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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

p. 2030 - Top Thrill 2 announced!

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Im not the biggest TR guy, I leave it to the pros, but I will say Coastermania went pretty superbly. Marathoned MForce from 7 to 840, headed over to Maverick to try and beat hotel crowds and did, they let us in a few mins early...got 2 rides before 9. Didn't even get off the train! they let us hop in an open row if there was one. Got 2 more in from 9 to 10 when I started heading in the direction of TTD. By pure luck it started to test literally as I went by, got 2 rides on it. This was all by 10!

 

Did magnum which idk if it was a good day or my memory but it didnt seem nearly as bumpy as I recall, really good ride.

Free lunch, then headed over to SV to gamble it'd be open by noon (this was 11:40 and it did start testing). I got one ride in, took an hour despite the line being very short, as I mentioned earlier was running 3 trains, ops were moving, just was crazy slow. It seemed like the hold up wasn't the pouches as I feared but just, the trains? There was some screen the ops had to "clear" and it seemed to really hold things up. Im sure people here will know way more about it.

 

But yeah after that I took it easy. Got rides on most I wanted, took a long break and nap, came back like 8 PM to knock out Raptor, Blue Streak, Valravyn, MaxAir, Skyhawk then night ERT. I got 5 on SV and 3 on Maverick so hard to beat that. Was a helluva day and glad I had all yest to recoop because I needed it! Even with a 5 hour break. Some people I bumped into were there from morning ERT to close straight through. Amazing but, how!?

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Disappointing TTD didn't open today. Surely over the next 3 days I'll be able to catch a ride.

 

First visit in 28 years today. Had a blast. SV at night for my first ride on it was great. Didn't believe the Maverick hype but loved it. Can't wait to get up in a few hours and do it again.

 

I saw a bunch of posts from Dragster last night. Apparently it opened about 5 minutes before close because Cedar Point is about that life (it also opened for a brief period in the morning).

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Some people I bumped into were there from morning ERT to close straight through. Amazing but, how!?

 

I agree. I give those folks A LOT of credit.

 

You don't really think about it but Cedar Point is actually pretty huge! Doing a lap around the park is quite a trek, or trying to hustle over to Millenium Force from SteeVe for a last minute ride is not for the faint of heart! And I'm in pretty good shape!

 

It's a big reason why a trip to Cedar Point for me just automatically assumes a Breakers reservation for a 1 or 2 night stay. It's just so worth it to have a place for me and my buddies/family to chill for an hour or two whenever you need to, even if it's at different times of the day.

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Some people I bumped into were there from morning ERT to close straight through. Amazing but, how!?

 

I agree. I give those folks A LOT of credit.

 

You don't really think about it but Cedar Point is actually pretty huge! Doing a lap around the park is quite a trek, or trying to hustle over to Millenium Force from SteeVe for a last minute ride is not for the faint of heart! And I'm in pretty good shape!

 

It's a big reason why a trip to Cedar Point for me just automatically assumes a Breakers reservation for a 1 or 2 night stay. It's just so worth it to have a place for me and my buddies/family to chill for an hour or two whenever you need to, even if it's at different times of the day.

 

 

 

Well one way is to be a teenager with unlimited energy or be the parent of said teenager who looks at you like you have suggested they poke their own eyes out at the mere suggestion of a break CP is good because of the on site hotel and I can just leave him, take a break and meet up later; but that isn't the case at every park. A few weeks ago at Coasterstock at KI we were at the park for 16 hours straight. Two days in a row. Not. Lying. I literally laid down on the ground by a wall, like a homeless person, to rest at one point.

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Just wondering with Magnum, a few weeks ago when i was at the park, Magnum had a pretty large line compared to the norm for it, yet it was only running 2 trains with the 3rd parked. Why??

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One of the trains was having something repaired recently. Just a few days ago, there was fiberglass missing from a single car. That could’ve been it.

 

OR I’m thinking most likely short staffing. It could’ve changed in the past few years but I recall that they needed 6 ride ops checking seats to run 3 trains. Staffing hasn’t been too good this year so it wouldn’t surprise me if they only had 4 ops checking seats, thus 2 trains. I could be wrong though.

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One of the trains was having something repaired recently. Just a few days ago, there was fiberglass missing from a single car. That could’ve been it.

 

OR I’m thinking most likely short staffing. It could’ve changed in the past few years but I recall that they needed 6 ride ops checking seats to run 3 trains. Staffing hasn’t been too good this year so it wouldn’t surprise me if they only had 4 ops checking seats, thus 2 trains. I could be wrong though.

 

With only 4 ride ops checking restraints, they wouldn’t be able to be quick enough to hit interval, I assume?

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^ That's my guess (or at least they can't do it consistently).

 

When Magnum stacks it screams to an abrupt stop on the brakes outside of the last tunnel. It's not a comfortable experience for the riders and I'd imagine it's not something that they want to do over and over as it's probably not great for the ride either.

 

When the ride was designed I'd imagine they didn't intend for it to stop there on a regular basis.

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I didn't realize how many miles I walked at Cedar Point until last year when I had my Garmin GPS watch on. We walked 10.5 miles on the Thursday the day before Coastermania. Walked 13.2 miles during Coastermania and we left slight early at the night ERT as it was getting windy and quite chilly.

 

Jim

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I tend to walk a lot at parks. I had 35.6K steps for 17 miles yesterday at CP. Did 16 miles today. Few weeks ago I had 41k steps at KI for 19.25 miles. Glad i picked up a fitbit earlier this year. Shows what a workout I get on park days among other things.

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After now having visited Cedar a point twice with small kids I can honestly say we love it and think its way better than our home park for kids (Kings Island) there is so much for kids to do especially with the addition of Forbidden Frontier. We loved that new area. Outside of Disney it’s been our favorite for the kids

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There was some screen the ops had to "clear" and it seemed to really hold things up.

 

The seat turns green on the screen when the lap bar hits a fixed distance in the computer system. You may fit the seat belt, and you may be able to push the bar down some, but every lap bar need to be pushed down a minimum distance for the train to be able to dispatch. If a seat isn't green, they will need to push down the lap bar harder and snausage you in. If still no green, then you take the dreaded walk of shame. Because guests can't push down their own restraints, the ops are constantly checking larger guests on the screen to make sure they are good before moving on. Rather than doing all the lap bars first and later finding out they aren't pushed down enough, going back, etc.

 

I always thought it would make more sense to put a green light indication on the train/seat itself that's in clear view while pushing down the restraint, but alas that is not how it works.

 

B&M recently (well, 7-8 years ago? lol) retrofitted all of their trains and older rides with sensors to not allow dispatch unless all restraints are down far enough. Fun fact: rides like Kraken (I know with 100% certainty as I operated it both before and after the modifications) and I'm assuming the Batman invert clones, at one point in time, could be dispatched with the restraints completely open. This is no longer the case. (unless you use the bypass key in the safety system).

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There was some screen the ops had to "clear" and it seemed to really hold things up.

 

The seat turns green on the screen when the lap bar hits a fixed distance in the computer system. You may fit the seat belt, and you may be able to push the bar down some, but every lap bar need to be pushed down a minimum distance for the train to be able to dispatch. If a seat isn't green, they will need to push down the lap bar harder and snausage you in. If still no green, then you take the dreaded walk of shame. Because guests can't push down their own restraints, the ops are constantly checking larger guests on the screen to make sure they are good before moving on. Rather than doing all the lap bars first and later finding out they aren't pushed down enough, going back, etc.

 

I always thought it would make more sense to put a green light indication on the train/seat itself that's in clear view while pushing down the restraint, but alas that is not how it works.

 

B&M recently (well, 7-8 years ago? lol) retrofitted all of their trains and older rides with sensors to not allow dispatch unless all restraints are down far enough. Fun fact: rides like Kraken (I know with 100% certainty as I operated it both before and after the modifications) and I'm assuming the Batman invert clones, at one point in time, could be dispatched with the restraints completely open. This is no longer the case. (unless you use the bypass key in the safety system).

 

I wish all tricky rides when it comes to rider size would have those screens. Ride of Steel at Darien Lake just got a new train a few years ago with a much stricter minimum angle for the lap bars but no way for the ops to know which seat it is. Basically they sometimes spend up to 5 minutes of just wandering the platform trying to figure out who it is that isn’t fitting. Holds up the line like crazy, especially with one train ops.

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I tried not to make this too much about myself and attempted to lean more toward some general experiences, thoughts, and to offer some small considerations for first time visitors.

 

We took the eight hour drive from St. Louis to Sandusky and went to CP on Sunday and Monday. I went with Emily, her sister, and her sister's husband, who happens to be my long time best friend. It was their first time at the park and within the past couple years we've dragged them to KI and SFGam. I'll share a few things in no particular order of importance.

 

We stayed in a double queen lake view suite. We originally booked a standard double queen, but we got an email earlier in the week allowing us to upgrade to the suite for $60. It turned out being really well worth it. It was small, like the rest of Breakers' rooms, but without the extension of the suite it would have been tiny. The new'ish beach bar is nice and the grounds looked great. For us, we'd never have CP any other way than with Breakers. The rooms are nothing more than standard, but the location and convenience absolutely make the experience top notch. Get the suite if you get any kind of offer similar to this. It's better than sleeping in the usual closet room, which is still worth it.

 

Sunday was decently crowded and the weather was mostly cloudy. We were at the gates right at 10am opening and we snagged our FL+ passes, which paid off. FL+ passes paid off. FL+ passes almost always pay off. FL+ passes are what you should get. Get FL+. Seriously, I won't visit without it.

 

I made sure to hit MF, Dragster, SV, and Maverick first thing, just in case they went down for the rest of the trip. Despite all of the crying on here, by the time we got to SV at 11, it was already operating with three trains. FL+ was about 15 minutes. It ran great. I can appreciate it's relentlessness, but it's a bit too much for me. I'm a rare breed when I say that it's not one of my favorites.

 

I was really surprised to find Gate Keeper running 1 train. We waited about 30 minutes for it. One and done this trip for that reason. I couldn't tell you how many trains it was running on day 2, but I saw it climbing the lift frequently. No, it doesn't blow your socks off, but I still enjoy the hell out of it.

 

A bit of miscommunication left us in an hour long line for the Monster truck attraction. We thought the ladies wanted to ride and they thought we wanted to ride. Turns out, none of us cared. Take caution that the line wasn't even to the first switchback and we still had to wait a long time. The loading/unloading one 10 passenger truck at a time was brutal and it took forever. The ride itself was really tame, but kind of fun. There were seagulls laying and nesting inches from the track all over the place and they didn't even pay attention to the loud monster trucks, which was kind of funny. Emily was pretty proud of herself, because she was sitting up front next to the driver and she was bragging about him buckling her in and hitting on her through the course. lol. Had I known it was happening, I still wouldn't have cared... She did ask the driver about the gulls and he said they never get hit and that they know the course so well that if they're on the track they will casually walk out of the way before the trucks ever get close.

 

I actually really enjoyed Magnum this time around. We sat in the middle of the train to get the most tame ride and I had everyone do CoasterBill's seat belt trick. It really worked for us and we all liked it. On the other hand, Gemini was looking pretty sad. There was no energy in the station and it was only running red train. I liked this ride a lot last season, but maybe it really has run it course. We did hit a rough transition on the helix and I experienced what felt like a painful punch to my shoulder. Sucked for me, but sucked way worse for Emily, since that transition whipped her round so much she accidentally smoked my shoulder with her left cheek. Ouch. Luckily she didn't get the black eye she thought she was going to get.

 

We ended up heading to Melt for dinner. Anyone who complains about this place isn't eating at any other parks outside of Disney or Knoebels. Our sandwiches were all really good and the fries were perfect. One reason we went there was to watch the St. Louis Blues game. But, even our good food and cold beer couldn't keep us from being pissed off when we started losing game 6 bad enough to ditch it for a night ride on Millennium Force.

 

I think MF rivals The Beast in my book as far as night rides go. I'll mention that we sat in our favorite seat, as we always do, which is the 2nd to last row. It doesn't get the longer line tat the very last row gets and it has less of a rattle being a lower seat. Usually by about 20 minutes until closing time they'll let you talk the shortcut from the exit ramp to the station for what is usually a walk-on ride. We took advantage of that once.

 

The next morning we found out the fitness center was a joke at Breakers. The equipment was straight out of the 90's and we were only able to find one treadmill and one elliptical that worked. Tip: Go for a run outside like we did.

 

The weather turned to crap and rain coats failed us. We took hundreds of needles to the face on Valravn in the rain. I have no idea how people enjoy fast coasters in the rain. Cedar Downs was dry and fun. The antique cars were not. Our plan of staying on the train once the steady rain came in only lasted for one lap, before the train closed for weather. I say again... the train closed for weather. It was freaking pouring and we had to make a run for it back to our room.

 

The hot tub was a good way to stay dry during the rain... The other members of my party decided to start in on some beers, while I instead chose to put my head back and fall in and out of sleep, and I enjoyed the hell out of resting. There's nothing like boiling below the shoulders while feeling cool rain on your face, I guess? It was even more awesome to go in and out of consciousness while eavesdropping on two complete strangers. One was very liberal and one was very conservative whoa were clearly complete strangers. It was entertaining AF. I'd rather talk about my favorite color than discuss bullshit social/political issue during a get-away. The rain finally let up and we enjoyed the rest of our day. Pro tip: ALWAYS bring an extra pair of shoes and plenty of socks. I was the only one not bumming.

 

I found out that I like Valravn more with each ride. This means I like coaster enthusiasts less with each ride. It's a win-win. On the same note, MF is still awesome. And if I haven't deterred enough people wearing cheesy roller coaster tee shirts, fanny packs, and glasses straps from talking to me, I'll come out and say that MF, Maverick, and Valravn are far more fun for me than SV. You can take all three of your dorky themed SV characters and drive them in your fanboy bus to Camp Snoopy where they belong, because I personally think that Maverick may be one of the funnest rides I've ever been on.

 

Other random thoughts of insignificance:

*I don't like Dragster as much in the front, because I don't like the feeling of my eyelids slapping my eyes and my cheeks touching my ears.

*Happy hour at Chickies: 1 domestic beer and your choice between nachos or fries was $10. Win. Beer without apps: $8. Do the right thing.

*Vaping. Everywhere. 2019, you're hilarious. And gross.

*The world needs less tattoos.

*Rougarou never has a line. Rougarous slaps you in the face. Rougarou is never as fun as I want it to be. Rougarou sounds sinister when it runs.

*I always wondered how a bug would feel if it hit you in the eye on a coaster. (Surprisingly it didn't really hurt.)

*Why does Raptor do almost nothing for me, but Gatekeeper keeps getting more and more fun??

*I always want Cedar Creek Mine Train to be pleasing. I always wish I hadn't wasted my time.

*Skyhawk isn't 'as' fun after my last trip to BGW.

*I could watch Maverick's high speed dive and water cannons for days.

*Amusement park bar-tending at Beach Front Bar: Order two of the same drinks. The drinks come out as two different colors. Not a strong enough deterrent.

*Seagull sh*t on every rooftop. No good solution to fix this problem. Release more flies?

*I think we made it a few days before mufflehead season went into full swing.

*done

 

Cheers:

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