jonskinny12

I've never understood why a large (or at least very vocal) part of this community believes that forceless means a ride sucks. Are GateKeeper and Valravn mostly forceless? Sure. Have I had a ton of fun every single time I've ridden either of them? Yes. That's just me, though. If you want to only enjoy the most forceful rides, go for it. But for me, the amount of fun I have does not usually correlate with how forceful it is. And saying that MF, Maverick, and TTD still reign supreme over Valravn means absolutely nothing. Those would be the top three coasters at most parks across the world.

That post is a joke right? Valravn seems to be absolute home run for Cedar Point. Just about everyone likes it, it's incredibly reliable and it's generating huge lines despite having a great crew. People find the holding brake terrifying and videos of it have been breaking social media all year. Honestly every modern dive coaster seems to be a home run. I'm sure when the ridership numbers come out it'll be one of the best in the park. If I had to guess I would say it's almost a lock to give the 3rd most rides in the park after Gatekeeper and Millennium Force, 2 other no-loose-article rides that are open for early entry but they have no floor to drop and have 6 more riders per train leading to a higher capacity. I won't even justify the Riddler's Revenge post with a response because it's completely idiotic in every way. Nobody cares what enthusiasts think or if they think a ride is forceless. They make up a very tiny percentage of the parks total attendance. A dive coaster would be incredibly unique to the region and honestly the western 2/3 of the continent and there's no reason to think it would be any less of a home run than all of the other ones have been. I loved Valravn when I went to Cedar Point in July and I would love to have a dive coaster this much closer to me.

Giving bonuses for ride uptime is one of the more ridiculous things I've heard of at a park, and it's not surprising that it led to the engineers being pressured to giving the ride the green light. Does any other park do this? I'll admit, I've never asked anybody if they do because it just seems like such a bad idea.

They were probably good too, but it was 1:15 am and I don't remember much other than almost falling asleep repeatedly in line followed by a fantastic ride in the dark. Lol

Just got back from a quick weekend trip to SFMM. The park was busier than I was hoping but I still got 4 great rides in on Twisted Colossus as well as checked out the work on Apocalypse. The front of TC at night with the lights off is a pretty spectacular experience. I think I'll always ride the back during the day and the front at night, but there's no bad seat on that ride (granted I've only ridden rows 1, 5, and 12, but still). Big shoutout to the TC crew on Saturday night and Sunday early afternoon. They were seriously hauling ass and racing quite often. On my 4 rides I raced for half of the ride each time. I wasn't a believer before but now that I've experienced it, it makes a huge difference in the overall ride experience. The crew was really emphasizing getting in and out of the seats quickly to race and even giving a countdown, which seemed to help a lot. When I was paying attention, every time they didn't race was because of a guest. Either they tried to bring their house onto the ride or they didn't fit or they were trying to take a video, etc. Based on what I saw from them and the rest of the park, they're not in danger of losing their "crew of the month" banner anytime soon. They were the only crew I saw with any hustle (they actually ran sometimes!!) where the rest of the crews were typical of what you'd expect here. I witnessed the FT crew carrying on conversations while checking lap bars to the point where they would wait for the person on the other side to finish the row before moving on to the next row so they didn't have to have a break in their conversation. Apocalypse. Sigh. This ride was pretty spectacular when I went a little over two years ago. Then when I visited earlier this year it was in rough shape, particularly the second half. The work they did on the second half helped immensely and it's about as smooth as I could have hoped, given the circumstances. But now the front half is pretty bad. There are a couple spots between the first drop and the first tunnel where it jackhammers pretty bad and even though it was a walk-on early Sunday, I couldn't do more than two consecutive rides. I decided to ride Viper because it had been about 10 years since my last ride on it and maybe this would be my last chance. Rode in the magic seat (which is where I'd ride it anyway) in the dark and actually had a lot more fun that I was expecting. It was more intense than I remembered and I didn't leave the ride with a headache. I wouldn't mind going on it again but I'm also not dying to and I wouldn't be sad if it was removed for something else. X2 at 1:15 am was a pretty awesome experience. I've ridden it at night before but never that late or that dark. Got the inside seat on the back row and it was just awesome. I've had some good and some bad rides on X2 over the years but this was one of the best I've had. It was so hot Sunday that I actually rode Jet Stream because there was no line. Why don't I ride this more often? Oh yeah, because the line is always way too long for me. It was pretty fun though and got me just the right amount of wet, even if the river under my seat tried to drown my feet. I really would like to try the new trains on Revolution, but the line is so long and moves so slowly. Maybe eventually I'll get to try it out but I'm happy to wait months/years until it's less popular (I don't care about the VR at all). Overall, it was a fun weekend and well worth the quick trip. I don't get into Halloween events much but I thought the props and overall ambiance they were going for with some areas of Fright Fest were pretty cool. Give it a couple weeks (the moose out front says it officially starts 9/27) and it should be a good event.

Was anybody here earlier today? I got here a little bit ago and the parking goes almost to the fence in the gravel lot. I found a much closer spot that someone had left. All the signs at the entrances to the queues say 2 hours from this point but many are much shorter than that (like TC, which I'm currently in line for). I'm guessing it was a zoo in here earlier today.

Had no idea. That certainly explains a few of the more inexplicable things we keep seeing every year. Further, not to be rude, but I call foul play. Do the mods like to fool around with all new members' posts? I did NOT write this: Having my first post ninja-edited is a pretty lousy welcome to the community. Feel my input is a bit undermined now. We are not an easy community to get used to. Lots of sarcasm, inside jokes and regulars. Once you get used to the this forum you will like it though. All joking aside we love coasters ( or Flumes ). Once you post more, people will realize your not a troll. So many new posters spam treads then get banned. Once your name is learned it will be better. Yeah, what he said. Plus this at the bottom of every page here pretty much sums it up: "Disclaimer! You need a sense of humor to view our site, if you don't have a sense of humor, or are easily offended, please turn back now!"

This sounds about right.

I know I'm some number of pages too late because we're all so busy talking in ridiculous circles, but can we go back to this? This is the best video on the internet. (Ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but not a lot) Very well done.

Ah, that's great news. Thanks!

Sounds like the park was a bit busier than expected this past weekend? I'm going this weekend and hoping for some lighter crowds. I was under the impression that the first few weeks of Fright Fest were generally pretty light. I'll be arriving sometime late Saturday afternoon and will be leaving Sunday evening. Any tips for the coasters this weekend? I'm excited to hear about the improvement of Apocalypse because that was a really nice surprise for me a few years ago but I was pretty disappointed with it earlier this year. I'm really looking forward to some late night rides on that, TC (hopefully without all the bees...), FT, and Tatsu.

Ah, roll-o-plane! I've missed that ride since the one at Lagoon folded in half many years ago. They're weird rides for sure, but I loved it when I was younger.

This is my problem with it. I don't mind most rough wooden coasters. The Voyage is my favorite ride I've been on. I've had one trimless ride on Mean Streak and the first half was actually quite fun. But of the 5 or so times I've been on it, I only really had fun for one half of one those rides.

The only downside to this addition is that Batman might not be a walk-on all the time anymore. Other than that I think this is great for the park.

I had never heard of this place so I just looked it up. I need this in my life.

Well this is why I should go there. I've gone to Chickie's and Pete's on my last two trips because I'm hooked on their crabfries. The other food there is barely above mediocre though and it's all overpriced even more than most theme park food. Next year I'll finally take your advice and go to Famous Dave's. I would suggest at least trying Chickie's and Pete's if you've never been there. It's nice to sit inside a cool building for a bit (that alone almost makes it worth it on a hot day) and I love their crabfries. I might be in the minority though since I never really see other people on here suggesting to eat there.

My brother and I went to the park last week on Thursday and Friday. I've never seen it like it was on Thursday. The forecast called for a big storm so maybe that scared some people off but it ended up being sunny almost all day and never rained at all. Everything was a walk on most of the day except Valravn, and even that was never past the bottom of the stairs from what I saw. The Maverick station was often empty other than a few rows. The longest wait of the day we had was just after we got into the park at 11:30 or so when the line for Millennium Force was just outside the station and someone threw up in the seat, so we had to wait for them to clean that up. Dragster was closed most of the day because it broke down and then was down due to wind from about 2:00 on, but it was running well on Friday. Aside from that, Thursday was probably the best day I've ever had at the park. Stuck to the most popular rides and still managed to get 25 total rides in about 8 1/2 hours (including taking breaks to eat). We also left a few minutes before closing because we had taken a red eye flight and were running on 2-3 hours of sleep. Friday was much busier of course, but still pretty light crowds. We stayed at Breakers Express so we took advantage of early entry and got a couple rides on Millennium Force and Maverick before heading to Dragster a few minutes before opening. I noticed that the entire area around Millennium Force was completely dead when we got there. Is that normal now? Do most people head to Valravn first from the marina gate now? It was just strange to be completely alone in that area of the park because it's always got some people walking around even on the least busy days. Anyway, got to Dragster and got in 4 rides (including one in the front row) in about an hour and a half. It would have been shorter but something happened on our last ride and they had to bring us back into the station to reset the system. We left the park around 3:30 to catch our flight but Dragster's line was usually somewhere on the ramp, and never got any longer than the first set of soda machines - not using any of the switchbacks. Millennium Force was about 15 minutes, Maverick was 45 minutes, Valravn was an hour plus, and everything else was pretty empty aside from Raptor and GateKeeper the first hour or so. It was another great day. Even though the trip was so quick, all things considered it was probably the best trip I've had to Cedar Point - I've been 5 times. In the past I've gone in late May or the first week of June, but I'm thinking late August is a better time to visit. As for Valravn, I thought it was a lot of fun and better than I had anticipated. I only rode it Thursday because I wasn't going to wait an hour on Friday after I had already ridden it 4 times. Got in the back middle twice and front right twice. The drops are a lot of the fun and that 270 degree roll in the front right seat is possibly the strangest inversion I've experienced, in a good way. Hanging over the first drop in the front row is an awesome sight. The only real problem with Valravn is that it's short, but it's a great addition for the park. Total ride counts: Millennium Force - 11 Maverick - 9 Dragster - 6 Valravn - 4 GateKeeper - 3 Magnum - 3 Raptor - 1 Rougarou - 1 Mean Streak - 1 Not bad for roughly 15 hours in the park, eh?

I'm here today as well with my brother. All the coasters are a walk on or at most just outside the station, including Valravn. The longest wait we've had has been about 15 minutes when someone threw up on Millennium Force. We're having a fantastic day!

Especially when that coaster hasn't even been built yet.

I realize that WDW can handle more crowds than it has to. My point was that after the big deal Disney made of the 50th anniversary, people started to realize the history of Disneyland vs Disney World. Yes, the number of annual pass holders is an issue. My family had passes in the early '00s, when an annual pass cost $99. Since then, the price has over tripled, showing Disney is getting tired of annual pass holders coming. Also, the amount of black-out dates on the lower tier passes shows they don't want pass holders there that often. To me that says Disney is good at business, not that they're tired of annual pass holders coming. They've shown that as long as people keep buying passes, they'll keep raising prices to maximize profits.

That is awesome news. Thank you! I can't wait. I didn't think I would make it to the park this year but just decided to take a quick trip out there for a couple days.

When do most of the schools in the area go back from summer vacation? I'm looking at taking a quick trip there in two weeks (all day Thursday and about half the day Friday) and I'm curious about what the crowds will be like. Based on the hours changing from 10-10 to 10-8 that week, I'm guessing the crowds die down quite a bit.

I don't know whether or not they'll charge you for parking. As for the perks, two years ago my brother and I went to SFMM and did the exact same thing you want to do (got my pass processed, used the free day that day and the 1/2 price day the next) and we didn't have any problems doing it. So unless something has changed you won't have any problems there.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I'll most likely be there the second Sunday and I'll probably pop in on Saturday night since the park is open until 1 am.

I usually go the second or third Sunday and it's super quiet either way. I've been the past 3 years or so and every ride is a walk-on. Even Tatsu is only a station wait. So you won't go wrong with Sunday's at Fright Fest. Wow, is it really that dead on Sundays during Fright Fest? I'm considering heading down there the second weekend of the event (9/24-9/25) and was trying to decide if I want to make it in time to get into the park Saturday evening but it sounds like Sunday would be dead enough that I wouldn't need to. How busy are the first couple Saturday nights of Fright Fest? I'm really only concerned about the coasters, I don't typically do any haunted houses or mazes.