Hi everyone. I’ve enjoyed reading several of these trip reports posted by other people so it is only fair that I post my own. I went to Cedar Point from Aug. 23-25 and Geauga Lake on Aug. 24. I arrived in Sandusky around 2 pm on Thursday so I had about 6 hours of ride time due to early closure at 8pm now that it’s late August. On the drive back to the Soak City lot, I noticed that the main parking lot was about 1/3 to ½ full which I took as a good omen. Upon entering the park, I figured that since I walked under the Magnum and was wearing a yellow t-shirt that had the coaster’s name on the front, this coaster would be my first ride. It was a short 10 minute wait but seemed longer due to the 2 train operation. I got on towards the back side of the ride since I like to experience the full effect of the drop part of a ride and had an OK ride although it seemed rougher than the last time I rode it around the 4th of July.
After this, I saw mostly empty trains on the Corkscrew, so I hit that up and had a good time on it and noticed that it was relatively smooth for its age especially the vertical loop. I went to Super Himalaya next as I decided on the drive down to Sandusky that I would focus more on riding the spinning rides of the park that I hadn’t rode yet. Super Himalaya was fun although it probably would have been more fun riding with another person (or two) as the three girls in the car behind me seemed to be enjoying the ride. I checked on TTD’s wait time after this and it was posted at the ½ hour mark which I thought was still a bit much for a 17 second ride. Since I was in a mood to experience rides I had never ridden before, I decided to ride the Power Tower on the Turbo Drop side since it was a walk-on. The ascent up the tower is a lot faster than what it appears to be on the ground. The subsequent drop was not as intense as I thought it to be and was rather enjoyable. I still think I’ll ride the Space Shot side though because it has a shorter wait and you actually get to experience a launch (and a great pop of airtime at the top).
In the same vein as before, I had never rode Wildcat before and since there was a much smaller line than usual (probably due to the lack of many families with young children) I rode this. It was very smooth (perhaps more so than Millennium Force) and was a good ride for getting wind in your face and some nice movement with smooth rapid direction changes. I’d ride it again if I ever find a short line for it. I had to check out the line for MF since it’s one of my favorite rides at the park (the other being the one on my shirt) and I had to rub my eyes to make sure I read the sign correctly; ¼ hour!? Sure enough the line didn’t even fill up the entire ramp so the wait was indeed within that time frame. I, for the first time ever, rode with my hands up for the whole ride with the exception of the first hill. That ride gained even more love from me after that experience. It almost truly feels like you’re flying. After I got off, I noticed the line was even shorter yet than before so I got on in 10 minutes again, and this time, I rode it hands up the whole way. Man oh man, MF may have just moved up to my favorite ride in the park (although I don’t keep ranks or numbers on coasters).
After this, I went over to the Rock N Country show which I missed the two times I went to CP in June and July and I for the most part thought it was OK. The girls did look nice in their outfits though and their finale, “Fire” by Jimi Hendrix was pretty sweet and very faithful to the energetic original record with the way the drummer really steals the show on that song. I rode Ocean Motion next which I had never rode at CP before. This ride had a very short ride cycle which several other riders also noticed and grumbled about. I rode Wicked Twister next and this ride was a walk on as well. I don’t know why the ride often seems to have so short of lines since this is one of the better rides in the park, both for the ride itself and the awesome location right on the beach. I had never ridden Troika before so off I went to ride that. The loading process took twice as long as the actual ride which I didn’t really care for. There’s too much movement in all directions for me to really enjoy that ride. Raptor was next and that had ¼ hour waits so I rode that twice, with the 2nd time in the front row which is something I had never done before. Wow, that ride really is amazing from the front where you get a great sensation of the speed that you’re experiencing. You still get some headbanging on this ride, but that is negligible if you press your head against the restraints and ride as far forward on the train as possible.
Since the Sky Ride was closed, I walked back to the middle of the park to ride the Train to enjoy the view of Sandusky Bay and get back to Frontiertown to check out Maverick’s wait time. It was in the 45 minute area but I still didn’t get in line as I knew that I had some ERT on this coming up in the future so I went to Mean Streak instead. I walked right on to this ride and afterwards I questioned myself again why I insist to ride this once per visit to the park. I guess I have a hope that I’ll have a pleasant ride on it one day. Gemini was next and this was a much more enjoyable ride although it was only running one train. I decided that since it was about 7 o’clock, I wanted to try riding MF while the sun was setting to see what that would look like. I had to wait between ¼ to 1/2 hour this time which is still OK. The view from the top at sunset with the water twinkling into the horizon is breathtaking. I decided to make the day go full circle by making Magnum my last ride of the day. I rode towards the back-middle this time and I got off the ride somewhat jaded again as it seemed rougher than I remembered it. Perhaps this had to do with riding MF so much today or maybe I was riding on an off-day or something. Anyway, I think I got a fair amount of rides in for six hours in the park.
Thursday was a very hot and humid day so that kind of put a damper on my energy level and made me lose a couple pounds due to sweating but I think I would rather it be hot and humid with low to nonexistent wait times rather than in the 70s and waiting two hours for anything. Today also had a lot of new experiences for me so I felt pretty good about my visit after the end of the day. I’ll update this in the near future with a continuation of my trip.
On Friday morning, Aug. 24, I had my Joe Cool season pass ready to go so I parked in the front row of the Main parking lot and walked over to the Marina entrance for early entry. I chose the Marina entrance as I would rather get a lot of rides in with my early entry hour rather than wait in line for most of it to ride Maverick. While in line, I learned that the older guy who scans season passes/takes resort tickets at the Marina entrance is a local who always works as this gate and is known for his punctuality with getting people in right at 9. He impressed me by actually stopping what he was doing and stood still looking towards the U.S. flag while the speakers played the national anthem at 9am. I think that is a very respectable act, more so than what some other people in line were doing. Anyway, I got in the park and was the 5th person in line to ride MF but the ride ops apparently have to wait until they get a certain number of people in line to allow the ride to start operating. Once that number was hit (I imagine it was somewhere around 50), the attendant let us in the queue and I got on the very back seat of the first ride of the day. That ride really woke me up so I got in line for it again as the line was still short and had another successful backseat ride. It seems that whenever I get off this ride, I always overhear other people on board saying that that was the best coaster ride in the park or best coaster they’ve ever ridden on. The ride is just that awesome.
I set off for Frontiertown and got in line for Maverick anyway as the sign said 45 minutes. Well, I was in line about 20 minutes before a ‘down for mechanical reasons’ announcement was broadcasted and I decided that I would rather do some more rides so I went to Skyhawk which is a ride I had never ridden before. I can see how it takes some time to do all the safety checks for this ride as some people on the boards have stated. However, the ride itself really impressed me with the speed of the flying and the airtime in the seats and the looking right into the sky at the top of the tall swings. Personally, I was feeling more g-forces than what I normally experience on most other coasters. That is quite a feat in my book and I went back to ride it again to make sure that it was my new favorite flat ride in the park. I walked on over to Magnum to get on the first ride of the day at 10am and was successful in getting a seat in the back portion of the ride since the middle cars were closed at that time. I don’t think the trims hit on that ride or at least were turned really low because I could feel more bouncing out of my seat on the ride back to the station. This may sound like heresy, but I think I’d rather have the trims on since I didn’t really feel that good when I got back to the station. I gave it one more try to possibly make up for it but it still felt like I got beat up when I came back. Oh well.
I hit Corkscrew after that and took the Sky Ride back to the front of the park and rode Max Air and Blue Streak. Blue Streak had a longer wait than usual; in fact, I think it was the longest I had ever waited for the ride. By the time I had finished that ride, I was already soaked with sweat since the heat and humidity didn’t go away from the previous day and I decided now was as good a time as any to sit in my air-conditioned car for 1.5 hours while driving to Geauga Lake. After figuring out how to navigate all the roads to get to Aurora, I had arrived at my destination. I had upgraded my Cedar Point only Season Pass to Maxx Pass the day before and upgraded to the all Ohio parking so it was only $20 to park my car and get admitted into the park.
But they did kind of burn me on the way into the park. I actually felt like I was burning while walking across the huge black parking lot to the main gate and then had to wait in the sun for like 10 minutes to get my Maxx Pass number signed up at Guest Relations to get in the park since my card couldn’t just simply scan me in at the gate. After this, I got into the park and immediately realized how much smaller this park was than CP. I had never been to Geauga Lake before so this was a totally new experience for me. I found out where the bathrooms were (thank God they were air conditioned for a respite from the heat), cooled off, and then went straight to Dominator which wasn’t that hard to find since it was the tall yellow-colored steel coaster. This coaster was the reason I had taken time to come out here since I had heard good things about it. It really didn’t disappoint me either and actually surpassed my expectations after riding it. I like the ride layout and how the queue lines run right underneath all the big inversions which I took a video of with my digital camera. This coaster is really fast or at least seems to be compared to Raptor or Mantis at CP and was especially fast on the close to 90* banked curves. I totally loved the floorless coaster cars as I had never rode on a coaster with that style of train before. I also was amazed to see that the ride never had one single wait the entire time I was there since most trains were only half filled if that. But at least they were running two trains on the ride so the crew was putting some effort into maintaining efficiency even though it may have been unwarranted.
I took time to ride all the other coasters in the park with the exception of Raging Wolf Bob’s which looks like its been non-operational for a long time. Villain had a cool layout but was shaky as hell and I couldn’t tell if Mean Streak or Villain had a worse ride. I give Villain the edge as being the better coaster though for its looks/layout and Wild West theming. Double Loop was OK I guess but nothing to write home about but it was pretty smooth. The Head Spin was next and was not that great to me since the drops really weren’t that extreme except for all the jostling about and I really didn’t like the sensation of going backwards through the inversions. I’m not saying that’s a fault of the coaster, it’s just a sensation I don’t like. I was also the only rider on the train during my ride. Thunderhawk was OK but I didn’t like the last series of inversions it does as I felt quite queasy after that which is rare for me on a coaster. I really think heat had something to do with that though as I know that I was probably not regularly drinking fluids to avoid heat exhaustion. I took a ride on Pepsi Plunge so that I could at least get to ride a log flume once this year. Big Dipper was an OK coaster which probably would have felt better if I myself had been feeling better. It was pretty big though for a wood coaster from the 1920s and the oldest coaster I had ever ridden. I took a few more laps on Dominator including a spectacular front seat ride before I left and had to laugh at their ‘buy one Steel Venom/X-Flight t-shirt, get the other one free sale’ in the Dominator gift shop.
I would have loved to visit the other side of the lake or ridden a few more rides but the heat was just getting unbearable to me (not helped by the abundance of black pavement at GL) and I decided that I had gotten the experience of visiting Geauga Lake. Now, I’m trying not to let the heat make an unjust impression on the place but it was sort of depressing to me and I had never even been there before to know what it once looked like when it was thriving. Seeing all of those food stands and game booths all closed up and random ride parts left laying about behind ramshackle fences created a very abandoned look for the place which Cedar Fair may want to seriously think about removing. They should probably just knock that stuff down so that it doesn’t remain an eyesore. Overall, the park isn’t that bad of a place and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I could have stayed longer but it definitely needs improvement. Dominator was very cool though and it almost seems weird that such a good coaster can reside in a park like Geauga Lake. If part of it wasn’t buried in the lake, I would say that that coaster is the next to be moved out to somewhere where it would receive more ridership like it deserves.
After the long drive back to Sandusky and having dinner and stopping at Toft’s dairy for some excellent COLD ice cream for dessert, I arrived back at CP around 7:15pm. I parked in the Soak City lot and came back in and once again tried the Magnum which had been reduced from a 3 train op in the morning to a 2 train op at that point. I assume that there must have been low attendance for that day as well. Anyway, I got in car 2, row 1 and for some reason, my ride on this particular trip was very enjoyable. I’m thinking that the forces are somewhat reduced towards the front on this ride or applied to the body move evenly and that I will have to violate my normal ‘back seat only’ attitude for Magnum although I could swear the ride felt better from back there in July. I then walked over to TTD to see the wait time was only a ½ hour which I then decided would be OK since I had never rode this ride all lit up at night. Unfortunately, the ride ops at the entrance told me I needed to have a glasses strap which I had forgot in my car so I walked all the way back out there to get it and then got back in line for TTD which was still only a half hour wait. I think I only waited like 25 or so minutes before I got on as the crew was doing a great job of keeping the trains running efficiently. I had a good time talking to two guys in front of me who had never rode the ride before telling them what the ride was like. I gave them a send off of good luck while they got in the train and then waited for my train to show up.
Luckily, I got to move forward one spot in the queue since I was a single rider to a seat in the pair of seats right behind the front row which is the farthest forward I had ever sat on this ride before. Getting the opportunity to ride then instead of waiting one more cycle of trains was actually quite the fateful act in retrospect. While moving the car out of the station into the launch area (I was in the forward train), I noticed some lightning to the west and started to worry about whether they would send us up. The ride all of a sudden got quiet and everyone on my train including myself were freaking out because we were already nervous being in the launch position of the ride with the pusher pulled back and everything and now had to worry about whether they would send us up at all. Anyway, the ops must have decided to send out the two trains they already had sent out of the station and we were sent on our merry way. The ride was exhilarating as it usually was with the added benefit of seeing everything lit up at night along with, get this, seeing lightning in the distance at what seemed like the same elevation as the peak of TTD. I can’t imagine many other people have had that experience. Anyway, I think the ride ops sent the other train behind us out for their ride and then I think they shut TTD down at that point due to storm warnings for the area.
At that point, I decided that I was tired and probably should head out for my hotel since it was around 9pm at that point. I walked back to my car and started to walk briskly when I saw the wind start to kick up all of a sudden. Luckily, I made it back to my car just in time as I saw rain start coming across the park in the form of billowing sheets (almost mist/cloud like) and soon it was raining hard with all sorts of lightning flashing in the sky above. Sitting in my car watching all of this was almost as thrilling as riding roller coasters especially with seeing people getting whipped by the wind and rain running to their cars. I could barely see Gemini, TTD, or the Magnum lift hill which was only like 100 yards from where I was parked. I took some cool photos of this maelstrom with my camera and it is neat to have some pictures of the rides obscured by Mother Nature. I waited in my car in the event that this storm cell was short lived but it kind of stayed raining after 9:30pm and I didn’t see any coasters testing so I left about 9:50pm for the day and was surprised to see the front parking lot almost entirely deserted by the time I left. I had a very busy day but it was better than being at work. *** Edited 8/27/2007 1:35:57 AM UTC by arw84***
I was also at GL on Friday the 24th. I think the heat (which was a heat index of over 100 degrees, btw) had something to do with why so few people were there on the ride side (waterpark side was somewhat crowded). Also, the fact that many schools are in session now also had something to do with it.
You should have checked out the waterpark side. It's very nice.
I agree with you totally about Cedar Point wait times. Many, if not all, are not worth waiting more than about 20-30 minutes for. This isn't saying they aren't good rides, it's just saying it isn't time well-spent.
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