North America 06/25 – Cedar Point

Talking of nothing to do but coasters, it was time to revisit my old enemy.

After what turned out to be a very relaxed day, thankfully, we then had an insultingly early start to hit the US border one more time. The guy asked what we were doing that day and I told him Cedar Point. After checking the boot he slapped the side of the car and said ‘it’s gonna be a miserable day’.

He couldn’t have been more right.

Day 10 – Cheddar Point

You can often tell how much I enjoy a visit by the number of photos I take to commemorate the occasion.

There’s the entrance.

The early start of course was so that we could take full advantage of the passholder Early Ride Time that this place pretty much demands, sadly.

Top Thrill 2 was of course the main reason for our revisit and one of the most anticipated of the trip, though it was in one of its particularly awkward phases. They had recently announced on socials that it was being added to the list of ERT coasters around the time of our visit, but at the time of the announcement had not been operating for at least a few days prior to that date. The post didn’t age well.

We used our ERT to walk up to it and find a sign saying it was gone, but only temporarily. There were staff in the station, several more at the metal detectors and lockers and a couple more cleaning out the queue, glimpses of hope that they were preparing for something. We joined the queue with a number of other people, hoping to luck out.

50 minutes into our hour of ERT, a man appeared, to shout something inaudible and then physically change the sign outside from ‘Top Thrill might open today’ to ‘Top Thrill will not open today’. Guess it wasn’t happening then.

A classic Cedar Point experience.

Dejected, we reminded ourselves that the world’s best rollercoaster was just a short (long) walk away. So we used the remaining 10 minutes of ERT to head to Steel Vengeance and join the queue outside the entrance there. (The standby half, a fast pass queue had also been formed and, insultingly, was the same length).

30 minutes went by, before they announced that Steel Vengeance was temporarily unavailable.

A classic Cedar Point experience.

Maverick it is then.

With the ERT entirely squandered, Maverick was its usual miserable 90 minute queue. It has shade at least in the second half, but from here you get to witness the fact that the fast pass queue is also already out of its own entrance and taking half of the already limited capacity of the ride.

For reference, this was a Tuesday, one that crowd calendars deemed ‘quiet’, it was still dangerously ‘don’t go outside’ hot and their brand new rollercoaster was due to open later in the week, just to spite us, so we expected at least some form of lull in visitor numbers. No, not at Cedar Point.

Maverick was great anyway, exactly how I remember it. Strong airtime, fast transitions, decent length and a great sense of controlled power. A top 25 if mine wasn’t already full, love it.

From there we walked all the way back to Magnum, via Top Thrill because it was now testing…

Magnum was great anyway, exactly how I remember it. Strong airtime, not too rough, decent length and a great sense of uncontrolled triangular hills. We were surrounded by the quintessential American coaster experience here, constant whoops and hollers and weird comments like ‘God Damn that air time baby’ (on corners) and ‘Man I’m gonna feel that in the morning.’ Love it.

Internet said Steel Vengeance was back, so we headed back over there again and joined a ‘0 minute standby queue’. Sweet, maybe this day is paying off.

It wasn’t 0, physically it was at about the 30 minute mark. There was also a fast pass queue of equal length.

It wasn’t 30. The ride went down two or three more times while we were in the queue, for essential cleaning. Essentially the conditions were so poor that many, many people were falling ill.

Things that contributed to this, within the parks control:

Not being able to take water past the batch point.
Holding a full queue of people past the batch point.
Locker shenanigans.
Holding a queue of people at the lockers.
Holding a full queue of people past the lockers.
Lack of communication.
Not supplying people with water.

So in this endless miserable cycle where even I was feeling close to the worst I’ve ever felt at a park, it took about 2 hours.

And honestly, it wasn’t worth it. All it achieved was Steel Vengeance going down in my estimations.

My initial assessments hold in that it’s very long, full of amazing RMC stuff, blah blah. But it lacks that killer instinct, there’s no real standout moments. I’m a man of a masterful layout and it feels like it doesn’t know what to do with itself. Lots of elements don’t land, and most of the ones that do are done better elsewhere. I preferred Wicked Cyclone.

It was at the moment we retrieved our items from the lockers that I clocked the reality of this visit. We had ridden 3 things in 5 hours, and none of those were new.

We walked past Top Thrill for what turned out to be the last time. It had stopped testing again, the sign remained in place ‘guaranteeing’ its closure for the day and signs of life had only decreased.

Somewhere in the middle of the miserable heat of concrete and rides is a Snoopy shop with air-conditioning. We spent a significant amount of time here, recovering. A few other people were too, including some that looked very ill sitting on the floor. A staff guy awkwardly came up to a few different groups a few times and tried to half-heartedly move them along. ‘You can’t stay here’. Why?

Meanwhile ambulances were heading up and down the midway to provide medical assistance. It was an apocalyptically depressing day for an amusement park.

It took pretty much all we had left in the tank to say well, let’s get the +1 and leave.

So we rode #1 Wild Mouse. No review required.

Then we left.

That evening, several hours away, from a beautifully air-conned hotel room, the internet reported that Top Thrill 2 had reopened.

A classic Cedar Point experience.