Me, my parents, & my brothers went to Cedar Point in August and stayed at the Radisson Inn. We went to the park the two days we were there and my dad & I rode all the rides, including Iron Dragon, Magnum XL 200, Corkscrew, Demon Drop, and of course Disaster Transport. A lot of the time our little “outing” was not all that great. But all in all I got to tell all of my friends about it. It was really kind of an exciting trip.
That was what I wrote in my vacation journal after I went to Cedar Point for the first time in 1991 and boy don’t you wish I was still that succinct?? Also can we talk about how it was “not all that great” but also “really kind of an exciting trip”? Holy mixed signals. BECAUSE I KNOW MYSELF, I am able to read in between the lines and deduce that my parents probably fought the whole time, my dad and I probably fought the whole time, my brother Ryan and I probably fought the whole time, Corey was a baby and probably did nothing the whole time, and I probably had both parents tell me NO I’M NOT BUYING THAT FOR YOU the whole time.
Well, I will try to be short & sweet while telling you about the second day of our most recent Cedar Point “outing” which actually was ALL GREAT and I would have told all of my friends about it if I had any friends HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAugh.
Since we are Platinum Pass holders (pause for some fingernail blowing), we got up early on Monday so that we could be at the park by 8:30, which is when the parking lot opens. It was actually raining super hard when I woke up and I was straight panicking. Henry went out to get donuts since some hotels are still kind of “ehhhhh” about offering free continental breakfast since we’re still technically not out of the pandemic woods yet. All I wanted was a glazed and a sugar after that fuckarow with the vegan donuts in Maryland. Just keep it simple (stupid), you know? Henry can’t remember the name of the place he went to but it was some local joint and they really delivered. I mean, not actually delivered, he had to go and get them himself.
Chooch tried some of my glazed and declared that it was the best glazed donut he ever did have and I wouldn’t go THAT far but it was very good and satisfied my need for sweet morning carbs.
(Henry just shouted “House of Donuts” from the other room, so now you know in case you are ever in Sandusky and feel like smashing Chooch’s Best Glazed Donut declaration.)
By the time we ate our donuts, the rain stopped and the sky was turning blue! And when we got to the park, there were only two cars in line in front of us at the parking booth thingies!! AND THEN SOMEHOW WE WERE THE FIRST, LITERALLY THE FIRST, PEOPLE IN THE PARK! They actually let us in a little bit before 9 and it was so exciting! Our game plan this time around was to hit Millie first since we didn’t ride it the day before. Steve (Steel Vengeance) isn’t included in early entry on weekdays so we didn’t even waste our time running there.
Millie!
There were these two little pre-teen girls who ran head of us and Chooch and I were cracking up because there was a third girl who was like, “I am not running” so they kept turning around and screaming, “COME ON KYLIE!!”
Chooch was like, “Dad is our Kylie.”
Oh man, Millie in the Morning. Better than a cup of fucking coffee. And we were on the first train out of the station!! I couldn’t believe how fantastic our day had started off. And, spoiler alert, it stayed that way. Like I said in my last CP post, I learned the hard way that the trick is to go in with low expectations. This park is so quirky because of it’s lakeside location (high winds can force them to shut ‘er down) and it’s called The Coaster Capital of America* for a reason, which draws hoards of people.
*(It is called that, isn’t it? lol.)
I grayed out on Millie!
Next, we ran over to Maverick. It was still testing so they hadn’t even opened the line yet, but a pretty decent one had already formed. However, they opened it up after about five minutes and by the time the line stopped moving, we were inside the main room of switchbacks and only had to wait for about 15 minutes. AND CHOOCH AND I GOT FRONT ROW!!
Also, I forgot to mention that when we were in line for Maverick the day before, Toto’s “Hold the Line” video randomly started playing on the TVs and I never noticed until that moment how much the singer resembles Hot Naybor Chris so I started screaming about it and Henry did that frown/smirk/smile thing he does when he doesn’t want to encourage me and Chooch tried to hold firm to his disapproval of my comparison until he finally couldn’t help it and he started laughing.
“YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE!” I screamed.
God, and then Maverick happened and that ride is just bonkers. As if I wasn’t already giddy!
We ran over to Steve after this. It still wasn’t open yet but a hefty line was starting to form so we hurried up and got in place. I had fun watching the family in front of us play Heads Up while Chooch did Chooch Things on his phone and overall ignored me. Henry actually was about 20 people behind us because he had to go to the bathroom first and I refused to wait for him; however, he was at a point in the line where it had turned back on itself so we were actually facing each other. When the entrance opened and the line started moving, he did something we are FULLY AGAINST and casually line-jumped and tagged along with Chooch and me as we moved past him. It was so obvious but he was pissed because he had witnessed half a family blatantly cut in front of about 50 people to rejoin the other half of the family, so felt like he was owed something I guess, who knows. I don’t think anyone really cared that much, tbh. But now I wished I had screamed LINE JUMPING IS CAUSE FOR REMOVAL OF THE PARK like my friend Christy and I used to at Kennywood when we were kids because we aimed to be the most obnoxious, something I CANNOT RELATE TO AS AN ADULT.
There are free lockers now in the queue and they are so cool! There used to be pouches on the ride where you could put your small items like keys and phones, but I’m sure people were fucking that up so they removed those and installed these super slick lockers and it’s really cool because the line splits – if you have NOTHING AT ALL ON YOUR PERSON, like you can’t even have stuff tucked away securely in a sealed cargo pocket – you can continue through a metal detector. Otherwise, your entire group is directed to the lockers, after which you can reenter the second line and basically I’m explaining this poorly but you barely lose your spot in line at all because they only send so many people past that point at one time.
I just thought it was super efficient and if you have ever been on Steve, you know that having empty pockets is an absolute MUST for safety reasons. This coaster is a fucking force of nature, you guys. I absolutely love it and found myself tearing up while we were in line (which was only about 30 minutes once the ride actually opened, and would have been less if fucking FAST LANE hadn’t opened at the same time, now that early entry was over).
I was getting RULL NERVY though because the sky had darkened and I swear I felt a few raindrops. I have only ridden Steve twice before and BOTH TIMES it broke down while I was in line. So I was like please let’s not make this a threepeat.
Oh good lord, this ride. It almost makes me want to understand physics and engineering, etc etc numbers and nerds.
Henry and Chooch went on the drop tower thingie which is basically the one ride that I will not ride at any park unless super-pressed because I find them unenjoyable. Besides, I thought it was funny that this was some weird FATHER/SON ride experience because when do they ever.
They were assigned seats and we supposed to sit together in a two-seat grouping but some old dude decided he was going to sit there so they ended up having to split up and Henry was really angry about this for a while even after they got off the dumb ride. I was watching it all unfold and it was pretty dumb. I guess the guy even asked Chooch if he wanted to sit with his dad and Chooch was like “Yeah…” and the guy was like “oh well” and pulled down his restraint lol the audacity.
Oh yeah! Chooch and I rode the antique cars while Henry waited for the Bosco Sticks cart to open. We have been trying to eat a fucking Bosco Stick since 2019 when Carrie was like, “You have to eat a Bosco Stick, they are my favorite things and we can’t be friends anymore if you don’t eat one.” We tried the day before but THEY CLOSED LITERALLY AS WE WERE GETTING INTO LINE. This time, they hadn’t opened yet because the cashier hadn’t showed up. So Chooch and I rode Sky Hawk (their version of Kennywood’s Swing Shot) and then the antique cars.
Here you can see Steve hulking in the distance like a dream boat.
Um, and here’s Henry hulking in the distance like a…nightmare barge.
Henry’s phone takes the worst pictures.
STEVE <3
Anyway we gave up on Bosco Sticks after this because who has time to wait for some mysterious cashier, you know?
Besides, Chooch had an appointment to get bit by a goose.
Literally.
“He didn’t bite me, I was feeding him!” he yelled later when he saw that I had tweeted about it.
“Yeah, feeding him your finger,” I verbally shrugged.
We got Dippin’ Dots instead of Bosco Sticks (we knew we were leaving around 2 and stopping for lunch so we just wanted something snack-ish) and I started dwelling on the fact that Dippin’ Dots are still around. Like, who would have thought their novelty was this long-lasting? It’s fairly incredible.
Back when I was super into writing fake poetry in high school, I even wrote a poem about it called DIP DIP DIPPIN’ DOTS. It was part of my KENNYWOOD SERIES. MAYBE I WILL POST SOME OF THEM ON HERE SOMETIME BECAUSE I STILL HAVE THEM PRINTED OUT IN A BINDER I KNOW YOU ARE SHOCKED.
In line for our beloved Spaghetti Noodle. I want to get one of those shirts made that have like a list of names on it – I don’t know what the origin is behind those, but for instance you might see one that says:
Ross &
Rachel &
Phoebe &
Monica &
Joey &
Chandler
You know what I mean? Those rando shirts? I want to make one that has our Cedar Point roller coaster nicknames on it.
Millie &
Steve &
Spaghetti Noodle &
…Maggie?
I dunno, I just made that last one up because I feel like I would want at least four names on it and we sure do love Magnum.
But yeah Spaghetti Noodle is fantastic and so underrated. This was actually the first time we had to wait in line and it was still only about 10 minutes, if even that. I busted my hand really hard getting into the queue for the front row though. I hit off the clasp (?) of the gate when I spun around while walking to say something to Chooch. The top of my hand hit it real hard and it didn’t break skin but it did something bigly to something underneath, that’s for sure, because I couldn’t make a fist for the rest of the day and it was, some might say, TENDER. I was worried I chipped a bone or something. I mean, I hit that thing so hard that it actually undid the lock and the gate swung open (it was the employee gate to get on the other side of the queues) and it made such a loud bang that I’m shocked no one bothered to even look over to see what the hell my dumb ass had done.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, it still feels kind of TENDER.
That was the last ride we rode that day. Then Chooch wasted money on basketball games and a CP hoodie, and we left. :(
Seriously, this trip completely redeemed CP for me and it’s actually one of my favorite parks now. Everyday I have been whining, “When are we going back to Cedar Point??” and I know we will probably go back at least one more time this season, but hopefully more! It was really nice to have gotten all of the coaster credits out of the way (minus the kiddie ones) and actually slow down the pace a bit, ride some flat rides, and enjoy the scenery!
UNTIL NEXT TIME, CP. I MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY.
P.S. The next day at work, I messaged Carrie and told her that I still haven’t been able to stick a fucking Bosco Stick in my mouth and she was like, “Do you mean cheese on a stick?” BECAUSE THAT IS HER FAVE THING TO EAT AT CEDAR POINT NOT BOSCO STICKS. I have no idea how I got it in my head that it was Bosco Sticks, and HILARIOUSLY we were at the cheese on a stick place for a hot second while Chooch was thinking about what snack he wanted.
Then last weekend I was looking at the menu of some restaurant about an hour away and THEY HAVE BOSCO STICKS. I feel attacked.