Opening Weekend: May 12-May 14 (Photos)

I decided to take a day of vacation, and spend an extended weekend at CP for Opening Weekend. I could ramble on for pages, but to give you a nice concise read, I will split it up into easy to chew sections! :)

The Park:

Everything looks in tip-top shape for the start of the season. I noticed some areas where some landscaping work is necessary (Skyhawk ride area), but the park, for the most part, looks very nice. The new smoking areas are clearly marked, but it seems nobody feels like following the new policy yet. I saw dozens of people smoking on the midways and in lines still. I think with time this will start to dwindle. Line jumping was an issue this weekend, as I saw several blatant incidents, however I'm sure the staff will crack down on this eventually. I got a good picture in my Flickr set from Magnum that demonstrates this perfectly. As others have mentioned, it seems the food and drink prices have gone up, and it is getting pretty ridiculous. 4.25 for a normal sized hot dog seems quite outrageous to me. Crowds overall were very heavy on Saturday, even more so than I expected. Sunday and Monday had equal crowds. They were slower days, but certainly not dead by any means. It was great meeting so many people at the PointBuzz picnic, and taking over Gemini, and riding other rides with you guys was tons of fun! Thanks!

The Rides:

As expected, opening weekend can be a bit shaky for some ride operations, and such was the case this weekend. Several coasters experienced intermittent downtime. Mean Streak had a walk-down at one point, and TTD had several hours of downtime on Monday. Speaking of Dragster, this was the weekend of morning rollbacks! Multiple trains were rolling back till well after 10 each morning. Luckily I was on two of these, and can now say that I have a 1 to 10 rollback ratio (beat that Adam!). Outside of the downtime, most rides were running fairly well, and the crews seemed to be in high spirits. Auto-spiels were nowhere to be found, and the majority of the crews were doing a good job at getting the riders pumped up (especially Dragster and Gemini).

Maverick:

Maverick looks great, from the ride itself to the station and surroundings. The test seat was available to try out, and the seat feels much more accommodating than MF or TTD. Lucky for me, they resumed testing on Monday, and I was able to get several pictures. Check them out with the link at the end of this TR. The ride is amazingly quiet, and the ride gets up the lift incredibly quickly. I also noticed that there is a horn both when the train heads up the lift, and when the train launches. There is also a loud rumble sound effect when the train launches out of the tunnel. It sounds like it is either thunder, or horses stampeding. I also found the signs in the queue interesting. They say that it is necessary to remove all earrings before riding and "occasionally a launched train will not clear the lift hill or the launch tunnel..." I am not sure exactly how the train could not clear the launch tunnel, but perhaps they are referring to an emergency stop. Finally, after watching the ride launch through the heart line, I am truly happy for the modifications. It would not be comfortable at all at the speed it is going right now.

Accommodations:

I can't complain much for the very low price I paid, but staying in the Bon Air section of Breakers was less than posh. I am very surprised that CP has not put any money into renovating this section of the hotel. The hallway felt very dark and dreary, and the room itself had a strong musty odor to it. The bed was quite comfortable, but there was only one electrical outlet available in the room, and it was in the bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, the wallpaper looked like it was straight out of the 70's and I am guessing that it was. Again, I paid very little for the room, and the convenience of walking to the park was very nice, so I can't complain much, but I feel bad for anyone who pays a substantial amount for these rooms during peak season.

Ride Totals/Observations/Wait Times:

Blue Streak - 6 Rides - 0-15 minute waits
-- This coaster is running great this year, all 6 rides were flying over the hills! I have never felt so much airtime on this ride, and the laterals on the turn were intense! Be sure to give it a ride this summer if you haven't yet!

Gemini - 2 Rides - 0-10 minute waits
-- Great Crew this year, always trying to get the riders fired up for the ride. Ride was fun as usual.

Magnum - 23 Rides - 0-15 minute waits
-- What can I say? With the cooler weather, the morning rides on Magnum were outrageously fast. The trims were off and the trains were flying around the circuit. The ride felt smoother to me this year as well. I'm not sure if some wheel work was done over the off-season. Maggie did have some off and on downtime this weekend. Could have been some overspeeding, from what I hear, but during one of these downtimes came one of the quotes of the weekend.... a flustered guest leaving the line proclaimed to the crowd "There's smoke in the tunnel!"... He thought the ride was on fire... classic.

Dragster - 3 Rides (2 Rollbacks) - 0-75 minute waits
-- Dragster was running pretty well until Monday afternoon when it shut down for the remainder of the day. The crew was great, and getting 2 rollbacks in one weekend was one of the highlights of the trip! Green train is my new favorite.

Raptor - 2 Rides - 10-20 minute waits
-- Ride is running great, the on-ride videos... not so much. I have heard quite a few complaints about them, and yesterday they weren't even working at all. Hopefully they iron the bugs out... It's a cool idea. The crew seemed to be trying to go quickly but it didn't always work out... I saw a lot of stacking this weekend, but I'll attribute that to opening weekend.

Wicked Twister - 6 rides - 5-15 minute waits
-- WT was running great, and I felt like it was giving a little extra something on the last backwards launch, but perhaps it was just having a few months away from riding. The wind was BITTER on Saturday and Sunday in the queue.

Other Rides:
Power Tower - Down - 2
Power Tower - Up - 1
maXair - 2
Mean Streak - 1
Millennium Force - 1
Skyhawk - 9
Witches Wheel - 1
Maverick Test Seat - 1 ;)

Total Time in Park: 28 hours
Total Rides: 59

Here is a set of 28 of my favorite pictures from the weekend, including several of Maverick testing!
Cedar Point Opening Weekend Pictures

*** Edited 5/15/2007 3:40:49 AM UTC by Josh M.***

I agree that Blue Streak was running the best I've ever seen it. I rode it a bunch on opening day cause I was so happy with the way it was running.

Thanks for the photos of Maverick testing!

Great Maverick pictures!! I'm glad to see it finally running, even with the problems.

Great pictures Josh. I especially love the Maverick "money shot"! I'll be there again on Wednesday, so maybe I'll get to see it testing.

"There's smoke in the tunnel!"...

Does this mean there is fog in the tunnel?

Yes, all 3 days that I visited, there was fog in the tunnel. It has always been off and on. It just seemed like there was more than I remember from the past few seasons.

Josh, I kid you not, I have been going to CP multiple times every year since 1980, and I have not experienced fog in Maggie's tunnels since her opening weekend.

Wow... its only in the last tunnel, but yeah, It's been there quite a bit.... I'm amazed you've never seen it!