Help on what to do.

Hello everyone! I am new here, and joined up for some advice/strategy for Cedar Point.

I have really wanted to go to Cedar Point and will finally get the opportunity this summer. I will be at the park on July 3rd (this is the only possible day).

I have a few questions. I plan on hitting as many coasters as I can. Are there any I should rush to at the beginning? What are the wait times of the other coasters (or what they should be on that day)?

I really am a thrill seeker, so what thrill rides other than coasters should I hit?

Thanks for any help you guys can give. I won't have to many opporitunuties to go since I am from Florida, and I want to make sure I get everything out of my time in the park.

Thank you and quick responses would be helpful!!!

July 3rd will be one of the busiest days of the year so I would suggest hitting the big 3 (MF, Dragster and Maverick) as early as possible. The lines for those will be at least an hour throughout the day. Other coasters will be busy early but lines should die down as the day progresses. As long as your at the park from opening to closing you should not have a problem hitting every coasters and even get some of the older coasters more than once towards the end of the day.

I agree that July 3rd will probably be packed. I don't know what your money situation is like, but if you could stay in one of the CP-owned hotels (even Breakers Express), you would also get to enter the park an hour before the general public. At least then you could get Maverick and Millennium Force out of the way, then head to Dragster, which will have people lining up even before the queue officially opens. Admittedly I avoid busy days anyway, but in general I've found the front of the park to be less crowded later in the day, so I'd save Raptor for then. If the line is still too long, take a few spins on the 2nd-to-last seat of Blue Streak to kill some time. :) Heck, if you look carefully, you can even gauge the Raptor line while riding Blue Streak.

If you *can't* do the early entry, of the big three I might save Maverick for the third slot, since its line tends to move fairly quickly. Even if literally every queue is filled out to the entrance, that's only about 90 minutes. At the very least, the design of its queue is such that it "seems" to move faster, since it has several different sections, and the second half is under a roof, so you're out of the sun too.

The park is open until 1 AM that day because of the fireworks/anticipated crowds. In years past, I've found that the time following the fireworks is the best time to ride stuff because a lot of people head for the exits (only to sit in traffic for the next 2 hours).

Ooh, I didn't even realize that. Makes sense, since July 4th isn't on a weekend this year.

I've actually gone *to* the park just after the fireworks ended on July 4th, and witnessed the endless string of cars leaving; but driving around to the Soak City lot was a breeze. My friend said it took them 90 minutes to get out the previous year.

With a little over 2 hours of park time, I got in a good number of rides and waited for the last train on Dragster after 1 a.m. I was kinda surprised how many people stuck around that late, even with kids. By then the traffic was minimal. It was fun to be there with the die-hards. :)