We did what?! - Cedar Point, Part 1

As I had mentioned, I desperately wanted to get Carter to a good amusement park this summer.  We had a few different thoughts, from Cedar Point to Hersheypark to Canada's Wonderland to other Six Flags parks.  We discounted the Cedar Point idea because their new (refurbished, upgraded) coaster would be ready next year and we preferred to go when that was an option.  The original plan had been to go around the last couple weeks of summer when most schools were back in session, but then that became the Disney timeframe.  We had one last weekend to figure something out, and it just so happened that Craig and Jacob would be gone, so of course a Carter-mom trip sounded ideal!  My first thought was to do a combo of Hersheypark and Knoebel's (which I have never been to but have heard is great) and swing through Binghamton to see my godson and his mama!  But in order to make it work, we'd need to leave late Thursday after Carter's baseball night to get close to Hershey the next morning and have all day Friday there, then swing to Knoebel's Saturday and Binghamton Sunday.  But it also happened to be the Little League World Series so every hotel in the area I could feasibly drive to in 2-3 hours was booked or super expensive.  Ugh.  Then I thought maybe we could tag along with Craig and Jacob up to Canada where Craig had to work, but I started realizing one day would never be enough to get through the crazy lines at Canada's Wonderland, so we'd end up disappointed not being able to ride everything.  I considered going to Six Flags New England and/or Six Flags Great Escape, both of which we could go to free with our Darien Lake passes.  But that seemed like a lot of driving for only a few decent coasters.  I will say I'm now a little sad Great Escape didn't work because one of two coasters I wanted to ride there is going away after this season.  Boo.  Anyway, I felt stumped.  As I was thinking about the five-hour drive to Massachusetts, I realized that I wouldn't care so much about a five-hour drive if I knew that what was at the end was worth it...which was the exact scenario that we'd have with Cedar Point.  Hmmmmm.  I looked at their site again and noticed that their season pass sale was going, and it was similar to what I had taken advantage of with Darien Lake last year--buy the pass and go the rest of this year plus all next summer, for the cost of only two park days, which we'd likely need for one trip anyway.  And if we were going to go there next year anyway...wouldn't it just make sense to buy it now?  And if we bought it now, we might as well get another use out of it now, right?  But we still needed a hotel and still needed to decide if this was wise with Disney looming in another week.  God forbid we got sick or hurt or whatever, but with things being pretty much entirely outside and purposely avoiding the presumably-more-accident-prone water park, what were the odds of something happening?  I agonized for days, and time was running out.  Heck, I was so torn and asking God for a little sign that I even wondered if a rainbow on Thursday was my sign to go!  By Friday morning I decided I needed to take the day off anyway to get a few things in order, primarily going to Lowe's to check out a new fridge since ours seems to be going a bit (new noise and softer ice cream, on top of the long-broken ice and water dispensers).  I got that looked at and ordered, and I was running out of time to decide anything for the trip.  On one hand I was nervous, and on the other I was worried about missing out on the experience of a lifetime.  

I don't know what clicked (maybe Craig's encouragement), but I finally couldn't resist and booked it.  I grabbed a cheap but decent-looking hotel and bought the passes.  I packed us up in about 20 minutes, made us a quick lunch, and we headed out around 1pm!  That was a quick turnaround!  The trip actually went pretty smoothly.  A stop for gas/bathrooms, dinner at Raising Cane's outside Cleveland (yum), and we got to Cedar Point by about 7pm!  The cutest thing is that Carter remembered that we had talked about playing this one song en route, whenever we finally got to go to Cedar Point.  It's by a band called Relient K and it has a bunch of Ohio references in it.  I played it for him on our Kennywood trip, telling him we needed it for Cedar Point because there's a line in the song saying, "Sandusky summertime is 45 minutes away!"  He reminded me to bring the CD, and when we were 45 minutes away, we absolutely played it!  It felt poetic when we finally got to the road to the park and another song on the same CD played and had this upbeat, almost ethereal line that said, "Nothing but the sun in your eyes," and this was our view at that moment:

Nothing but the sun...and a whole lot of coasters!

I mean...it felt like something out of a movie.  I was just so happy in that moment, like everything had just come together and we were on the cusp of the time of our lives!  That skyline is one of the greatest ever--so many coasters, so much potential!  It was surreal and amazing, and we were SO excited!  Since I hadn't been to Cedar Point in 22 years, there was so much new stuff, but I was excited about the old stuff too!  Not to mention that the park is full of Peanuts stuff, which is always so much fun for us.  Heck, that's the only way I got Craig to go to Knott's Berry Farm on our honeymoon!  Look at the cuties that greeted us upon arrival!

One of the new coasters was GateKeeper, which goes right over the entry plaza!

We got in so smoothly--the season pass made the parking and entry so quick and easy.  We waltzed right in and it was immediately so beautiful.

The sun was also starting to set, so it was rapidly becoming the golden hour, which made every picture prettier than the last.

Corkscrew and Power Tower

Our first coaster was Iron Dragon, which was one of my absolute favorites as a kid.  It was the first suspended coaster I was ever on, and Carter loved how it swung out!

While we were in line I took this picture.  Next time we're there, those gray supports will be holding up a giant spike for Top Thrill 2, which is the new version of the original coaster, which was the tallest and fastest in the park.  It had an incident and has been closed for a couple years, but is being reworked and will reopen even better next year.  

Next up was Rougarou, which used to be a stand-up coaster but was reworked to be a floorless coaster.  This was our view looking toward my beloved Millennium Force as the sun set.

Rougarou was maybe a little rougher than I expected but still super fun.  But even with that, right away Carter understood the difference between all that we've dealt with at Darien Lake with rough coasters, and how much better coasters can be!  We decided to hit up Millennium Force after that, just to make sure we got on it.  The line was only about 45 minutes so we figured that was reasonable.  This is the big one, 300 feet tall and over 90mph!  I fell in love 22 years ago and it has reigned supreme in my mind ever since.  The wait was long, maybe even an hour, but we chatted with a sweet family of three with a kid about Carter's age as we waited.  We finally got up to the station and had our first ride in the dark, which was a little crazy in its own right, let alone on a coaster like this.  Carter was nervous but very excited!  This is how I looked after my first ride...

...and here we after after Carter's!

We loved it so much!  It was so fun and fast!

Looking up at that first hill!

We wandered through the rest of the park trying to figure out what else we could ride in the hour or so before the night was over.  A couple big ones in the back still had long lines and we didn't want to waste all of our short line time waiting on those, so we wandered back around the bend.  We snuck a glimpse of the future Top Thrill 2, which has a more-than-400 foot-tall hill.  The new ride will launch halfway up, roll back then launch backward at around 90mph up a spike, and then launch forward at 120mph to get over this hill.  I never got to ride the original, but I can tell it's going to be incredible.  I appreciated that they left it lit despite being closed to remind us of what's coming.

We hopped on Gemini, which is one of my old favorites.  It's a wooden coaster with metal tracks, which I have always been convinced is the best of both worlds.  It's still lots of airtime and feels like it's going to chop off your head on the supports, but it's smoother than a real wood coaster.  And Gemini is a twin racing coaster, which is even more fun.  Carter loves the race concept!  We walked right on and had a great ride but sadly lost the race!  Next up was Magnum XL-200, which is the first coaster to ever top 200 feet.  Magnum has always been a bit on the rougher side, and we had been warned it got worse.  Riding in the dark is also an experience because it goes out toward the lake, which is just black and very dark at night so it's hard to see what's coming.  As fun as the big hill is and the fun little airtime hills used to be at the end, this one was rough.  Those little humps jolted you and crashed your legs into the lap restraint really hard.  It was super uncomfortable and at that point most of the train wass laughing while saying some form of "ouch!" for that whole series of hills.  It's really too bad because that was such a fun part of the ride.  I still prefer that to getting my head rocked, so I'll deal with it, but it was a bummer.

There was nearly no line for Power Tower, so we decided to hop on and do both options back to back.  One part shoots you up fast, and the other one takes you up slower and lets you freefall.  I still remember riding this with my mom in 1998 when it was pretty new and thinking it was the coolest thing ever because it was so smooth (unlike Demon Drop, its freefall predecessor).  My mom was so nervous but we ended up loving it!  Carter has been slowly working up to this.  He rode the one at the Jersey Shore, then Darien Lake's was about half its height taller, and this one was about half Darien's height taller.  We loved both versions.  The drop was crazy long, and the shot up was so fast.  Both had amazing views, too!

We also rode Corkscrew, which is probably my least favorite in the park.  It's like a crappy version of the Viper--short hill and just a bunch of head-banging inversions.  It looks cool in the park but is actually pretty rough and rather boring.  Carter was amused, though, because the ride op made some weird, haunting noises that came through the speaker at the top of the lift hill, which felt particularly creepy in the dark.

We seemed to have time for one more ride on our way out, and it looked like Valravn, another newer one, would be it.  That was a dive coaster, which holds you at the top of the straight-down hill for an agonizing few seconds before letting you go.  It's also eight seats across in three rows, which was different.  The dive was pretty insane, but I was a little surprised how rough it was.  There were a couple spots that just rocked me a bit, and I was definitely cringing during the on-ride photo.  That was a bummer (but don't worry, that's not the end of the story for this ride!).  That was it for the night.  It was 11pm so we needed to get to the hotel to rest up for day two, but we had already accomplished a lot!

The hotel was about 20 minutes away.  It wasn't the best place, but the price was right and the approval rating was fine.  Not as high as I would usually get if Jacob was with us, but I knew Carter was less picky, and we'd barely be there anyway.  Everything would have been fine except that a few minutes after we got in to the room, Carter said he brushed a bug off his leg.  I was worried about bed bugs or something, but instead, I realized there was a swarm of tiny ants all over the floor between the beds.  I had seen one earlier but figured it was just a fluke, but then I noticed a bunch.  The call to the front desk was initially unhelpful (literally the guy that answered was like, "So what do you want me to do?") before the woman took the phone, changed our room to next door, and took some Raid into the other room.  Oy.  I don't really hold it against them--I know things can happen and if there's one missed spill or crumb, it's not hard to end up with that.  Ants are probably the least creepy bug you can find, I suppose.  Our new room was fine but it was so late by then, and for whatever reason I had a heck of a time sleeping.  I just sort of laid there comfortable and resting but awake for what seemed like half the night.  I heard the ice machine and loud people and doors, and then at 3am there was some sort of alarm for about five seconds.  I realized it might be a fire alarm, but then it stopped and no announcement came and no mad rush began, so I just assumed it was a fire door or something like that.  It was not ideal and I knew I'd be tired, but eventually I did get a little light sleep.  My watch thought I slept, but I'm not sure I really did.  Thank the Lord for adrenaline, though.  We had a little slower start as a result, but we grabbed a quick but uninspiring breakfast at the hotel and were off for day two!

Here was the Snoopy topiary outside the gates:

We decided to ride Raptor first because I had talked it up to Carter as so much better than the Mind Eraser.  It's the same sort of suspended floorless style, but four across and a much better manufacturer who created a much smoother ride.  The wait turned out to be a lot longer than the app said it was, but it ended up being better than it was most of the day, so I guess we chose well.  We both loved it so much and wished Mind Eraser could get its act together!  After that we hopped on the Sky Ride to get some nice views of the park.  It brought back memories of our Skyliner experience at Disney, for sure, but Carter was a little thrown off by the open air cars!  I just think they're so happy-looking going along the main midway.

The new Boardwalk section that got totally redone over the winter looked amazing, and we were excited to get over there at some point to check it out.

Midday was a bit of a blur.  Lines were starting to get a little long so we did a lot of wandering trying to figure out what to do.  The app was helpful for understanding wait times, even though it wasn't always accurate.  But it usually gave us an idea of our options in any given area.  We stopped for a quick pretzel lunch and caught this view of Magnum from our table.  I think it was right before this that we rode it a second time, against my better judgement.  Despite the pain, I did want Carter to ride it in daylight, since the lake view is amazing.  The line was short, so I relented.  That was likely a bit of a mistake on my part (though one I guess I had to make) because the repeat battering of my legs on the restraint actually seemed to injure them this time.  One of my quads in particular felt like it had a bit of a charley horse the rest of the day.  I was constantly trying to rub the soreness out, and I have to say, by the end of the night I could barely walk between tired feet and super sore quads.  I have no idea what happened, but owwww.  It definitely gave me a Disney flashback!

After we ate, we walked around Camp Snoopy, which is one of three kiddie sections of the park.  All the rides are Peanuts themed, which was super cute.

I had seen this one before, but it's one of the best!

We decided to ride Woodstock Express, which is a smaller family coaster.  Yeah, it was in the kiddie section, but it looked pretty fun and swirly, and the first hill was decently high.  It was a quick ride and I think Carter was a little bored by this point because he wanted other bigger rides, but it wasn't a bad way to kill some time until we figured out what to do during the peak of the day.  

Across from the ride was Lucy's booth, so of course we needed a picture!

We wandered past Gemini in hopes we could ride, but it had a much longer line by this point and we figured we'd wait until it got short again at night. 

We rode the Cedar Creek Mine Ride, which was a small, western-themed mine ride coaster.  It wasn't particularly exciting--the biggest hill is small--but it was still fun and a little whippy (in a good way).  

At that point we figured all of the other lines were long so we might as well tackle our other biggest target, Steel Vengeance.  Steel Vengeance was once upon a time one of the biggest and fastest wooden coasters I've ever ridden, but like so many others it had gotten rather rough.  It was an incredible layout, but ouch.  So, a number of years back, they shut down Mean Streak and brought in the angel that is Rocky Mountain Coasters, and they completely reimagined it.  They used most of the structure but added steel track that can even do inline rolls and all sorts of crazy stuff.  The videos I had seen looked incredible, so we were excited!  It was one of our longer waits, probably close to an hour but in the end a little shorter than expected.  I should probably add here that my one crankiness about Cedar Point is that some coasters do not have bins for bags and other loose articles.  Most older ones do, but others don't, and for those you need to rent a locker.  They are $3 for two hours or $5 for 3, or you can spend $12 and transfer it around the park, but only for three hours.  It was a bit frustrating to have to do that all over the park when you got to a coaster without bins, though I learned to ask at the entrance each time at least.  Steel Vengeance went to the extreme of not allowing even fanny packs on the ride, so they have free tiny lockers and metal detectors in the middle of the queue for that stuff.  I had to get a big one anyway, so at least we got to bypass all the people that needed to stop there!  When we got up to the platform we happened to be first in line for a new set of seat assignments, and sure enough, we got assigned to the front car!  It was a little intimidating but I think the couple we were chatting with in line, who were huge fans of the ride, were thrilled for us and a tiny bit jealous.  But they loved watching us, I think!  The ride was absolutely beyond words amazing.  I will always love Millennium Force for its height, speed, and feeling of flying, but this was so much FUN.  There's a 200-foot, 90-degree drop, and it goes 74 mph.  You're up and down hills, through a number of upside-down rolls, and it's so fast and crazy but so exciting.  We couldn't believe how fun it was!

  

Look at that drop!

After that we tried to strategize our night.  Lines were still crazy long.  This one, Maverick, was such a long line and we were only holding out hope it would ease up that night or that we could catch it first thing the next morning if we had to.  

We wound back around past Millennium Force, which also had too long of a wait to consider.

We walked past Rougarou, the second one we rode the night before.  Look at that giant loop!

I wanted to get a better picture of Valravn's dive.  They hold you at the top before you go straight down, and then there's another one like that later in the ride, but they fake you out and send you right over it!

We finally managed to find one coaster with a reasonable line, but even that was about 25 minutes, I think.  Blue Streak is the oldest coaster in the park, and it's a nice, classic out and back wooden coaster.  A little rattle-y like most, but still super fun.  Carter was a little offended that I said I like Seabreeze's Jack Rabbit better, but they're very similar and the Jack Rabbit has a tunnel and plays more with the terrain, which makes it more unique.  They're all probably dwarfed by Kennywood's Jack Rabbit, Racer and Thunderbolt, so there's that...but Carter still hasn't ridden the Seabreeze Jack Rabbit, so we'll see next year when he goes there with school!

I think this post is long enough at this point, so stay tuned for part two of our crazy whirlwind of a trip!