Zand

Only one problem, and not sure if it's a new "normal" thing or just for now, but Cedar Point was sold out of FL in advance for both days I was there. As was Kings Island the first day I was there (I have no idea about the second day because I didnt check). So planning on walking into a shop (which I've absolutely done before) is risking it right now. Also, I waited 30 minutes to get my wristband at Cedar Point because there's only one booth for redemption and only 2 people working at it. They also do the dining and drink pass redemption at the same booth, so yeah...

Does anyone know if Jersey Devil will be on Flashpass (even if it's a one time reservation type thing)? Or if not can you use your Platinum skip the line pass? Staying near the park Sat Night so I can be there at opening and get one ride first thing, just trying to figure out if multiple rides is a feasible idea. If not, hopefully at least the crowds get pulled away from El Toro anyway.

^ Now do Steel Vengeance. 2 greeters at front of line. 1 greeter at the FL/Standby merge. 1 greeter at locker split. 1 employee helping with lockers. 2 employees after lockers checking metal detectors. 1 grouper who can't count to 12 at the top of the stairs. 1 ride op. 4 restraint checkers. Uhh...yeah. You don't need 13 employees to run a roller coaster unless you're Cedar Fair. That said, Kings Island usually had a maximum of 7 on one ride. 4 checking restraints, 1 ride op, 1 grouper (who also controlled fast lane because *gasp* all the lines merge at the station at King's Island), and 1 greeter. Dont remember any coasters that had more than that.

Cant get there till Sunday wonder how much of a hellhole the place will be when they open it to the public.

^Pretty sure I've only ridden 5* mine trains (Adv Express, CCMR, Runaway Train @ GAdv, Trailblazer, and Florida Thunder Mountain). Obviously Thunder Mountain blows them all away. But after that, other than the ejector hill on the GAdv mine train, Adventure Express is probably by far the best out of the remaining four. It has some good speed and forces to it and some actual theming. Maybe I need to get on more mine trains. *6 if you count Steel Force at Dorney

I guess after my recent trip, I'd go with something like... 1. Diamondback, 2. Banshee, 3. Mystic Timbers, 4. Beast, 5. Orion, 6. Bat, 7. Flight of Fear, 8. Racer, 9. Adventure Express, 10. Backlot, 11. Woodstock Express. Haven't ridden either hang n bang.

I meant to touch on,this a couple days ago...the ops were really cranking out trains both on busy Tuesday and rainy Wednesday. But what struck me as odd is Banshee, Mystic Timbers, and Orion all running with 3 trains despite not having MCBRs. Despite the great ops, that 3rd train always ended up back at the brakes right as the 1st train was leaving or even got stacked a bit just to sit again once it moved up. There were a few times Banshee at least had a train starting up the lift when the one on the course returned, but I never saw Orion or Mystic Timbers not stack that 3rd train because the rides are simply too short. Enjoyed the Beast crew, especially the ride op cracking corny jokes every load cycle. But thought all the crews were fantastic.

Superman's ranking is basically a "boycott" against the new restraints by some enthusiasts. The same ride went head to head against Millennium Force for 10 years and still runs just as smoothly and powerfully as it did then, so it should still go head to head with Millennium Force. The only change is the restraints.

I've always ridden Apollo in the back because of the first drop. Always enjoyed the whole ride back there, but will have to give the front a try next time. On the other hand, Diamondback went from IMO the most mediocre B&M hyper in the backseat to *possibly* ahead of Nitro in the front. It feels like it wants to launch you to the moon on all the camelbacks before the MCBR.

^Your best bet is to stay near the front. Like I said, MF's line was open till 8:05 Monday after SV closed at 7:20. Everything from MF to the front still seemed to be running well after 8.

I found Jesus. He was reincarnated as the front row of Diamondback. This thing is 100% a front row coaster and holy hell do those camelbacks produce up there. Rode it 4 times in the front, getting pelted by the rain and loving every second of it. Went in the back once just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating and yeah...it isn't half the ride back there that is in front. Sorry Banshee, your stay as the #1 coaster ar Kings Island only lasted 24 hours or so.

Line for Flight of Fear ended up being 10 minutes (including a quick breakdown that involved sending a test train) and typical good but slightly rough ride. Had lunch at the Brewhaus which, to be objective, isn't nearly as good as the one at BGW but still nice to get out of the rain and grab some beers. Had the Blue Ice Cream beer which was very sweet but pretty good. Spent the next 45 minutes in Action Zone. Delirium was coming to a stop as I walked by so I hopped on. Giant frisbees are always excellent, but getting a rare ride with no wait is even better. Went over to Banshee next and the gates were open when I got to the station, so hopped in back. Ride back there didn't feel quite as powerful, kinda felt Alpengeist-esque. More graceful through the elements. Still amazing. Headed back to the Bat, which unfortunately was pulling away and only running 1 train, so I had to wait a WHOLE THREE MINUTES for a back seat ride. Oh the horror! It seemed even wilder in back, especially having to ride with eyes closed because the rain was dropping off the wheel assemblies right into my face. As I walked back up, Drop Tower was on its way up so I got right on the next load. Restraints locked, all clear, hold, "Drop Tower is currently down for technical reasons." Kind of a bummer, but instead got another front seat ride on Banshee which WAS as great as last night. What a masterpiece. Headed up the Eiffel Tower which had a nice breeze and rain in the face at the top. Quickly took some pics and headed back down. After a 3 train wait (my 2nd longest wait of the day) I hit Stunt Coaster which is always a good time. Made my way back to the Beast and first rode in row 17. Pretty wild and man is that helix crazy. Went back around and got a walk on SOLO front row ride. On the Beast of all rides, what a zenful moment. What wasn't zenful was that the rain picked back up, so had to get a "night ride" with my eyes closed the whole way! Empty train kinda meandered but still a lot of fun. Hit 2 walk on rides on Mystic Timbers. This thing just blows me away. This may be a sin on this site, but I think it's better and has more airtime than Phoenix. Don't @ me. Currently at Miami River Brewhouse enjoying a Giga Coaster beer and a giant pretzel. Unfortunately down to the last few hours of the trip.

Pretty awesome day so far! Started with a walk on front row ride on Adventure Express and walk on back seat ride on Racer. From Racer I saw a grand total of 8 people on a train on Orion! Good two back seat rides there in 15 mins! Now in line for Flight of Fear (might be the only line of the day, but its only to the UFO). Rain has been steady but light, but everything is running as far as I can tell! Should get plenty of riding and beer drinking in today!

Sorry I never got back to you guys...I was trying like hell to get all the essentials in just in case tomorrow is a washout. Just barely got it done. After the train I headed for Orion. Listed as a 90 minute wait, ended up being a little over an hour. Rode somewhere in the middle. Its a fun ride but incredibly short. Some good airtime moments and a couple forceful turns but don't blink or you'll miss it. Liked it a little better than Diamondback but my favorite coaster in the park was still to come... After a quick drink I made my way to the other side of the park to get my last new credit, Banshee. Quick 20 minute line and got front row. There was only one drawback and it was that there was a bad wheel on my car that caused a lot of vibrating. But otherwise, this just knocked Raptor off my top B&M invert spot. Packs an incredible punch from start to finish, maintaining a great pace and the mix of inversions and helixes is second to none. I think it's far and away the best coaster in the park. After that excellent ride I took the trek halfway to Kentucky to ride Bat. Another 20ish minute line, ended up in the middle somewhere. I didn't remember much from this ride when I was last there 14 years ago, but this is surprisingly punchy and forceful for an arrow suspended! Kinda short, but tons of fun. After that, it was 7:30ish and had to get across the park for my final stop, Beast. Unfortunately no night rides on this trip, but this was as close as I could get. 45 minute line, rode somewhere in the 4th car. This was much more wild and powerful than I remember it. Even with the trims all over the place, it really powers through the first section and those straightaways aren't boring like I remember. And that helix! Not rough to the point of being painful but it sure throws you around pretty good. I think I like Mystic Timbers a little better, but this came way up my list tonight and thats a hell of a 1-2 punch of woodies on that side of the park. 8:00 came fast and unfortunately I only got in 7 rides in a little under 6 hours. So while the crowds were a bummer, this park truly has become real awesome in the last 10 years. Amazing invert, two fantastic woodies (and Racer is good too from what I remember), 2 B&M hypers that are slightly underwhelming but still pretty awesome, a top notch suspended, and a nice supporting cast. I definitely want to come back soon, maybe in October with FP booked so I can get lots of night rides. Back at it tomorrow, hopefully the weather cooperates a little bit. Planning on doing rainy day things like Festhaus and the Brewhouse, and Flight of Fear. If the rain holds off, hopefully the crowd does too so I can get some good riding in. Unfortunately gonna have to skip the Reds game I was planning on, but I'll certainly be back here sooner than later. I suppose if I were to have a ranking here, it would be... 1. Banshee, 2. Mystic Timbers, 3. Beast, 4. Orion, 5. Diamondback, 6. Bat, 7. Flight of Fear, 8. Racer While they don't have a Steel Vengeance or a Maverick, that's easily a better top 8 than Cedar Point. Which I thought could never be beat. The fact these two parks are in the same state is crazy. Hell of a 1-2 punch for Ohio. Makes up for being stuck with the Browns and Bengals.

75 minutes at Diamondback turned into 35 minutes for a back seat ride. Pretty good ride, a little rattly and not quite as much airtime as I've heard but still a pretty solid ride. Hit Mystic Timbers next, again being told 75 mins but ended up being 45. Rode in front, freaking awesome coaster! Tons of airtime and fun forceful turns. Inside of the shed was super hot. Just hopped on the train as it was loading when I got off Mystic Timbers. After the train I'll probably hit Orion and Banshee just to get through the rest of the new to me stuff. It's crowded for sure but a lot of it is school groups who seem to be slowly heading out. Luckily the crews have been great so far. Food lines do look extremely ugly though.

Got in the park about 15 minutes ago. In line for Diamondback. Half of the first set of switchbacks are full. Queue Times says 75 mins, we'll see. They seem to be cranking trains out. Can see Orion cycling empty trains from here.

Pouches are gone. Honestly the locker thing would be fine if they did it right. They're free, easy to use and easy to get to.

Can you report back on crowds around 1:00? I'm arriving around 1:30-2, have to decide on the fly whether to get FL+ or not. Just want to make sure I have time for a couple rides each on Banshee, Orion, Diamondback, Mystic Timbers, and Beast. Just in case they close tomorrow. If the lines are like 30 mins or less I'll be good.

Based on what I read from opening weekend, it seems like the SV situation is a easy fix because it's a fix they already had in place! Partially fill the tunnel with both FL and standby, let people do the locker thing, then FL goes left and standby goes right. I don't understand why they got away from doing that. When I took my last ride, the sign for standby said 60 minutes and FL said 30 minutes when there was literally no standby line before the merge. And the line ended up being opposite if you got put in the wrong line. Honestly the two lines dont look that much different in length. But if you have someone at the station who has no idea how to do their (rather simple) job, it makes a bad situation worse. They were filling the ramp on MF which ticked me off too as that further devalues FL+. 2 out of 4 rides that you have to pay extra for both shove you into 20-30 minutes of the standby line which is plain wrong when you are spending $115+ on the service. I know 3 years ago on MF they weren't filling the ramp. Again, why did they go away from that? It only makes the greeters job harder because then they have to deal with getting yelled at by old people in tye dye shirts.

For the next 13 hours or so, I can say Millennium Force. Fine by me.

Few more points from the rest of today, where I got to experience the best and worst of the CP 2021 experience. After lunch I hit Raptor while I was there, grabbed front row after a quick FP line (regular line looked pretty short anyway). Skyride was closed today so walked up and randomly walked into Matterhorn as it was loading while I walked by. Definitely not a ride I expected to hit today, but what the hell! Waited about 15 minutes to do some Iron Draggin'. Always gotta hit it once even if it's kind of a lousy ride. Followed that up with another MF front row ride as there were only 2 groups lined up for it. Headed back to Frontier Town for a walk on ride on the excellent Skyhawk followed by a not so excellent walk on of the Mine Train. Those restraints are brutal and the ride isn't anything to write home about. Might add it to the list with Rougarou and Corkscrew of coasters that I wouldn't be sad if I missed each trip. Here comes the "worst of CP" I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Got to Steel Vengeance at around 6:45. Wife didn't want to ride so she sat outside and waited. I went into the FP line to find that the standby line was also empty. Put my stuff in the lockers, then was directed to the line on the right. They were doing such an awful job at pulsing the line that two guys that were in front of me in the tunnel got sent to the left side and got on the ride FIVE trains before I did. I had to bite my tongue to not ask the girl working the top of the stairs if she knows how to count. But, I did ask her if I could get in line for the back (since, you know, that and the front have dedicated lines built for that reason) and she coldly said "actually, you can go to row 3". While I was waiting for row 3, she let the people behind me line up for the front. I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the ride, but good god lady. Finally got off at 7:40 (yes, it took 45 f*cking minutes to get on the ride from the lockers because someone can't count) and saw the line was already closed and some guy with a pony tail and tye dye Kings Island shirt was SCREAMING at the guy working the entrance. My wife said they closed the line at 7:20 and had turned away a few hundred people. She also noted people who got in the regular line 20 minutes after I got in the FP line got off before me, and I was like yup. While most of the rest of the park seems to be back in typical CP shape (which is generally good), Steel Vengeance is still a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. Got on the train to head through Boneville to the front of the park (unfortunately with the tye dye douchebag right behind us) and saw the MF line was still open as we pulled up. I made it in at 7:57 and they kept it open till 8:05. Against all odds, the grouper let me get in line for the back, and then upon return they popped open the magic gate and told everyone to go ride again so they could let the front row line finish up without moving them to other parts of the train. I can't believe I was still in the same park as I was at Steel Vengeance. Total ineptitude at one end, and thankfully ending on a great note at the other. Simply put, that left side line at Steel Vengeance after the lockers needs to be FP only. And if you're going to use both sides as the regular line, for the love of god put someone up there that can count to f*cking twelve. And let people line up for the front and back like every other coaster in the park. Maybe just move Millennium's crew over there for a day and show them how it's done. Other than Steel Vengeance it was a great day. Rode everything I wanted to, multiple times for most. Still a bit of stacking going on but things seem to be smoothing out. Hell, I think TTD ran nonstop in the combined 14 hours I spent in the park. After a rocky start, I'd say CP is finally getting it together. Now just need to get those old hours back. Heading down to KI tomorrow and Wednesday. Wed looks like a washout, but maybe it'll stay light and I can have the place to myself. Will take what comes with the weather, but will be sure to ride what I can tomorrow in case I'm shut out Wednesday.

Doing pretty good with FL+ today. MF and Steel Vengeance have merge points pretty far back but didnt wait more than 20 mins (other than deciding to wait for the front on MF and getting caught in a 20 min breakdown). Valravn had a super long Fastlane line this morning (onto the midway) and just came back and rode it with a 30 min wait. Hit Maverick twice, TTD twice, and Gemini as well. Grabbing some crabfries right now then probably back to Frontier Town.

Didn't end up riding much today but had a nice afternoon. After Magnum I tried to ride the smooth Arrow next door, but it went down so I moved along. Got over to Frontier Town and Maverick and Steel Vengeance were also down, not that I would've waited in a long line today anyway. We ended up buying some tickets for Frontier Festival and had some different beers. Hung around over there for a couple hours enjoying the atmosphere. Always loved Frontier Town and the added entertainment was nice. I did try to hit Maverick when it reopened but the whole queue house was still full so decided not to bother. Finally at 6 we started walking up Frontier Trail towards the front. MF had a good line still. Rougarou probably had no line but it blows so I kept walking. Lots of people waiting to drag iron so walked past that. Finally ended up over on the Twister midway and that was deserted. Rode the CP Windseeker for the first time, which against all odds was operating in a slight breeze. Nice ride, kinda disgusting view of all the dead fish on the beach from the storm. Could smell them from the line. Wicked Twister was a one train wait and rode in back. I love this stupid thing. It never has a line, the launches are fun, it's smooth and the weightless feeling on the spikes is pretty cool. I know it's totally overshadowed by almost everything else in the park but I'd be sad to not have it to fall back to on busy days. Gatekeeper next...maybe 10 minute wait and rode right side near the back. Never been much of a fan of this, but always worth stopping by if the line is short. The bouncing kinda makes me nauseous and I never have that happen to me on any other coaster. Went to hit Raptor, but it was down so went over to Blue Streak. 4 train wait or so (and kinda slow ops) but always a solid ride with decent airtime. Best ridden after a few beers at Chickies and Petes! Better news that that Raptor reopened while I was in line and it was 7:45, so that's where I finished up the night. Front row ride and the bugs were coming out. Raptor just has a batsh*t pace start to finish and IMO is the best B&M invert (disclaimer: I havent ridden Montu). I know Alpie has an awesome half, but for the total package Raptor has it all the way to the brake run. Glad to get the front of the park taken care of tonight, so I can use FP+ to focus on Steel Vengeance, MF, TTD, and Maverick tomorrow. Does anyone know if Steel Vengeance will be open at early entry tomorrow? I know its a Monday but not sure if the holiday makes a difference. If not I'd rather just stay up front and hit Valravn a few times.

Are they doing seat assignment garbage on every ride or did I just catch Magnum at the wrong time. I've never seen them do it here before except on Steel Vengeance (which I understand). SFNE was still "social distancing" last time I was there but was still filling the station on Superman, Riddler, and the other usuals so I don't want to see any Covid excuses. On the other hand, crews seem be moving quick after reading your post earlier. Good to see.

Got here around 3:00. Definitely not as insane as I expected it to be, especially considering it's in the 60s and sunny. Have FP+ tomorrow so kinda walking around hitting stuff with shorter lines. First ride was Magnum...no seat choice for absolutely no reason (that station is huge...totally unnecessary not to allow people to line up in there). Got stuck in a wheel seat and have a splitting headache. Guess I'll try to drink it off lol.