Arrived at CP at about 9:15, parked in the Soak City lot, as usual. Magnum was running test trains, and by the time we got into the park the first train was heading out. Got in line for Magnum, pretty much a walk on, waited for one train to pass thru and walked on to the second to last seat. What an awesome way to start the day. :) Hopped out of line, and right back in.. complete walk on this time, straight for the ejector seat. Amazing airtime, and NO TRIMS thru the pretzel. We (My friend Katie and I) got off and contemplated a 3rd trip, but decided to head towards the back of the park...
Hit Gemini along the way down the midway. Now, I tell you.. this was by far my best Cedar Point visit ever, with only three things that really bothered me... this, was the first. Rude ride ops. Okay, I can understand if you've been there all day and you just wanna go back to sleep, but the park had just opened. The ride op doing the oncoming/return to station speil over the PA had OBVIOUSLY woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning... "Picture taking is strictly prohibited, ugh... so don't even try it." was one of his cheery messages before you departed the station... Upon returning, we were welcomed back with a monotone who-gives-a-crap "Welcome back Gemini riders, how was your ride... train remains silent Goody, now that it's OVER, please leave down the stairs as quickly as POSSIBLE.." Well, thank you.. what ever happened to "Enjoy the rest of your day..."? Anyways.. the ride was good, was catching some incredible airtime on the first drop and before the final helix. I don't remember having such a good ride on Gemini.
Headed back to Mean Streak. Walk-on... second to last seat. Those trims on the first hill were grabbing unusually hard. I mean, sure.. they've always grabbed hard, and you KNOW when they grab.. but this was out of the ordinary, even for MS. It felt like the train was about to come to a complete stop going down the hill. We barely crested the second hill, and I was seriously worried when we were heading up to the mid-course brake run that we were going to be in the midst of a roll-back. Thankfully, we just BARELY topped that hill, and had a slow, boring ride back to the station.
Time to head for the middle of the park again, hitting Mine Ride on the way, for ole' times sake. "FEEL THE POWER OF THE MINE RIDE!" Anyway, same ole' same ole' on this one... I about fell asleep. :p
We'd been in the park for an hour, and hit 2 Maggies, 1 Gemini, 1 MS, and 1 CCMR... not bad. The midways were still empty, and I was thinking, hey.. maybe it won't be so bad today.. let's head up and see what's going on in the Mantis area, maybe we can hop on right quick...
...WRONG...
We caught up with the rest of the screaming masses. I took one look at Mantis' completely full queue, spilling out onto the midway, looked at Katie, and we both, in unison, said "Forget that.."
Headed towards the front for a Disaster Transport visit. Neither of us had been on DT in 2 years, and figured we'd hit it and, if anything, just enjoy the air conditioning. New effects, and less effects.... The "OVERHEATING" smoking spike over the wait area between the boarding station and lift hill, I never remember... new, or fixed? Who knows.. still kind of a cool touch. Lift hill, same ole' noisy mess with the "prepare for evasive manouvers" that you can barely make out. The first half of the ride, was completely black... now, again, it's been 2 years, so maybe I'm just forgetting.. but wasn't there something you went thru during that.. there was no light until the sattelite room. Never the less, the first half being completely pitch black made it all the more exciting, for DT, anyway. The dangling strobes over the trough in the sattelite room were way cool, but not enough to make it any more exciting than it used to be... And what really sucked was the tunnel where "I'm losing control, I'm losing control!" is heard, was bathed in light... what used to be the good pitch black part, was now completely visible. Anyway, a good nostalgic ride :)
Off to lunch, Midway Market... I'll spare the details here G
Back from lunch, and feeling extremely tired (neither Katie or I got much sleep the night before), we headed back to the car, picking up some souveniers along the way. Took an hour long nap in the car, woke up and headed back to Gemini.
Cranky guy was off the ride, and they were now racing trains. Opted for the red side this time, since we took blue earlier in the morning. Red had been losing consistantly the entire time we were queued (approx 15 minute wait at this point in the day). It wasn't until our ride that Red won.. :) Fun stuff again, good air on almost every hill.
Deciding we couldn't avoid the long lines anymore, we headed to Raptor. Iron Dragon's queue was nearly empty as we passed the lagoons, and hit it while we were there. Same ole' dragon, nothing new, nothing terribly exciting, except Katie screaming "DEAR GOD THE IRON DRAGON!" as we swung past the Mantis loading station. :) We did notice while waiting in the 5-10 minute queue that Millennium Force's trains were stopping at the lift hill for about a minute each... (watched red, yellow, and blue get near the top, then stop) then get flung over the hill. Katie, this being her first trip this year, assured me that if that happened on her first ride on MF, someone WOULD die... :)
Moving on to Raptor. Queue line was an hour and 15 minutes, so the board quoted, ended up being more like an hour and 45 minutes just to get to the staircase to the station. (Sidebar for the "Things that annoy me @ CP" thread: being stuck behind/in front of the same idiots for that period of time.... In front of us, a group of 4 10-13 year old girls giggling about what Billy did the other day and smacking eachother with their souvenier glasses... and singing Britney Spears... Behind us, some woman pretending she knew all about Cedar Point... a direct quote: "Yeah, Demon Drop was built in '92... but it didn't go over well... that's why they did Power Tower in 97... because nobody really liked Demon Drop" I really wanted to turn around and correct her, but it was more amusing to listen to her rattle on these falsehoods. My second irritating point of the day. Raptor, and train stacking. This ride has been consistantly known for pumping out the queue line like no other ride in the park. But nearly all day, there was trains stacked up behind the station. I noticed it earlier while eating lunch, and hoped it was a temporary thing, but it continued the entire queue line, and after our ride had finished. We waited for the front seat, of course, and had an incredible ride. And taking the good with the bad, because of the stacked trains, there wasn't even a slight touch from the trim brakes on the mid-course. Excellent ride.
The third, and last, and most irritating point outside of our otherwise excellent trip happened on Power Tower. Katie, who still hasn't been on PT, is deathly afraid of heights (as am I, but I don't let that stop me :) ) and I finally talked her (and half dragged her, literally by the arm) into the Power Tower queue for the Space Shot side. She was fine up until the boarding sequence. We stood on our little red numbers, and out of nowhere, staring up at the towers, I got slugged in the arm, HARD... "I *HATE* YOU, JEFF"... :) I think her nerves were getting the better of her, and it only got worse. We hopped into our seats, and I strapped myself in, she was going a little slower about it, nerves, most likely. She got her harness halfway down, just enough to start it locking to the point that she couldn't slide out, and she flipped out. I mean serious panic attack right here. I was already strapped in, so I couldn't do much from where I was, but grabbed her hand and tried to calm her down. The ride op came around checking seatbelts, and I told him "She needs to get out." "Oh, REALLY?" was his response. At this point, Katie was near tears. I'm like "Yeah... she's not gonna be able to do this" "Oh, Okay..." Katie sighed relief breifly as he said that, then he SLAMMED on her harness, stapling her into the seat. And this wasn't normal seat closure... this was unnecessarily brutal. Buckled her belt, laughed, and started to walk away. Katie was now in hysterics, and I was unable to do anything... She screamed "NO!" and finally burst out into tears, and he finally came back around, looked at me and asked "She really can't do this?" I looked up at him and said "What the HELL do you think?" He stared at us for a second, and finally motioned to the station to pop her restraint. She waited on the exit while I rode, and I found out from her after, said ride op did go over to the exit and check that she was okay. I exited the ride and flashed the filthiest go-to-hell look I could come up with, but forgot to check his nametag. If I had, park operations would have gotten a serious complaint.
Moving on from THAT happy fiasco, we had time to get in line for one more ride before park closing.. so of course, Millennium Force. We hopped in line at 7:45, just before park closing (Closed at 8) and waited in the 2 hour queue. Finally, decent people in front of us we actually struck up conversation with, a few kids behind us of the non-annoying variety, but one scary guy in a green suitjacket and big yellow glasses that kept staring at people.. freaky. Anyway. By the time we reaced the station, sun had set, and lights were up. I was tired, and spent most of the queue silent, leaning against the rails, and resting my eyes every second I could. But when we got up next to the station, I was pumped. I love this ride. We were one of the last let into the station, so not much choice for seats, sat 8-1. "Are you guys ready?" the ride op had asked.. The train let out a medeocre scream... but I was beyond that... I started yelling and screaming as loud as my lungs would allow me, and got the ride op checking harnesses involved with it too.. by the time restraints were checked, the music was blasting, and the 'toaster lights' were starting to click on in sequence, I, and the rest of the train were chanting "GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!"... when we finally blasted out of the station, our entire train was screaming all the way UP the lift hill.
Now, last time I took a ride on MF was early June... I must say.. this thing has aged extremely well, in an extremely short period of time.. if I had to describe it in one word: INTENSE... Ever since my first ride, I've been having mental debate over my #1 favorite ride.. Raptor vs. Millennium Force debates went on with both halves of my brain. Well, after the ride I had on this last night.. both halves finally agreed. Millennium Force.. hands down. I walked off feeling completely, deep-down satisfied. That first drop still puts me in awe. And it's flat out non-stop speed and intensity up until the brake run. If I only had a day to live, I'd spend it on this thing. :)