I was in Sandusky to pick up a Mother’s Day present and decided to stop and get my CP season pass processed so my friends don’t have to wait for me when we go Monday (yeah, I was lazy and never mailed it out). So I arrived at the park a little before 8:00 PM and found a near-empty parking lot. The heavy rain had just stopped, so I thought I would go in and check out the park for a while. I could not believe how perfectly empty the park was. I usually don’t do the amusement park thing alone, but I could not pass it up tonight and ended up staying until closing, getting a whole bunch of rides in those 2 hours.
First, I hit Blue Streak. This has been a CP tradition for me for as long as I can remember—I always start out the season on this great woodie, and I was especially looking forward to riding it after hearing the reports coming in last weekend. I must say I was impressed…it looks awesome with its new wood and new paint, and it rides even better. Smooth and filled with airtime—this is the best the ride has ever run that I can remember. I love how you float over the second hill and then are yanked over the third! Got my first lap in the very back seat and then decided to do another one in seat 1-3 right afterwards. They were only running 1 train, but even those were not always going out completely filled. There was some major squeaking to be had around the turns, but I understand this happens in a rain because it washes off all the graphite off the track (which prevents the squeaking). People said last weekend that BS was flying so fast that they were getting laterals on the turnaround. I did not get any on my first two rides, but this is because we were riding into a pretty strong headwind…more on that later, though…
Of course, next I couldn’t wait any longer to ride Wicked Twister (my original intention was to ride BS and WT and then leave, which of course did not happen). I walked over there and was greeted by a 2 train wait…this was too good to be true! For my first ride, I sat in the second to back seat, left side. WOW…count me in as one of the “back spike” converts! The backwards spike is absolutely ridiculous in the back, I’m talking one of the most disorienting elements on any coaster I’ve ever ridden! I seriously felt like I was tailspinning to my death on my first ride. Holding brake what??? S:UE will never be the same to me again (which I have the feeling that this reaction was at least ONE of CP’s intentions in adding this ride ). The crew loads unbelievably fast, and the area around the ride looks really nice (especially the logo on the pavement, the flags, and the openness of the beach locale), although I thought the queue was rather small for a low-capacity CP coaster. My only complaint (and this is a big one) is that the Ride Op announces the launch. How lame is that? My favorite thing about launched coasters is the nervous anticipation that occurs before the launch. Now that I know when it’s coming, thanks to the “clear to launch…three…two…one…(Enter LIM-firing noise here)” that they say before every launch, I would have to say it takes a little something away from the ride experience. C’mon, why is this necessary? Other than that (which I have to admit did not dampen my ride experience THAT much), WT is an impressive addition for CP that fits in perfectly with its beachside location, and like I said, that backwards spike is just absolutely nasty…
It was funny hearing people in line react to the swaying of the towers too. One guy standing next to me in line whom I did not even know even got my attention and pointed it out to me—it seemed like it disturbed him.
Well I couldn’t bring myself to leave after this, because I felt the call of my personal favorite steel coaster, Magnum. After a walk-on wait to the ejector seat, I was off on a trimless, faster-than-anything-I-remember Maggie. The pretzel is incredible without trims, and the bunny hills are ridiculous (these combined with WT’s back spike make “ridiculous” the theme of the night). I loved it so much and realized that I had to take advantage of this rare treat—trimless Maggie—so I took two more (intentional) rides, the first being in seat 6-2 and the second in the very back. I then got a bonus reride in the backseat because my lapbar didn’t unlock when I came back to the station…after another ride, the ride-ops yanked it open for me with all their might and taped it off (recurring theme from last weekend?). Don’t worry though, only two seats were taped off that I noticed on any of the trains. This is the way I love my favorite steel coaster best: wild, out of control, launchpad airtime, and laterals in the pretzel (which I do admit are a bit uncomfortable in Magnum’s trains, but I still love them anyway).
By this time, it was about 9:15, so I decided to hit a few rides at the front of the park before heading out. I was immediately drawn back to WT. This time, the line was MUCH longer…a 6 train wait for the very back seat…he he! Back right was even crazier than the first ride…like others have said, this IS the money seat!
At 9:30, the ride ops on WT announced that Millennium Force (which had been down all day) was now open. I did not ride, but this is one of the things I really love about CP. At most other parks, when a ride breaks down (or rolls back or whatever) and takes a long time to fix, it would just remain shut for the rest of the day. Tonight, they opened MF with only a half hour left in the day and then even had the courtesy to have ride ops on other rides announce its opening (not just on WT…the Raptor ride ops also did later in the night with only 5 minutes left before closing)…classic CP operations move, working to serve their customers the best way they can. Kudos!
By the time I got off WT, it was about 9:40, so I hopped aboard Disaster Transport to check out the new changes…even dropped a buck for the 3-D glasses (which I held on my face the entire ride to keep from falling off…kind of annoying). The changes are a definite improvement over last year, but I wish it still had the strobes at the end. The Ride Ops were using the “Welcome to Alaska” line again, so the rumors that CP dropped this aspect of the ride are not true.
After this, I took one more ride on Blue Streak. Seeing that I was the only person in the station when I got up there (and a train with passengers was about to be sent), a nice ride op opened a seat for me in the back (by the way, the BS crew this year looks to be fantastic—a lot of fun interaction with guests and consideration, too). By this time in the night, the wind had died down from what it was earlier, and sure enough, not only was the airtime more extreme, but I did get laterals on the turnaround, and this was with a mostly-empty train. I can’t wait for what a midsummer ride will be like.
As I was walking out of the park, I noticed Raptor’s line had not yet closed yet, so I snagged a ride on one of the final trains out of the night. I have to admit it was weird being alone in the very back (Money seat: row 8 far right). The ride was fantastic—Raptor still has the same speed it did last year!
Overall, a great night and great way to spend 2 hours, even if I was at the park alone (which I usually do not do). With the exception of Blue Streak, every other ride was running at full capacity, even with the tiny waits…classic CP! I can’t wait for my future visits, in particular this Monday.
------------------
Sig Under Construction...
------------------
Pearl Jam + Cedar Point=Heaven on earth.
-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
You must be logged in to post