Weds June 23 - Fri June 25
I hadn't been to Cedar Point in three years, and my boyfriend had never been, so we decided to go up this year together. It was an AMAZING trip! Warning, this will be long... as I tend to write a lot of detail. =P
On our five hour drive up there had been a few clouds here and there, but nothing too bad, but right as we pulled into Sandusky there were some major clouds overhead and we could see lightning. The drive around the Point was amazing, as always, however none of the rides were running because of the incoming storm. We found a parking spot and gathered most of our bags to check in at Breakers just as people were rolling in from the park and Soak City, so it was PACKED trying to get through the halls.
Our room wasn't quite ready when we checked in, but we only had to wait about half an hour before it was. I was rather persistent... I went to the counter every 10-15 minutes to see if it was ready yet (the first time I was told the room would be ready in about 15 minutes, which is why I returned to the counter like clockwork) It would have been nice if Breakers had wireless internet in the lobby. To be able to access internet we had to go to the rotunda. Not a big deal, but if there had been a longer wait it would have been a pain in the rear.
Our room was FANTASTIC. I had gotten a pretty good deal since I booked early as a returning guest, so we "splurged" and got a suite with a lake view. I'm glad we did, it was really nice to be able to move around and sit on the deck and watch clouds roll by. The storm was pretty brief, so we grabbed the rest of our bags from the car and hung out in the room a little before going to try Tomo Hibachi.
We didn't want to deal with the Hibachi, so we sat at a regular table and ordered sushi. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. We checked the weather and our email down in the rotunda and decided we couldn't wait any longer to get into the park, so we picked up some discounted Starlight tickets at the front desk and headed to the room again to let the food settle and wait until 5 pm.
By 5pm the storm was long gone, so we headed to the park through the resort gate. The plan was to head straight to Park Ops so I could get the pass I need to be able to ride half the rides (I have a prosthetic leg) but we couldn't wait and ended up riding Magnum first. There was hardly a wait, so we grabbed front seat and had a great first ride of the trip. After that we hit up Corkscrew and watched the Dragster for a little bit, but I had to get the pass before we could do that one... so we continued on!!
The sky ride was down because of the wind... actually it was down for a good portion of the trip. I wanted to check out the markings by the stadium so we walked around that way. I still have no idea what they could be doing there. Maybe it's just pavers, maybe they'll be building something fantastic. Who knows!! We decided to ride DT while we were in the area. The lights were on, but I really missed the sound effects. Girl behind me (10 or 11) told her dad the ride was boring when we were getting off. I thought it was fun, but definitely missing something without the sound effects.
Finally made it to Park Ops so I could get my pass and they were surprised I had provided documentation. (On the website they request documentation from whoever makes the prosthesis to ensure it won't fly off on any of the Intamin rides. Oddly enough they don't require documentation for Raptor... but whatever!) They were very kind at Park Ops, asked me questions about how my leg works and how I lost it and all that, and they seemed genuine about it. They asked where I was staying and said that they would make up my passes for the next two days and told me to stop by before I left the park to pick them up so I wouldn't have to come in the morning. AWESOME! I did NOT expect that at all. That has always been the biggest pain in the rear... getting into the park for early ride time and spending the first half hour walking to Park Ops and getting the pass before I could even ride MF or anything.
Immediately went to MF after getting the pass and only had a 15 minute wait. Actually most of the rides had VERY short wait times because most people had left the park earlier during the storm. We rode the train in that time since my knee was already bothering me and I needed to sit down. And where better to sit down and relax than on the train? We rode the full loop and loved Bone Town as always. Noticed that StR didn't have any water on, which kind of sucked. I wanted to see how it looked with water. Had a fantastic ride on MF and decided to try out Mantis. Mantis was a bit rough even in the front, we didn't ride it again. Went over to TTD for a ride after that, rode Iron Dragon, rode MF again in the front seat (awesome!) took the train back to Frontier Town and rode the Mean Streak in the front seat because the boyfriend loves wooden coasters. Only one train was running so the wait was WAY too long, even though the station was pretty empty. It wasn't as rough as I remembered, probably because it was cooler out, but I still had a headache afterward. We signed up for a time on Mav after that and rode the antique cars while waiting and then sat and people watched until we could ride Mav.
Great ride, but man I forgot how bad the bugs are at dusk/dark!! Especially in the front. Our arms and faces were covered with bug splats after the ride. We sat down again after that and rode wave swinger once before heading back to the front of the park. I was really sore by that point so I was disappointed I had forgotten that the train shuts down for the Hot Summer Lights show. We walked through the Starlight Experience which was wonderful, especially the epic music. By the time we got back to the front the show was just starting. We weren't too interested in watching so we continued through the crowd to park ops so I could get my pass for the next day. Got that, stopped to look at souvenirs... bought a shot glass and a mug, and headed back to the room from the beach gate. I must say, the beach gate is WONDERFUL, esp if you're staying at Breakers east. We were able to ride a LOT that evening, probably because the lines were so short from the storm. I'm sure I left out a few rides.
We made sandwiches back at the room (yes, we brought some groceries with us) and ate them out on the deck. It was nice. Right as we were heading to bed it started storming outside again, so we opened up the blinds to watch the lightning.
Next morning we went into the park for early ride time, entered through the beach gate and headed straight to MF. We only had a 10 minute wait. After that it's all a blur. We rode a lot thats for sure!! By 3pm we had ridden all of the roller coasters (except the kid coasters) all the big thrill rides (incl. water rides) and several smaller rides. We even had a chance to relax back in the hotel room for an hour (before I got too antsy to wait any longer and we got back into the park).
We had dinner at Famous Daves that evening, which was AWESOME. There's a Famous Daves near where I live, but I've never been. After the meal we had at the CP one, we'll have to return to the one here. After eating we walked around the docks for a little bit. One thing I love about Cedar Point is the atmosphere, it is beautiful there!
Rode a bunch of other stuff on Thursday... including the train again... where I noticed the StR flume had water in it, although the effects were still off, and there were people and boats in the flume! I figured it'd still be a week before it opened... but my bf got all excited thinking maybe it'd open the next day, I assured him it wouldn't, and at the soonest it'd be the Saturday, but I figured it wouldn't open til July 4th weekend. Little did I know that we probably saw the inspection in action, and the ride would open the DAY AFTER we left! Boo!
Friday we came into the park for early ride time again, even though I was ridiculously sore and we had to check out of the hotel by 11. We rode MF twice that morning and Iron Dragon once before heading back to the room to pack up =(
Hauled all our stuff to the car and went back into the park to ride some more. The plan was to ride TTD, but it wasn't running. So we rode other things for a while. Eventually we noticed TTD was running again and we went to sign up for a time, and right after we did that it shut down again! Thankfully we weren't stuck in line, so we rode the Paddleboat so I could sit and relax, then sat on a bench for a while and people watched some more. Eventually it was our ride time and TTD was running again, but by the time we got close to the entry it was down again. Ugh! We rode Power Tower and considered forfeiting the ride time so we could do MF or something again, but finally TTD was working again. We hurried (well, I hobbled) the to special access/exit and got in the back seat. I had never ridden the back, and I didn't think it'd be much different, but MAN, it was slooowwww to go over the top and I freaked out a little bit (even though a rollback would be awesome... I did NOT want to be stuck at the top! haha!) Our on-ride photo was hilarioud since I was making a crazy "omg" kind of face and my bf was looking at me kind of concerned, lol. We had to buy it because it was just too funny.
Rode a few more things, including MF again... where I noticed that boats were testing on StR.
Went back to the car after that and grabbed our swim stuff, changed in the Breakers restrooms, and decided to check out the jet skis. I hadn't been too interested in the idea, but my bf thought it would be awesome. It was worth it! So much fun! Neither of us had never been on a jet ski before, so it was a cool new experience. Plus it's Lake Erie, so we were able to go out quite a way it seemed. Much different than the rivers and lakes near where we live, where it'd still be fun to jet ski if we had the chance, just nothing compared to being out in the much larger Lake Erie, haha!
After that we decided to head into Soak City since we had ride and slide tickets and were already in our swimwear. We were only in there for a couple hours. Enjoyed Renegade River, but did not enjoy the douchebags that seemed to be following us both times we went through. Some 20 something guy and two girls, possibly drunk, were being very loud and obnoxious... holding each other under the water effects and cussing pretty loudly and such. Lifeguards blew the whistle at them multiple times. It would have been much nicer without those three people. The bf and I were going to go around a third time, but noticed those folks were going through again too, so we got out and went over to the wave pool. That was also fun, until I scraped my knee on the bottom of the pool. Ow! It's kind of disappointing the water is so shallow... at the wave pool near where I live the deep end is 8 feet and the middle of the pool is 5 feet. At the Soak City one it seems the middle of the pool is 3 feet, which means you have to go into deeper water to get much enjoyment in an innertube, and that's where everyone else is. At least it's wider than the one where I live, and it seemed like there was a limited number of tubes so it wasn't too overcrowded. After that the bf wanted to try out waterslides. Since I had my prosthetic leg in the car I decided to sit at the bottom in my wheelchair and watch rather than have him carry me up the steps. He had never been on a big waterslide so he enjoyed that. He convinced me to let him carry me up the steps to a different slide so I could go down one too, so that was fun. By then I was FREEZING though since there was a good lake breeze going on, so I wrapped up in a towel and dried off, then we went back to my car, ate some sandwiches from the cooler, threw clothes back on over our swimsuits and went back into Cedar Point.
We rode all our favorites again and had an elephant ear before hitting the road... Skyhawk, Mav, MF and TTD in the back seat. Went back to the car at 10 pm and left the Point. =( We were both exhausted... and hadn't exactly planned on staying there until 10pm, so the next leg of our trip was attempting to find a hotel with an available room! We got out of Sandusky first and then stopped at probably 3 or 4 exits attempting to find a room, everywhere was sold out for the night. So we decided to drive past Cleveland and get on I-77 before stopping again. Got to Medina around midnight and found a Comfort Inn for the night. I hardly even remember the room, we just got in and passed out. haha. Next morning we slept in until half an hour before check out, then got back on the road... stopped again in Canton for coffee/breakfast, found an Einstein Bros Bagels... I had never even heard of it, so we ate there. It was awesomeeee.
Finally made it back to Charleston, WV where we carried our stuff inside and immediately took another nap. I must say, the worst part about going to CP is that drive. It wasn't too bad on the way up, since we were talking a lot and we were excited, but on the way back we were both tired and not exactly excited about heading back home, lol.
It stinks StR didn't open until the day after we left, and we had considered staying another day so we could ride it. I'm glad we didn't though, since it seems like it wasn't open for long on Saturday. That and I wasn't even able to walk again without hobbling until Sunday, haha!
We already plan to go again next summer... and this time we'll stay 3 nights at Breakers so we don't have to do the hotel hunt on the way back, or live out of the car the last day. I can't wait!
We might go to Kings Island later this summer, although now that I've been at Cedar Point I feel like summer is over! haha!
Rides on MF - 6
Rides on TTD - 5
Rides of Mav - 4
Cups of free ice water - 5+
On ride photos - 2
Bruises - 4+
Times kids said "That girl has a metal leg!" or something similar - 29752
Major douchebags encountered - 3
Cedar Point Trip 2010 - PRICELESS
Chance of return - 100%
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