AndrewA86

If you don't want to wait for the front 17 is the magic row for me.

Had my first visit of the season yesterday and it was great, although it didn't start out that way as there was supposed to be early ride time for Banshee and Mystic Timbers and both were down. But the lines were pretty short all day (except Firehawk... 45 min+) so I can't complain about that. We got on the big four 5+ times including 9 rides on banshee because my GF's little brother absolutely loved it. The Racer was actually racing which was nice. Red was running pretty well, blue was pretty sluggish. Invertigo was open for the first time in a long time. Every single time I went last year it was closed. And when I got off I remembered why I hate it so much. Beast was running well after getting to the top on the inch per second lift hill. I think I'm in the minority on not liking the new Diamondback seats. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think they're as comfortable. And Diamondback is getting to be a tad rough in the back especially on the first drop. And Mystic Timbers is still running great. Still my favorite ride in the park. I'm disappointed that I forgot to try the new BBQ place, but I will eventually. I was very disappointed by the assigned seating on almost EVERY SINGLE FREAKING COASTER! And that includes Adventure Express! Now I was able to get us the row we wanted 95% of the time, but the fact that I have to ask bothers the hell out of me, especially on a day with light crowds.

Banshee 4 hours ago.

I'm going tomorrow too, and I went last last year at this time and Mystic Timbers was the only really long line. Everything else was either a walk on or 15-20 minute wait at the most. But the weather is supposed to be very nice so it wouldn't surprise me if the waits are longer.

Corkscrew at Cedar Point. I hated it. I was 6 and I banged my head almost non stop throughout the entire ride.

I strongly recommend Ludington. It's about 45 minutes north of the park. All the Lake Michigan beaches are absolutely beautiful but I think the town of Ludington is better than the rest for 2 reasons: it is actually located right on Lake Michigan. You can walk from the beach into town and vice versa, where the others are very close, but still a 10 minute or more drive from the lake. And the other towns like Grand Haven, Holland, Saugatuck, are a little more touristy, where Ludington has more of an at home kind of feel. And then Muskegon is a town who's better days are behind it IMO. Montague and Whitehall I've never visited but those towns aren't right on the lake either. Ludington has a bunch of amazing restaurants. My favorites are the Old Hamlin which is a typical family restaurant, Scotty's for seafood, especially the fried perch, and they have the most amazing BBQ place outside of the south called the Q Smokehouse. For ice cream they have house of flavors. I'm not really an ice cream person, but everyone loves house of flavors. I posted a picture of their ice cream menu below... House of flavors ice cream

Am I the only one who still doesn't like the name?

Not a stupid question at all as some parks don't let people with skip the line passes choose their own rows. At Cedar Point for the most part you do get to choose your own row. Even at coasters where they assign seats, if you ask politely they will almost always grant your request, especially if you have FL+. Now as to what coasters will have assigned seating, 99.999% sure Steel Vengeance will, Valravn has since it has been open, Maverick does on occasion, and same with Rougarou.

I've been going to CP 25-30 times a year for the past 15 years or so, so I'm a pretty old veteran of the park... Like someone else said, since you are staying at a Cedar Point hotel you will be allowed early entry. You should 100% take advantage of that. I always recommend fast lane plus to people from out of town unless you are going between May 14th and 17th, or August 27th to the 30th. Even if you will be there for 3 days I still recommend it because if it were me I would want to ensure that I have the best time possible. And unless you get fast lane you will most likely be waiting a lot more than you are riding. If you're going to be there on Fri, Sat, and/or Sun then you definitely need it... Las year I probably got FL+ 15 times on my 30 or so visits. Also, 2 of the better rides in the park, Maverick, and Top Thrill Dragster are not very reliable. So even if you're there for 3 days, those rides could be down for 2 of them. So you would come all this way to only get on each once or twice. If you don't want to spend the money for FL+ all 3 days if I were you I would get fast lane plus that first day and marathon the hell out of Maverick, TTD, Valravn, and Steel Vengeance. Then the next day use the early entry to hit those 4 again, and use the rest of the day plus the next day to hit everything else. Plus you would still have early entry on the 3rd day. Even though your breakfast is included (at the hotel I'm guessing) I highly highly highly recommend Berardi's Family Restaurant at 1019 West Perkins Ave in town. It's the absolute best breakfast. http://www.sanduskyberardis.com/menu/ As far as the food pass, I wouldn't get it. There are some decent options, like Pink's, but I usually pack a couple coolers with food from home and drinks. I've never bought the dining plan until this year, so when the park opens up I will be trying a bunch of different places and I can get back to you on that. I've never been to Disney, or Knotts, or SFMM, so I can't compare CP to any of those places. With that said, I think CP has a great environment. It's very clean, very pretty with the location on a peninsula, and the landscaping is great. The ride operations are first class. I hit on this a little bit above, but with SV in the picture this year it's very hard to give advice on what order to do the park in. Without FL+, the way I would always do the park, after early entry is over and the GP are starting to enter the park is to hit TTD first, then work my way counterclockwise with Magnum, Gemini, etc... But with SV that might not be the best way to go anymore. My advice is to just get FL+ so you don't have to worry about what order you do things in and you can just enjoy yourself...

Hey, hold on a sec... I have NEVER been able to get guests in for early ride time at CP...

It was a while ago (april 3rd) when I visited the beautiful BGW and finally I have time to write about my experience. First, I'm not someone who cares much for theming, but it's really hard not to notice how amazing the park looks. I caught myself looking at the different buildings and structures a lot more than I normally do (which is never) when at a park. And even though I'm Italian, I have to say that the Ireland section of the park was my favorite. I like how the bridge over the river leads you to this arched- fort structure. Then walk through that and the castle is in the back with all the other little buildings. The other sections are well done too, but I thought this one was the best. Ok, so on to the ride experience. We thought about getting their quick queue. That's something I normally will do when visiting a park for the first time and not knowing if and when I will be back. But after about 5 minutes of thinking about it once we entered the park we decided against it. We got there right when the park opened and it didn't seem to be that busy, plus I had heard that they don't let you pick your own row, so we decided to keep our money. We decided to start in the back of the park and work our way to the front, and I think that was a good strategy. So we headed for InvadR first. We were stopped by an employee t the Irish castle saying the area of the park behind him wasn't open yet and while we waited a ton more people showed up and were waiting too. We had second thoughts about not getting quick queue but still stuck to our guns and decided to see how long the lines were going to be. When we were finally allowed past the castle the vast majority of the crowd went left, and not towards InvadR, so I felt relieved. InvadR was a walk on as we were on the very first train, and we got right back on and sat front row, again it was a walk on. My feelings about this coaster differ depending on what kind of coaster it was meant to be. I've heard people say it is a family coaster, and if so it's maybe the best family coaster I've ever been on. RCDB says it's a thrill coaster and if that's the case then it's a very below average thrill coaster. In any case it was a smooth fun ride, just not very thrilling. There were indeed 2 rows roped off for quick queue people. I believe they were the 2 middle rows. Next we made our way to Alpengeist and it was another walk on. I was really looking forward to this ride because it seems like it is so polarizing. Some love it, and some hate it. We walked on twice in a row, first in the front, then in the back. In the front I thought it was an above average ride. I thought it was very forceful and fun. I really liked how it gets low to the ground at times. In the back it was a little rougher but not bad at all. I don't think it is better than Raptor, my #1 invert, but it's giving Banshee a run for it's money at #2. I think I'm going to have to ride Banshee again to make my mind up between those 2. So I loved Alpengeist and I really don't get why some people don't like it. So moving on, we then made out way over to Griffon, and it was about a 10 minute wait for the front row. I was also pretty excited to ride this because I had only ridden Valravn and I wanted to see how much better (if at all) a dive coaster can be without vest restraints. And I would say it's a little more enjoyable but not much more enjoyable. It's still a one trick pony, but the drop is better when you don't have to deal with the suffocating vest restraints. Overall I actually think Valravn's layout is better, but because of the restraints Griffon is a better coaster. Next was Verbolten and it was only a 10 minute wait. This ride is a perfect example of why I do my best to not learn as much as I can about a coaster before I ride it. I had no idea that the entire track was going to drop from under me while in the dark. Until that moment I couldn't remember the last time I screamed on a ride, but when that train fell I screamed like a little girl... I have no problem admitting that they got me on that. And if I had seen a POV or read about the coaster before riding it the experience wouldn't have been as fun. As for the rest of the coaster, it's not bad, but not good. But that one part made it worth it. Now at this point in the day it's probably around noon and the park is filling up fast. We waited 25 minutes for Tempesto, and it was a pretty force-less ride. This one looked a lot more fun than it was. Nowhere near as good as the impulse coasters (i've only been on wicked twister) that I have seen this ride compared to. Tempesto wasn't a bad ride, it just wasn't as forceful as I was expecting, especially the launch. Next we hit Apollo's Chariot and even though the line appeared long it was only 10 minutes or so. The operations on this ride and throughout the park were pretty damn good. I think this is the best ride in the park.I thought it did a good job maintaining it's speed, very smooth, and somewhat intense. The drop is also pretty fun even though it's not the steepest drop in the world. Now with all that said, it failed to deliver the kind of air time I was expecting. And I wasn't stapled in either. We rode this 5 times in all different rows, including the very back, and the air just wasn't there, so that was kind of disappointing. But overall I enjoyed the coaster a lot. So by now the park is jam packed and the proof was the wait time for the only coaster we hadn't been on yet, Loch Ness Monster. We waited an hour and fifteen minutes for it. I haven't waited that long for an Arrow since Magnum was the best ride at Cedar Point. Unfortunately it was not worth the wait. For an Arrow it wasn't bad at all in terms of roughness, but I thought it was running very sluggish, and because of that I didn't find it to be all that fun. The first loop is OK, and the helix in the tunnel would be a lot better if the coaster had more momentum. I actually think the best part of the ride is the small drop and 2nd loop after the 2nd lift hill. You start to gain some momentum but then after the loop the ride is over. I don't want to be too critical because it's an old arrow, but I thought this could challenge Tennessee Tornado for best Arrow looper ever, and it fell well short. I don't even think it's better than Vortex at Kings Island. But for an arrow looper it's above average. We also rode the drop tower which was OK, and the pretty boring train ride. I don't think the train ride did a good job showing off the park at all. A few times we also wanted to ride the skyride because we thought it would be faster than walking, but the lines for that thing were ridiculous. I could have walked around the whole park before getting on this ride. It just doesn't have enough cabins. Now I usually don't talk about the food, because just about all amusement park food sucks, but I was told to expect good food at BGW. And I had both a good and bad experience. First the bad, the Italian food was garbage. The Chicken parm was terrible. The meat was dry and tasteless and the sauce was straight out of a container at the grocery store. Pretty pathetic. I threw most of it out. My cousin had their pizza and ate half a slice. I tried it and it was definitely the worst I had ever had. So still hungry we went to the smokehouse in the France section and that was good. We had some ribs that were pretty damn good. I feel like I should have known better than to try the Italian food, but being Italian I just couldn't help myself. So after we ate we walked around to the coasters and everything was a 45+ min wait. So we went on Alpengeist and Griffon a couple more times and left around 3 PM. I would have liked to spend more time there, but I wasn't going to wait that long for what they have. And an employee even told me this wasn't THAT busy of a day. So if that's true how the hell is Sea World losing money. On one of my Apollo's Chariot rides I could see that every single parking lot was full. And when we were leaving the traffic was bumper to bumper to get in. And that place is expensive, even for amusement park standards. So unless BGW is the only busy park the Sea World owns, it baffles me how they aren't wiping themselves with $100 bills... Overall it was a pretty fun day. I'm glad we didn't get the quick queue because while they don't have a bad ride they don't have a great ride either and they were assigning seats for QQ people on every coaster. So I think that's a waste of money. We got on everything we wanted multiple times by 3 PM, so I can live with that. And we had a long drive to get to Carowinds the next day. So overall it worked out.

The photo ID card can be processed at any Cedar Fair park according to the website.

Ahh, well then I didn't feel it.

I'm sure Dominator has it's good days, and maybe the good days outnumber the bad days. As for I-305, I thought it was relentless from start to finish. They were only running 1 train so is it possible that I experienced it with the trim off? As for the drop, I thought it was as good as anything I have ever experienced besides the beyond vertical drop of Maverick, and maybe Lightning Run. Saying that it pales in comparison to Grizzly?!?!?! I can't comprehend that because I thought every part of Grizzly just sucked.

That's awesome! It's a good bet that i'll be there for each and every one..

It was an incredible time, and I wish I could go (and maybe I will) in the summer when everything will be running faster!

When I went they had the 2nd row blocked off so it's good to hear that they fixed the problem they were having with that row.

Fury 325

When I was there they had 3 different kinds of lines. 1 for single day tickets, one for season/membership passes that had not been processed, and another area for processed memberships. But they all opened at the same time so being in the membership line didn't get me in the park faster.

I visited Kings Dominion on Monday April 2nd and it was the highlight of my trip. Going in I had very high expectations for Intimidator 305 and Twisted Timbers and both surpassed those expectations. But the other supporting coasters were pretty good too. The park was pretty empty. Everything except Volcano and Twisted Timbers was a walk on. And I did end of getting a FL+ because not only was there a wait for Twisted Timbers, they were only running 1 train and the operations were gruelingly slow, which I will talk about later... So Dominator was the first ride of the day and it was fun but a little too rough for my liking, especially the 2nd half. I rode it in the back first and then later in the day gave it another ride in the front and the experience wasn't too different. It's also not to intense, probably the most intense moment is the vertical loop, it gives some great hang-time, but the rest of the inversions are not all that intense. So because it's rough and not all that intense I have to say it is a below average coaster. Then I rode Volcano and while I think it is a very good ride, it left me wanting a whole lot more. That first launch is amazing, and then the second launch actually caught me off guard because the train is just flying and then you go faster, it is very intense and very fun. Then shooting out of the volcano happens so fast it takes a couple seconds to realize what happened. Then you just kind of meander around the volcano and the ride goes from very intense to just Ok, and then it's over. It's an above average coaster because of those launches, but at the same time it's kind of a one trick pony. Next was Avalanche and I loved this ride. Obviously it's not the most intense ride in the world, but I just think that Bobsled coasters are so fun and unique. Then I hit Intimidator 305 and found my new favorite coaster, knocking Lightning Rod down to #2. It's easily the most intense coaster I have ever ridden. I wouldn't say it's perfectly smooth, especially in the back, but it's smooth enough. That first turn after the drop is insane. On one ride (of my 15+) I did start to see stars but I didn't fully grey-out, although I wanted to... Going in I thought the restraints could be a negative but they weren't, and I thought the ride time was a little short, but at the end of the ride it didn't leave me wanting more, so I think for as intense as a ride that this is, the ride time is perfect. Overall it's just a perfect coaster. Now with me still to ride Twisted Timbers and visiting Carowinds in a couple days the questions is how long with I-305 last as my favorite coaster... After riding I-305 4 or 5 times in a row I hit Rebel Yell which surprised the hell out of me. It's pretty smooth, and it looked like parts had been rebuilt. THe only rough part was the turnaround. It provides some good air and it was mildly intense. It's probably me second favorite classic woody behind the Beast at Kings Island. For an older wooden coaster it's definitely above average. Then we decided to eat and hit the drop tower. The drop tower was good but when we were on it we saw that Twisted Timbers was up and running. We bolted for TT and thought the line was pretty short, it started on the steps up to the station, but it turned out to be about 40 minutes before we got on. when you get to the station there are still a coupe long switchbacks that you have to go through, and the operations were terrible plus they were only running 1 train. I'm not going to complain about the 1 train because leading up to the day of my visit there was word that it wasn't running at all, and it wasn't running the day I was there right away. Now the reason the operations were so slow is because there were a million walk's of shame and the ride operators really took a lot of time trying to fit these people into these seats. So what my cousin and I did was immediately purchase FL+ (no discount on that for platinum pass holders BTW) and tell the person assigning rows that we were single riders instead of together. Because even with FL+, once you were assigned a row the wait could still be 20 minutes. With that system 95% of the time we were on the next train. And I did get to ride in the very back, and very front. Back is the best, but the ride experience is incredible no matter where you sit. Ok, so as for the ride experience. The new trains were said to make the ride smoother and that is absolutely the case. Easily the smoothest roller coaster I have ever been on. After going up the loudest lift hill ever, the drop is awesome, just like Storm Chaser, but IMO that's where the comparison's of the 2 rides end's. IMO TT is vastly superior. After the drop the turn around the station is as intense as any turn on any other RMC, then the 3 back to back air time hills IMO is the best part of the ride. They are definitely ejector hills, but I kind of floated down back into my seat. So it was like a hybrid of ejector and floater and it was something I have never experienced before, which made it super cool! Then to have that inverted cutback (or whatever it's called) right after that is icing on the cake. All the rest of the airtime hills are great ejector hills, and the final inversion is awesome. It's just an amazing ride and it completely shattered my expectations. So after riding TT we hit Grizzly and that thing is just garbage. Easily the roughest roller coaster I've ever been on. Throughout the whole ride I was thinking that they RMC'd the wrong coaster... After that nightmare I figured we could add to it so we got on Anaconda. I usually don't mind the old Arrow loopers, but this one is trash. So the est of the day we just rode I-305 and TT most of the time with some stops at Volcano and Avalanche. We didn't ride Flight of Fear or Backlot because we go to Kings Island all the time and I didn't want to waste time riding something we have already experienced. We also didn't ride Apple Zapple because, well, it's right next to Twisted Timbers and every time I thought about riding it I just said screw it, let's go on TT again... Overall it was an amazing day. Probably the most fun I've had at a park in a long time, and easily the highlight of my trip.

I wouldn't recommend the Comfort Inn in Ruther Glen. I stayed there just this week. There's a 24 hour Denny's/ truck stop right across the street and all I heard all night was loud truck brakes and loud truck engines like it was right outside my door. I got no sleep. I even downloaded a white noise app thinking that would drown out the truck noise, but it didn't.

I had that same experience with Thunderhead at Dollywoood. One day it was pretty darn smooth and then the next it was rough as hell. I dunno, it's not that bad. I always ride it once when I go, and I don't regret it. I might ride the one at Michigan's Adventure. I hear that one is one of the better SLC's. Yep, absolutely. I wouldn't mind at all if that were my home park.

No I wouldn't say I'm upset personally, because I got on the ride with my stuff. Well I'm not going to be shaken-down without a fight, which I won... Arrogant? No... Arrogant would be that I think I am the only one who should be allowed to bring stuff in a zipped pocket. I think EVERYONE should as long as what they have doesn't pose a threat to themselves or anyone else.

I don't know if this is directed at me or not, but I never said it was rough.

I did ride in the front and I knew about the policy. I didn't expect them to be watching like vultures though and patting everyone down. Maybe it is better, I've never bought one at any park. And I know it's not hard, but I'm not someone that will bend over and grab my ankles if I think something is ridiculous. I didn't expect them to be the same, but I expected them to be comparable, and IMO they aren't. Who's to say what proper expectations are? If a lot of people say El Toro is the best wood coaster on the planet, you're saying it's not "proper" to expect that it could be?