Register or Login to Hide This Ad for Free!
Jul 10, 2011
198
15
70
I had high expectations and they were met.

First amusement park that I have been to that I honestly think I could spend 5-7 days at and never get bored.

4-5 awesome coasters.

I actually enjoyed the food more than I thought I would.

And...the shows/entertainment blew me away.

Also, the Cedar Fair public relationships people were great at accommodating us for our tour.

I mean I literally woke up to views of TTD, MF, and XL-200 every morning, wow.
 
I never understand why people get so blown away by Cedar Point. There's just so much in that park that doesn't live up to the hype that it gets. All they are on the map for are roller coasters, and more than half of them are meh at best.

Really the only 3 rides that left a good mark on me were Maverick, Magnum, and Blue Streak. Maverick has huge reliability issues and is only outstanding in the front row, everywhere else you get jabbed in the neck at any hint of a turn and you can't do anything about it. But sitting in the front row for a good 3-4 times was enough to make me totally blow off the rest of the seats I went on. Magnum actually has good air time for a first of its kind ride, and definitely is overall #1 in the park (only cause I'm counting the 10 horrible seats on Maverick). Blue Streak by far outclassed everything else in that park bar Front row Maverick and Magnum, and I'm glad I rode it on a good running day because it definitely made up for the lackluster day 1 I had in the park.

Now everything else, either didn't leave me impressed or I flat out hated. Raptor has the least amount of force for any invert I've been on, which is just sad considering that helix at the end of the ride looks like it packs a lot of force. Disaster Transport is a derelict bobsled with a renovation on it, and I'm usually bananas for a bobsled of any kind; I'm glad it's going at the end of this year. Wicked Twister had little action on it considering the fact that you're supposed to be launching back and forth and twisting, I guess it's just because I don't like LIMs or something, but really the lone spike where I got good force and a high enough twist was the last one before they started to slow the train down (you only cycle like 4 times and the train is a good 30-40 feet from the top of the tower). Iron Wolf is laughably tame, and you waste half the ride getting to the second lift hill, which after that things get rather meh even for a swinging coaster. Corkscrew is a rather bland Arrow, the only good thing about it is how photogenic the corkscrews are. Top Thrill Dragster is only slightly better than Kingda Ka, only because of the lap bar, and really neither have anything going for them other than going fast for 5-10 seconds and then shooting you 400 feet in the air, kind of like a glorified power tower. Mean Streak deserves to be firewood just for how rough it is, I'm surprised CP hasn't been sued by someone for back issues while riding it. Mantis is rough and is especially unkind when it decides to jerk left or right and basically crush any chance at having children, although it does have force when the trim doesn't activate. Millennium Force, imo, is just a total waste of potential and definitely takes the cake as intamin's tamest coaster. In the span of 6,000 feet there's only 3 hills total and none of them have air time, heck you can't even feel the last one; none of its 4 overbanks have any force in them, which while you're speeding around at about 65 mph avg. is just pathetic. I sat in the front, the back, and even the middle on it and I still didn't feel anything. Really the only thing the ride has going for it is its speed, and as TTD and Kingda Ka show don't make for a great roller coaster overall. I don't know how I could spend 7 days in that park let alone two. I got on every ride in CP in two days (yes the flats, too) and even the water park to boot, which with the abysmal experience of most of the rides I probably would end up riding Magnum all day for 5 days straight since the GP there think it's too rough and are more interested in Millennium Forceless, Maverick and TTD.

Cedar Point, and pretty much any major corporate park, are not known for good food; they're known for overly inflated prices and pitiful proportions of food I spent $9 on a Chicken Parm where the whole meal was smaller than my hand, and I can't even palm a basketball :\. They charge an insane $4 for a soda which isn't even mixed properly, they use way too much water and not enough syrup which absolutely ruins a soda. While they did have plenty of different foods around the park the sheer expense of eating a meal would make me opt to bring a cooler 100% of the time. Which I was grateful they even allowed it in the first place.

I don't know if they went crazy and added a ton of shows in the last two years, but when I went in 2010 the only show I noticed was their lazer show at night. Which has been expanded with the tearing out of Wildcat this year. Beyond that I haven't seen nor heard anything about shows in that park.

Overall my experience with CP ride, food, and show-wise from 2 years ago was rather lackluster, and there has been nothing ground breaking with them in the last two years that will make me willing to go back at any point in the future. Maybe I'll go as a ACE member to ride their wing rider for the credit, or use a Plat. pass to get in for a few hours to ride Magnum again, and then go straight down to King's Island and ride what they have to offer instead.

Don't even get me started with the overall atmosphere, my experiences with the park's employees, and the GP, because I could easily double the length of this post about them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pretzel Kaiser
^ I am so glad that you posted that! My only visit was summer 2009, and I thought I was alone in my opinion of this highly hyped up park. I thought I was missing something, but I'm glad to see someone else shares the same opinion. I'm pretty sure I had he most fun on Wildcat out of all of the coasters, it just made me laugh and enjoy myself. I enjoyed Magnum too, the air time was much appreciated. I didn't have the chance to ride Maverick in the front row and didn't enjoy the painful ride (although I thought the launches were just cool) and I wish I would have ridden in the front after reading your review. I was impressed by TTD's size and speed, and I agree that it did seem like more of a tower ride.
So thanks for posting that B-Mac!
 
CP is just like KD. Sure you have a wide array of coasters, but that doesn't make them good automatically. Top Thrill Dragster is the most over-hyped coaster ever.
 
I have been to CP three times. KD<CP<BGW, but I did like Millennium Force a lot. It is the only coaster I like more than AC. I do agree that TTD is over hyped, but it is still a fun ride. Like BG, CP does not have bad coasters (with the exception of Mean Streak), but some of CP's are just meh (Like Gemini, CCMR, Corkscrew, DT)... I do like Alpie more than Raptor, but Raptor is still a good ride. In the CP coasters, Millennium Force>Maverick>Magnum XL-200>TTD> Raptor
 
I went in expecting KD, so I was impressed the first time I went, but If you go expecting BGW, you will be disappointed.
 
I don't expect anything when I visit a park for the first time, it's horrible to compare two parks to each other when you only have one in your experience and another going off of others opinions. I may have been a little too harsh with my opinion on the park, but it definitely does not live up to the hype that it receives.
 
I guess we will all just have to agree to disagree...

I had VERY high expectations for Cedar Point, and not only did it meet them...it exceeded them.

Cedar Point is the best amusement park I have ever been to. It is also the only amusement park I think I could stay 6-7 days at and never get bored.

Were there issues? Of course...every park has those. But, the positives GREATLY out-weighed the negatives.

1.) Maverick and Millennium Force are two of the best coasters around.

2.) XL-200 and Blue Streak were very solid coasters.

3.) Then you get into some other coasters, which certainly aren't amazing by any means...but they are there...and they do a solid job of providing thrills in different ways...inversions, launches, stand-up, etc. Options are important...and Cedar Point offers them.

4.) Cedar Point offers some solid flat rides. On past tours we haven't really had time for flat rides, but with several parks "hooking us up" this year we had more time to experience what unique flat rides were available.

5.) I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 water attractions. We got soaked!

6.) Not 1, but 2 classic cars!!

7.) We ate at Pink's Hot Dogs, Toft's Dairy, TGI Friday's, and had some fries. Pink's and Toft's were both wonderful! Pink's wasn't quite as good as the real Pink's out west, but it was still very good. Toft's (a local dairy) provided a large selection of flavors and everybody loved the one they got. TGI Friday's was of course over-priced, but it was happy hour and they had cheap local beers (like Great Lakes...which was very tasty). We decided to get the garlic fries, and they were much better than I expected them to be. So, overall I was actually mostly happy with the food...you just have to do your research on where to eat.

8.) Again, most shocking park of our visit was the entertainment. We saw 3 shows, 1 was good and 2 were great. The "good" show was the Rock and Roll show. The "great" shows were the new Snoppy ice skating show (yes, ice skating) and All Wheels Extreme. Both were highly entertaining and top quality performances. I believe All Wheels Extreme is actually on America's Got Talent this year.

9.) Not to mention Luminosity...it was a fun time...especially the dance battle afterwards.

10.) The history of the park...if you are an enthusiast you can truly appreciate the many "firsts" that were built for Cedar Point. Many of their coasters were the fastest, tallest, etc. when they were built. I mean...look at Millennium Force...it has been around for years and still reigns as a top 5 coaster for most.

11.) The staff was very friendly with us. Now, that could be because we were very friendly with them as well. We ended up making friends with the staff of many of the coasters and even went out for drinks with several of them on night.
 
sbrubakerjr said:
Cedar Point is the best amusement park I have ever been to. It is also the only amusement park I think I could stay 6-7 days at and never get bored.

I take it you've never been to any of the Disney World parks. Each park is jammed with so many attractions it's literally impossible to do everything for the price of a week's vacation. Some other parks that would take quite some time to fully experience are Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags over Texas, both Busch Gardens, Universal Studios: Hollywood, and to an extent Universal Orlando

Were there issues? Of course...every park has those. But, the positives GREATLY out-weighed the negatives.

And I'd be glad to hear them from you, but apparently if a park has such a high pedigree they don't mean anything in the big picture.

10.) The history of the park...if you are an enthusiast you can truly appreciate the many "firsts" that were built for Cedar Point. Many of their coasters were the fastest, tallest, etc. when they were built. I mean...look at Millennium Force...it has been around for years and still reigns as a top 5 coaster for most.

While I am one to appreciate the history of a park, I mean I've written reports for GreatAdventureHistory.com, Cedar Point is just so plastic in experience that I could not fully understand why they look back on their history in the first place. Yes they do have some old classic rides like Blue Streak and their fast carousel, there isn't much around them that ties them back to the older roots of the park. I mean the history in the park is scattered around in little bits and there's nothing to truly tie it all together as a historic park. I'd be glad to give an example of my home park, Runaway Mine Train has an entire themed area to tie itself in with that's also been around since the park was opened. Not only does it have the Fort there's also the flume and the Saloon right across the pathway that have also been around with it since the beginning. The Conestoga Wagon and the now gone Teepee shop were also land marks that tied the entire area together as something historic and classic. Cedar Point quite frankly has not kept in touch with those roots and misleads people into thinking that milestones alone are something to remember a ride for. What milestones did Space Mountain set? how about Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain? That's 100% correct they did absolutely nothing, yet are happily marked as icons of the park they stand in for people of all ages. A lot of the parks I've been to were very proud to keep the nostalgia of their old rides to where you could at least go "yeah this ride used to be in that spot." I looked into Cedar Point's history and to be totally honest they didn't keep track of all their older rides, I could not locate anywhere in the park where the older rides used to be, whereas with my first visit at King's Dominion I could at least point out where HyperSonic and King Cobra were, BGW I could remember where the Le mans were and where Drachen Fire was, not to leave out their old Wild Mouse, too. Cedar Point doesn't carry their history with them like other parks do, once a ride reaches the end of its popularity they just get rid of it and replace it with something new (see: Observation Tower, Wildcat and Disaster Transport).

Really I don't understand why a milestone alone needs to be remembered. Congrats you broke 200, 300, 400 feet, congrats you have a first of its kind ride! It's really not all that memorable to someone if they don't enjoy it. I mean if you look at something for one specific feat and not the whole picture you won't fully appreciate it, you'll just remember it without any true nostalgia.

if you are an enthusiast you can truly appreciate the many "firsts" that were built for Cedar Point.

I'll be straight up honest here, this statement is offensive to other enthusiasts. If I'm an enthusiast I'll appreciate it? I don't share your thoughts which I've clearly stated in this response yet you somehow have to pass a remark that I'm not an enthusiast? Stop trolling on these boards and actually contribute something positive to the community instead of searching for reactions. Maybe then we'd be nicer to you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pretzel Kaiser
I don't even know how to respond to that?...lol

Sorry if I "offended" you though, cry baby.

It is funny...I thought this was a discussion board...not a board where if your post doesn't agree with someone else you are "trolling."

Anyways, Cedar Point was amazing and Cedar Fair was a great company to work with for our 2012 Coaster Tour.

A few pictures...

img5416qk.jpg


img5603ev.jpg


img5542l.jpg


img5467uc.jpg


img5576z.jpg


img5430ob.jpg


img5469c.jpg


img5637q.jpg


img5582l.jpg


img5658q.jpg


img5508r.jpg


img5612.jpg
 
You mentioned twice that the park isn't perfect and that there are negatives yet in all three posts you don't highlight them at all and continue to talk about the positives. I'm just saying a proper trip report should highlight both the positives and negatives of the park and your experience, instead of just highlighting the positives.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pretzel Kaiser
^ It's sorta his trip report. He can talk about what he wants...

sbrubakerjr said:
A few pictures...

Very nice pictures! That Iron Dragon picture is giving me Wolf withdraw symptoms again... :-/
 
Consider Donating to Hide This Ad