As most of my blog readers/friends know I love Cedar Point. It is by far my favorite amusement park and one of my favorite places to travel to in general. For those of you who are Facebook friends with me, in May and early June, you usually see a barrage of photos from me on my trips to Cedar Point. I cannot help it. I enjoy sharing the stunning and fascinating views with you. It is no secret that I love to travel the 11 hour 712-mile journey to the park each year. For me it is very much worth the long drive. This year I happened to make the trip twice! Yes, I know that I am crazy. But when it comes to Cedar Point, crazy is a good thing. This blog post will detail yet another spectacular trip that I took to the park this past mid-May.
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| Can you tell I am happy to be here? |
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| Never get tired of this view! |
I decided on a few days mid-May to go to the park. These days were directly before an event that I would attend at Kings Island over the weekend of May 21st and 22nd. I will continue to advocate travel to Cedar Point in May and early June. I personally think those are two of the best times in the season to go. This time however, it was a little busier due to the Math and Science week that was going on. There were hundreds of busses in the parking lot with thousands more school kids packing the park to take part in midway science seminars and ride the rides. I knew this going in though and it did not damper my time at all.
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| Oldest & Newest Coasters in the Park |
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| What a drop! |
On the first day I got to Cedar Point I made my way over to Maverick during early entry. Early entry begins at 9 am every day and select number of coasters and kids rides are open to resort guests and platinum season pass holders. It is a good way to knock out a lot of rides and or re-rides early in the day before the general public enters the park on their 1 or 2-day tickets. Unfortunately for me Maverick was having mechanical issues (which it tends to do early in the day) so I was out of luck. That is ok though because I had just started my time at Cedar Point and I knew I had a lot more riding to do.
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| I see you Millennium Force |
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| Never seen this pic before |
Since I couldn’t ride Maverick I decided to make my way over to my favorite roller coaster Millennium Force. I spent about two hours riding it scoring nine rides. Millennium Force never gets old. It is like the movie The Godfather, or Forrest Gump, or pretty much any Disney movie in existence. It is very consistently awesome every time. The views, the speed, the length, the atmosphere, is all spectacular. All you need to do while riding is throw your hand in the air like you just don’t care and let the coaster do its work.
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| Hey Millennium Force |
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| Best Steel Coaster in the World |
After Millennium Force I made my way to Rougarou and grabbed a front row ride. This coaster is always great in the front with nice views and a smooth ride. The floorless sit down conversion from the previous stand-up version of the ride makes this ride not only fun but re-rideable. Next up was Iron Dragon in the back and then again in the front. It isn’t a very thrilling ride but fun nonetheless and easy to re-ride if you wish to do so.
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| Rougarou Looping |
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| Iron Dragon Dragging |
I then made my way to Top Thrill Dragster. I rode it once and then went back and rode it again. For my second ride they called for a single rider and I quickly raised my hand and headed in the queue gates. To my surprise they needed a single rider in the very front row. I could not believe it. Normally you have to wait an extra 20+ minutes for the front row on this coaster and there is a reason for that. It is completely mind-blowingly (probably not a word) incredible. Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle going 120 mph in four seconds? If you answered yes, then you know how awesome a front seat ride is on Top Thrill Dragster. If you have not, then you must get to Cedar Point and ride Top Thrill Dragster in the front row, like now! Not only do you get the feeling of 120 mph wind in your face, so hard I thought my contacts was going to come out of my eyes, you get launched up a 420-foot hill and then dropped 400 feet into 120mph speeds again. Yup, THAT JUST HAPPENED.
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| That's Tall... |
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| ...and Fast! |
At this point I was getting a little tired so I hit Magnum XL-200 and went back to my car for some drinks, snacks, and rest. The rest of my day went something like this. Get ready for one big run-on sentence. I rode skyride to the front of the park, four rides on Raptor, two rides on Blue Streak, two rides on Iron Dragon, three more rides on Rougarou, took the skyride back to the front of the park, rode Raptor and Blue Streak again, then shot over and rode Windseeker, got in two rides on Wicked Twister, two rides on Dodgem, and closed with two rides on GateKeeper. Oh and at some point during this time I met up with my friend Derk. So, are you keeping count?
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| Iconic Coaster Magnum XL-200 |
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| Sky Ride Rules |
That would be 37 rides during day one. Not bad for an 11-hour park operating day considering the amount of walking and resting you must do to get through the day. The next couple of days would provide very similar experiences. However, it was much busier the next few days so Derk and I decided to buy Fast Lane passes which allows you to skip lines on certain rides at the park. At some point I will write a blog post explaining the Fast Lane system so be on the lookout.
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| Early line at Valravn |
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| Skipped this line |
The next day Derk and I took our first spins on Valravn the brand new roller coaster at Cedar Point this year. It was a really good ride and a solid addition to the Cedar Point coaster lineup. The coaster looks awesome from almost any angle in the park and provides for some great photo opportunities. It is the longest, tallest, and fastest dive coaster in the world. This is how Cedar Point rolls by building the biggest and best stuff, or in this case roller coasters. The best part about the ride is the view from the top of the 223-foot lift hill. Oh, and the 215-foot 90-degree drop was good too.
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| Derk and I enjoyed Valravn |
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| Valravn is a nice addition to Cedar Point |
I was able to get 15 total rides on Valravn during my visit. If it wasn’t for Fast Lane I probably would have only ridden it 2 or maybe 3 times waiting well over an hour for each ride. Waits during the day were around 90 minutes and sometimes up to two hours. With Fast Lane we never waited more than 10 minutes, so yes Fast Lane is totally worth it if you are willing to spend the extra money. Believe me, you want to ride the ride multiple times because the ride hosts assign seats on the ride. So if you want to ride in the front, which is easily the best seat because of the view, you get more chances at that seat with Fast Lane.
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| 90 minute waits for Valravn |
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| This is why Fast Lane is worth it! |
After our first ride on Valravn, Derk and I went over to Millennium Force for the first of many re-rides. We were able to score about 10 rides in just over an hour. Then we got a couple of rides in on Rougarou and Valravn. We had lunch at Panda Express which is a pretty good food option at Cedar Point. It is a chain restaurant so you know what you are getting. After Valravn we made our way to the back of the park to put our Fast Lane to good use re-riding Maverick like crazy. The regular line for Maverick was over an hour and with Fast Lane it was a few minutes. We took full advantage grabbing eight rides in a row.
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| New cool entrance |
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| Ready to ride |
We then hit up Lake Erie Eagles, Pipe Scream, Top Thrill Dragster, two rides in on Power Tower, three more rides on Valravn, Blue Streak, and two more Valravn rides (I mean why not? Yes, the line was still 90 minutes but not for us). We finished the day with four Raptor rides, a GateKeeper ride, and four more Maverick rides. Yeah we did some serious riding today. A total of 43 rides were taken on many different attractions. We probably would have only gotten in half of that without the Fast Lane pass. It was a great day.
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| GateKeeper is a solid coaster |
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| Power Tower artsy shot |
The last day proved to be even busier than the previous two so Fast Lane was bought again and I did not regret it. We got in a total of 39 rides this day with eleven rides on Millennium Force, seven rides on Valravn, three rides on Raptor, two rides on Top Thrill Dragster, two rides on Maverick, two rides on Magnum XL-200, two rides on Blue Streak, and two rides on GateKeeper. We hit other rides like Windseeker, Power Tower, Gemini, Mean Streak, Rougarou, and Cadillac Cars. We ate at Chickie and Pete’s for lunch and I had the philly cheesesteak sandwich. It was delicious. It is a great option on hot summer days as you get to sit down in air conditioning.
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| Blue Streak and Raptor looking great |
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| This Philly cheesesteak was great |
It was yet another amazing trip to Cedar Point. What can I say that I haven’t already said about this park? It has the best roller coaster collection of any park I have been to. Cedar Point has 18 roller coasters. Two of those 18 coasters are kids coasters so I am not counting those. Of the final 16 roller coasters 13 of those coasters are great, fun, and re-rideable. Only Mean Streak, Corkscrew, and Cedar Creek Mine Ride are duds in my opinion. I think Millennium Force, Maverick, Top Thrill Dragster, Raptor, GateKeeper, Valravn, Magnum XL-200, and Wicked Twister are all premier roller coasters. Then you have the classics like Blue Streak and Gemini. Cedar Point has a great atmosphere, great location, great operations on rides, and great customer service. There is so much to do here that I am still riding new rides every time I come back. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and Thank-you Cedar Point for being the best amusement park in the world.
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| City of Roller Coasters |
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| Ahhhhh that drop! |
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| Valravn throne |
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| My 30th Millennium Force Ride |
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| I heart Cedar Point |
