I just got back from my first of two trips to Cedar Point this summer. Since I hadn't been there since 2000, I was very excited about getting back to the park. The group consisted of four of us: my father - age 68, my nephew - age 10, my nephew - age 7, and myself - age 33. We had a good time at the park and there are some things (both good and bad) that I would like to share.
The Good:
Midway Carousel - I put this first, because I thought that it was nice of the park to open the Midway Carousel at 9:30 so that non hotel guests waiting in the entrance of the park could have something to ride to start their day off with. Nice touch Cedar Point.
Old Rides - Cedar Point has a great selection of rides as all of you know. I am a big guy (meaning overweight) and have been all my life. I find that all of the older park rides are accomodating to people of many various sizes. Rides like Magnum, Gemini, Demon Drop, Iron Dragon, Mean Streak and Matterhorn offer fun rides that everyone in our group could ride together. My youngest nephew at 53" tall is tall enough to safely ride all of these and they accomodate me comfortably also. Of course, my list above isn't all inclusive, but you get the idea.
Stan Checketts - The mastermind behind Power Tower and Sky Hawk offers innovative rides that are also accomodating to everyone in our diverse group. They are fun rides too. Power Tower is the only over the shoulder harness with seat belt configuration that worked for me on this trip. I didn't get to ride Skyhawk because we didn't want to wait for it. But I did try the test seat and found the seats and restraints to also be accomodating to many shapes and sizes.
Atmosphere - I have always thought that the atmosphere at Cedar Point was magical, but this is the first time that I have experienced the park since 2000 when MF was the new kid on the block. I was worried about pictures of paint jobs and ride placement (especially Dragster) that I questioned. I am happy to report that everything looks terrific. The Dragster area looks very neat and I can definately see why they repainted Iron Dragon when I look at how well it blends into the area. Also, Dragster does not impose on Frontier Town the way that I expected it to. Iron Dragon spends less time in the trees now, but still gets back in the "wilderness" quite a bit, plus now it gives a cool view of Dragster. Max Air looks terrific as does Wicked Twister and the not so new location of Chaos and Troika. The main midway looks great and the good old ball fountain still looks great. I like the new paint on Wildcat, Skyride, and the Gemini cue. The things that I do miss are the character signs, but that has been talked about here a lot already.
Storage Bins - A couple of years ago I heard a lot of complaining about the loose article policies changing and having to either not go on rides or rent a locker. It is nice to see that so many rides have done something about that and added loose item storage free of charge to the guests. Good job Cedar Point!
Lower Pricing - The new ticket pricing goes a long way towards giving the guests a better percieved value. Also, food pricing seemed more reasonable. We had lunch at Macaroni's and the four of us ate for about $35.00. That included my nephews sharing a 12" pizza and my father and I both having sub sandwiches which were generous in size, included way too many fries, had a generous amount of toppings, and were great tasting. We also each had a soft drink. Although this is not horribly cheap, it is within line of what you might pay at a sit down restaraunt outside Cedar Point. From my memory, the food at Cedar Point used to cost almost twice as much as similar food outside the park.
Friendly Employees - Most of the employees that I came in contact with were friendly, helpful, and showed the Cedar Point service that I am used to. I had heard how employee friendliness had dwindled over the years, but from my visit, I'm guessing that they got back to the employee standards that they used to have.
Three Car Driving Rides - These rides are fun for families to experience together. Along with the train, the sky ride, the ferris wheel, carousels, the space needle, and the paddle wheel excursion, they are the few rides that pretty much everyone in a family can experience. I hope that they don't tear out any of these rides, because they offer a nice change of pace and true family fun.
The Bad:
Macaroni's Service - The food was great at Macaroni's but we arrived at the restaraunt shortly before the lunch rush started. We were seated immediately and then sat, and sat, and sat without anyone saying hello to us, asking us for a drink order, or at least telling us that they would be with us soon. Looking around, there were several wait staff who seemed to have about one table each. They were sort of slowly meandering around and more and more people were beginning to be seated in the restaraunt. We finally got the attention of the man that had seated us. He sighed when we told him that we had not been helped. About another five minutes went by and still no service. Finally, a waitress came over to take our drink order. Then they sent another waitress over to take our meal order. The waitress we got (I don't remember her name) did a good job from then on. But she appeared to be the only waitress in the place that was keeping herself busy. In the end we did have a good meal which just took longer to get than it should have. Our waitress even offered us to go cups for soft drink refills when we left (we turned them down but the offer was nice none the less.)
New Rides - Okay, first of all, I want to say that I went to the park expecting this problem and I was not mad at the park but many of the newer rides just don't accomodate the wide range of people that the older rides do. The biggest problem (as you know) seems to be with Intamin. As expected, I was not able to ride TTD or MF. When the two signature rides at a park do not accomodate so many people, I believe that there is a problem. I went to Cedar Point knowing that there would be much that I could do. I would have loved to ride those rides, but was able to have fun on Magnum, etc... MF and TTD are the only two lap bar rides that I have ever found that I can not ride on. When Magnum can throw you out of your seat over and over again and safely accomodate so many, I don't understand why Intamin can not come up with a better car and restraint design. Looking around the park, I can only assume that the word has gotten out that larger people are not necessarily welcomed at Cedar Point. While I know that it is not true and look forward to going back to the park later this year, I believe that there are many people who are avoiding the park for this reason. I saw very few larger people walking around the park. In fact, most of the people that I saw were thin college or high school aged students. There is nothing necessarily wrong with having people in that demographic but I have to wonder if part of Cedar Point's declining attendance over the past couple of years is due to groups with larger people not feeling that Cedar Point is a place for them to visit. Other rides that caused me trouble (and therefore obviously turn other people away) are Raptor, Max Air, Wicked Twister, and most likely (since they have the similar overhead harness and seatbelts) Mantis and Corkscrew (both of which used to be quite accomodating until Cedar Point added the seat belts). In fact if you look at that list, they are all rides that have been added in the last 12 years and when you take them away you have very little change in the park except some rides that used to accomodate people of my size being torn down or changed to no longer accomodate. I really don't want to sound like a winer because I did enjoy my visit, but is this really a good business model for the park? When you add in height requirements, you have a park that has very few rides that the family can experience together. So Cedar Point, how about a dark ride? How about a new log flume since you tore out the old one? Or how about designing a new signature ride that is thrilling and lets people 48" tall and people with more varied body sizes and shapes enjoy it. (Don't say this is impossible because Arrow, most wooden coaster manufacturers, S&S and other companies have all proven that it is possible and I haven't heard of people falling out of their rides) Heck, once upon a time, Intamin even did this when they designed Demon Drop. I really hope (but doubt) that project 2007 is already being planned with this in mind.
A man that I talked to while watching my nephews ride Max Air is a perfect illustration of this. He talked about how his oldest son (16 years old) is a line man on his high school football team. The boy was so disappointed with all of the rides that that he couldn't ride that he didn't even want to come back to Cedar Point for the second day of his ticket. The man himself was watching his two younger sons enjoy the ride but they were unhappy that they couldn't do so with their older brother. You have to wonder how soon that family will choose to come back to Cedar Point.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Let the blasting and telling me to go on a diet begin. (By the way, I am already on one and I hope to get on at least Raptor in a month since I was close to being able to ride that one)
Happy coasting!
Oh I forgot three things.
First of all, Dragster was launching consistantly all day long (or every time I looked) That was nice to see. It is a fascinating ride to watch even when you can't ride it.
Second, I hate only having two trains per side on Gemini. One side was down for mechanical reasons, so the ride only had two trains running period. We had to wait a half hour to ride and the line got even longer during the day.
Finally, Magnum really does need a big sign at its entrance. MF and TTD get the signs, Raptor's entrance is very obvious, Mean Streak has the big banner up. Magnum is the only rated roller coaster in the park that does not have an obvious entrance. I actually managed to miss the entrance and had to turn around and go back. It's still an awsome ride though.
...and enjoy the rest of your day at Cedar Point, The Am-aaaa-zement park!
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