June 24 - Soak City Trip

Friday 24 was a special day-trip to Soak City. It was our 16th wedding anniversary, and my wife, daughter & I decided to beat the heat and hit the water park. After an awful night-before and morning-of search for their passes, which appeared at the very last minute, we drove north, arriving at the Soak City lot around 11:00 or so. Since I was there anyway, I decided a few morning rides on the Magnum would be a good way to start before hitting the water. I saw the girls off to Soak City, and headed for the Resorts Gate. Unfortunately, there was an ominous silence from Maggie's lift hill. You could clearly hear the voice from the loudspeaker on the hill, telling you what a great ride you were having, but no trains were clattering up those 205 feet.

Well, it turns out that the Magnum hadn't even opened that morning. "Technical Difficulties" was the official reason. The real reason was apparently the loudspeaker system over which the ride-ops gave their spiel. I hung around the entrance for an hour or so, and went to Soak City about 12:45pm.

After a few turns in the wave pool, and some other water fun, I decided I would like to swim off of the Cedar Point beach, something I had never done in my entire life. So, with a promise to bring my wife back a frozen banana, my daughter and I set off for the beach.

Needless to say, the Magnum was running by then, so I took a quick side trip into the park for one ride. It was pretty good, and I was absolutely delighted to hear the ride-op giving a live spiel! No bland recording, no music, just an honest-to-goodness "Welcome back Magnum Riders! How was your ride?!"

After Maggie, my daughter and I strolled to the beach. I hate to say, I was disappointed. The view from the beach to the hotels and the park was indeed breathtaking, and one I had never seen before. Unfortunately, you can't really "swim" off the beach, because the water isn't much deeper than a short person's thighs. So, I sat in the brown Lake Erie water for a while, got sand in my shorts, and decided I wanted to go back to the concrete, chlorine and Beach Boys soundtrack at Soak City.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the various water attractions, enjoying ourselves as only true, dyed-in-the-wool tourists can. After leaving the peninsula, we enjoyed Lake Erie perch and walleye at Captain D's Fisherman's Catch on US 250, near the Sandusky Mall. After that, it was over to the west end and Venice Road, for a dessert of Toft's Ice Cream (well, for the girls, anyway.) On the way out of town, I grabbed a 4-shot latte from the Kroger Star Bucks, and we headed south about 7:30pm.

We hit Marion about 9:30pm, and it was time for a stop at Stewart's Root Beer, for some good, old-fashioned keg-style root beer, and a half-gallon to take home as well. We enjoyed a leisurely windows-down drive to Sunbury in the twilight and cooling air. It was a classic day, topped by a really fine evening drive home.

FLASHBACK TO MEMORIAL DAY: A special note to the Magnum "Candy" Man! I didn't file a trip report after Memorial Day, but wanted to mention how much I enjoyed hanging with you guys at the Magnum entrance Sunday and Monday morning, and the first-of-the-day, trims-off, front-seat ride we had on Sunday morning, as well as the other rides we took those mornings. Thanks guys!
*** Edited 6/26/2005 11:46:21 PM UTC by Tank***

Sounds like you had a good anniversary! It's really nice to have a change of pace and spend a day (or part of a day) in Soak City.

A well written trip report, Tank.

I agree with your assesment of the beach in front of the Breakers: Great view, good sand (but very hot on sunny afternoons), but the water depth is very shallow for enjoyable swimming. Although, when my children were younger, the 2-3 foot water depth was a safe place for my not-so-great swimmers to hone their skills.

I hope the live spiel on Magnum is permanent.

GOES

I fondly recall the days when we had combo passes and Ian and I would spend hours in Soak City. We'd arrive before the park opened, catch a few rides on Raptor and Magnum, then spend the rest of the day in the waterpark.

Of course, back then I was on a reduced schedule at work and had a weekday off every week and Ian was a carefree kid on summer vacation.

Now that I'm working full time, and Ian is working 30 hours a week, combo passes don't make sense because we can't get to CP often enough to make it worth the extra cost.

That's one perk of working out of the house. I can sneak away when there's no huge deadline looming. Plus, my wife's company gives them Friday afternoons off in the summer, so she only had to burn 1/2 day vacation for our little trip. Actually, the girls have the combo passes this year. I have a regular, and am using the buy-one-get-one-free coupons from the Breakers Express package we had at Memorial Day. I don't go to Soak City as often as the girls, so a BOGO coupon makes sense for me. We're doing the package again 4th of July weekend, so I can do Soak City for a reasonable price all summer.