Thursday October 13
We arrived at Castaway Bay at 2:13, and were surprised to find that our room was ready. This was our first visit ever to Castaway Bay, and I'll share a few brief thoughts. The water coaster, Rendezvous Run, was our first ride in the park, and I really enjoyed it, my first water coaster ever, but it seemed very short. I guess I should expect that from an indoor coaster. I really liked the indoor/outdoor hot tub. It would be interesting to go outside there while it's snowing... The body slides were fast and furious. I think they are as good and better than the body slides at Soak City, but that's probably because I prefer enclosed body slides. We probably spent more time in the activity pool playing basketball than anything. The crowds were very light. There never seemed to be over 100 people in the entire park. Overall, it was a great visit, the entire park and hotel were very clean and pleasant. Now I just have to decide if it will be worth the 190 mile trip to make a return visit during the winter...
Friday October 14
First thing in the morning, I picked up a copy of the Sandusky Register and read the devastating news of White Water Landing's closing. I know this has been widely speculated for some time, but I was in denial. My son and I have ridden White Water Landing more than any other non-coaster ride in the park. This was very sad news indeed. We spent the morning and most of the afternoon wrapping up our visit to Castaway Bay. After a short detour to Ryan's buffet to load up on food, we were off to Hotel Breakers. We arrived about 3:30, and there was already a big line at the desk for check-in. By 4:00, we were in our room, and preparing to make the most of our only Halloweekends visit. Well we only went on 2 rides Friday, but of course the rest of the time, we were hitting the Halloween activities. Of course, we headed for Millennium Force for 3 ERT rides, the third in the front seat. Then we headed for the back to be among the first to go thru Undertaker U. I just had to try my first ever order of Macho Nachos. Lemme tell you, those Jalapenos felt pretty good going down, but not so great coming out the other end. Maybe I'll expand on that in the Saturday section... maybe. We got in line for Werewolf Canyon at 7:45, and by 8:15, we were walking through the canyon. This was better than I remember it being last year, maybe because there was an old lady who went through with us, who I feared was going to drop dead from fear before it was over. Anyway, I'm glad we got through Werewolf Canyon on Friday. More on that later... Before the night was over, we saw Tim Hill's magic show, went through Lair Of The Vampire, and CarnEvil, and also Fright Zone about a dozen times. Fright Zone was the highlight again, but around 11:30 when we went through, the crowds were light and the screamsters seemed tired as many of them were just standing around and some even chatting with the peeps. After 2 late-night laps on Magnum, we went back to Hotel Breakers and crashed.
Saturday October 15
With the late ERT of 11:00, we figured we could sleep in, and catch a huge breakfast buffet at the Coffee Shop in the hotel. Boy were we wrong. At 10:00 when we went downstairs, there was a huge line for the Coffee Shop, ditto TGI Friday's. I probably didn't need a breakfast buffet at this point anyway as I dropped a bunch of those Jalapenos in a restroom on the way to the Beach Entrance. We settled for donuts from the gift shop, with plans for an early lunch. That was just a sign of things to come. We headed for MF first as always, but things seemed to be moving a little slower this morning. By the time we finished our first circuit, it was 11:30. We looked at the line, and I estimated the line in the queue to be about 45 minutes, but astonishingly, there were peeps lined up outside the entrance all the way to the CP and LE tracks and beyond. It was insane. We moved on, deciding to be among the first on White Water Landing. We ended up riding WWL 5 times throughout the day. Sadness hung over us like a cloud as we enjoyed that 1 minute 15 second view from the top for the last few times. We hit Mean Streak and Antique Cars before catching Chris Linn's show. It seemed somehow less interesting than the show he put on a year ago. For lunch we headed for the Crazy Cooky Pizza Buffet Thingy at the joint formerly known as Macaroni's. I have to admit it was terrible. The pizza was lukewarm at best, with minimal selection, and the service, lukewarm as well. When we exited, there was a huge line to get in there as well. I wanted to tell the people to go someplace else but I just let them see for themselves. Next I witnessed a sight I thought I'd never see. As we walked down the Wicked Twister Midway, the queues were overflowing for everything, Ocean Motion, Chaos, Troika, Giant Wheel, all had people lined up onto the midway. This was about 2:30 pm. We decided it would be a good time to retreat to Hotel Breakers for a little break. After a little swimming, hot tubbing, and arcading, we headed back in, not sure what we would actually accomplish with the huge crowd. I can say in ten visits to Cedar Point in the past 13 months, totalling 29 days, Saturday was by far the busiest I have ever seen the place. It was wall to wall people. It was actually a great feeling to see that, to see thousands of people indulging in my favorite activity. At my son's insistence, we caught Tim Hill's magic show again. We managed a couple rides near the front, Calypso, Turnpike Cars, and Cedar Downs. Coasters were out of the question at this point because the lines were all ginormous. I had a plan to take CP and LE to the back to catch one of the Poe stories at the glassblowing amphitheatre. It almost worked, except when we approached the Snake River bridge, a CP employee was stationed there telling everybody that Fright Zone was one way only, and the wait for Werewolf Canyon was three hours plus... The only longer wait was TTD at 6 months plus... We tried moving across, but the peeps were so thick coming the other way that we couldn't get close to the amphitheatre. From there we basically worked our way around circling the park going the correct way through Fright Zone, and ultimately waiting about 25 minutes to see Tell Tale Heart at the theatre. It was very cool, the first time I've seen one of these stories there. But if you have asthma, stay out of there. You'll choke to death on the fog. One thing I noticed on Saturday was the number of food stands that were closed. We were getting very hungry, and wanted to go to the Chuck Wagon, which I didn't see open throughout the weekend, and every food stand that I saw open had insane lines. Not until 11:30 did we finally find a reasonable line at Skyride Refreshments and settled for a Chicken Strips Basket. Once again, we capped off the day on Magnum.
Sunday October 16
We knew this would be our most productive day, ride-wise, and we started it off in grand fashion, with 4 laps on MF. I was determined that we would get one more ride on our favorite coaster before the day was over, but for whatever reason, we didn't get back to it. I took pictures of my son as he took a solo ride on White Water Landing, then we took one final ride together. WWL will be greatly missed... We made the rounds several times this day, finally getting to Pharoah's Secret, Maxair and Wicked Twister. The notable missed ride was Raptor, which broke down while we were in line shortly before closing. Of course, it started right up as soon as we decided to give up on it. Ended the season on Magnum's front row. As we headed out, I drove through the Soak City parking lot to take a closer look at the top secret stuff over there. I wanted to take pictures, but I already used all my film on White Water Landing.
My goal was to get to Cedar Point 6 times this year, and I made it 7. I'm sad the season's over for us, but I'm grateful for every moment we spent at our favorite place!!!
Ride counts:
Millennium Force 8
White Water Landing 7
Magnum 4
Troika 3
Top Thrill Dragster 0
Screaming Swing 0
Highlights:
Millennium Force as always
Fright Zone
Saturday's Giant Crowds
Lowlights:
Food Service
Saying goodbye to White Water Landing
Missed Monsters Rock at Red Garter
Gilbert, Vegan Rider
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