First Trip to CP, Good Times

FLCC Josh · #1 09-19-2005, 09:11 PM

Day One:
Our day began rather early with a 7:00 AM departure from Jacksonville, FL. Our first stop was Ober Gatlinburg to ride their Alpine Slide. $5.00 gets you a ticket to ride the Ski Lift up, as well as a ticket for the slide itself. If you aren’t familiar with the Alpine slide it’s basically a smaller version of a bobsled, minus the ice and 80mph speeds! You sit on a sled equipped with roller blade-like wheels and a brake handle in the center of the sled. Top speed…meh, maybe 20, but that’s pushing it. The track is about 1800ft, and was pretty fun. I was expecting a bit more, but it was fun overall and offered some great views of the surrounding Smoky Mountains.
We left Gatlinburg and headed towards our hotel up in Lexington, KY. Along the way we passed by the road to Dollywood…they were closed, but at least I saw the sign! Also on a side note….there are a LOT of Go Kart tracks around that area, one at each corner almost.
We checked into the hotel and decided to grab a bite to eat. We found a TGI Friday’s down the road and decided to stop there. I had the Orange Chicken “Irresist-a-bowl” it was pretty darn tasty. Back to the hotel we went to settle in for the night.
Friday we got to Cedar Point at about 4:30PM. Checked into our cottages at Lighthouse Point (we had a total of 5) and was in the park by about 6:00PM.
My first ride was Magnum-XL 200, or as the locals call it “Maggie”. I had always heard about Seat 1-3 (first car, row 3) so I plopped my butt down in 1-3, left side. Maggie gave a decent ride in this row. There is some violent ejector air on the return trip to the station, but was a lot of fun. After Maggie, we headed over to Wicked Twister.
I chose to ride in the front row for my first ride, subsequent rides would also be in the front. My expectations were about dead on for this ride. Very smooth, fast and a lot of fun. The view was great going up the first spike, watching yourself rocket up towards the end of that twisty-turny track was quite a mind job!
After that we hit MaXair…or NoAir as I will call it from now on….what a freakin let down, probably the biggest disappointment of the trip in my opinion. No airtime, the restraints absolutely sucked and it was forceless…maybe I had my expectations too high. Oh well.
After MaX…errr, NoAir we decided it was time to feel the force! Oh yeah baby, Millennium Force. This was the coaster I had come here to ride and after a quick 30 minute wait, I was in the front row, lake side. The lift was much faster that I thought. I knew it was a cable lift, but man, we were really cruising. It was dark so there wasn’t much to see…or time to see for that matter. Over the top we go! This ride also met my every expectation. Has great airtime and never lets up. The first ride was pretty much a blur, all I really remember was the last overbank going into the brakes. You are still doing a good 60-65 mph into the brakes! We got 4 rides the rest of the night and it kept getting better each time.
We then decided to head over to Raptor, which is the first B&M I have ridden that I can’t say much about. It was an interesting layout, but other than that…that’s about all it has going for it, pretty mediocre if you ask me. Oh, it needs some work on the brakes at the end too…Ugh, they were rough!
Following Talon we made our way over to Blue Streak. This was one of the best coasters in the park. Lots of airtime from the back row, very enjoyable ride, and smooth to boot.
Lastly I took a ride on Demon Drop since it won’t be there next season. Since the one at SFoG never runs this was the first time I rode that type of freefall ride. It was okay, nothing to jump up and down about, but it was fun…the brakes were a bit rough though. That concluded our first Evening, from there we headed back to the cottages and partied until about 4:00AM….

Day 2:
Breakers Breakfast at TGI Friday’s was first on the list, after that we hit Maggie again, this time I took the back row, again, good ride, good airtime, no severe ejector air though, and a bit rougher in the back.
We headed over to Gemini to ride but decided to skip it until later because only the Blue side was running. Instead we hit Cedar Creek Mine. It was your average mine train with a decent helix at the end. It was strange though…they were only letting people ride in the front three cars???
After that I don’t quite remember what order we did the rest of the park…LOL So I’ll give my thoughts on the coasters.
Wildcat (once it opened) was a fun ride, more so that I first anticipated. Mantis by far is the roughest B&M I have ever been on, period…it was bad. I think some of the Arrow germs from Iron Dragon are rubbing off on it!
Speaking of Draggin’ Iron…It was okay, no where near as good as BBW at BGW, but it was fun anyhow.
Corkscrew was also another coaster that surprised me. It was one of the smoothest Arrow’s I have ridden, I was quite pleased with it.
Mean Streak was down for a good part of the day, but I finally got on it. It was fun, a tad rough, but if you keep your back off the seat it’s not too bad. Someone blew chunks on the train in front of us, so we sat in the brakes for a while so it could be cleaned. (P.S. will someone grease that track already…GEEZ!)
Disaster Transport was also fun. I like Avalanche at PKD better, but DT, had the darkness going for it, we had a blast.
Woodstock express….meh, I got the credit…yayyy!
Finally got Gemini (both sides), had fun hand-slapping and it was a nice smooth ride with great airtime.
I didn’t get Dragster (broke) or Jr. Gemini (no kids around to borrow)

For my first trip to Cedar Point I had a blast, but mostly because of the company I was with. The rides were fun, but only a couple really grabbed my attention. The park itself is big, bigger than I thought. It was clean, the hand dryers in the bathroom must blow at like 200mph!! The employees for the most part were decent, but did not seem to enjoy their work. I will return again next year with the FLCC crew….so look out CP….We’ll be back!

coasterell · #2 09-19-2005, 09:57 PM

you called a ride there Talon...don't you mean Raptor???

Carowinds 73-03 · #3 09-20-2005, 01:56 AM

I think it's varies when you go i guess.

I remeber when i went in June the employee's were actually very nice and seemed to get involved alot. The last two times i returned most of the employees were very rude and just didn't seem like they wanted to be there but the last two trimes i have gone it seems they have gotten better.

Glad you had fun, I know i did when i went to CP for the first time. I was completely blown away when i walked into the park cause before my first trip to CP Carowinds & SFOG were the only parks i had ever been to.

FLCC Josh · #4 09-20-2005, 09:00 AM

Yes...I meant raptor, sorry still lacking sleep..LOL

Sir Willow · #5 09-20-2005, 11:46 AM

Nice TR Josh. Most of your impressions of the park would pretty much follow mine- including Raptor which was possibly my biggest disappointment in the park. At least what I can remember of it after the brakes at the end tried to knock me out. :P

And Blue Streak may well be my favorite ride in the park, next to MF. But I'll ride BS more since it has hardly the line of the other one.

To bad you didn't ride near the back on Wicked Twister. The next to last row was, for me, the best spot to ride since you really get the reverse air on the back spike and a clear view of just how high you are.

Happy to see you got both sides on Gemini. The two times I've been there it was either closed, or only had one side open. So can't say I've really fully experienced it yet. Hopefully on a future visit.

I take it that TTD was closed for you?

jimths08 · #6 09-20-2005, 11:05 PM

TTD was closed.

On the mine train, they were probably only letting people on the front cars because its a higher chance of valling if all the weights in the back. If theres a hill that the train really crawls over, that will answer your question. They do that alot on The Boss, it crawls into the MCBR and up the 3rd drop.

FLCC Josh · #7 09-20-2005, 11:34 PM

Yeah it was closed, which I knew it was so I didn't have my hopes up for that. besides it gives me a reason to go back next year!