Coaster Thrill

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June 1st 2011

Published: February 27th 2012

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Millenium Force

Two of Millenium Force's steep hills. The coaster is spread out, so getting a good picture is tough.

Cedar Point

Today I begin my exploration of Ohio in earnest.

For many travelers, the state is dominated by the three Cs: Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati.

Today, I added a fourth: Cedar Point.

For fans of thrill rides, this amusement park is holy ground.

It competes with Magic Mountain near Los Angeles for the largest number of roller coasters, and both parks constantly add ever more intense rides.

Cedar Point has the distinction of having four separate rides that were ranked number one in the roller coaster fan poll at the time they were built.

It is also the only park with more than one roller coaster in the top ten of the current poll.

I won’t be able to make it to Magic Mountain, so I made sure to spend a day here.

Like any popular amusement park, visiting Cedar Point with sanity intact requires deep research.

The most important move one can make is to visit on a weekday before school lets out.

This park attracts lots of teenagers and their parents, so visiting during this time is much more bearable.

The second most important move is to make a

Top Thrill Dragster in full

The view of Top Thrill Dragster from the line in front of the entrance.

list of desired rides, in order.

This place wears people out, so a one day visit by necessity must be limited to highlights.

It’s also highly advisable to pay the extra cash needed to stay on property.

Guests at Cedar Point hotels get into the park an hour early, allowing one to get big rides out of the way before lines build.

Finally, research which rides are the most popular and which break down regularly.

These rides will have the longest lines, so get them done early.

I knew what I wanted going in, roller coasters.

I rode many different ones through the day.

The park has enough that one can actually sample different styles of coaster, and see the evolution of ride technology over time.

Any type an enthusiast likes, it will be here somewhere.

The highlights included:

Millennium Force

Millennium Force: This coaster is often cited as the park’s biggest attraction.

It has been ranked either number one or two in the coaster enthusiast poll since it opened.

(Late update: this year, it dropped to number four)

It is a prime

Top Thrill Dragster hill top

A train at the top of Top Thrill Dragster

example of a high speed super coaster .

It also attracts huge lines.

They are so long, the park brings in a DJ on weekends to spin live music for people waiting!

I got on it during the early entry period.

The layout is pretty straightforward with drops, hills, and curves.

What makes it stand apart is sheer speed.

Millennium Force is the fastest cable tow coaster (where the cars are initially towed up a hill) in the world.

At the bottom of the first hill, the train is going almost 100 MPH, and people have been known to pass out from the G force.

Personally, I found it a really intense ride, but less interesting than other coasters which have more features like flips.

Watch it!

Top Thrill Dragster

Top Thrill Dragster: This ride is unlike anything people have ever seen.

What ridersare in for is obvious from the entrance, and it makes even coaster enthusiasts have second thoughts.

After people are strapped into the car, it is attached to an air cannon.

This device is related to the

Maverick twists

A sample of the feature filled track of Maverick

ones used to launch fighter jets off aircraft carriers.

When the cannon goes off, the car accelerates to 125 MPH in only four seconds.

It then hits the hill and climbs, straight up.

It climbs higher than any ride in the park, including the freefall tower.

Just before momentum disappears, the car crests the top, giving a surreal four second view of the park, Lake Eire, and much else in the area.

It then provides an even more surreal view of the ride tipping over the top and pointing straight down.

It quickly accelerates, spinning as it falls downward.

Just before the ground, the car levels out and stops by magnetic brakes.

For those who can take it, it is a huge thrill.

The thrill of the coaster may be exceeded by the frustration of trying to ride it.

The ride is highly sensitive to weather conditions.

A slight change in wind speed is enough to shut it down for recalibration, and high heat can gum up the hydraulic safety system.

Don’t even ask what fog will do, never mind rain.

When I was

Mean Streak

A look at the enormous pile of lumber that is Mean Streak.

there, the ride was shut down more often than it was running.

This ride is also one of the most popular in the park and attracts long lines.

The combination leads to a very long wait with no idea of when it will end.

My advice to ride it is to get in line as soon as employees let people in (on busy days join the informal line outside the entrance as soon as the park opens), and hope for the best.

I got on in about an hour.

See it here!

Maverick

Maverick: Maverick is to feature coasters what Millennium Force is to hill and drop coasters, one of the best of the breed.

It was ranked as the top coaster in the world when it opened in 2003.

The ride starts with a magnetic launch followed by a sharp drop that is nearly a forward flip.

I felt like I would get catapulted out of my seat.

From there, the train passes through a seemingly unending stream of features like rollovers, corkscrews, and upside down loops.

Just when

Gemini

A look at the smaller pile of lumber that is Gemini. Look for the parallel tracks at the top of the photo.

it feels like the ride must be over, the train passes beneath the boarding area.

Hidden under here is another magnetic launch, which blasts the train straight into a curve and flip.

I really enjoyed this coaster, and never wanted it to end.

I rank it up with Kumba at Busch Gardens (see Let’s Play Tourist in Central Florida) as the best roller coaster I have ever been on.

Watch it!

Magnum XL 200: When it opened in 1989, it was hailed as the first of a new breed of coaster.

It has a plaque at the entrance marking it as such.

It was the first coaster to use high drops and steep curves to create high speeds, what is now called a super coaster.

Time has not been kind.

These days, the coaster plays like Millennium Force’s little brother, without the same level of thrills.

It has also aged badly and now provides one of the bumpiest rides of any steel coaster in the park.

Still, it’s a landmark, and I rode it for that reason.

Mean Streak

Mean Streak:

Raptor

Raptor, the premier inverted coaste at Cedar Point.

This coaster is one of the largest wooden roller coasters in the world.

It has the standard wooden coaster layout of curves and drops, expanded to gigantic size.

It held the record for fastest wooden coaster in the US for many years.

Like many wooden roller coasters, because the wood distorts as it ages, it provided a bumpy ride.

I found it more thrilling that Magnum XL, for about the same level of bumps.

See it:

Gemini: When it opened in the early 1980s, Gemini was the fastest wooden roller coaster in the world, and one of the fastest of any type.

It was ranked number one in the coaster enthusiast poll at the time.

It has the standard wooden layout of hills and drops.

The twist with this coaster is that it is a racing coaster, where two trains are released simultaneously on separate tracks.

Personally, I found it to ride like a junior version of Mean Streak, with one painful difference.

This coaster has aged even worse than Magnum XL 200, and provides the bumpiest ride in the entire park.

The car was jerked

Corkscrew

Two of the coaster corkscrews over the former midway path (and current food area)

around so much, I was afraid I would fly out of my seat.

I had to take a long break from rides afterward.

Raptor

Raptor: This coaster is the premier inverted coaster in the park.

The track is above riders’ heads, and they sit in a bucket seat below it.

The ride is short and intense, with lots of features like flips.

It’s less intense than Maverick.

This coaster is located near the entrance, so it has long lines.

Either ride it during early entry of save it to near the end.

Watch it:

Corkscrew

Corkscrew: This ride is one of the park’s older coasters, opened in 1976.

As the name implies, it’s filled with corkscrews.

When it opened, two of them were directly over the midway path.

The park has been rearranged since then, and the former path is now a fast food seating area.

I like technical coasters, so I enjoyed this one even though the intensity level can’t compare with Maverick.

I also liked it because the ride is unbelievably smooth for a coaster this

Mantis

Mantis, the stand-up roller coaster at Cedar Point

old.

I wish Magnum XL had been built with this level of robustness.

See it:

Mantis: This ride is highly unusual in the coaster world in that people ride it standing up.

What this means in practice is that the staff strap riders into something that looks like a bicycle seat attached to a support.

The seat is locked in place based on rider height, and off the coaster goes.

I felt quite a bit of pressure in the knees from the force, although my butt absorbed most of it.

Once I got used to this, the ride was average for a modern coaster.

Personally, I found this one to be a gimmick more than anything else.

WildCat

WildCat: After all of the above, WildCat feels more like a kitten than a cat.

I used it to wind down at the end of the day.

Don’t dismiss it, however.

When it opened in 1970, it was one of the first metal roller coasters ever built.

The ride has not

WildCat

WildCat, a historic roller coaster from 1970

changed a bit since (even the signage) so riding it feels like a journey through history.

The layout is based on wooden models, and provides medium level thrills with sharp turns and little drops.

It was what I needed at that time of day.

According to park staff, this ride is a favorite of long-time visitors.

LATE UPDATE: The park tore it down after the season I visited to make room for new rides, so videos are all that is left:

Mixed in with all this is a water ride called Snake River Falls.

What happens is very simple.

The craft is dragged up a huge hill, and then drops down at a steep angle into a huge pool of water.

The result is a huge wave that soaks anything in the vicinity, including (of course) every rider.

The real kicker is the bridge.

The exit for the ride passes directly over the drop pool.

The bridge has an area where former riders can stand directly in front of the drop and get soaked a second time.

The water also recoils off

Snake River Falls, before

The calm before the storm, as the riders in the craft know perfectly well.

the bridge, getting people in the boat the initial wave may have missed.

I found this ride to be lots of fun.

Of course, it was a steaming hot day and I brought a garbage bag to limit the soaking to some extent.

Cedar Point Museum

The center of the park contains the Cedar Point museum.

This place has a much longer history than most theme parks, and the museum documents it with old photographs.

Cedar Point is a peninsula in Lake Erie.

It is cooler than the surrounding area due to breezes, so it became a natural beach area in the late 1890s.

Hotels, small amusement parks, and other diversions sprung up, eventually turning the place into western Ohio’s equivalent of Coney Island.

Many big bands of the era played at a dancehall attached to a grand hotel.

The Depression dealt the area a huge blow, and by the 1950s the area was pretty derelict.

At that point, local businessmen George Roose and Emile Legros bought the entire peninsula, with the idea of turning it into a housing development.

After much of Ohio revolted at the idea, they announced

Snake River Falls, after

Prepare to get soaked, and not just those on the boat

they would build one of the large amusement parks that were then springing up nationwide.

They eventually tore down everything except the grand hotel and a carousel.

The first big roller coaster showed up in 1966, and Cedar Point entered the modern era.

All of us get to enjoy their legacy.

I found Cedar Point to be an incredible rush.

I enjoyed it much more than my previous theme park, Bush Gardens.

Unlike Bush Gardens, which is half zoo and half thrill park, Cedar Point does only one thing and does it very well.

The park is divided into lands with vague themes, such as Main Street and Frontier Town, but that is mostly window dressing.

The rides are the real attraction, and nothing gets in the way of that.

Like Bush Gardens, Cedar Point does extract money in all ways possible (the lockers near each coaster are $2 each!) but I put up with it for the intense thrills.

Additional photos below

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