I'll admit that I'm a bit of a weirdo. Who else takes a weekend trip to Cleveland with the sole intent of riding roller coasters?
I flew into Drew Careyland on Friday night (my departure out of Boston was delayed by the weather, so I wound up being in the air while the Obama-McCain debate was happening ... I saw clips later that night & it doesn't seem like I missed much) and drove to a hotel near Cedar Point. Spent Saturday (noon-10 p.m.) at the amusement park, riding an array of awesome coasters.
The best ride in the park is Maverick (which was a new attraction at the start of the 2007 season), hands down. After that, I'd go with the towering steel coaster Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster, which is essentially a slightly lower (420 vs. 456 feet) and slower (123 vs. 128 mph) version of Kingda Ka, lacking Kingda Ka's extra hill upon descent.
Here is a Maverick POV:
Here is a Millennium Force POV (and yes, they pull you up that quickly ... going up to 310 feet practically requires that you close your eyes and not look around much):
Here is a Top Thrill Dragster POV:
Second tier rides at Cedar Point are Raptor, a suspended coaster featuring a helix-like spin a la Batman the Ride, the stand-up coaster Mantis, and Magnum XL-200, which was a record-breaking coaster when it debuted in 1989 (standing at 205 feet and reaching 72 mph).
Magnum is still an impressive ride, but it really shows you how far we've come in 19 years -- we can now board coasters that travel over 100 mph and reach absolutely ridiculous heights. And as Maverick shows, it's not just about these height and speed measurements. There are great rides that make you feel like you're about to hit a wall (see the Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg) -- the tightness between the track and its surroundings is important. I also find that some rides are aesthetically enjoyable -- they may travel through the woods (like the Grizzly at Kings Dominion) or utilize artificial surroundings that are effective (see the mountain that Kings Dominion's Volcano shoots out of -- this has been at the park for a long, long time, and they're now making great use of it).
Maverick boasts a number of unique elements - a 95 degree first drop, a "twisted horseshoe" roll - but I suspect that it will be one of Cedar Point's finest - for the decade to come - for more intangible reasons. And I know why I like it. The plot of land it occupies is not just a boring parking lot sea of gravel a la the Mean Streak (a wooden coaster at Cedar Point which is fairly unimpressive). I always like rides that go over water and Maverick has that element. In addition, it is a fairly long ride when compared with something like Top Thrill Dragster, which only lasts about 20 seconds. When you stand on line for an hour (or in my case w/Maverick, two hours), you want something that lasts longer than that. When I boarded the Beast at King's Island, I began wondering why more parks are not following this model -- is it simply a matter of not wanting to deal with all the maintenance issues that a long track carries? People want rides that last at least two minutes (in the Beast's case, it's about five minutes).
One oversight: Wicked Twister is another ride that I should include in the second tier group at Cedar Point.
What to pass up at Cedar Point:
Iron Dragon is a total joke (as is Flight Deck, a similar suspended coaster developed by Arrow for King's Island ... the Big Bad Wolf is vastly superior to both of these), and the Mean Streak is disappointing.
I stopped in Columbus Saturday night & visited with a college buddy, John Dvorak, and his wife. Then continued my coaster journey and visited King's Island, just about 25 miles north of Cincinnati, on Sunday. King's Island will be the focus of the next entry in this series ...
I flew into Drew Careyland on Friday night (my departure out of Boston was delayed by the weather, so I wound up being in the air while the Obama-McCain debate was happening ... I saw clips later that night & it doesn't seem like I missed much) and drove to a hotel near Cedar Point. Spent Saturday (noon-10 p.m.) at the amusement park, riding an array of awesome coasters.
The best ride in the park is Maverick (which was a new attraction at the start of the 2007 season), hands down. After that, I'd go with the towering steel coaster Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster, which is essentially a slightly lower (420 vs. 456 feet) and slower (123 vs. 128 mph) version of Kingda Ka, lacking Kingda Ka's extra hill upon descent.
Here is a Maverick POV:
Here is a Millennium Force POV (and yes, they pull you up that quickly ... going up to 310 feet practically requires that you close your eyes and not look around much):
Here is a Top Thrill Dragster POV:
Second tier rides at Cedar Point are Raptor, a suspended coaster featuring a helix-like spin a la Batman the Ride, the stand-up coaster Mantis, and Magnum XL-200, which was a record-breaking coaster when it debuted in 1989 (standing at 205 feet and reaching 72 mph).
Magnum is still an impressive ride, but it really shows you how far we've come in 19 years -- we can now board coasters that travel over 100 mph and reach absolutely ridiculous heights. And as Maverick shows, it's not just about these height and speed measurements. There are great rides that make you feel like you're about to hit a wall (see the Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg) -- the tightness between the track and its surroundings is important. I also find that some rides are aesthetically enjoyable -- they may travel through the woods (like the Grizzly at Kings Dominion) or utilize artificial surroundings that are effective (see the mountain that Kings Dominion's Volcano shoots out of -- this has been at the park for a long, long time, and they're now making great use of it).
Maverick boasts a number of unique elements - a 95 degree first drop, a "twisted horseshoe" roll - but I suspect that it will be one of Cedar Point's finest - for the decade to come - for more intangible reasons. And I know why I like it. The plot of land it occupies is not just a boring parking lot sea of gravel a la the Mean Streak (a wooden coaster at Cedar Point which is fairly unimpressive). I always like rides that go over water and Maverick has that element. In addition, it is a fairly long ride when compared with something like Top Thrill Dragster, which only lasts about 20 seconds. When you stand on line for an hour (or in my case w/Maverick, two hours), you want something that lasts longer than that. When I boarded the Beast at King's Island, I began wondering why more parks are not following this model -- is it simply a matter of not wanting to deal with all the maintenance issues that a long track carries? People want rides that last at least two minutes (in the Beast's case, it's about five minutes).
One oversight: Wicked Twister is another ride that I should include in the second tier group at Cedar Point.
What to pass up at Cedar Point:
Iron Dragon is a total joke (as is Flight Deck, a similar suspended coaster developed by Arrow for King's Island ... the Big Bad Wolf is vastly superior to both of these), and the Mean Streak is disappointing.
I stopped in Columbus Saturday night & visited with a college buddy, John Dvorak, and his wife. Then continued my coaster journey and visited King's Island, just about 25 miles north of Cincinnati, on Sunday. King's Island will be the focus of the next entry in this series ...
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