I found these useful when planning my trip and would like to contribute my own experience to help others.
I had never been to Cedar Point before and, to be honest, did not know much about it before this summer. When I was young my first summer job was working as a ride operator at a Six Flags park, and I've retained a fondness for theme parks & roller coasters that I don't indulge in often. But sometime in July I found myself on Youtube watching videos of roller coasters at the park I used to work at. A few clicks later I happened upon Cedar Point's Youtube page. After watching and reading about the size and number of rides at this park, I decided I HAVE to make a trip this summer! Why haven't I heard of Cedar Point before? As an act of friendship, I invited my 2 international coworkers to accompany me and experience an "American theme park."
Our tentative plan was to drive to Sandusky on Sunday the 30th, hit the park on Monday the 31st, and drive back the 1st. We left at 10am from middle-of-nowhere, NY and had an easy drive to Sandusky (it was everyone's first time in Ohio!). We arrived in the area around 4:30pm, and I was so excited to be there that I decided we should pay for the after-4pm admission and hit the park until it closed at 10. This was great because the park was seemingly empty on Sunday evening and every ride was a walk-on. In the course of 1 hour we hit Raptor, Blue Streak, the horse-thing merry-go-round (for giggles), Iron Dragon, and Millennium Force. One of my companions felt nauseous after Millennium, so we paused and let him puke his brains out in a bathroom. He was much better after. We all had the $10 hot dog combo from a stand near Millennium, which was not horrible but it "didn't taste so good" to one of my friends.
Rougarou was down (a train was stopped on the lift hill), so we left the area and went towards Frontier Land. We all felt hot around this time (6pm) so we did Shoot the Rapids. Following this we did Mean Streak, the Mine Ride, Gemini, Top Thrill Dragster, and finally Gatekeeper on our way out of the park. There was no line for anything, and only Top Thrill Dragster had a ~10 min line at 8pm. We left the park at 8:30 feeling exhausted from the drive, the heat, and our hunger. We got on nearly all the rides I wanted to see so I was satisfied.
We stayed at the Red Roof Inn in Milan, which was easy to find, only ~15 min from the park, and cheap ($55 a night per room). It quiet and comfortable.
The next day we got the park at 10am and decided to go slow, as there were only a few coasters left that we wanted to go on. Overall, there was definitely more people here on a Monday than I thought would be. By noon, the major coasters all had ~30 minute waits (which wasn't bad, but surprising to me for it being a school day). We started with the Ferris Wheel followed by Wicked Twister (both walk-on this early in the morning) and then went to Power Tower which had a 15 min wait for the "drop" side. We then did Corkscrew (10 min wait) and Gemini (10-15 min wait) before heading to Maverick at ~11:30, which had a 30-40 min wait. Maverick surprised all of us - it looked quite tame from the sidewalk but was actually more intense than we anticipated, but in a good way. We all loved it.
Unfortunately, when our train hit the brake run I realized my wallet was no longer in my pocket and must have flown out on the ride. My pockets were pretty deep but I guess I forgot to adjust them before pulling the restraints down. Crap. I told the attendant, and she said to come back in 1 hour after they've had the chance to try to "visually locate" it, as I had no idea where it could have fallen out. In what felt like the worst hour of my life, we went to the Southwestern Saloon and all got burrito bowls. I felt sick because of my lost wallet (should I cancel my cards? can I drive 6 hours without a license? I don't even have any loose cash at home. So screwed, **** me) so I couldn't eat much. My companions said the food was gross, but I don't personally recall. After an hour I went back to the Maverick exit ramp, and luckily (!!!!!!!!!!) they had recovered my wallet. It had flew into a pond of water underneath the ride so it was soaked but everything was still inside (I think I lost $40-$60 in cash, but no big deal). Thank you Maverick people!!!
With that ordeal over, we went and did Millennium Force (25 min wait) and Rougarou (walk on) before taking another break at ~2pm. It was super hot now and the heat was really getting to us. I think at 3pm we looped around to see if Dragster was running, but it had been down all day. Instead we went back to Maverick (again, 30-40 min wait) and when we got off we saw Dragster cars being launched. We went and did Dragster (40 min wait, I think it broke for ~10 min while we waited), and then noticed Magnum was open (it was also down all day) so we waited 30 minutes for that. Finally, we decided to do Dragster one last time (25 min wait) before leaving the park completely exhausted at 7pm. Overall, we enjoyed ourselves and I'm very happy to have made the trip.
Regrets:
-We didn't do any flat rides. My two companions said they didn't like "spinning in circle" rides, so we avoided them even though I would have liked to try Maxair, Skyhawk, etc.
-We didn't eat enough food. The price, hot weather, and the number of rides we went on made us not feel hungry.
-Going on Blue Streak, Mean Streak, and Corkscrew. Instant headaches from all three.
Pleased about:
-Ride efficiency. All the major coasters were efficient at loading and unloading. This was a stark contrast to the park I used to work at, where rides operated with only 1 or 2 trains.
-Bins for personal belongings at some rides. I was surprised at this system, where each train gets its own bin that the attendant opens and closes. It's intuitive, and much better than "throw your items over here and hope no one takes them" which is what we did at the Six Flags I worked at.
-Dragster, Millennium, and Maverick, which were our favorite rides.
-I enjoyed how the loading platforms of the major coasters had a designated "microphone" person saying jokes, facts, and talking about things.
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