Opening day

CP rush said:
This is the first year I will have a platinum pass, how does that work in terms of the hour early admission. What Im trying to say is should I expect a line and when should I arrive.

Get there at 8:30 A.M every day and you will be first in line or on the worst days, one of the first 100-200 in the park.

Gates open exactly at 9 A.M

I've seen lines stretch around the go-kart tracks at 9 A.M (on no special day), and I've seen lines only 14 people long at 9 A.M on no special day.

I usually show up no earlier than 8:50 A.M. The earlier the better though, as you will be riding by MF and Maverick and when you drive by you might see them with trains and people on them. I've drove by at 9:03 A.M and seen no lines and 3/4th full trains going by. Makes you hurt inside.

Your best use of ERT is spent riding MF or Maverick nonstop. Do not bother walking from Mav to MF. It wastes too much of ERT. You do ERT right and you can have 3 rides in easily by the time the general public is walking in.

If you do not ride Maverick in ERT, you will be waiting 45 minutes or more every time you want to ride it any other time.

MF, Raptor, and Skyhawk can all have big lines (if those are still the ERT rides), but they can also all be found during the day with short waits. They all can have 15-45 minute waits during the day. As well as 45 minute to 1.5 hour waits. It just depends on the day. But you hope for a slow day, aka a day where no ride wait is over 45 minutes. If you notice Maverick and MF at 1.5 hour or longer, you mys well say "looks like we are waiting a lot today".

What I am getting at here is there are busy days and slow days. You work with what you have.

On those days I ride Power Tower, Magnum, Blue Streak, Maxair, and other rides with usually small waits.

Power Tower is your friend. Sit on the seats facing MF and you can check out the lines for a number of rides in the park.

Make the most of your season pass and the best weather of the season. Go to CP in May. By mid June the park is in full swing and your chances of finding the park not busy will be slim.

Only other time to find short lines (with a good chance of predicting short lines) is Friday nights for Halloweens.

The first weel or 2 in June isnt to bad. Once schools get out is when it gets crowded. Most of the crowds in May and June are in fact schools. And the only problem with the PT seating thing is that you'll be lucky to get the right # seats facing Millenniums line.

For some reason we have gravitated towards SkyHawk for our Platinum ERT the past few seasons. That line can be aggrivatingly long, especially for such a short ride cycle...plus, it's a great "break-in" ride (meaning, we like to do the progression from smaller rides to larger rides, just to make them feel a bit more fun). TTD is dead on...once those kids are released, watch out. Great weather in May means hundreds of rides for us. I will never forget 2 seasons ago on the "First Monday", we got walk on's on MF with Tony (of T and T), and we actually got walk-ons for TTD...amazing riding.

^Skyhawk is no longer an ERT ride.

Cp put on their event page that special events for Opening day will be anounced at a latter date. What are they or what events took place in the past?

They have had fireworks and the Ohio State Spring Band in the past. But this sounds like it may be something new.