honestly can't remember what the entry way looked like before this.... A rare sight indeed! Millennium Force's station without a grouper! Poor Dragster. Next up will be a whole bunch of pictures of the "Cedar Point Nights" event that was held on the beach, and was generally free for anyone (really only had to pay for food, drinks, or games). Some night shots of Windseeker. Why does it seem like this one has a much better light program than the others? Amusingly, this one does not keep the base structure (the blue part) for the emergency escape platforms at the bottom of the tower, as I've always seen on KI's and KD's. I've seen the yellow "arms" near Gatekeeper, but never the blue base part. Some night shots of the Ferris Wheel. When did they upgrade the lights on this to a programmable LED system? Now, some night shots of Wicked Twister. RIP. And now some night shots from the Skyride. How have I never noticed the wing lights or red eyes on Gatekeeper before? The irony of them issuing a FL+ wristband with Dragster on it, when its days at the park may be numbered... Some more shots of Wicked Twister, taken before my final ride. And so long, Cedar Point...until Halloweekends! BONUS! A night video of a complete Wicked Twister cycle! VID_20210820_211542565.mp4

Hey everyone! After 2020 ruined Alex and I's trip to Disneyland, we started to put together fantasy European trips for when the pandemic ended but we realized we would probably have to settle for something in the USA for 2021. Between WDW, Gwazi, Ice Breaker, and then Velocicoaster, Florida seemed to be the unanimous destination when we could travel safely in 2021. I haven't visited Disney World since a kid in 2002, and we all love Disney, but now does not seem like the time to go. After looking at the (lack of) available parks to visit for our time frame, limited hours, no shows/fireworks, etc we just ended up putting it off for another time. I have so much to do in Orlando, haha. So then the plan became clear - Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Universal over a week. We had slight hope for Gwazi, but we know how that turned out. Ice Breaker seemed real with the employees riding, but we know how that turned out. Despite that, who cares, it'd be nice just to see a friend I hadn't seen in 2 years and go to a new theme park. Day 1 Tampa non park day. So what do you do in Tampa when there's no sporting team in town? Bar hop, I guess. I had looked into some 2 hour boat tours around the city or to see dolphins but the cost + weather risk wasn't worth it. We stayed at the brand new Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens right across from the park. and OF COURSE our window perfectly framed the closed Gwazi Even though I had blocked it from my mind months prior to the trip seeing it in person, closed, yet ready to go was infuriating. Don't worry, BGT had many more ways to piss us off. I highly recco the Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens, they were really friendly and even though they hadn't opened up the full breakfast spread they gave you as much food/drink as you asked. Rooms were clean, shuttle to the park, but honestly you could walk too and from the park. BGT is in a rough looking neighborhood but we didn't have any issues walking back after park close and getting some delicious stuffed pitas at Zeko's Mediterranean Grill. Of course this is our hotel view. We had lunch on the water at Jackson's Bistro, very solid spot for a fish sandwich and then headed over to the convenient cable car/lite rail to check out Ybor City. Tampa's TECO Street Car is free and vintage cool. For a Friday happy hour, Ybor City was absolutely dead. Probably more chickens in the street than people haha. We had some good drinks and bounced around, but the whole area seemed more industrial like. It's a big port city but whenever I visit BGT next I won't bother spending any time outside the park. Day 2 (BGT Day 1 of 2) Busch Gardens Tampa/Africa had been on my list for so long. It's got the legendary B&Ms of America! Not only that, the surplus of animals, encounters, an INSANE looking drop tower, Cheetah Hunt, Tigris, Cobra's Curse, these pretzels everyone raves about, and a beer/cocktail lounge overlooking the Serengeti! Needless today I was absolutely hyped. Of course being Florida in mid June, we knew it would be hot. We were prepared with Quick Que for both days. Right away we saw that the sky ride is down, which is a mega bummer considering the park's layout and the heat. Headed over to Cheetah Hunt first, but it was down. Cobra's Curse! Oh, it's down. But at least they had 4 employees out there giving mixed messages on if the ride would even be open the next day. Okay Montu! Hooray, it's open! Montu absolutely tore down Banshee, Afterburn, Batmen, Alpengeist, Raptor, and the rest of the inverts I've been on. Having had some of the best Banshee rides a few days before, they're just built differently. I'll gladly trade those slow barrel rolls for the original B&M invert trains. The drop had a nice whip, the loop and immelman had me seeing spots, the zero g roll is absolutely perfect, the batwing underground is taken incredibly fast and then you're treated to a mix of inversions, dips, and turns underground until the end. Amazing. Loved front and back equally. We checked out some nile crocs, lions, hyenas, and tigers on the way to Falcon's Fury. Falcon's Fury is probably the only attraction on the planet that gives me anxiety waiting in line. 1) because it's a crazy Intamin tower, it will breakdown throughout the way 2) it's way taller than I ever thought, I guess I didn't see the stats! it's 330ft!!! Holy shit Falcon's Fury was absolutely incredible. It feels like you're being shot down AND the pull out (don't be nasssssti) is super smooth. Next to DoDoDonpa, I've never experienced the sensation of fear + adrenaline + euphoria like that. It only took 2 rides for us to notice not the lack of staffing, but the lack of good staff. These ops were not happy at all. Montu's capacity should be 1,500 per hour and the ops weren't really interested in checking your restraints until a train stacked. Falcon's ops were so miserable we thought the ride broke down every cycle because they'd kinda point and look at something in the op booth or on the ride and we people would ask "did it break?" they'd just laugh, as if the ride needed a smoke break every time it ran. Even the automated voice over was mixed up. The welcome back would play as you go up, visa versa. I'm sad to say those Twisted Tails pretzels didn't live up to the hype, but with the lack of quality food in the park, I think we had those for 3/4 of our meals. They were good, not great and you had packetted mustard and cheap nacho cheese (upcharge) to pair. Disappointing. Scorpion was a fun Schwarzkopf. Stanley Falls was up next and 3 of us in 1 log got absolutely SOAKED head to toe! Thanks to the florida heat I think we dried off in an hour. We checked out the cool avian exhibit and completed a lap around the park to see if Cobra's Curse or Cheetah Hunt were open. The crappy service continued as our friend with us who needed to use a breast pump was run back and forth across the park trying to find the right nursing station, and when she finally got to the right place the quality/privacy was not good. Cheetah Hunt even with Quick Que was almost an hour wait. Stand by was 2.5. Only 1 station was being used and boyyyy were they taking their sweet time. They also didn't care to tell people not to smoke in the queue or on the ride and let people take as many on ride photos or videos as they wanted. Cheetah Hunt was a ton of fun! The front provided some great pops of air while the back gave the best experience coming off the tower. Is there supposed to be water back in the canyon section? Was there? It is a great family coaster and gets even better at night! After that long wait for Cheetah, we took some time to relax at the Serengeti bar. Apparently there's a restaurant opening on the 3rd floor ...eventually. It's a really great bar for beer or mixed drinks, you can even get a beer flight or two! Yes, multiple beer flight options! We also experienced the only employees with life here today, great bartenders. Another ride on Falcon's Fury, another pretzel, and it was time for Montu! Montu doesn't have the most impressive stats on paper, but man this thing looks huge in person up on the hill. It absolutely lives up to the hype, great intense inversions and even a dope B&M lite stengel dive into the tunnel that spits you out into the helix. BEAST! So that's two old school B&M's that have OTSRs and don't touch your ears. Sheikra blew all of the other dive coasters I've been on out of the water, especially the ones with vests. It's beautiful, feels bigger, has airtime on the inversion, man this park has amazing coasters! Alright that's enough for right now, I'll update again soon! -Zach Free booze samples and it's good booze? Sure go here if you must stay in Tampa! Mmm, good beer. It will terrify you, but you will be rewarded. Wow wadda thrill. The pop up bubble in the tiger exhibit must be visited. LOOK AT EM! Pawb. Some beautiful bird friends in the open air aviary. My favorite animal. Look at these dino-bunnies. Goofy, weird, stupid. Derpy, lazy, friggin cute. Your plumage is stunning ma'am LAZY!!! You walk into the park and are greeted with this. OPEN IT!!!!! Cheetah Hunt has a 3 hour wait! There's no ride in the area of the park too! So frustrating. What. A. BEAST! rippin' Your gradeschool science book Absolutely HAULING The train ride is incredible, but they were only running 1 train. 30 minute dispatches. Fuck. After sleeping in and most of the day with the kangaroos, Cheetah finally woke up. Thanks for scaring me, Intamin. Montu sunset rides gah, so good! After walking 12 miles in the 95* heat because the park's transport rides are broken, we were as sleeby as this yeen.

Agreed. The new trains on MB make me sad. Love the og Schwarzkopf trains and sliding over to squash my companion. Please don't do Shockwave next.

Those new Mind Bender trains LOOK GREAT - that nice shiny purple. But reclined headrests (with a hard plastic back attached to the back plate, hello pain), bucke-y seats, and a seat divider have NO place running on a Schwarzkopf. It was an improvement for Revolution because it was better than the custom mess that ride was running since '92. I know ... Premier, etc., old rides, parts/availabitly.. blah blah most of it's crap. Take a good long look at Montezooma's Revenge, Fire Dragon, and a few others... those trains were designed that way for a reason. You get the thrill of 70s loop coaster with the freedom (and laterals - where applicable) of a classic wood coaster. If you're a big Schwarzkopf fan like me and you appreciate those old trains (and the remakes of them on the others not at Six Flags) ride Shock Wave while you can. One of my favorite parts on Schwarzkopf loopers was always those curves cuz you get to move around while still being safe with the built-in seat divider those individual lap bars provide. It's a genius design. Sliding back and forth (and perhaps squishing your partner) is much more fun and comfortable than being awkwardly bent sideways over a seat divider. Seat dividers have made many of our kind hate laterals (Legend).

Day 2 at Busch Gardens! We planned on doing the safari where you can feed giraffes, get close to rhinos/nyala/many other African animals! With Alex's pass discount I think we paid like, $40? We weren't able to reserve our spot online, you had to show up when the park opened and get a spot (if it wasn't sold out already). I can't recommend this tour enough, it was so much! Our guides were really friendly, informative, and helped give us tips on how best to feed the giraffes. You get a great view of Cheetah Hunt, Cobra's Curse, and Montu as well. We were able to get on the first tour of the day around 1030am and there were only 6 other people with us so it felt private! Oh good, Cheetah Hunt is working today! Spoiler, it still had a 2.5 hour wait for the general queue. Let's get this tour started! I love this hidden barrel roll, I really wonder how many people would skip Cheetah Hunt if that inversion was front and center, it's like a little surprise for those who don't know it's coming! The supports are pretty unique too. Maverick-lite hill produces some solid airtime! Mr. Nyala is on the left and 2 of his 8 girl friends are on the right. They said he's very happy and keeping their population up! They had a newborn a few weeks ago. This rhino is very emo and likes to be alone. Also poops a lot. Pretty sure these are real animals. There are 2 baby giraffes on property and on the day of our tour it was one's birthday! There's the 2 babies in the background. I think they know we've got the good green stuff. Yoohooo over here! Some sort of largest deer typa animal, very cute 7/10. Eventually, we had this 'ol gal come over. Sometimes you will get more than 1 giraffe, but this girl doesn't like competition since she's older and the other giraffes know to let her do her thing and they'll get a snack later. Giraffes are cute. Giraffes have long tongues to pick leaves. Cute! Not cute. They're really textured and super slimy so imagine you're getting a crusty yet slimy handshake hahaha Make your arm like a branch and hold it high for her! It's amazing to see them so close. Look at those big eyes "I want one" Alex. Video_1.movVideo.mov And there's a nice view of the 'closed' corner of the park. Cobra's Curse never opened, and went on to be down for over a month in June/July. Montu was closed almost the entire day and thankfully re-opened. Whew. Cmon BGT, do better! More to come shortly, I had never added videos so wanted to get those uploaded. Video_1.mov

Well....Geauga Lake, that is a park I went to once and will never again! hmmm in theory, none. I won't ever say concretely and forever "never again" because well what if something opens I really want to try? And if I had a bad experience that doesn't deter me, anything can have an off day, perhaps if there were repeated bad experiences maybe. Even out of the way parks like Holiday World or Lagoon, I can't rule it out because I did like them again what if there's something new? That said I will probably never go to Waldameer again. Out of the way, really no easy to work it in even when visiting PA or CP and well, real talk fine place for locals but there's one reason to go to there for others, and I thought RFII kinda sucked. I dont imagine they will open anything new of omg quality so yeah most likely won't go there again. Darien Lake. Same reasons.

You can do the same height check directly before going into the station so everybody knows who is going to ride and who will wait for the others. Europa-Park does it like this. I don't see how train loading/unloading operations could be affected by the placement of the height chech. If somebody is in a one hour line with someone under minimum size its their problem. As a dad of two undersized kids I fully understand what @DILinator means.

While I'm sure your intentions are for the best, think about how many times people have tried to get under height people on the rides? Is it an inconvenience? Yes, but it speeds operations up because you aren't height checking everyone loading a train.

That sucks. I like that they added parking to that single pass, but I travel for work and occasionally go best other parks. $40 for the single park pass isn't bad, but I'd like at least the option for more without being stuck with monthly payments

I didn't even think about the tower needing paint, but I guess it's not perfect. Being it's the centerpiece of the entrance and park, them making sure the paint is in great shape is just another reason why this park is amazing. Are there any plans for COVID restrictions in place? My vaccinated self will begrudgingly wear a mask for the Haunt. If there are other noticeable measures beyond that, I'll wait for this to pass for another few months at a time, before visiting again. I won't visit any parks ever again for another sanitized soaked train loaded every-other row. Miserable.

I was going to prove you wrong and say they had a whole ornament section on their website.... but...

In the past, when you go to cancel your membership, they present you with a cheaper offer. I don't know if they will continue this practice, but it's worth a shot once your 12 months is up.

Or we could just continue to buy the $50-60 season pass, and have it be good at every park, as it has been forever, if that was still offered. I too do not want to sign up for a recurring thing (I have enough of those already). Granted, I never spent a time inside SF parks and got my money's worth from the season pass, but will likely not be doing that next year. And yes, I only get SF passes when I anticipate going to a bunch of their parks in a given year. I had one in 2017 and then again this year, but no other years since I was a little kid.

^ yeah. . I can "cancel anytime" my Amazon Prime Membership too. . and yet, it renews every year (sometimes despite my intention to cancel it, as they don't send out a notice that it's about to renew). so. . yeah. . not interested in signing up for anything "recurring"

I haven't really been to a park that I have no desire to return to. Some of my least memorable parks like Valleyfair and Elitch Gardens had coasters closed that entice me enough to make me want to return to

That's cute! Easy advertising, too! Don't know why we don't see things like that more often.

OMG. . this is *so* freaking awesome. Park President Jeffrey Siebert just shared this on his twitter. 1st piece of track for 2022's "Dr Diabolical's Cliffhanger" is on it's way to San Antonio! how cool is this?

Got a nice surprise at KD yesterday. They had Windseeker, Apple Zapple, Racer75, and Twisted Timbers open!

Dorney: The Thread. Congrats you've just killed God.

Conneaut Lake Park Too soon?

I can say with certainty that you're in the minority. (tho KD is a fantastic park as well) and if you think BGW is so well loved because of the Scenery (and not for the crafts, the shows, the animals, the inanely fantastic rides, in addition to how gorgeous the park is)? Then nothing I can say is going to change your mind.

The reason that nobody mentioned Elitch Gardens is because they all have to go back to ride the other 3-4 coasters that were closed when they went there the first time.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Elitch Gardens. Their whole mindset seems to be, "We're closing and getting bulldozed in a few years, so.... why bother?"

Bonus days look fun...

Wow. That is definitely not a park I thought would pop up in this thread. Crazy talk.

Yeah, I can't think of a place I wouldn't really go back to. I mean, even some of the worst parks I've been to I would give a second chance for one reason or another.

La Ronde but I blame @coasterbill because his trip reports and all his talk about the place made me curious lol I thought there's no way it could really be thatttt bad and we already had six flags season passes so it wasn't costing us anything so we figured why not go see for ourselves. I have no problems admitting when I'm wrong. Bill was 100% correct lol

One of the weird things about this hobby is how very difficult it is to get the same experience as someone else. If we were all super-into movies, for example, even if maybe I saw it in a better theater than you did, we still basically saw the same movie. Of course we might have different reactions to it, but we wouldn't have to figure out which day the other person saw it on, what year, where they started, where they ate, what row they sat in, which employees they encountered, how the projector was running that day, their weight, height, and age, and a million other variables. We could just say, "Oh, you like different movies than I do." (And then we could have a knife fight about it.) But I've had vastly different enjoyment levels myself at the same park on different visits, and I'm sure most of you all have too. So how do you know the next one won't be better? Of course, I'm not advocating repeated visits to a park you hate. But I've personally never been to a park that was so bad that it couldn't possibly improve.

I don't think there is any park that I will refuse to visit again. Some parks are very far down my priority list to visit again until something major and significant comes along (such as Six Flags America), but that doesn't mean I would *refuse* a visit if presented the opportunity. Parks are constantly changing and evolving and always deserve another chance in my opinion.

Mr. Obvious here.

If your one and only goal is credit whoring, Worlds of Fun may be a "never again" park for the foreseeable future. ^This x100. My main guess is he's a young person whose main priority is riding as much as possible, like many of us started out. Also, I agree with everything Bill said about Holiday World. I call it "Thunderbird Park." I've had nothing but seriously painful rides on Legend, and I can't comprehend how anyone over the age of 15 would want to tolerate it more than once, let alone like it. Voyage has a great layout, but it sucks. The only time I was ever able to truly appreciate it was after pounded two 4 lokos in the parking lot. I can't comprehend why people love the mediocracy of Liberty Launch. I had one good ride on Raven. Ever. Why has nothing been done about Pilgrim's Plunge yet, instead of building water coasters elsewhere??? There are the most redneck clientele I've ever seen, but they don't sell beer. There aren't even any decent restaurants that sell beer nearby!! I don't want to swim in the same water as those people. Decent, and I do mean decent, hotels are not close. Even the log flume sucks, because it's so mediocre. Why the hell do people call the Thanksgiving dinner in the dining hall delicious? Their family Thanksgivings must have blown. It's 'not bad,' but the lunch lady does not make delicious meals, unless you're talking about square pizza. HW is less than three hours from us and we never go. I enjoy telling this to people who drive across the country for it. I like Thunderbird and the Turkey Shooting (yes) Dark Ride. I'll drive six hours to KI and four hours to KK all day long, before going to HW. As a matter of fact, we pass HW for both. Suck it. The biggest tragedy is I will have to go back for our daughter, when she's old enough.

Is it okay to say most parks I have no interest in returning to? Most are one and done for me. The exception being a few Disney/Universal parks and my home park(s).