August 11th Trip Report

This is my first trip report so hopefully I do this right!

It was basically perfect weather, with low humidity and a 20% chance of rain. My two buddies and I got to the park at 9:45 and were at the gate waiting to get in by 9:55. When the gate opened, we jogged to the back to get to Millennium early, but it was closed to our dismay, so we quickly adjusted and went straight to Maverick. It was a 45 minute wait, but right when we got on it broke down for about 15 minutes. When we finally did get on, I remembered just why we waited through the break run. Man oh man is that ride something special. It has airtime, Lateral G's, it's fast paced, and just so fun. The new restraints were great for my head and I even got them to be loose enough so they didn't dig into my thigh on the break run! After that we went on Skyhawk and had a very enjoyable ride there before heading off to Gemini, which.....was closed for maintenance. Disgruntled at the closings, we headed off to Magnum which had a 10 minute wait. I sat in the second car, row 2, and although we did get trapped on the lift hill for 5 minutes, it ended up being the best Magnum ride I've had in years. I experienced hardly any pain on the bunny hops on the way back, and got decent ejector airtime off them too. Hopefully I've found the sweet spot in terms of location.

After we ate lunch right by Raptor, we went over to Blue Streak to let our food digest on a smaller ride. Man that queue is not fun though. No shade, a slow moving line, somebody passing out near us, and the most obnoxious and explicit teenage girls I've ever heard behind us made it quite annoying. The ride itself was fine, although I didn't get quite the airtime I remember, but I also didn't get shaken around as much either. The next coaster we hit was Gatekeeper, on the left side in row two. I must say I do enjoy that side a decent amount more than the right, partly due to the awesome view of the lake. The ride seemed to navigate the course at a higher average velocity than what I recall and that made for a nice pop of airtime on the camelbacks and a pretty forceful helix. Gatekeeper's great ride today probably moved it to number 4 on my Cedar Point top 16 coaster list. We proceeded to Gemini next, which was back up and running. After getting trash talked to by a 4 year old, we made our way up the lift and into a first drop that was actually far better than I expected. The ride had some ok floater air time and head choppers and was just a fun time.

Right after Gemini we circled around through the Frontier Trail en route to Millennium, but the >2 hour line detracted us, and we went to Rougarou instead (It took quite a lot of convincing to get them to go on it, as they still thought it was Mantis and were wary. The best part was hearing them try and pronounce it). Now I'm not short, but I'm also not a very tall guy at 5'11''. I can confidently say that anyone 5'9.5'' and above if they sit up as straight as possible can avoid any head smashing, thus making it an instant favorite and definitely going into my every-visit rotation. After getting off Rougarou, the Millennium line was "only" an hour and a half, and we decided to just go into it. As was the theme with most of the coasters I went on, Millennium was even better than I remembered. I could have sworn that the 2 parallel camelbacks didn't have any airtime on them, but on the way to the island I got a nice pop and on the way off I actually got more than that, enough to make it an all around 10/10 coaster for me.

We made our way to the south-east part of the park and did the trio of Maxair, Windseeker, and Wicked Twister. Unfortunitely the ride ops on W.T. weren't being awesome and launching people on two instead of three or saying, "And we are launching in...now." but it was still decent. Windseeker was alright but not as thrilling as the Six Flags SkyScreamers as those have chain swing type restraints that just freak me out at over 200 feet. Following those three, we went across the midway to Raptor. The couple in front of us in line was playing some game on their phone where one person is given a word and has to ask questions to figure out what they are, and the guy had the golden quote of, "Am I something you do in school?" "yes." "Drugs?" The ride itself was just as good as usual (Minus the damn turn into the break run), but after we got off all of us felt pretty sick so we took a dip n dots break and sat down for a little bit while planning the rest of the day out.

It was becoming evening so we decided we would go from Raptor to Power Tower, then Dragster, and finally end with a Re-Run of Millennium. We went on the slow accent version of Power Tower which I find to be one of the scariest rides in the park. When we went to Dragster it had a 2 hour line which we weren't interested in waiting at which is when things got very bad very quickly. One of my friends asked me "What's that big wooden one in the very back?" After telling him "hell" he said it can't be that bad and that we should just try it out. I had gone on it 2 years back and didn't remember much about it besides the boring layout. When we got there and saw that the ride had a 60 minute wait we were quite confused, but a quick peek in line showed that it was a walk-on. I warned the friend one more time but he said he still wanted to go on. I knew it was a bad idea after the first turn out of the station before the lift hill. I looked back at him and told him "That's the smoothest part of the ride, happy?" I knew Mean Streak was rough, but man, this thing was just God awful. This ride of Mean Streak was the only time I've gotten off of a coaster and said, "Wow, that was absolutely terrible." It completely rearranged every organ and bone in my body. The turn banking makes no sense whatsoever and it seems like and sort of curvature in the track was done by a blind man. The layout has no airtime either, and it yanks and chugs and violates you until you just want it to end. If Ouimet is truly spending a million dollars a year on upkeep of this ride, IT IS NOT WORKING. I literally cannot even think of any way to explain the numerous ways in which this ride killed me.

In the end, Mean Streak quite literally finished off the day for us in the end. We were too jumbled to even go on TTD, which was pretty disappointing (Especially since I can only make it out once a year), and I was hoping for a night ride on Millennium. We definitely chastised the friend who thought going on Mean Streak would be such a great idea. Now I can see why basically all of Mean Streak's siblings are gone and Dinn went out of the coaster business in '92. In all though, I got new found respect for several rides and it ended up being a nice trip out to Cedar Point. Hopefully I'll have just as much fun at Soak City on the 12th.

Had fun reading your report, we were at the park yesterday too. I thought it would be less busy based on the forecast and morning dampness but the park was pretty busy! Weather was absolutely gorgeous and ended up warmer than expected.

A few comments: I will have to follow your lead on the Magnum seating. We tried going on earlier in the day but it was a 45 minute wait... then when a friend was on TTD and it pulled back into the station we decided to head to Magnum while he waited that situation out. The wait was 15 minutes and when we got up there it broke down. Finally got in a ride on our way back to the car right at closing and had the roughest ride I've ever had, my son was almost in tears. We sat in the first car, last seat and those last bumps were awful! I almost felt like I was going to fall out of my seat in the pretzel which was kind of fun but the bumpiness was very jarring and I felt something in my neck make a noise. My son thoguht it was because we rode it at night but I'm guessing it was our position.

Also, we rode Gatekeeper around 9:15 and saw the most amazing lightening show on the lake as we went up the hill, it was so awesome!

Sounds like you had a great day besides the occasional annoying conversations at the park!