and would love any and all info you guys have learned from going there.
My son and I will be going and were thinking June or July. I was thinking a 2 day trip where we'd have 2 full days at the park either a friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday.
I've read the website, and we will be staying at one of the hotels or campground. What ones do you guys like? I know that you get in an hour early staying at the hotels. Do they have a flash pass? I haven't seen that, but figured if they do we will get that for the day that would be more crowded.
Also, we wanna go on all roller coasters, so any help with order or ones that just suck (kiddy coasters etc), but we wanna hit everything
Also, what rides are best to hit in the morning for the extra hour etc. Basically, any help that we know at Six Flags due to going so much, but for Cedar Point.
^First off all for early entry only Milennium Force, Maverick, Planet Snoopy, Raptor, Iron Dragon and Windseeker are open. Windseeker might have been only a 1 year thing. I hear they also do it with TTD but the first 5 are for sure. Go to MF, Maverick, or if open for TTD. Don't hit Raptor first.
I'd recomend staying at Hotel Breakers. Right on CP grounds plus you can get into CP for only $29.95 a person and then there's early entry. Other places do this too. Our 9th floor room had a wonderful view of TTD an MF. Mantis, Maverick, Gemini, Mean Streak, and Magnum were also visble. Do be aware that you have to pay $10 to get to the hotel along the CP Road (the road that you always see right next to MS and MF) however the money will be reinbursed once you check in.
Mantis and Cedar Creek Mine Ride are very horrible rides and i think that most people here can agree. Mean Streak wasn't as bad as i thought it would have been but be prepared for the worst. Corkscrew probably isn't anything special either. I loved Magnum and Gemini but many others do not. I thought that Blue Streak and Raptor were also solid coasters and that MF was overrated. Also Wildcat is underrated so try to ride this. It doesn't open until 11 though.
CP's food is just as costly as SFGAm's so be aware of that. However they also offer free cups of water. CP does not have any sort of Flashpass. They do have a VIP tour though similiar to SFGAm's (Although i think ours gives more benefits) Also be aware that MF, and TTD do not allow any loose articles in the queue line as they have seperate loading and unloading stations.
Try to go as early as possible before it gets too crowded. Expect some rude employees as they tend to be worse at CP than SFGAm.If i think of any hing else i'llhad ibut most importantly have fun.
Personally, I think that the on-site CP hotels are a rip-off and that you could save money (a lot of it) by Staying at the Howard Johnson's right at the turn off by the causeway.
Me and Alexis stayed there when we went opening day (which was a disaster of a trip btw) And really enjoyed it alot.
Nevertheless, I would avoid the on-site hotels but if you must go there. Id suggest the Hotel Breakers, but keep in mind that you are basically staying at a Motel 6, thats right on the CP property.
As for rides, I would suggest perhaps avoiding July if at all possible as that is probably the absolute busiest time of year to go to that park. Especially if you want to ride all the coasters/flats there.
CP is most definitely a 2 day park, if you plan everything right.
I would suggest that if you are not going to stay at the hotels on premise (and I really hope you dont) That you for day 1. Park in the Soak City/Challenge Park parking lot that is nearest to Magnum.
This is because you can easily get onto Magnum and TTD almost immediately when you hit the park. From there id suggest going to MF then Maverick and then back tracking from Maverick towards either Mean Streak (piece of garbage) then Gemini and back towards the front of the park. Where on your way towards the main gate, you'd hit Windseeker, Wicked Twister, Mantis, Raptor and Blue Streak.
Day 2 Id think about parking in the main lot and getting there as soon as possible and hit MF and Maverick and then do the same day 1 wrap around. As really the GP tends to crush towards Maverick right at open.
In fact save for MF and TTD, your longest lines will almost definitely be for Maverick.
Raptor for some weird reason had some really long lines this past season more often then not. But its definitely a ride worth going to CP for, as it is in my opinion, the best ride there after Maverick (which is absolutely amazing in the backrow)
Wicked Twister seems to get forgotten at CP, as if your used to 1 hour+ waits for V2 at SFGAm, you could actually find WT being a walk on or at most a station wait most days youre there. (Save for July though)
Blue Streak is a nice little coaster that is definitely worth more then 1 ride on. As is Cedar Downs, which is a really cool flat ride that you will definitely enjoy.
One of the most over-rated rides easily at that park is Magnum, while I has some decent ejector air, its basically Hyper-Arrow Mine Ride, which will absolutely kill your knees if your not careful.
Ceder Creek Mine Ride also is a very painful ride as well.
Disaster Transport, while kind corny, is a really neat little bobsled Im sure you'll enjoy it too.
Like Galvan said, I would really suggest parking in the back lot. Just tell the parking attendants that you are going Soak City. All you do is go around Perimeter Road and you get a nice view of Millennium Force and Maverick.
If you are going to be in the park for two days you should be fine. I was usually able to ride every coaster (minus JR-Gem, Woodstock, sometimes Dragster, and Wild Cat) in 2 hours until the end of June. But those 2 hours were always the last two hours of the day and it included some running. I would also suggest doing a Saturday > Sunday trip versus a Friday > Saturday trip. Sundays are statistically the least busiest days in the park. After dinner time the park is empty (even in July) and you can hit up a lot in a short time. Fridays can sometimes be dead, however there are also times when Friday is busier then Saturday, so I would play it safe with Sat-Sun. For last ride I would like to ride Maverick around 9:15 and then run to Millennium before 10:08 because Cedar Points major coasters close 8 min after the park closes.
I would ride everything at the park and I wouldn't take peoples opinions so seriously. For example I love Mantis, Mean Streak, and Magnum but dislike Maverick. I hate getting my neck bashed and chopped by rock hard restraints and for me the line never makes up for the length or excitement of the ride, but that's just my opinion. Try everything yourself and go in with an open mind. Cedar Point can definitely be a love/hate kind of place.
Thanks everyone for the info. Keep it coming! I'm gonna keep reading it and let everyone know as we get closer what we are going to do and do a trip report.
We are really excited to go...
Also, is the extra hour in the morning worth it, ie, will we get a couple rides on the coasters that are usually more jammed, ie Top Thrill Dragster, Millenium Force, etc?
Last time I was at Cedar Point Maverick and Millennium Force were both down for the resort early morning hour (though scheduled to be up) and Dragster wasn't scheduled to be open. That day MF, Maverick, TTD, Mantis all opened significantly after the park opened, Maverick broke down at least 10x throughout the day (like 5x while we were in line and walked by it several other times while it was down), TTD broke down while we were in line that day and the night before (and while going up Iron Dragon's lift we heard a downtime spiel going in TTD's queue), Millennium Force broke down while we were in line, and Wicked Twister broke down while we were in line. If remember right Raptor and Maxair were running during the extra hour. All of this is a major reason I haven't had much of a desire to go back to CP since 07.
I know back in the day SFMM always got the bad rep for having rides closed (back during the big CP vs SFMM fan rivalry), but i've been to SFMM 9 times or so and the only thing that has ever broken down while i've been in line was X2 for like 10 minutes (this includes many rides on DejaVu). I had probably an entire season worth of wasted time because of downtimes in one day at CP. But this was in 07 and now Kinzel is out so maybe they will start improving
Johnny.Ink wrote:Thanks everyone for the info. Keep it coming! I'm gonna keep reading it and let everyone know as we get closer what we are going to do and do a trip report.
We are really excited to go...
Also, is the extra hour in the morning worth it, ie, will we get a couple rides on the coasters that are usually more jammed, ie Top Thrill Dragster, Millenium Force, etc?
I went a year ago and the early morning was awesome! I ran to Maverick the two days I went and beat the ACER's out for the first ride. However Millenium Force did get to about 30 minutes during the early morning thing
The best part about working there was having 24 hour access to the park. I used to stand right in front of the entrance, or a friend would let me up to the station, and then watch as the fan boys would be running and sweating to their death. When they got there and saw me standing there they would be like "WTF"? That was always better then the ride itself.
I need to stop looking at the website. I'm just getting too excited to ride the rides. I think we are going to do the VIP tour on the Saturday, that way we can hit all the roller coasters multiple times on Saturday. Sunday we can do more of the flats and hit things that we loved the first day, and if we wanna see any shows or a parade etc.
Any flats that are a must? MaxAir looks awesome.
It seems pricey, but we at most will only go once a year or couple years, so... Plus, you get early entry on the day of the tour and 9 hours of front of the line access etc.
I'll definitely do a trip report for that.
I thought do back row for every coaster, and then front for the ones that seem like would be a different experience like Top Thrill dragster, Millenium Force etc.
What do you guys think? I usually prefer back row due to the whip and other forces.
Definatley wait for front row on Millenium, Maverick, and TTD if you can. Just awesome coaster moments on all of them. Especially Maverick, that is a must. It's a terrible ride anywhere else.
Top 5: 1) El Toro. 2) Maverick. 3) Millenium Force. 4) Diamondback. 5) X2. Coaster Count: 167 (41 Wood, 125 Steel) @Coaster_Cole on Twitter
Galvan316 wrote:Personally, I think that the on-site CP hotels are a rip-off and that you could save money (a lot of it) by Staying at the Howard Johnson's right at the turn off by the causeway.
Not sure sure on the HoJo, but this times 100. We stayed at the "cheap" on-site hotel and it was awful. It's a 1 Star hotel charging 2.5 star hotel prices.
Galvan316 wrote:Personally, I think that the on-site CP hotels are a rip-off and that you could save money (a lot of it) by Staying at the Howard Johnson's right at the turn off by the causeway.
Not sure sure on the HoJo, but this times 100. We stayed at the "cheap" on-site hotel and it was awful. It's a 1 Star hotel charging 2.5 star hotel prices.
So getting in an extra hour isn't worth the hotels onsite? We thought of doing either Breakers Express or Breakers, which I had heard was a super nice hotel (better be for 250 a night).
If your going to be at the park all day do Breakers Express. It's basically a Holiday Inn Express but with the hour of extra ride time in the morning which makes it worth it. The only reason to stay at Hotel Breakers is if you plan on going to your hotel room during the day and returning to the park that night and even then I probably wouldnt stay there. I don't know one person thats actually wanted to go back and stay at Breakers again the only reason for the price is the location.
The major flats/two newest ones are Skyhawk and Maxiar. Both are very shrot but worth doing nonetheless. My favorite non coaster ride in the park is Demon Drop, it may be overshadowed by Power Tower but the 1st generation Intamin towers are terrifying for all the wrong reasons and overall it's a hidden gem of the park. Cedar Downs is another classic must do flat which is a merry go round with race horses instead of the normal horses.
They also have a relatively large Ferris Wheel next to Wicked Twister which is worth it for pictures though its very windy up there because of the lake. The rest of the flats are a pretty normal collection: sky cabin, troika, a monster, music express, swinging ship, and an enterprise are the ones that I can think off of the top of my head. Troika's are pretty rare but SFGAm has one so you can another one under your belt, the only ones I can think of are SFGAm, CP, and KI.
Edit: Just remembered that Demon Drop was moved to Dorney Park. Oh well.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate everyone's opinions.
Right now I've gathered prices based off of a couple calls to the resorts and the website, but it seems they won't have actual prices for the VIP tour etc until after the new year.
We are going to go June 16-17 next year though...
My son and I are really looking forward to next year there and at Six Flags.
I rode Dragster in the front row at dusk once in the middle of summer, mouth closed thankfully, and came back to the station with bugs splattered all over my sweatshirt. Also the park does not allow glasses to be worn on the ride unless secured with a strap, and i'm not that much of a nerd to buy a glasses strap, so that didn't make the ride any more comfortable.
Which brings me to another point at CP, some rides you are not allowed to wear glasses on, so be prepared to put them in your pocket, buy a strap, or be pointed towards the lockers. I believe this policy is in effect on Dragster, MF, and Maverick. I have worn mine on every coaster, including Kingda Ka no problem, but CP and KBF do not allow them on some of the major rides as I was asked to take them off on Xcelerator also.
BP/19 wrote:I rode Dragster in the front row at dusk once in the middle of summer, mouth closed thankfully, and came back to the station with bugs splattered all over my sweatshirt. Also the park does not allow glasses to be worn on the ride unless secured with a strap, and i'm not that much of a nerd to buy a glasses strap, so that didn't make the ride any more comfortable.
Which brings me to another point at CP, some rides you are not allowed to wear glasses on, so be prepared to put them in your pocket, buy a strap, or be pointed towards the lockers. I believe this policy is in effect on Dragster, MF, and Maverick. I have worn mine on every coaster, including Kingda Ka no problem, but CP and KBF do not allow them on some of the major rides as I was asked to take them off on Xcelerator also.
I think MF their allowed it's launch coasters where there is the problem. WT Maverick, TTD, Power Tower i think Skyhawk (obviously all these arn't coasters)
BP/19 wrote:I rode Dragster in the front row at dusk once in the middle of summer, mouth closed thankfully, and came back to the station with bugs splattered all over my sweatshirt. Also the park does not allow glasses to be worn on the ride unless secured with a strap, and i'm not that much of a nerd to buy a glasses strap, so that didn't make the ride any more comfortable.
Which brings me to another point at CP, some rides you are not allowed to wear glasses on, so be prepared to put them in your pocket, buy a strap, or be pointed towards the lockers. I believe this policy is in effect on Dragster, MF, and Maverick. I have worn mine on every coaster, including Kingda Ka no problem, but CP and KBF do not allow them on some of the major rides as I was asked to take them off on Xcelerator also.
