MI Adventure is Cedar Point's ugly step-sister

Really. We went there yesterday and what a joke! As always, the day we picked to go was another one of those days where you hear workers saying horrible things like, "I've never seen THIS many cars in the parking lot!" To anyone who's ever been there, the parking lot was FULL. Which is a small miracle. I've never seen that parking lot anywhere close to full before. Let me start my complaining from the beginning. First, we wait in a 1/2 hour car-line to even get in the park, if it wasn't for the over-excited 5 year-old in the backseat we probably would have turned around at that point. Then we get to the ticket window which much like CP has 2 "stations" in a way. The first one you buy your ticket then walk through to the second where you hand your ticket to someone and go in. There was a HUGE line at the ticket window so we were all excited being platinum pass holders that we would at least get to skip that huge line and go right into the "hand your ticket and go in" line. We wait in that line for 5 minutes, get up to the girl who looks at our passes and says, "oh you have to take those to the ticket window to get your tickets first b/c my computer can't read those." ok...now i'm slightly annoyed. We go and get in the long-ass buy your ticket line, wait there for 10 mintues get up to that girl only to have her look at our passes and say "you have to take those up to the pre-purchased ticket window, i can't process them here." What?! REALLY annoyed. So now we've spent 15 minutes waiting in a ticket line when we already have our flippin' tickets!!! In fact I think we paid 160$ for them if I'm not mistaken. OK so now we go up to the pre-purchased ticket window where we sit outside of and get ignored for about 10 minutes. FINALLY get out tickets that we have to take back into the "hand your ticket go in line" where we wait another 10 minutes. Altogether spending about an 45 minutes just trying to get in the stupid park and we have platinum passes!! Maddening. At Cedar Point they scan your pass, give you a smile and you're on your way. At MI Advemture, they've never seen a platinum pass before in their lives. Then we get IN the park. We take a seat on the "Sea Dragon" your typical back and forth rocking boat ride. I'm sitting next to a woman in the backseat of the ride. She looks over to me and says, "I can't believe they haven't fixed this yet." I see her pointing to a crack in the plastic of the ride, right about where her arm rests. She then shows me a visible scar on her wrist where her skin got caught in the ride last year. She wrote them 6 letters about the injury and the ride still sits in the same condition this year. The waterpark was no better, they even ran out of keys for lockers. Needless to say I will NEVER EVER being going back to MI Adventure for any weekend day. I am officially scared off for life as it was far worse than the busiest day I've even seen at CP. I feel better getting that off my chest . :)

If this happened to me I would send Mr. Kinzel an email. I am sorry you did not have a good vacation. Although I was not planning on going to MI anytime soon after reading your post I do not think I ever will.

Luckily for us, we live close-by so it was more like a day-trip than vacation. I can't imagine how disappointing it would be for someone that actually traveled to get there yesterday though.

Lila, what do you expect? This is a small Half day park. This is the last full weekend before Indiana starts school. I have been in the park when it is "full" never waited over 20 minutes for a ride, on the other hand in the water park, which is the main draw of this park, especially when its one of the Few 90 degree days in Michigan this year, can always have a long wait for rides. The rides are actually kept up pretty well. To post this here is really misleading, MIadventure only real fall back is the lack of shade and typical high food pricing for cedar fair park. Sorry you had a bad experience, but your title is very misleading. Mikeybo2004 to cancel your trip because of one persons "bad" experience is not fair, heck if you read other boards and did so on that basis, you would never visit any park across the country.Michigan Adventure is not Cedar Point, It is a Decent water park with Really good Wood Coaster. If Cedar Fair Decides to invest more in the ride part of the park, this could become a great full day park. Cedar Fair has made leaps and bounds in improving this park since they purchased it.

^ You misread my post. lol. I know I should not base my opinion of a sister park off of one testimonial. But I thought CF had the universal platinum pass issue solved by now. I browsed MA's site a long time ago and it did not look like it compared to CP or KI. So when we want to get away we drive to KI because it is about the same distance away as Michigan's Adventure.

I understand it's a small park, I've lived here my whole life, watched it grow into what it is today. I agree it's grown , and wasn't really complaining at all about ride wait times. I was complaining mostly about the fact that our platinum passes seemed to be holding us back more than helping us and that the people working there didn't seem to know anything about them. They kept sending us all over the place! I also have been to CP at least a few times every year for the past 5 or so years and sparatically before that, so I see the difference between the two parks on a regular basis and feel "ugly-step sister" is entirely accurate. It's still a decent park, but in comparison to Cedar Point or MOST other CF parks, am I wrong to say it's not on the same page? Do people really travel from Indiana to go to MichAd? I agree the waterpark is decent but worth traveling from Indiana?? True, most of my visits to MichAd. have not been this bad, but I have had more bad experiences there than any other park. That is why I posted . I could go on about the Shivering Timbers kissing/flip the bird incident, or the ridiculous blatantly ignored line jumping but I really don't feel like it.Maybe later.

I think that Knotts and Michigans adventure are the only two cedarfair parks left that you have to bring your pass to guest services to get a ticket.

I had issues at cedarpoint with my platinum pass on opening weekend as well.

I woulden't judge a park on that reason alone. I have been to michigans adventure a few times this year, and had no issues getting a ticket in guest services. I was talking to a lady in gues services, and she said that they are working on getting the system up and running so that the passes can be used at the turnstyles.

I think that if you go to michigans adventure looking for a 300 foot mega coaster, you are going to be dissapointed. They have some great coasters there like shivering timbers, and the best slc coaster I have ever been on...thunderhawk. Cedarfair has been adding things to the rides side since they took over the park. So far they have added the bumper cars, thunderhawk, swan boats, grand rapids, a longer train ride, more trees, revamped midway, and improved park infostructure(sp).

It's still a small park, so when a huge crowd like that shows up, there are bound to be some issues.

If you think that line jumping only happens at Michigans adventur, you need to read some trip reports from almost any other park. There have been two fights at cedarpoint so far this year due to line jumping. I witnessed one at kings island this year.

You didn't explain anything beyond the delay to get in, the condition of the Sea Dragon ride, or the overfilled waterpark why your day was so bad that you'll never go back to MiA. I went there last summer for the first time, and after seeing how amazing the waterpark was I can see it reaching capacity on a beautiful hot summer Saturday. It was crowded the day I went, and that was a Wednesday. Is this your first time having Cedar Fair platinum passes? There have always been issues with the platinum passes being used at other parks, so my friend Mark and I pretty much knew we'd have to go to guest relations at the beginning of the day to get our Worlds of Fun passes scanned and get our comp tickets to the park.

I was pleasantly surprised by Thunderhawk, my first Vekoma SLC, after hearing all the bad reviews. Mark and I spent half the day in the waterpark, especially the great wave pools, and most of the rest of our time marathoning Shivering Timbers and Thunderhawk.

I guess if you are scared off by huge crowds you shouldn't ever go to an amusement park on a Saturday in July or August. I thought everybody pretty much knew that's the WORST day to go to a park if you don't like crowds and long waits for the rides.

I really don't mind long lines for rides when I'm at a park on a Saturday. I've been to enough parks to expect that, it's just that MA is USUALLY different in that way. It's nobody's fault they were busy, that is hardly my complaint. In fact I hope they are busy, again I live here and want the place to grow into awesomeness. It's just frustrating how unorganized, ill-maintained, and cheap they are by comparison to CP. (cheap: next time we go I have to be sure to remember my own straw and top for my drink cup as I will not find one in the park) I never said I would never go again. I'll probably go a million more times but I did learn my lesson as far as a Saturday in August. Which again, is not me blaming anyone but frustrating none-the-less. I've seen line-jumpers get booted at Cedar Point, I've seen line-jumpers ignored timeless times at MA. Again, I am not disappointed by the fact the park was busy...I'm disappointed in the way it's ran in comparison to it's bigger prettier sister.

Lila, when it comes to water parks in Northern Indiana, it pretty slim pickings. Yes people from Indiana do make the trip to Michigan Adventure and Yes for the water park. Heck Indiana beach is "water" parks is a peice of crude compared to Michigan Adventure. Michigan Adventure puts Soak City to shame. There is some very good speculation with the attendance and profitablity of the park this year and last year that for 2010 it will see a new flat or Power tower along a new trail between ST and Thundehawk plus potentially a new water coaster there as well. 4 Years ago MA got a Height variance ordinace so improvement can reach a hieght of 250 feet high. MA will continue to grow and improve. MA is in the family and honsetly its not the ugly step sister its acutally the quiet child that is doing well.Plus we never hear MA pouting and yelling "Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! why is always about Marsha!"( i know marsha is not jan's stepsister.)

I agree with lila. I live right outside Detroit and drove about 3 hours to check out MI adventure and was highly dissapointed. And to be honest their water park was not even all that great, for sure not worth the 3 hour drive. And I can back up Lila about the platinum pass problem, when my Girlfriend and I handed the ticket teller our platinum pass all she said is that she cant accpet them and told me to go to the ticket booth in order to get my tickets. So I had the same Issues as you did Lila.

"And I can back up Lila about the platinum pass problem, when my Girlfriend and I handed the ticket teller our platinum pass all she said is that she cant accpet them and told me to go to the ticket booth in order to get my tickets. So I had the same Issues as you did Lila."

What is the big deal about going to the guest relations building? It is actualy before you even get to the ticket booth.

That is not enough to ruin a day, and if it is, you have issues.

I think the waterpark at michigans adventure is great. Like someone else mentiond, it's better than soak city. They have much more to choose from and the slides are more exciting. The only complaint I have about the waterpark, is that they need to put in a elevator for the large family slide rafts.

We went there in 2007 and my trip sounded about the same! It had small parking spaces and the entire park felt cramped. The one thing I remember the most is thinking" thank God we have Geauga Lake back at home" . We all know what happened there. I love cedar point and it will always be the biggest park with the widest variety of thrill rides. It was always nice to go to a smaller park and breeze through the day. Mia will never see me set foot in it again. I think they made the wrong decision when they closed geauga lake insted of Mia.

"We went there in 2007 and my trip sounded about the same! It had small parking spaces and the entire park felt cramped. The one thing I remember the most is thinking" thank God we have Geauga Lake back at home" . We all know what happened there. I love cedar point and it will always be the biggest park with the widest variety of thrill rides. It was always nice to go to a smaller park and breeze through the day. Mia will never see me set foot in it again. I think they made the wrong decision when they closed geauga lake insted of Mia."

Ummm....

So you are saying that you had a bad day at the park because the parking spots were smaller?

The parking spaces are the same size as cedarpoint's or any other park for that matter.

The park feels cramped?

How so?

I find it funny that you say that michigans adventure seemed "cramped", when geauga lake had some major bottlenecks and thin walkways. The attractions at Michigans adventure are for the most part wide open, and the attractions are well spaced.

They closed geauga lake because it was not making money. Do you actualy think that they would close up shop if they were making money off of it?

Michigans adventure has made a good profit since before cedarfair has taken over the park. That is why it reamains open to this day.

Again, you keep comparing cedarpoint to Michigans adventure. It's a small park that is growing.

I agree the Platinum Pass thing is terrible.

First Cedar Fair needs to get off its lazy butt and fix the Platinum Pass system. I mean come on I could understand the Paramount parks having a few problems with the passes...but Knotts and MA? They have been in the CF chain long enough for something to be done.

Second if you are going to be lazy and not upgrade the ticket system at those two parks then atleast post a sign telling people so they don't have to wait in line then get rejected.

I believe the guest service building has a nice large sign there that says Season Pass/Platnium Pass Entrance.

Obviously it is not visible enough, needs to be posted everywhere.

I had the same issues as the first post and I was adding a few things that I additionally noticed. The parking was not like any other park. the lanes were narrow and the spaces were tighter. I am not comparing it to cedar point. Cp is a entirely different level of park. I was comparing it to Geauga Lake in which I feel Geauga Lake was a better park. It is my opinion.

Please read the posting guidelines.

Posting guideline: READ HERE FIRST!

As this is not related to Cedar Point itself. Yes I do know that Michigan Adventure's is owned by Cedar Fair.

Wow......

I guess I am just the weird one here.

A small parking spot and or having to go to guest relations to get my free ticket, never kept me from enjoying a park.....call me silly.