Cedar Point (#1) - 05/07/2006

I didn't actually make it to Opening Day at Cedar Point this year; instead, I settled for the second day of operation, as I often do. No fireworks, and the park closes at 8:00pm, but for easing back into the swing of things, it's a good way to start the Cedar Point season. Now, Cedar Point closed a couple of weeks earlier than Kings Island last fall, and opened a full three weeks later this Spring. So they should be more than ready to go for the season, right? Well...maybe.

The first thing I noticed as I approached the peninsula was how long it took me to get there. I don't think I have ever had to wait for so many traffic signals on US-23, or for slow motorists on OH-98 and OH-4. I can't identify any single cause, but it took me nearly three hours to get to Cedar Point, a trip that normally takes a little more than two hours. It didn't take so long last weekend when I came up to get my season pass processed [Footnote 1]. But I did finally make it to the park. I presented my parking pass, and immediately started to notice that things are a little different this season. I drove up the Perimeter Road, and noted the absence of the long-disused parking control guardhouse at the marina lot gate. As I passed the marina gate entrance, I saw the large sign indicating that Skyhawk would not be operating. At about the same time I heard an empty Dragster train go cruising over the top of the tower. I drove past Millennium Force and the back side of Thunder Canyon, then saw the huge open spot where White Water Landing used to be. I went on around behind Mean Streak and parked in my customary parking space behind the Gemini.

At the back entrance, more minor changes were evident. At the gate, the season pass entrance finally has a ticket scanner that works. For years, Cedar Point has used bar code scanners that actually function more like magnetic stripe readers, and the one at the extreme right-hand turnstile at the back gate has been out of service for some time now. This year, that one location now has a proper holographic barcode scanner. It's a minor issue, I know, but I do tend to notice these kinds of things. That's also how you know this is likely to be a pretty lengthy report.

As is customary, I began my day with a couple of rides on Magnum XL-200. As is also customary, the ride has new seat belts, but it appears to me that the buckles are slightly different, with a different style of adjuster on the tongue side. Not a serious change, but the belts seem to be a few inches shorter. Still long enough to go around just about anybody, but a little shorter than in the past. On the platform, there are three new bins for riders' crap to go in, much like the ones on Raptor. There is also a new red line painted on the floor on the exit side of the platform, and unload side operators are apparently expected to stand behind it when trains are moving. It's not a horrible thing, and it is certainly better than making the load side operators stand behind the roof pillars, although they are still doing that as well. Out on the course it's...well, it's Magnum only it looks better than it did last year because they finished painting the track and supports. I do wonder if they are planning to paint the tunnels, and whether they are also planning to fix the loose sheet metal in the first tunnel that makes that loud "BANG!" as the train plows through at nearly 70 MPH.

When I went down the midway past Dragster, I noticed that while the ride had been cycling, all the people who wanted to ride it were lined up along the midway side of the fence, which is generally not a good sign for that ride. I took a quick trip on Corkscrew, where I noticed an automated spiel that sounded like it was recorded in a bad rainstorm. The park has still done nothing about the idiotic safety belts they added mid-season last year. The problem is that the buckle is mounted on the front of the seat, and with the shoulder bar down, it is almost impossible to reach the bottom end of the lift-latch buckle to release it...and the crew is instructed not to help. I've suggested that they should have a foot-long rod with a hook on the end for people like me who have trouble, but so far such a tool has not appeared.

The remains of last year's Summer Spectacular screen

I took a quick ride on Iron Dragon, which hasn't changed much from last year. The automated (and incorrect) spiel is gone, and the ride is running more or less as it always does. In the queue, I was able to do a little sightseeing...apparently a winter storm got the best of the Summer Spectacular projection screen, and a large piece of it is wrapped 'round a large tree on the island across from the ride queue. The screen, incidentally, has been replaced.

I went down to the railroad station and waited for a while, then got tired of waiting and crossed the tracks. I chatted with the host at the Millennium Force entrance for a while, and noticed that in all the time I stood there I never saw a CP&LE train go by. Ultimately I just ended up hiking down the Frontier Trail.

Yes, people are waiting in line for cotton candy!

'Mining' returns to Cedar Point.

Just past a bend in the path, across from the candy shop where I bought the last hot caramel apple last season, I spied a long line of people. At the front end of the line was a small pushcart containing a floss spinner, manned by a crew of three jointees. It was the second day of operation, and it took between twelve and fifteen seconds for one of the jointees to spin up a good size cone of candy floss. This is Cedar Fair's big new promotion in at least three of their parks this season: cotton candy for $0.25. I watched the cart for a few minutes and concluded that on a day that the park was not particularly busy, a cart in a rather out of the way location was continuously busy, and bringing in about a dollar a minute in sales. That's $60 per hour, all day long. All day, throughout the park, I saw people two-fisting cones of cotton candy, and floss carts that were perpetually busy. It appears that this is a promotion that is looking right away like a rousing success, and I have to wonder if we can expect to see similar aggressive pricing on select other products (popcorn would be an obvious choice). I mean, yeah, it's a $0.17 profit per serving instead of $2.92 per serving, but I am willing to bet that the increased volume means Cedar Point probably made more money on cotton candy in the first two days of the season this year than they normally make in a week on that stuff. I know that during the course of the day I spent more on cotton candy ($0.75) in one afternoon than I have spent on cotton candy in the past ten years. Looking around the park, I am certain I am not the only one!

On down the Frontier Trail, there are some new things to see. One that immediately got my attention was a new sluice across from Fort Sandusky. It is now possible to buy a little bag of "mine rough" and screen out the gemstones in the sluice. I'm trying to remember...I thought that was available at Cedar Point some 20 years ago, but that it disappeared long ago. Well, it's back now. I didn't investigate the pricing.

I think this will be a scenic view of whatever they're building.

Another view of the same pond.

Those footers are there for a reason.

Further down, across from Snake River Falls is where the big changes are happening. To the bay side of the midway, where the Swan Boats once cruised, there is a series of concrete footers. It's clear to me that this is going to be a visual impact point for the new attraction now under construction for next season. There is a series of small circular footers, and a large square footer off to one side. My guess is that this is the visual equivalent of the Boomerang element on The Incredible Hulk at IOA, or the second and third loops of Cedar Point's Corkscrew. Whatever ride Cedar Point is putting in, this is going to be the signature photo location. So I suppose that I should take some photos of it as it sits now. The construction zone extends behind the pond and back to the railroad track, taking up the entire White Water Landing ride area. Much of the White Water Landing reservoir has been filled in, though a few footers from the old ride remain in the area that still exists as pond. Construction trailers are now on site near Mean Streak, along the edge of the railroad track, and the train now rolls through an area that reminds me of Michigan's Adventure the first time I went there. Signs on the midway side of the construction zone clearly identify the area as such. This is going to be very different from the Top Thrill Dragster project, where the park poured a couple of big footers then put up a fence and let them sit all season long. Clearly this will be an active construction zone through the summer.

This was once White Water Landing.

This is all that is left of the reservoir. The footers are from White Water Landing. In the background, Mean Streak is running better than it has in years.

Like the train at Michigan's Adventure, only bigger.

Mean Streak may well have provided the biggest surprise of the day. After some brief downtime caused by a stuck lap bar, I took a front seat ride. The first thing I noticed was that all of the padding in the seat is gone. The seat back, divider, and side bolsters have long been made of that molded foam that is great for steel coasters, but lousy for wood coasters. Now, the bottom cushion is made out of the same stuff. To Cedar Point's credit, the bottom cushion is a little softer than most of that foam stuff, and it appears that they did take into consideration the fact that the foam is not compressible, and made the cushion a bit thinner than the original upholstered version. I guess I knew this was coming, as it had been tested on a few seats last year. That still doesn't mean I have to like it. As a matter of fact, I don't like it one bit. In any case, it was refreshing to be able to pull the lap bar down a plurality of notches and have it sit right where I want it. It's amazing how much more accommodating the Cedar Point PTC trains are than the Kings Island PTC trains. The train started off from the station and cruised through the curve to the lift hill without any hint of squealing. What's this?! Out on the ride, the brakes were still operating on the first drop, but the ride is running unusually fast, and unusually smooth. I haven't the slightest idea what they did, apart from apply liberal amounts of lubrication to the track. But my front seat ride revealed that there is very little new track, and only a couple of areas with any obvious new fasteners. Something is different about Mean Streak. I don't know what it is, but it is an unmistakably positive change. I hope whatever Cedar Point did to the ride actually lasts through the season, and I hope they can take advantage of the way the ride is running now to relieve it of its first drop trim brakes. For several months now I have been suggesting that the Voyage was going to be "the coaster to demonstrate that a 160-foot-tall wood coaster doesn't have to suck," in an obvious allusion to Mean Streak. Well, the early reports are that the Voyage apparently does not suck...but much to my surprise, for the moment at least, neither does Mean Streak. I just hope this situation lasts!

Skyhawk was not operating.

Removing this will not be easy.

That is as "open" as that gate gets.

Skyhawk, as noted, was not operating all day. There was some work going on inside the towers, work that apparently involved the careful application of a BFH to the ride system. The ride is essentially a 90-foot swing set except that each swing can accommodate up to 20 riders, and is equipped with footrests and lap bars. The ride looks good where it sits, but it would look better if it were actually operating.

I took a walk around the White Water Landing station. The station has been mostly gutted, but it has not been taken down. A look inside suggested several possible reasons. There is some speculation that the new ride might use the White Water Landing station, and I won't count that out just yet, but it looks like removing the White Water Landing station would be a difficult proposition at best because of the sheer volume of concrete involved, and it would be very messy. It's certainly possible, but even if they are not using it, it might be more sensible to save its demolition for next winter just to avoid making a very large mess in the middle of the midway.

The Cedar Creek Mine Ride has not changed much over the winter, but it was suffering from its share of opening weekend glitches. The entire last car of one of thetwo operating trains was roped off, and the platform gates were causing all kinds of trouble, moving very slowly when they moved at all, and only opening up a few inches. Boarding the train required the combined effort of 30 would-be passengers shoving hard against the gates to get enough clearance to get through. Oh, and the train with the functioning back seat seemed to be the one with the way-too-tight lap bars. It wasn't the best Mine Ride ride I have taken.

Over at Gemini, the situation was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, they were not stacking the two trains that were running. That's an improvement over last summer. On the other hand, they were running only two trains, on the blue side. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a racing coaster. I do appreciate the fact that they were running it brakeless, though. Special when lit, as Dave Bowers would say.

It had taken me the better part of the day, but I did eventually manage to go down the main midway for rides on the Racing Derby and the Blue Streak. Now that Cedar Point has decided to take care of its wood coasters, the Blue Streak is running like you wouldn't believe, absolutely humiliating all of the wood coasters at that big park down South. Like the Mean Streak, the Blue Streak has received new seat "cushions" meaning that the 'man-machine interface' is pretty awful, but with the properly-configured lap bars it is still considerably better than the Racer at Kings Island. The wood-coaster airtime is quite refreshing, and while better seats would do a better job of covering up the flaws in the track work, the way Blue Streak is running, there don't seem to be many flaws to cover up.

Hofbrau is now Hurricane Hannah's.

I never did make it up to Raptor. I'll have to come back again for that one (as if that requires any encouragement...). I did notice the new paint on the Space Spiral and I took a ride on Disaster Transport. There is some bad news in the front of the park. First, maXair was not operating, perhaps in solidarity with the ride at Kings Island which also refused to operate on opening weekend. Second, the venerable Hofbrau food joint is gone, replaced with "Hurricane Hannah's". Hurricane Hannah's is a new food joint that sells pizza, beer, and California-type stuff. Well, it isn't really a new joint. It's the same old Hofbrau, but with a bright new paint job, a sign that looks like it was made from a ship's mast (but was probably actually stolen from Geauga Lake) and a fake palm tree. It looks good, but I'm not sure what it means for the availability of bratwurst in the park. Bratwurst is no longer available at this stand, though.

I finished my day in a predictable fashion, with a couple of walk-on rides on Magnum XL-200. In all, there is some evidence that Cedar Point is getting its season off to a kind of a rough start. But it seems that just about everything that needed to be ready to go..was. There is some evidence of the same kind of belt-tightening around the park that I noticed at Kings Island: some reduced hours, one train on the railroad, half a crew on Gemini, things like that. But at Cedar Point, this is on a backdrop of reduced full-price admission, significantly reduced junior admission, reduced prices on almost every food item in the park, and a real stunt with the cotton candy. The park is doing some gutsy things with pricing that run counter to what everybody else in the industry seems to be doing. From what I saw, it may ultimately pay off for Cedar Point, and when it does, I hope the rest of the industry takes notice. More important than the pricing issues, though, it looks to me like there is a new attitude in the park. Well, not really a new attitude. The park just has a different feel to it, and it's a feel much like the way it felt a few years ago. This is a good sign, and I hope it keeps up this season.

Footnote 1: The sheer bureaucracy of Cedar Point's season pass processing procedure is an essay I should write someday. Suffice to say the procedure reminded me in unpleasant ways of my 1987 visit to the (now defunct) Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (USSR). [Return to text]

Trip Report: Cedar Point (#1) Sandusky, Ohio - 05/07/2006

Trip Report: Cedar Point (#1)
Sandusky, Ohio - 05/07/2006