8/27/25 First Trip With my Son
My four and a half year old son and I made the trip to the Point on Wednesday to meet a group of friends of ours that were staying at Kalahari for a couple of nights and spending the day at the park. First of it it was an absolutely beautiful day. Sunny and low 70s with a light breeze all day. I couldn't have asked for better weather. Second, the crowds were incredibly light all day. We had gone to Wonderland to activate our stupidly cheap VIP sale Gold Passes a couple of weeks ago and it was wildly busy and their Planet Snoopy was an absolute zoo. This was my first trip to Cedar Point since Winter Chillout 2024 and Coastermania 2023.
We got to the park around 9:45 and very conveniently pulled through the toll booths at the same time as our friends and easily parked right next to them without any type of coordination. Talk about good timing. I read a lot of fine print trying to figure out if our Wonderland gold pass included parking only at our 'home park' or at all of them but never really found a direct answer. Anyway the parking attendant scanned my QR code and away we went. Question answered. This pass has already saved me $70 in parking charges.
I'm just going to hit the highlights here because we spend much of the day zigzagging back and forth from Planet Snoopy to the boardwalk and then later in the day in Camp Snoopy. Like I said this was my first time bringing my son to the park so this was my first time spending extended time in the kids areas. It's comical to me that they have duplicate rides in the two areas but the kids could have cared less. The Boardwalk area is very well done and looks great. My son is above 42" but I couldn't get him on Wildmouse. We did ride Calypso three times, Matterhorn, Scrambler, Dodgem, Ocean Motion, Midway Carousel twice, Skyride three times, I got a walk on ride on maXair, and he did many Planet Snoopy rides multiple times. Most of that happened before 1:00.
I had exit ramp boarding passes for TT2 that I won at Winter Chillout last year but wasn't able to use because I didn't get to the park before the ride closed. My buddy and I were able to use them on Wednesday even though the passes said they were only valid until Labour Day 2024. I should add that before we got there we stopped at Coasters to my buddy could use his dining pass. He got the hand breaded chicken tenders and shared with me and they were actually quite good. I understand the hype. We waited two trains and were able to ride front row of the black train. It was incredible. The first launch is just fine, but the second and third are incredible. Going backwards at 101mph and hanging at the top of the new tower is wild. And the third launch to get you over the tophat was great. So powerful. It was a very smooth ride and I really have nothing bad to say about it. I think TT2 is a great update to an old 17 second ride.
After that we walked right onto Magnum and sat at the back. Fun ride as always, but sitting in a train outside of the station while the crew stacks during two train operation was wildly painful to witness. We spend most of the afternoon in Camp Snoopy. I got my coaster credit on Wilderness Run and my son and his friends got off and ran around to marathon that thing at least five times like some crazy coaster enthusiasts in the making. It made me proud to see. Somewhere in there four of us rode the Tilt-a...errr Linus' Beetle Bugs and had a great ride with great spinning. It's been a few years since I did a bunch of spinny rides and I'm glad to say my stomach and head still held up even though I'm getting older. I think we did everthing that spins except Troika Troika Troika and my son (and I) loved them all. Watching him laugh uncontrollably as we spun around and around was so much fun. We also rode Woodstock Express and Pipe Scream and he loved them both.
Next we headed back to Frontier Town for an elephant ear. It had been many years since I had one. It was much smaller, I can remember them being huge and hanging over the plate by inches. I can also remember watching them press the dough and fry it right in front of you. This one was sitting under a heat lamp waiting to be coated in sugary cinnamon. It was a little cardboardy and generally disappointing. Anyway, next up was CP&LE because my son had been waiting all day to ride this choo choo train I'd been hyping up to him. We got on at the Frontier Town station and stayed on for the full loop. We both enjoyed the leisurely ride very much. After that we walked back to Monster to meet up with our friends. They had been in line for a while and luckily our timing worked out that we got there and got right on. But loading was painfully slow. Monster was fun, as was Lake Erie Eagles and then Super Himalaya.
To end the day my friend and I used single use Fast Lane Passes he had to ride Siren's Curse while the kids went back for another ride on Skyride and then Antique Car's and the Midway Carousel. The fast lane wait took us probably 25 minutes or so. The line would move a lot and then not at all. I can't complain because the regular line must have been much worse. I think the new ride area looks great. That midway always looked like a concrete wasteland every since Wildcat was removed, and probably even before that. It fits in well and the area immediately around the ride looks so nice. The ride itself was great! The tilt is a great sensation and the ride is so quick and smooth with lots of airtime and fun inversions. The on ride audio was a nice surprise and very cool experience. What a great addition to the park.
To finish the day we all met back up at Ocean Motion for our last ride just before 8:00. Overall we had a fantastic day. Crowds were so low all day and weather was about as perfect as you can get. Ride operations that I witnessed were pretty good. From what I could see TT2 and Siren's Curse ran all day. Millennium Force had been down but when we went by on the train around 5:00 or so it was running all three trains. The Giant Wheel was down to start the day to the disapointment of my son and we never did end up getting back to it so that was the only thing we missed that he wanted to do. It was so much fun experiencing the park with my son and spending time just taking it all in. I rode more big rides than I expected to so that was a plus. I am actually headed back to the park tomorrow, on Labour Day, with other friends who wanted an adult only trip. We are getting fastlane so I can't wait to ride everything many times like I did in my coaster prime. We'll see if there is another trip report to post after that.
We'll miss you MrScott and Pete
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