Dive Coaster coming to Cedar Point?

noggin said: Cedar Point has two large metropolitan areas with an hour's drive and (bankrupt) Detroit also with a day's driving distance.

Just a side note, and this doesn't have to do with dive coasters, but you do realize that Detroit has been successfully out of bankruptcy since November of 2014, right?

Pete said:

CP is regional, yes. But, it is a regional destination resort. It doesn't have a world wide draw (though it gets European coaster enthusiasts)

I had a friend from the Netherlands (who is seriously looking into investing in an amusement park in Portugal) visit the US for a 2.5 week tour last year of the amusement parks. He went straight up the east coast, and had his schedule so full that traveling all the way to Sandusky wasn't even really an option! I was so sad that we couldn't meet up at the Point, but he didn't see anything that would have required him to visit that he couldn't have gotten at the east coast parks. :(

Kinda off topic of what is being talked about in the last few posts, but I'm just curious, is me and my bro the only people who didn't think Banshee was that great. I just saw a lot of posts about how great and how much people love it on the first few pages. We like it up to the first loop over the chain lift hill and after that we both didn't care for it much. We thought Raptors a better a invert. I certainly understand why people love it but we just didn't. Anyone else agree or are we just crazy!?!?

After the 1st loop is where Banshee hits its top speed....i think its a solid/great ride that never lets up until it hits the brakes! Plus the restraints are 100% better than Raptors! That in line twist is crazy fun!

Definetly no debate on the restraints. They are awesome. Banshee is a beautiful looking ride. I love the colors and theme. The Loading Station is super sweet too.

I think Banshee is fantastic. I can see how you think raptor is better though if you are someone who looks for great intensity in a coaster. I'm not one of those people. I also love large, drawn out inversions. Some would think I'm crazy. It's all a matter of opinion. I also give Banshee bonus points for being beautiful, like most B&Ms.

TTD6262 said:

noggin said: Cedar Point has two large metropolitan areas with an hour's drive and (bankrupt) Detroit also with a day's driving distance.

Just a side note, and this doesn't have to do with dive coasters, but you do realize that Detroit has been successfully out of bankruptcy since November of 2014, right?

Yippie, almost 90 days!

Detroit itself is dirt poor from the city to the people in it, it is the surrounding cities which form the majority of the people and economic power. That is true of Cleveland to a lesser extent.

If Ohio had decent direct roads from Columbus/Cinncy to Sandusky, and Kings Island didn't exist, it would be interesting to see the impact. If you didn't have challenged metro areas like Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo and Detroit as the most directly linked cities it would curious too.

Yet CP seems to do just fine despite all of this.

SkyhawkRaptorXL-200 said:

Anyone else agree or are we just crazy!?!?

Not crazy, just wrong.

DA20Pilot said:

I'm not a big fan of dive machines. They are just run-of-the-mill coasters by today's standards with a gimmick added. By run-of-the-mill I mean that you can find a coaster of similar scale and intensity at just about any major thrill park nowadays. At CP, when it comes to thrill rides, I expect cutting edge. I expect something above and beyond the scope of what you can experience somewhere else. Gimmick aside, I don't think a dive machine meets that standard. It's best reserved for parks with height/space restrictions.

I've been on Sheikra and it's OK but the ride experience doesn't hold a candle to the 26-year-old Magnum IMO. In fact, I rode Sheikra on media day and haven't ridden it since despite a number of subsequent visits to BGT. Isn't that the foot-traffic test that damned Mantis?

If we're not going to get a revolutionary new coaster, I'd much rather see a good new woody to fill that gaping hole in CP's ride lineup, or a Texas Giant conversion done on Mean Streak.

And, since I indirectly touched on the topic of CP seemingly shying away from putting in the latest and largest of everything after getting snakebit by TTD... I think it is a travesty that the 400' Funtime Starflyer went to SFoT instead of CP. While Windseekers are fun, they are not even remotely close to the intensity of the former.

Cedar Point isn't shying away from putting in the latest or largest, GateKeeper was the tallest, fastest, had the tallest inversion, and was the longest of it's kind, this proposed Dive Coaster is the tallest, fastest, and longest of it's kind.. Windseekers are 300 feet tall, not quite StarFlyers but impressive nonetheless. All of these rides are not only record breakers, they are really high capacity. IF there's one thing families don't like, it's waiting in line all day to only get on a few attractions.

I think Cedar Point was snakebit from INTAMIN, not so much record breakers..

I love Windseeker, so do my kids, it was a gateway ride for my 8 year old who is only starting to get comfortable with the real coasters. You have to have a balanced portolio of rides and Windseeker is part of that. Plus it takes-up a sliver of space and "stirs" the pot of foot traffic.

In any case, as has been noted by others, the more rides the shorter the lines overall. Yes, a GateKeeper or MF will still draw hour lines. But over the last 25 years I've been going to CP, the lines actually have gotten shorter. I remember when Gemini would run all its trains and still have half an hour lines or longer. Same with a lot of rides. Shorter lines make older rides more fun....in a perverse kind of logic.

Jeff said:

SkyhawkRaptorXL-200 said:

Anyone else agree or are we just crazy!?!?

Not crazy, just wrong.

Jeff, your love for Banshee is well documented. I happen to disagree. I don't think agree that Raptor is a better invert, but overall Banshee didn't leave me too impressed.

I don't quite understand how someones personal opinion of likes and dislikes can be "wrong" as you keep saying. If someone doesn't like pizza, that doesn't make him "wrong" even if his opinion is contrary to the majority.

Did I seriously need to put a winky in my post? For real?

NWLB said:
I love Windseeker, so do my kids, it was a gateway ride for my 8 year old who is only starting to get comfortable with the real coasters. You have to have a balanced portolio of rides and Windseeker is part of that. Plus it takes-up a sliver of space and "stirs" the pot of foot traffic.

In any case, as has been noted by others, the more rides the shorter the lines overall. Yes, a GateKeeper or MF will still draw hour lines. But over the last 25 years I've been going to CP, the lines actually have gotten shorter. I remember when Gemini would run all its trains and still have half an hour lines or longer. Same with a lot of rides. Shorter lines make older rides more fun....in a perverse kind of logic.

9 times out of 10 when i ride gatekeeper the line ends right before the stairs maybe a little longer. It most definitely not an hour for me. I guess I'm just lucky when i go to ride it. But more rides/attractions bring in bigger crowds so in theory the lines should get bigger. And weekend visits looking back over the years i think they have gotten longer.

I think that weekend attendance has actually been up in the past couple years while the overal annual attendance may not be as high as in the past.

I've been going to CP for well over 30 years and looking back I can remember waiting crazy amounts of time for rides like Demon Drop and Magnum. I don't think I've yet to wait longer than 30 or 40 minutes for Gatekeeper. Day of the week, time of the year, time of day all factor in big to what the lines are like.

Over the past few summers the weekend crowds have been larger than I've ever seen in my life but some of my midweek visits have been fantastic with walkons for plenty of great rides.

I love the trend of adding high capacity rides. Nobody wants to spend all day in a line and frankly CP doesn't want their guests in line all day.

It was quite common for the Raptor and Mantis lines to utilize the entire que in the late 90's. The line for Mean Streak even used the entire que inside of the structure on many weekends. Might be strange for some to picture it but Mean Streak even had a live DJ in the que area the lines were so long... However, since that time many additioanl coasters and flats were built. Even though some rides were ultimately removed they were typically replaced with higher capacity versions, or ones with similar capacity at least.

The size of the crowds might be the same or somewhat larger than they were 20 years ago, but with many more rides and attractions to spread and thin out the crowd I think wait times have been reduced overall.

If kids today coud go back to 1998 and visit the park, the year this site was started, I think they would be completely shocked. Lines were just what you had to endure if you wanted to ride. I would meet up with friends and spend an hour waiting for Magnum, if you could believe that. Sure, things can still get ugly on busy days, but in the general sense the strategy is to simply not get in a long line. Most will be shorter at some other point in the day (with exceptions, of course, given mechanical reliability issues at certain Intamin rides).

Even 2005 was much worse than what I see on multiple visits these days. Although this is completely anecdotal and doesn't represent the younger generation as a whole, I've found that when I bring friends to the park or overhear others' conversations, there is a much lower tolerance for even minimal wait times. One of my favorite quotes I'll never forget is hearing a woman say "No. I don't wait in lines" after seeing what amounted to a ten minute wait. Let's all be thankful for those who feel they're too good to wait for nice things, for that's one less person in front of us in line.

Dive coasters are awesome, by the way. The holding brake is a very thrilling element, but the rest of the ride is tame enough to appeal to a large demographic. What difference does it make that they have several other rides where your feet dangle?

I remember the line for Gemini filling the queues for both sides and extending out onto the midway for a fair distance, and we waited on line through all that. Also the line for Magnum filling the queue and extending past the restroom building.

I'd never thought about the additional coasters and rides "spreading the load" and making lines for most of them much shorter.

I also remember waiting through the entire que for Gemini, that one never seemed that bad though as a lot of the que had shade and the line moved fairly quickly. My wife and I were just discussing waiting for Mean Streak and I remember how hot and slow that line was... on a hot summer day we always hoped the line would stop moving while you were under one of the small awnings they installed over it. I spent much time in that line whining that they didn't spend the extra money to put the awnings over the whole thing.

Even though we had season passes during these times we just expected to wait in line to ride the rides, of course we still had days where the lines were short and it was an unexpected bonus walking onto some rides or only waiting 45 minutes for Raptor instead of 2+ hours. However, now there have been several times when I thought the crowds would be small but the park ended up being packed - I just apologize to the kids and let them know we'll try another day while driving back home...

Jeff said:

If kids today coud go back to 1998 and visit the park, the year this site was started, I think they would be completely shocked. Lines were just what you had to endure if you wanted to ride.

Which is one of the reasons I hate Fast Lane, make em' all wait, haha! Seriously though, I remember waiting in 2+ hours lines for Blue Streak when the line would snake down that midway to the main midway. Also Gemini's opening year line sucked big time. Millenium's line was 6 hours opening day, snaking down the Frontier Trail to about the Snake River Falls "splash" bridge. No joke. That was the worst I've seen.

As someone brought up, my personal worst experience line waiting was for Mean Streak opening year. Yes, I do remember waiting in 90+ degree temps in the blistering heat for 90 minutes to get on it, only to have one of my ex-girlfriends faint from dehydration before we got to ride. I had to carry her out of the line and didn't even get to ride that day. That memory is forever scarred in my brain, probably why I don't ride it much to this day. Yes, good times....