Not wanting to feel stressed or anything of the like on Saturday, my wife and I casually drove to CP starting at half-past eleven from Ann Arbor. The turnpike was decent, but on one of those rodes getting off, we took a wrong turn and found ourselves on Highway 2. Problem. At the following offramp, it took us 30 minutes to crawl off the highway and stop and go on the main drag for another quarter of an hour.
Once parked at 1:50, we handed the ticket man our complimentary tickets and settled in line for Raptor. We were blessed with the company of a whiny late high school or early college-borne man and his equally testy mum. For an hour and a half we relished their unending dismay at the wait in the queue. When finally my wife and I reached the station, we opted for the "any seat" policy and managed to sit rather close to the front of the ride. Now, having not ridden the Raptor in two years, I had suffered some sort of Raptor amnesia. Beyond the hill, drop and first loop, I was totally unfamiliar with the outrageous antics of the beast. And strangely enough, I was a little scared for no understandable reason.
For lunch we chose the idea of nachos (for me) and a corn dog (for her). I obviously don't go enough because I had no idea where to find either. We passed by a sit-down place that had a sign about nachos, but we just wanted something quick. Well, I gave up my hope for nachos and went with the idea of a chicken basket at this place called the Dragon's Inn. My wife was still satisfied with the choice because they had "hot dog on a stick" painted on the building. But then after waiting about twenty minutes for only 10 people in front of us to be served, my wife asked about the hot dog on a stick and the cashier made an awkward face and claimed they didn't make them. She was certainly angered but jaded. She opted for a hot dog and shared some of my fries. The "meal" cost us more than $18. I didn't even get the same type of BBQ sauce. One was Bullseye (yum), and the other was Kraft (bleh).
Having killed off the hunger pains, we decided to go for the plunge brought upon us by Millennium Force. We were stopped by the gate attendant and asked to try the test seat. Without going into much detail on the matter, we did not ride the giga-coaster that day. It was a good half-hour for my wife to finally start feeling better about the humiliation. We aided our anguish by taking a ride on the Iron Dragon.
After getting off, we just opted to bypass Mantis and walk the Fright Zone, pre-activation, to just get away from the bad taste in our mouths surrounding Millennium Force. In the Frontier area, my wife play her hand at some Skeeball and won an inebriated-looking Homer Simpson doll. The game attendant had a slow initiation in his movement though, almost reluctant if I were to define it.
We decided that was enough gaming for the time and went on to wait about an hour in the queue for Magnum. True to its nature, my thighs were injured on the final bunny hops like always. There was a definite indication of agony when we looked at our ride photos.
After walking off my injury, we came to the Power Tower. The line for the Sky Shot was shorter, plus my wife had experience on that version, so we did that. Once again, my unreasonable fear crept in. The sky was dark at this point and I couldn't rationalize my reason for feeling so uneasy.
We were starting to get hungry again, and my wife's father recommended the Red Garter. Of course, we should've taken our mutual friend's warning about the crowd more seriously than we obviously did. The garter was standing room only, so I opted to pass up the chance to see the nice legged ladies in Halloween get-up. Every food booth and restaurant we passed was either lined up out the door or shut down.
I was growing quite discomforted about staying much longer, seeing as how nothing at all appeared convenient, favorable, welcoming or even fun anymore. I simply wanted to leave and eat somewhere that would treat me like a person and not a wallet.
Before we left, my wife convinced me to try the Demon Drop. I had never been on it before, so I gave in to her suggestion. The wait was probably the shortest all day, though the rush was mediocre compared to everything else we had ridden. We walked to the parking lot sometime around 9:30 and left.
We checked into our inexpensive, yet adequate, hotel and then had dinner at Fazoli's.
Thus I end my account of my trip to Cedar Point on Sweetest Day.
My husband, my brother, his g/f and I went to Cedar Point on Saturday the 15th of October 2005 (Sweetest Day).. You failed to mention in your post that it was the busiest day of the season. One of the ride attendants for the magnum told us that he in his whole two years working there had never seen so many people. We should have taken a clue and turned around to head back home after the vultures at the toll booths in the parking lot took our 9 dollars and parked us only 15 feet away from the booth in a parking lot partially grown over with weeds and that looked as if it hadn't been used in 10 years. We arrived at the park sometime around 3 PM and left at 11. I can count the number of rides that we rode on one hand. We opted not to stand in the hour long food lines and walked around all afternoon with growling bellies. I can honestly say that until last Saturday, I never knew the true fear of being trampled to death. At what point do they close their gates and say "Sorry, for saftey purposes, we cannot accept anymore patrons?" I don't suppose that they'd even consider such a thing..
*** Edited 10/19/2005 7:28:24 AM UTC by Witches wheel Wendy***
It sounds like you picked a bad day to go. I went the Sunday before and had a great time. No traffic and we parked in the first row. There was no wait for anything except Millenium Force (1 hour) and Dragster (30 minutes -- until it shut down). Everything else was pretty much a walk-on or less than 15 minutes. We rode everything multiple times and had such a great time. And I never had the fear of getting trampled. :) My boyfriend and I always seem to go when it is cold which I think keeps a lot of people away.
I went on sweetest day as well after I convinced my Boyfriend that another CP trip was better than going out to dinner.
We rode raptor-2 hour wait, Gemini-1 hour wait and the ferris wheel.
We were so disappointed at the sheer volume of people we didn't even make a attempt to wait for anything else.
Took a trip through carnevil and called it a day.
At least that was our 13th trip this year.. otherwise I would have been even more upset.
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