September 22

This is my first time posting, but a long time reader. I've been going to Cedarpoint for a long time, but thought I'd do a quick trip report on my trip last Saturday.

I arrived at the park at 12:30 pm with my friends. I have a Joe Cool season pass but none of my friends did, so getting in the park early was out of the question. While driving back to the soak city lot, my fears were confirmed, Blue Streak had a full line, and MF appears to be back to the pop machines.

It looked like it was going to be one of those crazy Halloweekend Saturdays.

First up was Magnum. 20 minutes wait. The station was being regulated by the crew, which was nice. Good ride on Magnum, trims near the turn around grabbed kinda hard, but the bunny hops still gave nice pops of air time. Still my fav ride in the park.

We walked by Gemini, but judging from people walking back out of the line, and the fact it said 45 minute wait, my friends didn't want to ride it. So we moved on.

Skyhawk was next. I was surprised to see both sides running! I never rode it with both going. Ride seemed shorter this year then last year. Still fun though. Only 4 people were running the ride, with two during the lap bar pushing and checking. So load times weren't the greatest. Given the design of the ride I can't really blame the park though, seems like the lap bars could have been done differently.

Also, while waiting line for Skyhawk, some one was spitting from the ride during one of the cycles. A big huge goober hit the cement twice right in front of my while waiting. Gross! I thought of complaining but I was back by the pop machines, by the time I got up to the ride ops, the person would be off the ride. Everyone in line near us saw it happen to, and suddenly those little covers over the line were popular.

Maverick's line was spilling out into the mid way, past the choke-n-puke burger place to the left in the line entrance. We passed, decided to come later, since night rides are more fun.

I wanted to ride Wild Cat and Iron Dragon but the lines looked to be at least 45 minutes for both. I suddenly found myself thinking "i'm not going to be able to ride all the rides I want today!". I always try to go to the park on off days, I hate lines, and being faced with this very issue.

Here is a summary of the other rides I rode:

Wicked Twister: 45 min wait. Fun ride! 4th row from the back is my fav spot.

Maverick: 1h 45 min wait. Rode in the very back. Funny story though. Our group was 3 poeple, so my friend Andrew rode in front of us and got paired up with single rider.

She was leaning over and chatting with him and pulled down her harness. She was so busy asking him if this was a scary ride that she didn't notice she caught her head outside the harness! Ride op came up and asked her if she could pull her had back in under the harness. She then noticed how oddly she was strapped in and started freaking out a little. They released the harness and put her in correctly. Wonder if that happens often?

Ride was fun, but the vibrations really surprised me. I didn't notice that when I rode it in June.

Raptor: 50 min wait. Rode in the very back. Excellent ride. One of my friends thought it was cool they recorded you on the ride, but when she went to watch it in the video booth, they didn't have our seat video available. I guess they lose them sometimes?

Mean streak: 40 min wait. Normally I wouldn't wait this long for the ride, but given no other ride had a short wait, I ended up on this. Normally I don't mind the ride, I found hanging on the grab bar with your hands and holding your back off the seat, it's a decent ride. Today however, going down the 1st drop, those trim brakes just about stopped the train. It was funny, girls screamed, then they stopped screaming when trim grabbed, then screamed again once it let go. Scream. Silence. Scream. All on the first drop!

Mean streak was very disappointing. I thought it wasn't going to make it around the 1st turn! Near the end of the ride it finally started to pick up some speed, but it was too late, I was bored.

MF: Last ride of the night. 45 min wait. Right when we got in the loading station, it broke down. However, the crew did a good job getting it going again. I'm not sure what happened, but they ended up removing one of the trains and it finally go going again. We didn't ride until 12:45 am, well after the park closed. It's great that CP will work hard on keeping guests happy in a situation like that. They could have just sent us home, but they got it going.

Ocean Motion: Ride cycle was short! Maybe i'm used to the ones at Michigan's Adventure and King's Island, but this thing barely got going before the brakes hit. And it just sounded tired.

Overall I thought the park looked good, and most rides were running good. No line cutting going on around me, which was nice, and besides the issue with Skyhawk, everyone seemed to be there to have a good time.

I already have plans to go again this weekend coming up, except on Sunday! Hopefully I can get my other favorite rides in before the season is over. *** Edited 9/24/2007 7:25:52 PM UTC by findbobby***

Glad to hear you had a good time despite the lines. I noticed while watching Mean Streak on Saturday that it was barely crawling through the second turn, much slower than usual, and usually it's pretty slow. I've also noticed the vibrations on Maverick recently. Not in the front car, but the middle and back cars on at least a few trains have a wicked vibration. Not sure what's causing it, but I'm sure they'll have it ironed over the off-season.

Did you have a chance to check out any of the Halloween attractions, or were you just there to ride?

I wanted to go through a few of the Halloween stuff. It was either ride rides or the halloween things. The group I was with hadn't been to the park in a few years, so we were in the riding mode.

Only thing we went through was the Fright Zone on Fronter Trail. It was fun. It's been a few years since I walked through it. It was funny hearing some people getting scared around us. No one scared us though! I'm ok with that though.

Next weekend I'm hoping to get to the park later Saturday and just do the Halloween stuff, then do the park Sunday. Just find a cheap hotel close by that we can crash in.

Mean streak really was moving slow. I've ridden it enough to know what a good ride and bad ride is, and this one took the bad ride prize! I wanted to do a night ride, but again, with the park so busy that didn't happen. I know there have been lots of discussions here regarding mean streak, so I won't get into it about how it ran. Disappointing for sure! *** Edited 9/25/2007 1:22:19 AM UTC by findbobby***

You might want to consider Breakers Express. Only $99/night and your whole party can get in early.

(You probably already know this)

Check out my mini-TR in the "frightfully long" one.

We stayed at Breakers in two different rooms thus far, and Castaway Bay. $119 a night in CB and we had a balcony even. The room was considerably nicer then either Breakers room we stayed in, and being off-point wasn't all that bad.

Thanks for the hotel recommendation guys.

I've actually stayed a BE before. Not to bad. Ideally if I pay over $100 a night i'd like it on the point. I got room for $45 at the Red Roof Inn by i80. A bit of drive, but considering I'm just crashing there from midnight to 10 am one night, I decided to play Mr. Cheap.

In June I stayed at Breakers for three days during the week, best way to really enjoy the point. I'm hoping next year to crash out at Lighthouse Point.

Anyone ever stay at the Red Roof by CP? From what i've read it's just a place to sleep, but clean at least.

i think i will be hoping for a rollback on meanstreak; that would be a story to tell!