It's hard to put into words how incredible this roller coaster is but I will do my best. It is also hard to not look at this ride and be amazed. At least to me it is a visually stunning ride. I took the picture above in our visit in June of 2013. Here is a bit more of the layout from a picture I got online. There are so many great pictures of this ride you just have to Google them.
You are looking at a ride that was completed in the year 2000 so Millennium Force is an appropriate name for such an amazing ride. It was the dawn of a new millennium and Cedar Point pulled out all of the stops with this coaster. It was the first roller coaster to be built with a staggering height over 300 feet (310 ft to be exact). It was the first roller coaster to go over 90 miles an hour (93 mph to be exact). It's setting is superb. It is located right on the edge of the park next to Lake Erie and if you are lucky and sitting in the left hand seat of the train you get this great or not so great feeling, depending on how much of a wimp you are, feeling like you will fall into the lake. I myself find it to be one of the more awesome moments on a roller coaster. Then again, I am the one writing a coaster blog for goodness sake!
Did I mention this coaster goes up a 310 foot lift hill, drops you 300 feet at 80 degrees (for those of you math wizards that is just 10 degrees shy of being a vertical or straight down drop), and reaches speeds of up to 93 miles per hour!? The view from the top is breathtaking, the drop is intense, and the ride is absolutely exhilarating.
You start by boarding the train, fastening your seat belt, and then pulling down a t-bar across your lap. It is actually quite comfortable and you are perfectly secure in a way that the ride experience is very enjoyable without being too restricted. You are pulled up the 310 foot lift hill by an elevator cable which is pretty neat. You come right out of the station and all you see is a 45 degree angled lift hill going up over 300 feet tall! Talk about a good way to to get antsy for a first time rider. It's a pretty fast lift and it actually gets faster as you approach around 200 feet in the air which only adds to the excitement.
You are at the top. It's so high you get beautiful views of the lake, most of Cedar Point, and the soon-to-be 300 foot drop you are about to experience. The drop is so fast and abrupt you barely have time to think before you are whisked around a 'u' shaped turn-around. You reach speeds of 93 miles per hour here and you can feel how fast the ride takes you. After the turn-around you go through a tunnel and into a 182 foot tall hill with great air time and solid views again. Then it is nothing but speed the rest of the way.
The ride never lets up and everyone on the train is screaming and yelling with their hands up. It is one of those coasters that for some reason just forces (no pun intended) a person to just, live and let live, and put their hands up. Most trains you see on Millennium Force will have a car full of riders with their hands up. It is just that fun. You will hit two more hills, (both with solid air time) one of which is 169 feet tall, before the ride ends. Yeah that's taller than hills on most regular sized roller coasters. You then go through another tunnel and hit another small hill and turn-around back into the brakes.
At the end of the ride you see people with huge smiles on their faces, clapping their hands, and giving high fives. I hope you can see why this roller coaster remains at my number one. I don't think I have ever found a person say it's a bad ride or that they didn't like it. Most coaster enthusiasts have it in their top ten and a lot as their favorite coaster like me. I'll never forget how nervous I was when I first rode this back on July 4th, 2007. I had no idea how it was going to feel on my body going on a coaster that high dropping at those kind of speeds. Needless to say it has left a lasting impression on me. I have probably ridden it over 50 times now since that first ride. I have been on a lot of great roller coasters yet Millennium Force still delivers. I don't know if there will ever be another roller coaster top this one for me but for the time being Millennium Force you are number one.
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