So this weekend i finally drove with a couple of friends over to Cedar Point for all of our first trip to the roller coaster capital of the world. We finally got to Lake Erie and saw the mammoth coasters that I have only seen pictures and videos of and was floored by the sheer height of them.
We stayed at Hotel Breakers right next to the park and let me tell you, avoid any bad reviews because for any of us coaster enthusiasts, this place is the most convenient location possible. In between two entrances to the park that are basically only used by resort guests and right smack on the beach. Awesome location with great room views of the park. You can lay in your bed and hear Top Thrill Dragster revving up and sending off trains.
Now off to my thoughts of the park and i apologize for no pictures, i just cant risk losing something that pricey.
First i would like to say that Cedar Points staff is far better then Six Flags. Ride Operators move much quicker, communicate more, give facts about the ride, and the whole process moves alot smoother. Plus they dont wear awful ugly neon green shirts to stand out. This park in general is leaps and bounds above Six Flags. It is designed better with more paths around the park, and just feels like they actually care. I didnt use it but parking is cheaper, lockers are cheaper, prices are more reasonable in general.
FRIDAY-- We got to the point at around 5pm, and decided to there Starlight ticket offer for $25.95 which gets you in from 5pm to closing at 10pm (or 11pm on select summer nights). What a great idea to get a taste of the park and it was plenty of time to do so. I will review the rides one by one for those interested.
Raptor- first ride we did, i wanted to see how different it was then our baby Batman the ride. Let me say that it is noticeably better. The lift and drop seem and feel a little bit higher then BTR. The overall ride is longer then BTR which makes it that much more appealing. The cobra roll is also a great addition to the ride and is dizzying. It runs nice and smooth, line moves constantly.
Gemini- i have always looked at Gemini and thought it was an interesting concept, a wooden frame with steel tracks. Mix in that it has two tracks and is a racer and its pretty cool. It was a walk on in the evening. Compared to the racing component of our American Eagle, Gemini does win hands down. They almost always release at the same time, the lifts are almost identical speed and the layout allows for a close finish usually. Its a smooth ride with a great head chopper effects.
Maverick- the alleged best ride around, i had to give it a shot. We waited around 1 1/2 hours for it, but it was worth it for the first time. The launch lift up the 90 foot hill and straight down 95 degree drop is totally awesome. The ride moves so fast and swift you dont even know what to expect next, and the second launch at 70mph is great. Now, it is touted as one of the best rides in the park and while its at the top i wouldn't wait over an hour anymore. It is always around 2 hours which i think is nuts. Its a must ride, but dont kill yourself in line for it.
Wicked Twister- ahh driving up to the park i see a familiar face but with 2 twisting tracks rather then our infamous straight track. I did my first ride on Wicked Twister to see how it compares to V2, and my verdict is that Wicked Twister is actually quite a bit better. Its a combination of things though. The back twist track from the back seats is pure insanity. You have nothing but beach below you and you are twisting several times its just out of control. While OUR V2 holding brake is fun, the speed of the twist is much better. The ride runs a little smoother too. Wicked Twister doesn't have those shaking metal parts above the ride that rattle when the ride zooms by like V2 that make it sound like its gonna give in. The ride is a blast, the ride ops move much quicker with the train then our V2, and there is more rows so no excuse. It just moves quicker in general, feels faster, and more intense.
Millennium Force- Long have i seen pictures of this ride and dreaded the thought of a 300 foot drop. I finally put myself onto the ride to see what was so amazing about it. First off, i love the fact that the cars offer seat belts and lap restraints (including dragster and maverick), if i am dropped 300 feet at 85 degrees, id like that secondary protection. The ride starts right out of the station, its great. The angle of the lift is just insane, you feel like you are going straight up but the lift goes nice and fast. Sitting on the left seat you see nothing but lake. You crest over the hill and the drop is great, it feels long and it is so high. The rest of the ride is pure fast, very overbanked hills, tunnels and airtime hills. Its one of the best layouts of any ride i have been on. The hype lived up for me.
Top Thrill Dragster- The big one, the towering mammoth i have long watched videos of and told myself i would never be able to do it. Well i finally did . Lucky for me both rides on it came with our perk of staying at the hotel and getting in an hour early. Never waited more then 15 minutes. This is a crazy ride for those of you who havent done it. The adrenaline and nerves that run through your body are off the charts. You get pulled to the launch point and you sit there, here the engine noises. You just sit there wondering when will the lights flash for you to go. Finally you get launched and it is by far the craziest part of the ride. 120 mph, i never thought a straight launch would take my stomach away. The rest of the ride is just pure fun. Going up the straight 400 foot hill, over the crest you see Millennium Force below you and after a split second your down the 400 foot swirling hill. It doesn't give you that awful stomach drop feeling its just so fast you dont realize it just ended! its a great ride, and a must ride at least once! The fact that is just a lap bar makes it better then Kingda Ka (copy cats).
Mantis - hands down better the Iron Wolf, higher, smoother, higher loop, more inversions, faster, just crazier. its the loudest coaster in the park, it just roars. People of course will complain about standup coasters no matter what but they dont know how to ride them. This is a great ride and looks great.
I know this is a ton of writing, but if you are curious about any other ride, just reply and i will talk about it because this is way to much to write about. What a great experience!! Six Flags needs to take some notes no doubt.
The ride is a blast, the ride ops move much quicker with the train then our V2, and there is more rows so no excuse.
V2 has a cooldown period of 90 seconds. No matter how fast the ops go, they cannot dispatch within the 90 seconds. Therefore, there is no need to go fast. I don't know how much (if any) of a cooldown period Wicked Twister has.
^I totally agree, while Cedar Point was a blast for thrills, its not my favorite park at all. There is no real theme to it, just tall coasters. Parks like Islands of Adventure and Busch Gardens Europe offer a better day in my opinion
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
The ride is a blast, the ride ops move much quicker with the train then our V2, and there is more rows so no excuse.
V2 has a cooldown period of 90 seconds. No matter how fast the ops go, they cannot dispatch within the 90 seconds. Therefore, there is no need to go fast. I don't know how much (if any) of a cooldown period Wicked Twister has.
it feels like it takes more then 1 1/2 minutes to get that thing going amyway. So i dont think it would have much to do with that. I am just saying it felt like everything was done more quickly then the many times i have experienced V2. Wicked Twister overall feels better.
I do not mean to upset anyone here honestly. Complete experience though? The theming at SFGAm doesn't make my day complete at all. All i know is that i hear the same 5 songs replay throughout the park. At Cedar Point they have DJ's in the lines so there is good variety of music at every ride i go to and its not Sean Kingston or Natasha Bedingfield.
I dont know how i could defend SFGAm as better then CP now. I love our park and will keep going with my season pass, but I dont know, other then smaller crowds, if i could name anything better at SFGAm. The staff is way better at CP, prices are better, rides are better, they allow you to get into line upto 8 minutes after closing, early entry for passholders.... and as a joke, way way less basketballs being bounced around all day by wannabe lebron james
Sure, the parking and admission price is cheaper at CP (note that CP charges extra for their sorry ass waterpark), but once you get through the gates, forget it.
Out of the 17 coasters they have, I can count on one hand the ones that are good (Not including Maverick as I have not been on that yet).
I can see why you would be at awe with what goes on there. You stayed on site with the hotel which I am sure is great, but like I said earlier, this is the exception in the CF family. You are not going to find this at any other CF park.
I eventually want to get back there, but I am not in any hurry and I have other parks I want to visit first.
Glad you had fun though.
I finally retired the Sarah Palin signature because she is now 100% irrelevant.
There is no flash pass at Cedar Point. If you want to ride Millenium Force and the wait is 2 hours, you have to wait two hours. They have 17 coasters but how many can you get on really and not die at the end with lines that usually are twice as long as Raging Bull's?
flash pass at CP would be great but it would make the lines that much longer.
Yes 17 rides that are hard to get through on the busiest of days but by staying near the park you get early entry which we knocked out Maverick, MF, and Dragster in 1 1/2 hour. The rest of the rides waits are fair and equal to a busy saturday at SFGAm.
But at the busiest MF wait was 1.5 hour and the ride is better then Bull, higher and faster and the turns are banked much more then Bull so I don't mind waiting a little longer for it. Plus Dragster is so worth the wait if you don't make the trip often.
I am not trying to insult GAm at all, I just think that GAm could benefit if they ran the park like CP.
^What you are saying is that SFGAm would benefit from having some of the greatest coasters on the planet, not being run like CP. Cedar Point also benefits from having a fairly large college program that brings in LOTS of employees, most of which live in dorms on site. SFGAm has lots of high schoolers run their rides which hurts staffing quite a bit in the beginning and end of the year, not to mention college kids are more mature and usually willing to do a better job. (Just my opinion)
Six Flags needs to charge more at the gate and parking because if they don't, they'll go under - Bottom Line there. SFGAm is easily the best run Six Flags park that I've visited in my lifetime. If they have the employees, they will usually run each coaster at the highest of capacity, which is more than I can say for Valleyfair, a Cedar Fair park, which likes to run Renegade at one train until the queue hits an hour long. Then when they switch to two trains the employees groan that they need to work more. I've never once seen Wild Thing (Their hyper) run with three trains, and quite honestly I don't think the crew is fast enough to run it if they wanted to.
Chitown is right, once you visit other Cedar Fair parks you'll realize how much more money they pump into Cedar Point compared to the rest of the chain.
Top 5 wood-5-Goliath 4-Ravine Flyer II 3-Phoenix 2-Voyage 1-El Toro Top 5 Steel- 5-Velocicoaster 4- Maverick 3- Fury 325 2-Steel Vengeance 1-X2 Coaster Count: 444
I am not trying to insult GAm at all, I just think that GAm could benefit if they ran the park like CP.
Ill actually kind of agree with that even though Cedar Points operations used to be awesome and have gone significantly downhill over the past couple years. I do like how they operate a lot of their rides though in comparison to SFGAm. If you think about it MF, Corkscrew (though it doesnt help with the seatbelts), Iron Dragon, Magnum, Mean Streak, and Raptor all run 3 trains on a daily basis whereas at SFGAm Raging Bull runs 3 trains on a daily basis, Whizzer typically will on weekends and some weekdays during peak season and Demon does sometimes on weekends but normally not during the week unless its real busy. Also Wicked Twisters line moves way faster than V2's because the interval is 60 seconds opposed to 90 (I am unsure weather or not can control that at this point, but V2's used to be 60) and it makes a huge difference in the capacity of the ride. Plus Cedar Point does have more positions on the platforms of each ride though once again over the past few years they dramatically have cut their staffing. If theirs one gripe I have with Cedar Point its not really their operations its that they have way too many terrible reliablity Intamin coasters and the maintenence guys spend so much time that they have become forced to neglect other things, plus the coasters break downs become VERY annoying when your a guest and when you get in line ride after ride its breakdown after breakdown.
Chitown is right, once you visit other Cedar Fair parks you'll realize how much more money they pump into Cedar Point compared to the rest of the chain.
Definitley right about that, Cedar Point is Dick Kinzels sex partner. Cedar Fair has ran Knotts into the ground (actually Disney was going to buy Knotts and didnt because they wanted to preserve the history of it, so they sold it to Cedar Fair instead who paved over half of Knotts).
Not having flashpass is a major benefit to CP!!!!!
And SF doesnt need to increase prices on parking/gate, the reason they are in debt is due to bad management, and increasing prices will just result in less money overall in the current economy. I havent been to Cedar Point in at least 5 years so I cant comment on how the park is run, but im going to visit on Aug 6 so im looking forward to the comparsions.
As for other Cedar Point parks, I have been to Dorney/WOF and Knotts and had very good expeirences at all of the parks.
For me, I just get tired of hearing Cedar Point this, and Cedar Point that. We have taken our vacation there for 5 years straight until this year when we decided to help out the Six Flags chain and visit the park in St. Louis. What a nice refreshing change that was. I also enjoy the overall atmosphere of a park, which Great America, and St. Louis, beat by a long shot over CP. Any CP employee not working a coaster looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. I was at Great America yesterday, and several of the ride op's on the flat rides were talking it up during the ride to get the guests more into it. Hell, even on Sky Trek they were trying to get us revved up. I cannot even count the number of times I have passed by an employee and they looked at me and said "hi". Several times when I am getting a drink, or food, I have had employees ask me if I am having a good day. Would I want Great America to take notes from CP? NO, NO, and NO.
If it walks like socialist, quacks like socialist, smells like a socialist, .... it's a socialist. Hope, and change we can believe in.
Yeah Cedar Point is overrated like Walt Disney World, Holiday World, and Knoebel's. in my opinion if you win the Golden Ticket Award for more than 5 years in a row, Its Overrated.
Actually these trip reports saying "Cedar Point is the Best Thing on the Planet" anger me becuase My dad said "The Year I go to Cedar Point will be the Last Amusement Park I'll Visit." Because once I've been to the Best park, everything else will be sub par.
You think Cedar Fair is great. Go to Valleyfair or Michigan's Adventure. You will change your mind. (I'm not saying Those parks are junkyards, I'm saying that in my opinion, the parks are more boring than Cedar Point.)
CoasterBoy wrote:Yeah Cedar Point is overrated like Walt Disney World, Holiday World, and Knoebel's. in my opinion if you win the Golden Ticket Award for more than 5 years in a row, Its Overrated.
Actually these trip reports saying "Cedar Point is the Best Thing on the Planet" anger me becuase My dad said "The Year I go to Cedar Point will be the Last Amusement Park I'll Visit." Because once I've been to the Best park, everything else will be sub par.
You think Cedar Fair is great. Go to Valleyfair or Michigan's Adventure. You will change your mind. (I'm not saying Those parks are junkyards, I'm saying that in my opinion, the parks are more boring than Cedar Point.)
I dont get what your saying, but I went back to SFGAm for the first time since CP and considering the crowds were about the same as what i experienced at CP, i would much rather wait for the rides at CP. Dont get me wrong, i bought a flash pass and rode Bull 7 times and enjoy the heck out of it (and every ride at GAm for that matter) but alot of it seems to be inferior versions of rides to CP
Wicked Twister is a better V2 (which for the 2nd time i had no holding break on the second time back up) Raptor is a better Batman Mantis is a better Iron Wolf Then you throw in MF, Dragster and Maverick and Magnum.
Listen i understand you guys have been to tons of parks, but what about those of us who love the big thrills. How is it overrated? I go to ride big coasters and that is what CP provides. Going back to GAm didn't really compare. Yes, Disney with its extreme prices for child rides is overrated but CP offers good deals and huge rides and things run faster and better.
And at least they have a big firework/flame/light show at night rather then some lame night parade.
I love our park, but the apparent hatred for CP seems odd to me.
I'm very sorry wishman35, I got off on a Tangent and you didn't deserve it. You have your opinion about Cedar Point and we should all respect that because It's your opinion and we cannot/ should not change that. I should not have insulted your opinion as I have been insulted on here as well and hated it. I'm glad that you enjoyed your trip to Cedar Point and I apologize for critisizing your ideas and your opinions.
I apologize and I hope you can forgive me/ everyone here at Sfgamworld.com
CoasterBoy wrote:I'm very sorry wishman35, I got off on a Tangent and you didn't deserve it. You have your opinion about Cedar Point and we should all respect that because It's your opinion and we cannot/ should not change that. I should not have insulted your opinion as I have been insulted on here as well and hated it. I'm glad that you enjoyed your trip to Cedar Point and I apologize for critisizing your ideas and your opinions.
I apologize and I hope you can forgive me/ everyone here at Sfgamworld.com
hey hey no worries at all, i wasn't looking for any apologies. i was just sorta shocked that considering the amount of coaster enthusiasts here, there was so much distate for CP.
I dont think anybody here is wrong for what they say, its your opinion as well! I enjoy both parks immensely. Living in the suburbs of Chicago, i could only wish i could use both parks at my disposal regularly. Too bad the other one is 6 hours away
Yes, Disney with its extreme prices for child rides is overrated but CP offers good deals and huge rides and things run faster and better.
Hold your horses there.
Did you just say Disney is overrated and CP is not? As long as Disneyland has Mr Toad, Matterhorn, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Enchanted Tiki Room, and Splash Mountain id MUCH rather spend my money there. CP has a few good coasters and a whole bunch of bland ones, many Disney attractions are flat out masterpieces.
Yes, Disney with its extreme prices for child rides is overrated but CP offers good deals and huge rides and things run faster and better.
Hold your horses there.
Did you just say Disney is overrated and CP is not? As long as Disneyland has Mr Toad, Matterhorn, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Enchanted Tiki Room, and Splash Mountain id MUCH rather spend my money there. CP has a few good coasters and a whole bunch of bland ones, many Disney attractions are flat out masterpieces.
To each his own though
without a doubt to each his own on this one. the prices for disney are staggering especially if you are a major thrill seeker
stick some of those rides at SFGam and we will all moan and groan about more kid rides being added. For me, i dont see how CP is overrated. I end up paying less to get into CP than GAm and I get much crazier coasters, and more rides. Thats the only reason i dont understand the overrated comment. I didn't have any bad experiences in the 3 times i have been in the park and not to mention they were insanely busy. The lines constantly move, nice misters in line, quality music..its just more my style. Millennium Forces queue seems about 5x's the size of Raging Bull but somehow the line length can be similar.
I am once again not knocking our park, I am saying for a similar ride setup. 3 trains, 2 minute ride length, 2 ops checking restraints on both sides of car and send off....CP's rides just move quicker.
. Lucky for me both rides on it came with our perk of staying at the hotel and getting in an hour early. Never waited more then 15 minutes. This is a crazy ride for those of you who havent done it. The adrenaline and nerves that run through your body are off the charts. You get pulled to the launch point and you sit there, here the engine noises. You just sit there wondering when will the lights flash for you to go. Finally you get launched and it is by far the craziest part of the ride. 120 mph, i never thought a straight launch would take my stomach away. The rest of the ride is just pure fun. Going up the straight 400 foot hill, over the crest you see Millennium Force below you and after a split second your down the 400 foot swirling hill. It doesn't give you that awful stomach drop feeling its just so fast you dont realize it just ended! its a great ride, and a must ride at least once! The fact that is just a lap bar makes it better then Kingda Ka (copy cats).
