Cedar Point
Family October 8th, 2007
Let me tell you what, after a long weekend I am totally exhausted.
Thursday night J and I drove down to my mother-in-law’s place and spent the night there where the next day we met up with Tim and Michelle to join us for some fun fun roller coasting action. A speedy drive down in a mostly functioning car to Ohio landed us in an odd mobile-home-park-slash-camp-ground area. And let me tell you, that’s the way to do it. Not so much this specific campsite, but the camping in general. Before when I have gone to CP it was always a day trip and long drive home, but that’s just no good. We were able to wake up, have a leisurely breakfast and drive five minutes to the park and get there before it opened.
I made a few other realizations on the right way to Cedar Point. Definitely go later in the year. Besides theoretically being a cooler season, the park hours shift by two hours. Instead of opening at 10am, they opened at noon and closed at midnight, so the time spent at the park was during the cooler part of the day. It also made the morning a more relaxing one since we weren’t scrambling to get things around.
They also decorated the park for Halloween, which was awesome. They brought out tombstones and made a graveyard for all of the old rides that were taken down, and at night when the sun set they opened up a haunted section of the park. The main attraction I think was Thunder Canyon, which was dehydrated and turned into Werewolf Canon. We walked the path and costumed staff would jump out at us and scare us. My hand is still suffering indentations from where Jenny was holding on to me.
The new ride, the Maverick, is ok. We made a bee line straight to the ride since we figured it would be a long line if we waited any longer, but as it turns out the park opens up to people in the nearby hotel before it opens to the public, so there was already a 1 3/4 hour wait. It was fun, lots of sudden twists and turns, but not really worth the wait. Definately not worth sacrificing the Raptor. In hindsight, I would have gone straight to Millenium Force and the Raptor, where there was only a 1/2 hour wait we found out later, and then gone on to the lower priority rides. Instead we ended up waiting 1 1/2 hours for the MF and had to skip the Raptor.
One thing they unfortunately took down was the Fast Pass or whatever they were called. They were great, you stand in a short line to grab a pass which is good for a certain ride at a specified window of time, and at that time you stroll up to the ride and enter through the secret gate and bypass the hundreds of suckers in the long line. You wait maybe 20 minutes or so? Perhaps a little longer, but well worth it. They must take them down after the busy season is over.
Anyway, it was a good time all around. While we were down there I picked up a couple of cigars, got “looks” because I am from Michigan and Ohio people are… Ohio People. It was really cool to hang out with Michelle and Tim, we don’t get to see them a whole lot so it’s always a treat when we can spend time with them.
My Cedar Point philosophy has always been that it’s best to go early in the season, before the high schoolers get out of school. Much less crowded (and cooler weather).
[quote comment="943"]My Cedar Point philosophy has always been that it’s best to go early in the season, before the high schoolers get out of school. Much less crowded (and cooler weather).[/quote]
That’s not a bad idea, and one to definately consider for the next trip.