Dive Coaster coming to Cedar Point?

I used to enjoy seeing crowds rush the gate to get to Raptor, get heat-stroke standing in line more than an hour and by 2 or 3 you could come back and walk onto the ride. Actually more than a few times during really hot summers I noticed people burned themselves out waiting on long lines and retreating to any shade or cool spots they could.

Locals and regulars know how to "surf the crowd."

The only time I ever waited long for Mean Streak was in 1999. I got on to peek into what used to be the "bone yard" (now Lighthouse Point) where the first pieces of Millennium Force were placed upon arrival. After that, I made some calls to some freight carriers and learned the parts were coming via ship to the port of Montreal, then by intermodal in through Detroit.

I remember the lines for Corkscrew overflowing into the midway and down towards the Sky Ride. I didn't wait the multiple hours it would have taken to ride that day. I remember the lift hill scaring the crap out of me. It seemed so high at the time.

Jeff said:

The only time I ever waited long for Mean Streak was in 1999. I got on to peek into what used to be the "bone yard" (now Lighthouse Point) where the first pieces of Millennium Force were placed upon arrival. After that, I made some calls to some freight carriers and learned the parts were coming via ship to the port of Montreal, then by intermodal in through Detroit.

I remember all the hubbub when the first blurry photos of the track appeared online. Hard to believe it's been that long.

I know I have those somewhere. Shot on film, with a disposable camera. :)

Lord in internet terms we are getting ancient. I have been poking around Jeff's site since the very start and I recall that buzz when there that sighting of MF hardware back there.

I actually have a lot of VHS video I filmed back then, along with the digital photos I was taking since the '97 season. Most of it is up on YouTube or my own Google+ account.

I don't have anything special planned (unfortunately), but CoasterBuzz turns 15 a week from tomorrow. This site (starting as GTTP the combining with Virtual Midway) will be 17 in April. That's nuts.

Wow. When you put it that way. I've been a member of both sites since 1999 and a lurker since 1998 on GTTP. That means I've been a poster on these boards for half of my life!

Gary Slade said:

The relatively small amount of land that some say could be the site of a dive coaster, where the park’s Good Time Theatre is being torn down, is too small for such a ride, in Slade’s opinion.

http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2015/01/28/cedar-point-expert%E2%80%88dark-ride-likely-coming

Whether the next attraction is a dark ride, a dive coaster, or something else, I think we can we all agree that this Cedar Point observer is not thinking outside the box ... or space, as it is.

I know I sound like a hater, but I can't understand how Amusement Today is still relevant.

That article is just an echo of the same speculation Slade and others put forward before the season was over. I recall the news of the dark ride going someplace else broke not long afterward. I think this rates as little more than people hoping to wish something into happening by talking about it long enough, and random third parties echoing the babble.

I still think dark rides at CP would be a waste of space, my own POV of course. For a seasonal park for which the outdoors and location are unique and appealing, an expensive indoor ride doesn't seem the first thing they should look at, nor anything on a top ten list of priorities.

Amusement Today relevant? Probably not. Is Gary Slade on a lot of reporter's contact lists as someone who can be relied upon to have an opinion about anything anywhere, all wrapped up in an article-ready quote? Probably.

To me, the most sensible location for a dark ride at CP is in the coloseum.

It has the size, is centrally located, and the arcade downstairs is a butt-ugly waste of space IMO. It smacks of something just thrown in there to generate revenue off of that square footage.

Also, CP (for a number of obvious reasons) historically has not budgeted the same scale of capital for major attractions as the Disney (arguably the gold-standard in dark rides). A major expenditure on an attraction at CP has been around $25 million, whereas I've heard figures of $200 million plus for a major new Disney attraction.

So, CP's challenge with a dark ride is to make the experience, visuals, themeing, effects, etc of the dark ride as close to on par as a Disney attraction, or SpiderMan or the Harry Potter Kuka attraction at IoA, instead of winding up with something that more closely resembles a carnival ride (i.e. Pirate Ride).

A way around this dilemma seems to be to use an existing structure, saving the cost of erecting a building and applying all of the available financial resources to the ride itself.

And, there is precedent for taking a similar kind of existing building and converting it to house a dark ride. Boblo Island did that with their indoor coaster.

I disagree about the Coliseum, I think that would be the absolute worst way for CP to create a dark ride. With all the vertical columns in the Colosseum building, the ride would be severely compromised by the course it could take and special effects it could have because those columns would certainly get in the way. Besides, the arcade in the Coliseum is classic Cedar Point, its been there for decades and I wouldn't like to see that change. The best way to create a dark ride is to build a purpose built building for that ride, that way there would be no compromises in what can be done.

Good points... I hadn't thought about all of those columns. I still think they could be creative and design something that works around them quite well. But it would be a limiting factor.

Either way, I'm not crazy about the idea of a dark ride where the Cinema and Cedars now stand. Too close to the coast. I fear another Disaster Transport-esque edifice contaminating the view of the lakeshore.

I'd rather see it somewhere in the vicinity of the main midway, where tacky and obtrusive structures fit right in and blend well with the concrete jungle.

Yeah, that "waste of space" takes in a whole lot of quarters. But to Pete's point, the columns and low ceiling don't make for a ton of room down there.

How would a new building specifically for a dark ride be anymore obstructing than GTT or Cedars? The beach is on the other side anyway.

Jeff, they did dig out the floor of the building at Boblo to overcome the height problem. Being an island, they have the same water table concerns and made it work. But, I've just looked at a picture of the pillars and there are more there than I had been picturing from memory, and I agree it would be difficult to work around that.

Kylepark, Not saying it necessarily would be any more obstructing. I'm saying that they are tearing down the theater and probably will tear down Cedars at some point. This will open up views of the lake.

If they do expand the boundaries of the amusement park into this area to accommodate expansion, I think there are a lot of nicer things they could do with that area than build a big building to obstruct the view.

I think they should find some other, probably more inland area of the park fo construct a dark ride.

For that matter, for an indoor attraction where the view of the surroundings has no bearance, they could just expand into the parking lot for a dark ride.

Indeed: there's not an arcade in the Coliseum because it's charming or historic. There's an arcade there because people go in there and spend money.

And on top of that, it offers variety.