Alright, Let’s Actually do Some Rides!
Altogether we would have two days at Cedar Point – two half days and one full day. This is a genuine two-day park, much like Disneyland or DisneySea. Crowds can get prohibitive here (we got lucky), and there’s so, so much to do (and redo).
Let’s start at the entrance. Already you’ll notice Gatekeeper rushing directly over the entry gates, perilously threading through its iconic “keyhole” elements. This moment sets the Cedar Point stage as much as the railroad and castle do at Disneyland.
“
To all who come to this thrilling place, welcome. Cedar Point is your point. Here you remain in the world of today, while also entering a world of insanity.”
is a wing coaster by B&M. Okay, guess I’d better define some things.
“B&M” is Bolliger & Mabillard, one of the world’s major coaster manufacturing firms. Their main rival company is Intamin. We’ll be seeing
a lot of both manufacturers on this trip (plus some other companies).
A “wing coaster” is a coaster where you ride on either the train’s left or right side, like on a bird’s wing, with nothing surrounding you but blue sky and the smallest seat safety laws allow. The track is far to the side. It feels incredibly free, much like flight. Even when flipping around in an inversion, a wing coaster is more graceful than forceful. Some riders find the sensation too tame, but I think it’s an elegant counterpoint to the rides with higher G-forces.
The thrill aspect – the moment of terror – comes from scenic elements along the ride. The keyholes. The coaster will rush towards a solid tower, only to twist at the last moment and carry you safely through. Gatekeeper has plenty of these fun near-miss moments – with the ground, support beams, the entry gates, passing seagulls.
Gatekeeper’s a fun ride, and worth redoing later (from the train’s other side). For now we continue along the Twisted Midway area right along the beach. This is maybe Cedar Point’s least photogenic section, just concrete and assorted random flat rides. (There are some odd kiddie areas in here too.) There’s a bit of a pier park vibe. Jim calls it Cedar Point’s “attic,” where they place things which don’t fit elsewhere.
Next up is
Wicked Twister, an inverted Impulse coaster by Intamin. What that means is train cars sit under the track, with riders’ legs dangling. It’s a shuttle coaster, not a complete circuit. You launch forward, hurtle up a vertical arm, then tumble backwards. Flying through the station, you launch again
backwards, up another vertical arm. Then back forward, then backward, again, again, for a while until it ends.
As the ride goes on, you get higher on the vertical arms, moving along these twisted sections shaped like spiral Fritos. Now…every rider has some weird physical likes and dislikes. Certain standard elements which just destroy them. For Josh, it’s airtime. For me, it’s going backwards.
I hate that! I hate standard Boomerang coasters – they sicken me, and they offer an incomplete experience to boot. Wicked Twister is fairly forgiving, as these things go, and it’s simple fun for many, but it’s certainly among my less favorite rides at the Point.
The group moves on, down the Main Midway under the Sky Ride aerial tram. We pass the grand central Ballroom which is among the park’s oldest structures. Lines in this late afternoon are forgiving, mostly, and the group shares a palpable excitement to do as much as possible!
Rushing directly over the midway paths is
Corkscrew. This is an historic 1976 ride by Arrow Dynamics, a now-defunct manufacturer who made nearly all of the great steel rides of the 20th century. Corkscrew is a noteworthy ride, the first ever to feature a whopping 3 inversions. (Magic Mountain’s Revolution beat it for “first modern looping coaster” by a few months.)
So, Corkscrew is an historic icon. It’s also a relic. Like many aging Arrow Dynamics rides, it’s rough and rattly. The ride experience is short and super basic: lift hill, minor drop, airtime hill, vertical loop, turnaround, corkscrew, corkscrew, end. It’s one to do, then move on. It
is a park icon, twisting riders upside down over the midway. (And in one rainstorm, per a story told by Jim, dumping gallons of water onto guests…it’s funny when he tells it.)
We march right on through the Gemini Midway (the theme: trees, fences, benches) to
Magnum XL-200. Its theme? It’s BIG!
By modern standards, 205 feet ain’t much anymore, but when it opened in 1989 Magnum was the world’s tallest, fastest and steepest coaster. The world’s first “hypercoaster,” a term for any over 200 feet.
Like all hypers, Magnum is simplicity itself. You go up, you drop down, you go up another slightly shorter hill, on and on. Within this simple structure is genius. Each hill provides increasingly wild airtime (maybe my favorite element in a coaster), so while the drops get progressively shorter, the ride gets more and more frenetic. The layout is a basic out-and-back, so a pretzel turnaround breaks up the hills halfway through. Occasional tunnels add variety too. The trip carries you quite far, way out beyond the park’s boundaries to the furthest beach and lighthouse (twice over the Cedar Point Shores water park).
The more I ride Magnum, the more I love it. For an older ride, it packs a wallop. As an Arrow Dynamics ride, sadly, it’s also fairly rough and painful now – opinions vary. I rode ahead of my group, since we all wanted back seat rides (best airtime), so I got more bench time post-ride to relax before we pushed onward.
Gemini is only 2 years younger than Corkscrew, but it’s far less outdated! It’s underrated, in fact. This is a racing wooden coaster. Two parallel tracks go at once. Much of the fun is taunting your rival train, trying to high-five them in the turns, seeing who reaches the end first. This is a ride style which dates back to old Coney Island days, and Gemini is a great 1970s update to the form. It’s noteworthy too as a “false” woodie, thanks to the steel topper track which gives it a smoother ride than pure woodies of the same vintage. It’s a family friendly ride – “family friendly” by Cedar Fair standards; overall it’s on a par with California Screamin’ intensity-wise.
So Gemini isn’t the ride which’ll destroy you…unless you overdid it on suspicious meatloaf for lunch! All the twisting and screwing of Wicked Twister and Corkscrew left me somewhat nauseous and, well, as Gemini pulled into its brake run, I went ahead and
I vomited. Back seat in a stilled train, so no major catastrophe. Hit some rocks in the helix below. It’s the dizziest I got on the trip. We hit Cedar Point really hard right away and I was underprepared. As the trip progressed, my stomach grew steelier.
Even now I was undeterred. Back down the Gemini Midway, you pass the titanic
Top Thrill Dragster. This thing is a
beast! It’s 420’ high, the world’s second tallest coaster (world’s tallest coming up in two weeks!), tallest and fastest when it opened, the world’s first “stratacoaster.” Dragster’s massive vertical structure absolutely dominates the entire park. So do the trains rocketing straight down their track at 120 mph. This thing taunts you, daring your bravery. And at present its line is surprisingly short, a rarity for the Dragster, so in we go.
Now, Dragster, let’s go through it. It has a drag race theme, and for such a ginormous monstrosity Cedar Fair did a good job with it. You got countdown lights, hot rod themed trains, actual grandstands so non-riders can watch, even neat checkerboard décor.
As a ride, Dragster is the simplest yet. You pull out to the “starting line,” and you launch at a ludicrous 120 mph straight forward! Then the track rushes straight up, a perfect 90 degrees, up to a curved hill 420’ up. You crest, then plummet straight down 90 degrees (with a random and pointless twist along the way, reportedly to distribute forces on the track). You return to the ground. The ride ends. Thirty seconds max from start to finish.
I do wish there were more after the big drop, but the thing cost $25 million as it is.
It’s a gimmick ride, but what a gimmick! Those brief forces are shockingly intense. The buildup from the queue to the launch is incredibly suspenseful. It’s a technical marvel, too, using launch technology similar to aircraft carriers aided by a powerful array of computers which calculate for every single train based on weight, wind, and other factors. (On increasingly rare occasions the ride will “roll back,” plummeting riders backwards if they cannot clear the main hill. Everyone wishes to experience this fleeting treat; few ever do.)
Oh boy! That’s 5 coasters down, and a great many more to come! How about a dinner break? (Be back tomorrow.)
I almost spit out my coffee reading your comments above. Steel Vengeance sounds like it really packs quite a punch. Yikes.