I recently visited Cedar Point on two separate occasions and thought I'd share my experiences.
The first trip was on Friday, August 15th and it was with my wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 9. We decided to go right before our girls went back to school and stayed at the Sandcastle Suites that night. We arrived at the hotel around 9 am, picked up our tickets, and then headed into the park for ERT. My wife and I hadn't been to the point in 10 years so most of the first hour was spent walking around trying to figure out where the rides were, where the lines started, and which ones were actually running. We were going to ride the Raptor but my oldest was too scared so we did the Mantis instead. How we got her on that and not the Raptor is beyond me. Anyway, we only rode the Mantis during our ERT, which was a walk on at the time, before the park opened.
Between 10 and noon Camp Snoopy was virtually empty but there was about a 20 minute wait for Pipe Scream. It got busier as the day went on. About mid afternoon the Iron Dragon was a 15 minute wait, the Corkscrew was a walk-on, and the Magnum was about 20 minutes. The lines for Millennium Force and Gatekeeper were about an hour and fifteen minutes every time I checked so I never rode them. Plus they weren't high priority rides for us at the time because I wanted things that I could ride with my oldest and she seemed intimidated by those. The biggest coaster that I got her to go on during the day was the Magnum. Later that night shortly after 10 pm I rode the Raptor by myself while everyone else played games and it was a walk on ride. When I got done I coaxed my oldest daughter into finally trying it and she had a blast. I have to say that if you've never ridden the Raptor at night you really should! I guess the same could be said for any ride but I think flying around in the dark is incredible.
On 8/27 my wife and I took a day off from work and went back to Cedar Point for some "Big Kid Only" play time. She had gotten sick on the previous visit after riding the Monster and she never really get a chance to ride any coasters.
We arrived at the park around 10:30 and there were probably about 5 or 6 rows of parking in front of us so it wasn't too busy. We started on the Raptor and that was about a 10 minute wait. It was a fun ride but like I said before I think it is best experienced at night. Then we rode the Millennium Force and the line was 15 minutes. While we were standing in line there were three teenage girls in front of us and one kept trying to back out. She even offered to pay her friends to get out of line and I couldn't help but smile.
From there we walked over to Maverick and it advertised a 45 minute wait. We didn't know if we'd have enough time to ride it and get back to get back to our locker before the time expired so we rode the Mean Streak and that was a walk on ride. We worked our way back toward the MF and decided to head over to the main drag to look for something to drink. We had gotten the ride and refresh tickets and they didn't give us very good instructions on how to use them, so we thought we had to find one of the "Coke Refresh" stands. Long story short, you can get the bands and use them basically anywhere in the park. Since we were over that direction we decided to check on the wait time for the Gatekeeper and it said half an hour so we jumped in line. The line actually seemed like it was going to be longer than advertised but it turned out to be a little less which was surprising.
After Gatekeeper we had a late lunch at Panda Express and then we went to try Maverick again. This time it said half an hour so we decided to put my wife's purse in a locker (she has said that she will not bring it next time) and by the time we found on and got back to Maverick it had increased to 45 minutes. I didn't keep track of how long it actually took but the line stalled for a while at one point. I felt sorry for the people who were stuck in the car on the track just outside of the unloading area. They were roasting in the sun. Anyway, we eventually got on and really enjoyed the ride. It was the first time that we had been on that one. After that we made our way over to the Magnum which was a walk-on ride. That was probably around 4:30. Then we walked by the Dragster but it was closed. I've still never been on that so I guess it will have to wait.
After taking a ride on the train we rode the Mantis and Iron Dragon - no wait for either. We hit the Millennium Force one last time to cap off our riding experience (about a 10 minute wait) and we left at about 7 so that we could get home.
Based on the wait times it definitely wasn't as crowded as the previous visit, but I was a little surprised at how many school-aged kids were at the park. Someone told me today that Michigan schools don't start back up until next week so maybe people were trying to squeeze in one last trip - just like we did on the 15th. We live in Indiana and all the schools around here are back in session. I'd heard that most Ohio schools were back was well so that's why we thought that there wouldn't be too many kids there.
We have plans to buy season passes for 2015 and we'll probably make another trip this year during Halloweekends. Next year I think we'll try to visit the park in early June during the week right after school lets out to see how that compares with our other visits. We'd also like to go to Soak City.
Edited to add - the first visit was sunny and upper 70's. The second visit was about the same temperature range but it was overcast in the AM and then sunny by mid-afternoon.
It's amazing what 10 years will do to one's ability to handle rides like the Monster (and Scrambler, and Tilt a Whirl, etc.)
Yeah, on that first trip we all rode the Pipe Scream early in the day and she said she started to feel queasy toward the end of that ride. Then a little later we did the tilt-a-whirl so I'm sure that the Monster pushed her tolerances for spinning rides.
I don't know if anyone else feels this way or not but for me the "scariest" ride was the sky ride. I was ok at first but then once we got about half way out the ride started to vibrate and suddenly I had a wave of anxiety rush over me. I kept thinking that if for some reason the car detached from the cable we'd hit the ground below like a pumpkin being dropped from the top of building on to pavement. Splat!
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