August 12-18 GL and CP Vacation!!

This was it. The summer vacation we'd been looking forward to all year. We planned to spend 2 days at Geauga Lake, then 4 days at Cedar Point!

Friday August 12. My 11-year-old son and I left Holt, MI at about 11:00AM, to make the approximately 250 mile drive to Geauga Lake, our first visit there ever. I realized along the way that this would be the furthest east I've ever traveled in my life. I know, I need to get out more. We checked in to the Geauga Lake Hotel at 4:15 PM, and were anxious to hit the park. The Hotel was advertised .25 miles from the park, but it seemed over a mile away. Anyway, as we rolled in, X-Flight was the first ride that caught our eyes. Having never ridden a flyer, we decided to make that our first ride of the night. Now, I've heard all the stories of no lines at Geauga Lake, but I didn't really believe them until I saw for myself. We walked onto all ten coasters that first night without ever waiting more than one train. Anyway, X-Flight was a nice thrill, but I found Dominator to be the best coaster of them all. My first impression of the park was that it had better theming than I expected. I really like the Power City theming around Dominator. Overall however, the scenery of a park surrounding a lake cannot compare to a park surrounded by a lake...

Saturday August 13. We started the day in Wildwater Kingdom. We got in line for Liquid Lightning first, and after a 15-min wait, we enjoyed a swift plunge down the funnel. It's not much different than Funnel Of Fear at MIA, but the funnels are still fun rides. Next we hit all the tube slides on Thunder Falls, then did a couple laps on riptide run. Coral Cove was cool. Especially the area with the whirlpool where the water spins around quickly. We had fun seeing how fast we could circle that thing. Unfortunately we got the whistle when we tried going in reverse. I couldn't wait to get to Splash Landing since Splash Zone is my favorite area in CPs Soak City. Well, it was incredibly crowded and after a few minutes I started to have a bad taste in my mouth. At first I thought it was my sunscreen running into my mouth, but when my son noticed it too, I realized the water was just nasty. I don't know if it's pumped out of the lake or sewer, but I won't forget that taste for awhile. Anyway, Splash Landing was too crowded to enjoy very much. While I am not a fan of body slides, we decided to give the ones on Thunder Falls a shot, since they looked taller than anything at Soak City. Wow, they were awesome, very fast, very intense, and very fun. Definately the best body slides I've ever been on. Then we spent some time at the other water area at the complete opposite side of the park. My understanding is that this area will close when Phase 2 of the waterpark opens next year. That will be fine by me, because it's quite a nuisance walking all that distance between waterparks. Anyway, the wave pool had the nasty water taste again, and the tube slides over there were just so so. Overall, Wildwater Kingdom was very nice, but small, and phase 2 should make it a must-visit again next year. After that we took a break for the 2 for $8.99 Subway deal across the street, and some pool and foosball at the hotel. The rest of the night, we rode some random rides, and played several games. The highlight was my son winning the ring toss with one of his first rings in a $5 bucket. For his achievement, he was awarded a hugantic Spongebob, which barely squeezed into the back seat of my Geo Metro. He tried carrying it proudly back to the car, but I had to step in as Mr. Squarepants was just too heavy for him. The little kids were just drooling on us as we walked back to the car.

Sunday August 14. We checked out of the Hotel, with just a few more rides we had to go on again. This day is actually kind of a blur in my memory, but I remember my son had to watch that Mars 4D thingy again, even though I thought it was boring the first time. We rode several flats. Some of them, like the Scrambler, Haybaler/Matterhorn, and Pirate Ship, seem a little jacked up over their CP counterparts, which was a cool thing. We spent a fortune feeding the fish by the floating bridge. They seemed so desperate for that fish food, that we could barely pull ourselves away from the area. We ate our first meal in the park at Shorty Pete's, both of us enjoying a BBQ beef sandwich. Anyway, we finally got on the Pepsi Plunge, which had been closed for most of our visit, and closed with a front seat lap on X-Flight, and two laps on Dominator. Then, about 4:30, we left and made the 80-mile drive to............

Highlights:
Dominator, our favorite ride at Geauga Lake.
Thunder Falls body slides...
Pepsi Plunge on-ride photo. I totally wasn't expecting a photo on this ride. Our natural reaction is now a refrigerator magnet.
Ring Toss. Absorbent, yellow, and porous is he. Also taking up a bunch of space in my living room.

Disappointments:
Thunderhawk. I knew something was wrong when I saw the extra pads on the OTSRs, but not only is this ride bumpy, it's ugly. Repaint it, please.
Villain, Bumpfest...

Cedar Point!!!!

Sunday August 14. We checked into Hotel Breakers about 6:30, excited about our 4-night stay. Per ritual, we made Magnum our first ride, ejector of course. Then we headed over to the greatest ride in the world, Millennium Force, and waited 35 minutes for a front seat ride in the dark. There were bugs swarming everywhere, and I had black dots all over my white shirt when we got done, not to mention all over my glasses, but what an awesome way to begin our Cedar Point vacation!! We closed out with a couple laps on White Water Landing. Being Sunday night, this turned out to be the least busy part of our CP visit.

Monday August 15. This would turn out to be our funnest and most productive day of the entire vacation. We started with ERT on Millennium Force, entering as always, through the Breakers Gate, always glad to see the friendly faces of Virginia, Sue, and Sally. The MF crew, unfortunately seemed a little sluggish this morning, and we only managed 2 laps on the great one before the line grew enormous. We headed to the back, catching a couple front row rides on Mean Streak and a cruise through White Water Landing. The rest of this day again is a blur. I know we returned to MF at 11 to get a freeway, only to discover what everybody now knows. No more freeways. I remember it was very busy, and all the major rides had significant lines. But that was fine. I was just glad to be there and see everybody having a great time! We spent 13 hours in the park that day without returning to the hotel. I know we ate lunch at Midway Market, and dinner at Macaroni's. I had a delicous Philly Steak Sub. I remember returning to Mean Streak near closing and seeing the same ops that were there at 10:00 AM. They remembered us, too and the girl working there said, "It's good to see you came back here after a long day." Unfortunately, I noticed MF was closed for the second half of the day...

Tuesday August 16. We forced ourselves out of bed, only to walk to the gate for ERT and see the bad news. "Millennium Force is closed today." It reminded me of that Peanuts show when Snoopy kept seeing the sign "No Dogs Allowed" everywhere he went. I was choking back tears as we decided to settle for the third best roller coaster in the world, Top Thrill Dragster. Sally, meanwhile, informed everybody in line that there was a wedding going on at the Raptor. This brought several smiles from the peeps. Well, it took an hour for us to get our ride on TTD, and that was on about the 4th train of the day, but it was a great ride as usual. We contemplated waiting for the front seat, which we've never done, but we didn't have the patience. In her defense, I have to say the Dragster ran flawlessly the entire 4 days we were at Cedar Point. I honestly can't remember it being down at all during that time. Unfortunately this ERT ride was the only lap we got on Dragster. The 2-hour lines, and absence of Freeway sealed our fate. Next we did a quick ejector on Magnum and hit Soak City. I have to honestly admit, I was quickly feeling waterpark burnout. After several visits to Soak City, Michigan's Adventure, and just a few days earlier, Wildwater Kingdom at Geauga Lake, I really wasn't too turned on to the waterpark thing this day. My son of course, didn't want to leave once we got in there. After a couple hours, we both got hungry and headed to Breakers for lunch at the Coffee House, I think. Then we finally swam in Lake Erie for the first time in our 8 visits to CP. He thought it was cool swimming in "real" waves. He couldn't get enough of the water so he swam in the outdoor pool while I grabbed a local newspaper and read the devastating news that Demon Drop was for sale. Just kidding. This was good news to me. That ride bites. It would almost fit in my back yard, but I don't have $250K, and getting a permit to erect the Demon Drop in my yard would probably be difficult. We eventually returned to the park. We rode the Blue Streak several times. My son likes to sit in the back seat, but I can't handle it, so we usually split up on this ride. I'll wait for the front while he's waiting for the back. Little things often stick out. We went to Calypso next, and we saw this guy riding solo, who had this huge grin on his face. After riding, we headed to Turnpike Cars, and there was this same guy exiting Turnpike with a huge grin on his face still. We were both laughing. I know some people have a natural smile, but this guy just looked too happy. Awhile later we saw him again, boarding Sky Ride, and I said, "Look, there's that happy guy again." Sometime the best part is seeing other people having fun. Shockingly, my son insisted upon returning to the hotel by 9:30 to watch some show on Nick where parents play pranks on their kids. That was okay, because we could use the rest. We were trying to pace ourselves. Sadly, I saw no sign of Millennium Force testing the entire day...

Wednesday, August 17. We decided ahead of time, if MF was closed we would wait for the front seat on TTD. I went down to the Breakers lobby and the ERT sign said TTD, Maxair, and Magnum. At this point I honestly wished I would have just slept in. We headed to the gate, our hearts broken, but our resolve intact. We got to the front of the season pass line as usual, while dozens of people were already waiting in the ticket line. The dudes at the front of the ticket line were saying MF was open. I didn't want to get my hopes up, so I said "Sally, is it true? Is Millennium Force open?" Her response... "I think so." We walked briskly past Corkscrew, veering right at Dodgems, and something wonderful happened. We saw yellow train sailing over the second hill. Oh what a beautiful morning. We got two quick laps this day and as the line quickly filled up the first tented area, we decided to wait one more time, for the front seat this time. Twenty-five minutes later, we settled in to the front seat line, the dudes who had lead the ticket line at the Breakers entrance were right behind us, but it was only their second ride, our third. HAHA. The front seat was outstanding as usual. Just the sound the great one makes as the train glides along the track is truly magnificent. I can't even remember what we did the rest of the day Wednesday. I know we spent alot of time perusing the various shops in Frontier Trail we usually walk past without noticing. The coolest one is the Candle Shoppe where you can buy a couple candles fairly cheaply and color them yourself. The Candy Shoppe is also the only place I know of on Point where you can buy Dots, my favorite candy. Being bleeding hearts, we had to spend a bunch of money feeding the goats and such at the small animal area. We hit the water rides hard this day, three laps each on Thunder Canyon, and Snake River Falls. Yeah, we also had possibly our last on ride on Demon Drop. Then we took 5 or 6 pictures of it. We saw all the live shows during our visit, Snoopy's Summer Vacation was by far our favorite. We saw that on this day I think. Wednesday night, we closed out with Raptor, our first ride on it during this trip. I'm sorry, but it's hard to wait an hour or longer for a ride we've walked onto so many times. The wait was about 30 minutes this night.

Thursday, August 18. I got up early this morning so I could pack up our stuff and load the Metro. We were both kind of sad and a little tired as we checked out of Breakers. As we headed for the entrance, I remembered my fantasy that we might ride MF 20 times during this trip, but we'd only managed 6 laps up to this point. I looked at my son and said "we're riding Millennium Force 4 times this morning, to make it an even 10." This was the smoothest running day for MF, 'cause while it turned out to be the busiest day of our trip, we managed 4 MF laps in 1 hour and 10 minutes. Then I humored my son by offering a brief return to Soak City. After a quick ejector on Magnum, we hit the water again. This time we rode all the Erie falls slides, but still didn't ride Zoom Flume, as the line got long fast. We played around in the pool with the basketballs and alligators for awhile. I found myself feeling sad as I didn't want our vacation to end. After another hour in Splash Zone, we walked back to the store in Breakers to buy Cear Point-opoly, as I promised I would. Then we headed to Chuck Wagon for beef stew and biscuits for me. My son got a trio of sides, Mac & Cheese, Mac & Cheese, and... Mac & Cheese. We watched Swingin' to the '60s at the Palace Theater. I spent more time watching the other guests than watching the show. I saw dudes eating nachos, peanuts, and drinking beer. Kids eating popcorn and drinking from those Snoopy cups. I was truly feeling melancholy this day, just enjoying watching other people enjoy Cedar Point. We hit Mean Streak one more time, which actually had a ten minute wait, then rode the train back toward the front, knowing we wouldn't see Frontier Town again on this trip. We were both feeling tired, but I'm happy fatigue waited until the final day to hit us. We caught a few more rides on Blue Streak, Cedar Downs, Scrambler, and Matterhorn, before deciding it was time to head home. We passed a Dippin' Dots stand on the way out, and I realized my son hadn't eaten a single dippin' dot on this trip, so I offered to buy him a cup. I ended up eating almost the whole thing since he wasn't really hungry, but it's the thought that counts... So ended our vacation as we made the 190 mile drive back to Holt, MI without making a single stop.

Highlights
ERT on Millennium Force. No better way to start the day.
Beautiful and moderate weather for 4 days. Not a single rain drop.
I had alot of money saved up for this trip, and we spent all of it.
Just watching thousands of people having a good time.

Disappointments
Millennium Force was down for a day and a half. I never found out the reason for the down time.
Only one lap on Top Thrill Dragster.
Wicked Twister broke down 3 separate times while we were waiting in line for it. It kept launching part way up the front, then coming back down and stopping before returning to the station. We never did ride it on this trip.

Ride counts:
Millennium Force 10
White Water Landing 7
Mean Streak 7
Magnum 6 all ejector
Gemini 5
Blue Streak 4
TTD, Maxair, Raptor, Demon Drop, and others: 1

Ultimately, this is the best vacation I've had in my lifetime, I'm hoping my son and I can have several more before he finds that girls are more interesting than hanging out with Dad at Cedar Point.

Funnnn, but the ride count doesn't seem very high for 4 days.

I was there all day Monday, and also got 2 rides on Millenium Force first thing in the morning. and also went to get a freeway at 11 but realized it wasnt there. Yeah, Wicked Twister did that 3 times when I was in line, except once when I was on it so we got another ride. Thats good you had a great vacation. Its always fun there.