Vacation Time!
For a vacation this year, Jim and I decided to grab the two-day passes to Cedar Point Amusement Park and Soak City), so that we could have the time to actually enjoy the parks without spending all our time waiting in line.
| Our trip started with great weather (warm and partly cloudy) and the 2 hour drive up to Sandusky, OH, went smoothly since we ran into very little highway construction. Since we had a problem on our last trip to CP (Aug 01, when we spent nearly half an hour just trying to find the car since we couldn't remember where we parked!), we put the digital cameras to work for us. A simple photo of the parking lane sign
guaranteed we could find Jim's car this time. LOL |
 |
 |
The morning started with an activity that happens a lot in an amusement park - waiting in line. LOL But this is the most-fun line to wait in - you are anticipating the days activities, wondering which ride to head to first, checking out the sky hoping it'll be a nice day, and singing along to the Beach Boys soundtrack that seems to play throughout the park.
(MouseOver for a
CloseUp) |
The first ride of the day - The Millennium Force
 |
 |
 |
| Standing 310 feet tall, the Force has been the tallest faster coaster in North America since it was opened in 2000. The first hill sends the riders down an 80-degree angle (that's nearly straight down!) and reaches speeds of 93 mph! My personal opinion is that this is the nicest, smoothest steel coaster that I've ever been on. |
 |
MouseOver and see just how close the trains come to the line before the final curve and pulling into the station. |
| I remember the days when the Cedar Creek Mine Ride was a really cool ride. Although it's still a great family ride, it pales in comparison to any of the new giga-coasters. |
 |
 |
 |
Above is a picture that Jim took as we climbed the first hill in the blue train of The Gemini. This racer coaster (we bet the pants off the red train! )is celebrating it's the Silver Anniversary (25 yrs). WooHoo! |
RipCord
 |
| While researching the park online the night before our trip, Jim and I printed out coupons for Ripcord. This thrill ride straps "flyers" in and pulls them up 15-stories high. Once at the top, one of the flyers pulls the "ripcord", sending the tethered group zooming at nearly 65 mph straight for the ground, until the slack catches up causing the flyers to swing in a arc, passing within 6 feet of the ground. |
The main arch that we swing through |
Flyers loading up (in the blue area) |
As we were pulled backwards and up towards the sky, I kept my eye on the park employee who was to announce when to pull the ripcord. I knew when I saw her pick up the microphone, it would be time; but as we continued going up, and she continued to get smaller and smaller there on the ground, she still didn't go for the microphone. Finally, she gave the instructions, I pulled the cord, and away we went - plummeting towards the ground. Within seconds, we flew past the ground at break-neck speed before the cable arc sent us sailing out over the people on the beach in the water park (Soak City). What an amazing rush!!!! |
Click the pictures to watch the movie of our flight |
| After Ripcord, we were starting to get used to being in the sky, so we moved on to the Power Towers ride. Rather than take the slow ride up with the fast fall, Jim
maneuvered us to the side of the ride that shoots up quickly to 240 ft. off the ground and then bounces down to a stop. |
 |
Next in line to be shot skyward! |
| My favorite Cedar Point coaster has got to be the Raptor and there's only one way to ride this one - in the front car! Suspended from the rails, with your feet dangling, this ride spins, flips, loops, and keeps you screaming as you brush past the ground and the sky! The six upside-down turns (one vertical loop, two inverted corkscrews, a zero-gravity roll and a "cobra roll" that turns riders upside down twice) keep you from knowing which end is up. LOL |
 |
 |
 |
| With the newest ride in the background (the Top Thrill Dragster), these red, yellow and purple rails are part of the Mantis - a stand-up coaster. One of the most impressive parts of this ride is when you reach the top of a small hill and you've slowed down just enough to look ahead - where you see a sandy lot filled with the most twisted pieces of metal. Then you realize that the car you are in is about to be zooming through all those twists and turns - with you strapped in for the ride! |
Wicked Twister!
 |
 |
Since we went to Kings Island last year, this was the first time to ride one of Cedar Point's newest rides, the Wicked Twister. This ride blasts you out of the station and up one of those twisted columns. Of course, gravity takes over and you plummet back down, through the station and up the other twisted column. But the ride isn't over yet. You barrel back through the station, up to the end of the first column, and back again to near reach the top of the other column before coming back to a stop in the station. |
Jim snapped this picture of the Twister from the parking lot, where we went to eat lunch and change into swimsuits so we could enter the water park. While in the car, I listened to two messages on my cell phone. One call was from DO. Her house had been broken into the night before and the other call from my co-workers at the Ford store - they were keeping tabs on my kidz by watching my webcam while I was out of town.
|
| Already 15 years old, the Magnum XL-200 was for years the tallest, faster coaster in the world at 210 feet. But, don't worry about the Magnum. Although they have built most of Soak City underneath it, it is not sinking and is still an awesome ride. This out-and-back steel coaster shoots you from near the center of the park out towards the beach and Lake Erie before racing you back in over several camel-humps. |
 |
 |
I've been pretty lucky most times that I've ridden the water ride, Thunder Canyon. However this year was different since I bet my side of the boat went under every one of the waterfalls. I've was still wringing water out of my clothes for the 30 minutes we waited to ride the Mantis. |
| I didn't get too wet on White Water Landing though. This log-flume ride twists you through part of Frontier Land before climbing 50 ft. up into the tree tops. Of course, there's that plummet back down to ground level. |
 |
Soak City |
 |
 |
The two-day park pass not only gets you on all the rides (there was an extra charge for RipCord); but it also gets you into the water park. With two hot, nearly perfect-weather days, we spent a lot of both afternoons either zooming down the flume slides, or floating down the manmade rivers that meander throughout the water park. |
 |
| Leaving the Cedar Point peninsula on Day One |
| I used to go on trips with an old friend of mine (Cheryl) which usually ended up badly (lost the transmission in the Geo; spent all day in the ER after the first slide at a local water park); however, my trips with Jim always have a much happier ending. When we arrived at the hotel to check-in, Jim was told that they had overbooked and we didn't have a room. However, the clerk was quick to add that, for no extra charge, they would gladly upgrade us to an Executive Room that had a
Jacuzzi!! Being over 40 and having been beat around on all those rides, the hot water and massaging jets were a god-send. |
 |
 |
 |
Since the line had been so long the previous day (up to a 4 hour wait!!!), we had decided to hit the newest coaster, Top Thrill Dragster first thing on Day Two. This proto-type giga-coaster uses linear-induction (magnets) to blast you out of the starting gate fast enough to reach 120 mph in only 4 seconds!!! But speed isn't the big thrill of this ride. The thrill comes from being shot up 420 feet into the sky and then racing straight back down. |
 |
 |
After hitting the shops and several other rides, we headed back to Soak City to beat the heat. While drifting around in some inner tubes, Jim and I began to discuss heading home. Since it was 2:30, we figured that it would take about an hour or so to get back to the front gates of the park. We had had plenty of fun, plenty of sun, and could go home feeling that we had really gotten our money's worth of fun.
On the way back home, I called DO from my cell phone to see if she had any more information about the break-in at her house (her laptop had been stolen!!!). DO told me that the news was reporting black-outs all over the Northeast of America. Jim and I spent the rest of the trip home scanning the radio bands trying to decide whether this was just a problem of poor
maintenance or a terrorist attack. It was hard not to consider it as an attack as we drove past every highway overpass and saw no lights or power in Cleveland or Akron. It wasn't until we were back in our own county before we saw any lights. |
 |
 |
When I got back home, I checked the Cedar Point website. The cam picture on the left is when the power at the park went out (the cam hung and kept repeating the same image) and the second picture is from later that night as the Cedar Point generators ran some of the lights. All-in-all we were very lucky to have left the park probably 20 minutes before the power went out. Not only did we get out of the parking lot before the crowd; but we weren't stuck on any rides (the evening news showed one car about 10 feet from the top of the Magnum's first hill. Those unlucky riders had to walk all the way down from their ride.) |
|
