Who is going to Coaster Mania?

Irony is also that most times the ones making scenes about not getting doughnuts for free are the ones who shouldn't be eating doughnuts in the first place.

We heard several complaints about no donuts. It's COASTERmania, not DonutMania. Also heard a few complaints about the lack of "swag" during lunch.

This has been hands down the most I've ridden in a day even doing back to when HalloWeekend Friday nights were the park's best kept secret. We are having a blast!

I look at it this way. Cedar Point gave us Valravn this year, so to me that makes up for not having donuts. I can have a donut tomorrow when I head back home.

I made a mental note to myself not to touch the doughnuts this year. So worked out for me!

Finding that there were no donuts was quite disappointing. It would have been nice to have a heads up on that so I could have prepared and brought something to snack on. Other than that, no real complaints.

Getting in the park this morning was a breeze compared to the past. Plenty of ride time in the AM. The cruise was good for a short power nap and letting lunch settle. Overall, a much better experience than the past couple CoasterManias, which were nothing short of partially organized chaos for some portions of the day.

As a "regular" resort guest today, I must say Cedar Point did a great job of organizing the morning ERT, because if I didn't now there was a special event happening while I was drinking my coffee on the beach, I never would have known it. There was absolutely zero impact on the general public; not that I assumed there would be, but still it's worth noting that as a "head straight for Valravn at 9 AM" guest, we actually got on quicker today than either Tuesday or Wednesday mornings.

I was very happy yesterday. Easy sign in, I was there at 6:00 am but had to wait as my group organized themselves. three out of the four of my group bought their tickets I their IOS phones and did not have a printed ticket/or just had a square new style barcode. After trying at guest services to print out a copy of their voucher which did not work they were let in and had that barcode scanned no problem at the t-shirt table. They told me they did not receive a option to print the voucher when ordering. I had done mine on my laptop with no issue, so maybe there is a apple issues with online ordering.
ERT was fantastic and lines were very short with minimal waiting. Lunch was very good and the Jet Express was super cool. This year was much better than last year,
I did not hear anyone complain about no donuts, But it was nice not too have to stop rides for clean up after some one lost their Orange juice and donuts on Gatekeeper this year. Did anyone see people refuse entry?
I thought surely my group would without having the printed voucher, but they made it.
All in all, a Great improvement over last year.

We mentioned that we were disappointed there were no donuts but definitely didn't complain. Lunch was early enough, we toughed it out!

The event was awesome this year. Rerides on Magnum, the cruise, and the amazing weather made it our best CM out of our five. Having the Brew and BBQ at the same time made for an even better experience! That is one heck of an event!

Sandcastle suites has been the only letdown. There's been a chicken nugget on the hallway floor since I checked in Thursday. Called maintenance for our balcony door not opening and they couldn't be in till "late Friday or early Saturday". They didn't come Friday so I told the front desk and they said it wasn't a major issue so they will deal with it after checkout. Definitely not happy about that although there are cigarette butts, charcoal, and some half empty lotion bottles out there. Maybe we don't actually want to go out there! The hot tub is broken too. Breakers is worth twice the cost for the same style room!

Magnum re-rides in the ejector seat with no trims were something else. Those alone were worth the event fee. :)

I had a great time meeting a few of you and hanging out with acole5292 for ERT.

Out of every single previous trip to Cedar Point, yesterday was by far my favorite. Everything about the day was perfect. The weather, the employees, the rides, lunch, ERT...I could go on and on. The park nailed it compared to previous years' Coastermanias. Re-rides and minimal to no lines for ERT were such improvements, as well as the quick and streamlined check in, delicious lunch, amazing Jet Express cruise, Q&A session, and overall smoothness compared to the chaos of last year and other previous years. I still just can't get over how amazing all of the employees were, whether it be rides, food service, or maintenance. Every single one I encountered went above and beyond their jobs to truly make my day the best ever.

I really can't stop saying enough good things about the event and day as a whole. Definitely one I'll never forget. Kudos to the park for such an incredible and memorable experience.

CoasterMania was very well executed this year. Registration was organized, moved swiftly and everything ran on schedule. The Jet Express was a great way to just relax and see CP. Lunch was good and we were not disappointed with anything. We rarely had to wait for more than a train or two for any ride. Magnum was amazing last night.

Coastermania this year-

• High points
  • Cruise. 'Nuff said. They also took us around to Marblehead to see the lighthouse and the Perry memorial there, which made it a bit different from last year.
  • ERT had next to no wait at night, with trimless rides on Magnum and a very liberal, Six Flags style reride policy (which I personally believe should be how it is during operating hours when nobody is there... but hey, I'm just an entitled enthusiast :P.)
    • The longest line I saw during evening ERT was Wilderness Run (I didn't check Valravn, though.)
  • The return of video/picture contests. That was a good memory from the 2010 CoasterMania (or whatever the last time they did it was.)
  • Q&A session
• Low points and a bit of nitpicking
  
  • The Q&A session had to be split up. No big deal, but I really wonder what the other group had (I was in the first group, so if anything interesting was in the second set of questions, feel free to tell me.)
    • Tony banned talking about Mean Streak, jokingly starting to pull the mic from me when I mentioned it in my question in a completely non-RMC context. (talking about a dead station)
    • After asking why empty row rerides weren't allowed like at many other parks (including many CF parks), Jason McClure said "That would be because of me and the operations team." and left it there. While he technically answered the question... shouldn't he have a reason that isn't top-secret for such a well-known fact?
      • Note-the Q/A session came before the rerides at ERT, which I am extremely happy about.
  • No donuts. No big deal, but they've just been there so long that I imagine many people didn't eat beforehand and wanted a snack. I was really hungry by 10.
  • No "extra swag" at lunch. This isn't a big deal, though. The shirt they did give us was one of my favorite CoasterMania shirts ever. Frankly I'd rather have seen a raffle of STR merchandise like last year's Mantis raffle than "extra swag."
  • No speech at lunch. I was spoiled by 2012's official announcement of Space Spiral and DT's demolition and I've always looked forward to Tony's lunch speech. However, the Q&A session was almost certainly the replacement for this.

Overall, I loved it. All the negatives above... I kind of described my complaints more than my compliments. That doesn't mean I had more to complain about. The ERT this year was by far the best CoasterMania ERT I've seen in about 6 years of attending CoasterMania, and I loved the return of special events such as the cruise and photo/video contest - two of my favorite CoasterMania events over the past few years. I can't wait for next year's CoasterMania, and I anticipate a great set special events like this year (or perhaps even more/different events.) (And, if my pipe dreams come true, ERT on Iron Streak. But hey, they're pipe dreams.)

My wife and I had the best CM in all the years we've been attending. The Jet Express cruise was awesome, the registration was flawless, the shirts are imo the best CM shirts so far, got all the Major coasters done by 10 am, and to top it all off, we were the lucky train on TTD at the night ERT to get the rollback! First ever rollback for me and I was in the front seat! Money well spent for sure. On a side note, does anybody else see the error in the CM shirt? The order is wrong, they have Pipe Scream listed before Gatekeeper and also have Rougarou after Raptor.

I thought this year's Coastermania was very well done. The check-in was alot better and the lines were nearly non-existent during ERT. The cruise alone was worth the price tag. I was more than happy to pay the $30 to attend this year. I really have no gripes about it. Donuts were never listed as being included, so there was no need to offer them.

And out of curiosity, were there any people who just showed up without registering or any cases of entitlement? Or did the fee eliminate those issues?

When we got in line around 6:30a, a group of three was walking out of Guest Services upset because the required registration wasn't made widely known and they wouldn't be able to attend. I saw those three people at lunch at Lakeside Pavilion. I'm guessing they threw a big enough fit and got it.

That sets a bad example. Throw a fit and you get your way. It should be throw a fit and we call security. It said on the official event page that registration was required and I'm sure the clubs made everyone aware of that as well. How much more "widely known" do they need it to be? That doesn't make me happy knowing that they let some people in who didn't follow the rules. I hope they didn't get a t-shirt and a boat ride.

As I mentioned in an earlier post it had been a lot of years since I was able to attend Coastermania due to work obligations but I certainly kept up with information from them, including the chaos from last year. I jumped at the chance to go this year and boy I'm glad I did.

It was indeed a well run event all the way around. ERT was more than great with short waits (if any), especially for the night session. the Jet express ride was a plus and the lunch was good too.

Personally the best thing for me was that I've lost 52 pounds since January. I was never really in jeopardy of not being able to fit on any one ride in the past but it sure is more comfortable riding now. :-)

I hope CP sticks with the system them used for this year's event in the future.

One side note....Did anyone actually have their passes or park entry tickets scanned? They never scanned my platinum pass, just checked to see that I had the Coastermania Ticket but never scanned my season pass. Just curious.

Yes, we had our platinum passes scanned at the gate and again at lunch.

Outstanding event! Saw no problems and nothing to complain about.

^^My Platinum Pass was not scanned for the event. Just the ticket. Apparently, it didn't register on the P Pass record as well. I went back for a few hours yesterday and looked at the screen after my pass was scanned. The number was 3. With CM, it would of been 4.

It's not counting my visits at all, it says I have visited 0 times this season when I've visited twice, it also gives me a list of Carowinds Platinum perks listed instead of CP perks.