TR - Cedar Point - Opening Weekend

[Joe21498]

Friday:

 

My girlfriend, her step sister, and I headed to the park for an Opening Day weekend traditional visit. We arrived at the Season Pass Center at around 4:30 PM on Friday afternoon. Since we already had our vouchers we easily completed processing our passes within 15 minutes. This new system operates much faster and more efficiently than the old one, although I’m not a huge fan of not having the picture printed on the card even though it shows up when scanned. Also the card material seems thinner and less durable than previous seasons.

 

After processing we headed around the Peninsula to Hotel Breakers. We did the package deal so at check inn we got our coupon book. We then headed to our outdated, semi-clean room. We were in the Bon-Air wing of Breakers which in my opinion is in rough shape. I have come to the conclusion that the only benefit of Breakers is its walking distance to the park and that is where the connivances end. Our room was somewhat small and had been used enough to show visible signs of wear that are not normally seen at most hotels. For the amount of money these rooms bring in, they need to be remodeled. Our room didn’t have any garbage cans in it but this was the first night the Hotel was open for the year so I’ll let it slide that they forgot. We got the garbage cans on Saturday afternoon.

 

After check inn we went to Downtown Sandusky for a bit of a different experience than we normally go for. We normally go to chain restaurant on 250 but I decided to try a local establishment. We went to some Irish looking Pub downtown. The food was decent especially for the price and the experience with the locals was interesting to say the least. We got the standard you don’t belong here look when we walked in (The same look you give to newbie’s at your local bar) because we obviously didn’t fit the normal demographic of the locals. We all had burgers and some chicken fingers for appetizers and it was decent.

 

After dinner we headed back to Breakers. We decided to try our hand at some golf since we had free coupons with our package. My girlfriend won the 18 hole round with a 47 on the blue course and I had a 49. She was quite excited since she had never beaten me before. Her sister didn’t do very well and shot somewhere in the high 50’s. After golf we watched some TV and went to bed.

 

Saturday:

 

Saturday morning we headed into the park early. We entered at the beach gate since the Magnum gate line was huge at around 8:30 so I decided to see if the beach gate was shorter. It was very short right up till a few minutes before 9:00 so we got in fast. We headed to MF and easily rode 2 times without waiting. The crew was fast and energetic but some members were confused and nervous on their first day. I remember one girl checked my seat about 6 times literally the second time we rode because she seemed very nervous about making sure everyone was strapped in properly. MF rode very smooth and slightly slower like a usual early morning early season ride.

 

Next was Iron Dragon. The first drop on this ride always gets my stomach for some reason even though it is small it is still fun. Then we headed to Raptor for two quick spins before our ERT hour ended. Raptor is a great ride especially in the last row in the far right seat. The drop in over the Midway is just great from this seat.

 

We then rode Blue Streak after about a 10 minute wait. The park was getting slightly busy in the front of the park at this point already. Blue Streak is a great classic wooden coaster. It was running very good and gave us a nice smooth airtime filled ride. I did have to sit next to a very annoying teen that kept making strange noises over and over during the trip.

 

Next we went over to the new Planet Snoopy to check out how it looked. We all got our pictures taken with some plastic characters and some live characters. It was fun and the new area did look nice for children.

 

We then rode the Corkscrew, which in my opinion has the longest sustained ejector airtime in the park. If you haven’t ever sat in the last row of this machine and felt the first bunny hop before the loop you really need to give it a try. The rest of the ride is somewhat painful though from this seat.

 

Next we rode Magnum with no trim or very light trim. This was an excellent laugh filled ride as usual. No matter how many times I ride it I always find myself laughing at the end. Yes it can be painful but for some reason it is a funny painful experience. I was surprised to see all 3 trains operating on Magnum since the night before the Fiberglass shell was removed from the front car of one train when we went to bed. Nice work by the maintenance department to get this put back together in time for opening day.

 

We then headed toward the back of the park skipping Gemini, Maverick, and Mean Streak. The Maverick line was almost to capacity when we walked by at around 10:30. We did ride the CCMR and tried to ride Skyhawk but it had just gone down. We also had my girlfriends step sister practice driving us around on the Cadillac cars in the back of the park.

 

After the Cadillac cars we walked all the way back up to the main midway sky ride and took that to the front of the park. It was about lunch time now so we headed over to the Game Day Grill. We used our Platinum passes and received 3 free appetizers (One for each Platinum Pass, which I’m not sure if this was the way the promotions is actually supposed to work or not) with our meals. This is a really valuable Platinum pass benefit because this saved us approximately 30 dollars. We also used our Breakers package munch money for this meal so it cost us less than 20 bucks including a healthy 10 dollar tip for our excellent waitress. The food was delicious and very filling. I would say this is some of the best food in the park since they closed Chuck – o – Wagon’s Chicken.

 

We then meet up with some friends that were staying with us on Saturday night. After we got them all settled in we tried to go see the new Country Show. We got there at 2:35 and we couldn’t find any good seats so we went for a MF ride instead. The line was to the pop machines and it took us 1 hour to ride from this point in line. This ride was a bit faster than the morning ride due to the fairly warm day we had.

 

We then rode the Wildcat after waiting about one half hour in line. We had a person in the group who had never ridden the Wildcat so we had to give it a spin. For the overall size of this ride it is still very cool.

 

After the Wildcat we headed down 250 to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. We also watched the Pistons beat the Orlando Magic by 1 point. Since I’m a huge Pistons fan this was obviously awesome. This Buffalo Wild Wings can be hit or miss when it comes to service. Once we actually got a waitress she wasn’t exactly thrilled to be doing her job. It seems the staff at this location is always arguing with each other while in front of the customers. One time last year I even witnessed a near fist fight between staff members. The food was excellent though and the outcome of the game was as well. After a few drinks we headed back to the park (The minor in the group who didn’t drink drove us back). We then went to TGIF in Breakers to do a shot before going back into the park. 4 shots, 1 for each person, were 41 bucks. It was a large shot but that was a bit ridiculous. Lets’ just say we won’t be going back to the CP TGIF for drinks anymore, outrageous prices.

 

Once we were in the park we wanted to try the new privilege of drinking alcohol in line that is being allowed this year but we couldn’t find a close enough place to buy alcohol in the park. Now I’m not a drinker usually but I was on vacation so I was having a tiny bit of fun and this was a major buzz kill. The park needs to adapt some universal traits and have drinks available right on the midway from carts.

 

We then got in line for TTD and rode right around closing time. Very normal ride on TTD, we cleared the top with no signs of slowing. We then left the park for the night. While in line for TTD we had called for our TGIF survey to earn a free appetizer. We went back to TGIF to get the appetizer and then headed to bed for the night.

 

Sunday:

 

Sunday morning we entered the park at 9 and rode MF in the rain 2 times, which was painful, and then headed home. When we left the main parking lot only the very first full row had cars in it. The park was empty but I’m sure the rain made for a terrible day for those who went.

 

Overall it was an average trip to the park. They seemed to be prepared in some areas and not in others. Also I was somewhat disappointed that the new ride in Challenge Park was not assembled yet.

[signal]

The first day didn't seem all that bad... The second day didn't seem too good. Sounded better than some other first hand accounts of opening.

[myfootitches]

I got lucky and was over at CP on Monday....if I wasn't a passholder, I would probably have been a little more irritated. Mav wasn't open all day, Dragster was open for about an hour before it took its nap, and everything else was closed on and off all day. Apparently now if it's cloudy at CP, they just figure it's going to rain and shut everything down just for the fun of it.