10 years ago today Millennium Force was announced.

Before the ride opened to the public, the park made a shout-out for volunteers to attend a commercial shoot. We had just moved to NE Ohio, and I was so excited to have my name drawn...all so I could wake up at 4:00 AM to get to the park in time. But it would all be worth it, right?

Now, it was fun. Lot's of standing around (OK so mostly all just standing around), but it was the first time I really saw any of the backstage areas of the park, plus it was neat to see the wee-hours-of-the-morning operations of the park going on. Plus we would all get to ride the new flume ride, which would be awesome, right? I couldn't wait to call my wife and tell her how cool it was.

What a dud. As we agonizingly made our way through the course in our boat after the last drop, I distinctively remember thinking "great....now the park is going to be stuck with this waste of space for decades...".

Hence, my excitement when the turd-removal crew came in and helped us all just forget this ever happened. Unfortunately it took a near-tragedy to make it happen, but I would like to think they were just looking for an excuse to rip it out anyway.

If you enjoyed Disaster Transport, I'm happy for you. But one cannot deny just how trashy the whole thing was near the end of its life.

You mean you cannot deny how trashy the ride was towards the end of its life. That's your opinion. Personally, I did not find it trashy at all, ever, and neither did many other people.

Yes, Fury 325 won best new coaster in 2015. Not sure if it won best steel coaster the same year. I was just there and remember seeing the sign.

GigaG said:
As for the Golden Tickets, it seems that, for whatever reason, the GTAs tend to take a year to crown a new "best coaster..." Magnum was best in 2000, while MF was #10 or something... which honestly shows some of the fishiness of these awards. Did Fury win for 2015 or not?

Fury 325 won Best Steel Coaster in 2016, knocking Millennium Force to #2 by ONE POINT (not one vote, one point) when the Golden Tickets were held at Cedar Point. Ironically, that was the year Cedar Point dropped the “Best Amusement Park” ticket, too.

They probably don’t consider the same ride in any two categories. Look at it this way- if they gave two prizes to the same ride they’d lose that much advertising revenue, right?

ValravnCP said:
Disaster Transport was not only fun, but it also had an awesome queue which was air-conditioned so it was a great way to escape the summer heat.

Mean Streak was rough but not painful unless you pushed your spine into the seat during the ride. The bumpiness of the ride made it very thrilling.

Shoot the Rapids, correct me if I'm mistaken, wasn't a failure until that accident. Is Skyhawk a failure now too?

Disaster Transport was a maintenance nightmare dude. Yes, AC queues, cool. But when you have an indoor coaster that cannot operate in the rain, there’s something wrong. Or how about having a constant trouble light and still being able to operate. Oh yes, or the block brakes that barely worked. And don’t even get me started on that cursed projection room (anybody who has operate DT knows what I’m talking about). It was a mediocre ride with declining ridership.

Mean streak: In what world do we live in where we need to ride a ride a certain way in order for it to be bearable. Face it, it was a painful ride and not unique in any way

Shoot the Rapids was a HUGE fail from the beginning. When you have a ride that was designed to carry passengers but you can’t load the last row...that’s a fail. Or how about the evening when employees were able to ride it before it opened to the public and the boat sank. STR was a maintenance pain in the butt also. And yes, a boat flipping backward down a lift hill is a fail in my opinion.

ValravnCP said:
You mean you cannot deny how trashy the ride was towards the end of its life. That's your opinion. Personally, I did not find it trashy at all, ever, and neither did many other people.

You can have an opinion, as everyone does. But the reasons it was considered trashy by a lot of people is because of objective problems with the ride.

I'm just shocked this conversation is taking place. The ride lineup and park aesthetic has clearly been improved by tearing down/replacing all the rides mentioned.

Oceana Stadium and Good Time Theatre being torn down modernizes the park and gets rid of two problems: 1. A concrete eyesore blocking views of the lake. 2. An outdated, leaking building taking up valuable real estate that has since been used to create a world-class dive coaster.

The coasters and rides you mention? All problematic in terms of maintenance, ridership, and ride experience. I don't think you're reading and understanding how bad these rides from all those viewpoints were when they were torn down/repurposed.

Plenty of other rides have issues, TTD is a prime example. Does that make it trashy? Generally, people would say no, because they personally like the thrill of the ride. In reality, TTD has more maintenance problems than DT did, but the opinion is much different because people find TTD to be more fun.

"Blocking the view of the lake" You walk 10 feet over and look! There's the lake! There's even a gate there for you to go out and see the wide open view with nothing in your way! The stadium was made of concrete, okay so and? What else do you expect from a stadium? It certainly looked far cooler than most other stadiums that exist in the world. I can't imagine how you'd react going to a football or baseball game. I think you'd go blind from the eyesores there!

I was looking at a post from 2012 and someone asked what was up with the obsession of seeing the lake from every single location and I agree, what is up with that obsession? DT was torn down, opening up the view of your favorite lake, and that made you people happy... for a while. Then you had to find something else to consider an "eyesore": the stadium. Now that the stadium is gone, what's next? Wicked Twister probably, as that's not "aesthetically pleasing enough". When that's gone, maybe you'll look at the other side of the peninsula and call Millennium Force and its queue/station, along with those trees, eyesores for blocking the view of the lake from the path. And you want a wooden coaster on the beach? Ha! After 1 year of that you'll be like "Ugh, that wooden eyesore is blocking the view of the lake! Tear it down!!"

Personally, removing the stadium was more than just "opening up views of the lake". It served its purpose. The aquatics shows were long gone, and as much as I loved All Wheels Extreme, it can still work as Vertical Impact at the Celebration Plaza, as CP has obviously stated with its decision. Something better can go on the midway in its place, coaster or not.

Now, for a more controversial opinion: tear down WindSeeker. That thing NEVER runs because of the Lake Erie winds.

ValravnCP, I think you need to look up what a strawman argument is because you just set up enough to fill the overrated, air-conditioned queue that you didn't think was worth removing.

When TTD almost drowns the passengers on one of its trains, let me know. The park is still seeing enough uptime and ridership to consider it worth the return on investment.

The relics that you thought were worth keeping around weren't. It's that simple. And considering they were replaced by attractions that have brought near record attendance and profitability to the park, I'd say the park doesn't care about your particularly crappy opinion regarding STR, DT, GTT, and MS.

Regarding the lake: it's picturesque with a great beach. Why cover it up with a big box that nobody wants to go into and costs a lot of money to keep up when you could replace it with an open air coaster with great overall views of not just the beach, but the rest of the park? Add the fact that GK is a capacity machine and it just makes even more sense.

Sorry, you're just taking a very archaic position on this that really isn't logical at all.

I've never heard a ride being described as trashy. But talking about TTD...yes it has it's maintenance issues no doubt. But the ridership has not shown a decline to do something about it. And I think the urgency of getting the ride up and running 3 weeks before the end of the season last year (after it's major mechanical breakdown) kind of shows it's importance to the park. Let's be honest, TTD is an icon. Maybe after it has been operating for years (just as DT did in the front corner of the park), there will be a reason to tear it down and replace with something else. But with that said, I think CP's maintenance department has a strong grasp on how to handle the mechanical issues that comes with testy old TTD.

Every time I see the word "fetish", I cringe because I always think of a foot fetish (which that conversation is not appropriate for this forum). However, Cedar Point is built on a gorgeous peninsula that offers a beautiful view of one of our great lakes. Why block it? The current management team takes pride in the setting of Cedar Point! Just by taking down DT and opening up that view with Gatekeeper and seeing the view from the queues, I have noticed a HUGE incline of people enjoying the beach since 2013! It also helps that they are adding more things to do on the beach too down towards Hotel Breakers. Now that the ugly aquatic stadium is gone, maybe people will actually be able to find the beach gate so more people can enjoy take a break from the thrills, and relax on the beach

@Sparty Did Disaster Transport nearly drown anyone? I don't recall...

Many people loved DT. Sure, STR was bad and it was good it was removed. I was not aware of the issues with STR before the accident but now I am. Gatekeeper is a great ride, I'm not denying that at all. In fact, it's one of my favorites. But you act as if everyone shares your opinion about DT when that is not true at all. But whatever, you can keep pretending everyone hated or should hate DT, doesn't change anything.

Also, I really could care less what the park thinks of my opinion. It's not like I begged for them to keep DT. I was excited for Gatekeeper but sad to see DT go because I loved that ride. I even liked the building itself. Having the building constructed around the ride was cool because it wasn't just a boring flat square like the IX center is. I don't care if you disagree and call my opinion crappy or illogical. That won't change my opinion.

@Twisted, Oh yeah, people really struggled with: "Where's the beach!?" It's not like the gate was in plain sight right next to Windseeker.

Every ride has or had a loyal following. I loved Space Spiral and hated to see it go but totally understood the decision. What I didnt like about DT was the ugly metal building it was in. There was absolutely zero dollars invested in the exterior appearance of the building. It was just a metal building. Once the park let the interior theming go, it just got bad. The dust, dirt and filth that was part of the query line theming was just nasty. The actual ride itself was ok.

I'm pretty certain that no one posting here would assume everyone disliked DT. Just like Mean Streak and Mantis, it's a pretty safe bet that some people actually liked them.

When it comes to DT, I personally wish it would have simply been kept as AR, mainly for atheistic purposes.

It was ugly. It's deteriorated theme made no sense whatsoever. The queue was in a state of disrepair that got worse year after year. But that's what happens when it's left to literally rot on the beach, which is exactly what was happening. It was neglected.

All that said, I know that my 10 and 6 year old daughters would probably have fun on it. Heck, I even found the ride fun...I've always liked the bobsled-coaster experience.

But that's far from the point. It reached a physical condition where it no longer remotely lived up to the standards that Cedar Point sets for itself. In my opinion, it was left in that condition far too long.

Perhaps I went during days they cleaned up the interior because I never found it dirty or broken inside. There were many props and decorations in the queue, AC and lights were always on. I remember they even sold a bunch of different glow-in-the-dark items within the queue. Even the 2012 post about it that I went through, some people were saying it was dark, dirty, the theming was gone, and it smelled bad in there while others had no idea what they were talking about. It probably had good days and bad days.

Perhaps the fact the you appear to have ‘rose colored glasses syndrome’, as apparent from your longing for discarded rides and your belief that Luminosity was the greatest show on heaven, hell or earth (lol), leads to I don’t think you’re remembering accurately the true state of these attractions. People tend to romanticize their past, as I think you are with CP, it’s easy to do. But cheer up, new memories are yet to be made with a much better overall park experience without the eyesores, backpains, rehashed shows and stale lineups.

Out of curiosity, ValravnCP, when did you first ride DT?

The perspective I have of the ride dates back to Avalanche Run. I'm not sure if you are in the same boat, but after the transformation, I watched, year by year, the ride slowly decay. It was kind've sad and pathetic to observe over the years.

I could be way off, but my guess would be that you rode the ride as a tinier version of yourself, loved it...hence the love.

I rode Avalanche Run as a tinier version of myself, really liked it, and was pretty stoked about the park trying to bring Space Mountain to Cedar Point (which is exactly what they were pitching it as). As luck would have it, my family took a family vacation to Disney not long before Disaster Transport debuted, so the awesomeness of Space Mountain was fresh in my mind. I remember really thinking the queue was cool, but the ride...well...not too much. It was like knowing what Pop-Tarts taste like and your family trying to cram the generic brand down your throat. It just felt like a really cheaply-done knock-off, and it was obvious. But whatever, Dave the robot was funny.

Then the rot began, and year by year it was just like...come on...put the thing out of its misery.

I think this is why I wasn't as miffed about Paddle-wheel Excursions leaving as I thought I would be. I remember really loving watching the actual paddle-wheel boats and the extensive ride with the full-blown animatronics and scenery. By the time it left it was a shell of what it once was.

The same goes with DT. Only in its case it actually had a shell within which to slowly die.

Like a giant metal coffin.

ValravnCP said:
@Twisted, Oh yeah, people really struggled with: "Where's the beach!?" It's not like the gate was in plain sight right next to Windseeker.

You seem way too butt hurt about this topic my friend. But as someone who has worked at Cedar Point as a ride op for 6 years, yes, people struggled finding how to get from the park to the beach. This is the GP we’re talking about after all. And whether or not the gate is “in plain sight” next to Windseeker, not everybody rides windseeker or comes/goes that way. To be honest, I am confident enough to say that a lot of guests who come to the park do not know how to get to the beach unless you are either A) a regular attending guest or B) a resort guest that requires you take the boardwalk back to Hotel Breakers. You can’t automatically think everybody knows things man. If you make it more visible to others, they will be more likely to utilize it.

Every once in a while the topic arises here and elsewhere, FB usually, where someone asks what former CP attraction should make a return. I’m not sure what people remember about Pirate Ride and Earthquake, or why they long for them so, but that makes me smh every time. Seriously, those rides were awful. Ok, maybe they passed muster in 1965 but if the park were to erect those rides today they’d be laughed out of town.

I think Western Cruise/Paddlewheel Excursion would stand the best chance of making a successful return, if for no other reason than it was and could still be a leisurely boat ride. But it was a lot better back in the day when you left the dock and actually felt like you were heading into the wilderness. In the meantime there are new midways and towering steel everywhere that won’t allow for any suspension of belief whatsoever. And I’m not sure, but I’d bet it was an expensive and labor-intensive ride to operate.

Anyway, as always, moving forward....