Julie's Vacation on a Stick Photo TR- Day 1

USRoadTripper · July 25, 2005

All the photos for this day can be seen on my website at:

http://www.fyabulous.com/onastick/cedarpoint1.html

Sunday, July 10th, 2005

On the 9th, I'd worked overnight at my hotel. When I left, I made myself stay awake until about 5:00pm that night (had been awake for about 30 hours at that point) so I'd be extremely tired and could get a full night of sleep before waking up early for my trip. After finishing up some last minute packing, I hit the bed at 5:00pm and woke up at 1:30am, having had 8 1/2 hours of sleep. Believe me, it's so rare to get that much sleep before a trip, but I was so glad that I had. I threw my stuff into the car, said bye to my kitties, and left Nashville at 2:47am.

I was in Cincinnati by sunrise, and stopped at a Frisch's Big Boy in Sharonville for breakfast. I had a egg and cheese biscuit and potatoes...and it was very good. My first time to a Big Boy was great! The rest of the drive was quite uneventful...I took a small highway to get to Sandusky, which wasn't too bad except that at one point, I made probably a dozen turns just to get into and out of this one small town!

About a week prior to the trip, my friend Kevin from Orillia, ON decided to join me for my days at Cedar Point. He's one of my favorite coaster buddies, so it was awesome to have some good company for the Cedar Point part of the trip. He'd arrived the previous morning and spent the day at Geauga Lake, and was planning on getting to Cedar Point by park opening on the 10th. I spent some time on the phone with him on and off deciding where to meet and all, and I also ultimately decided to check into my hotel before meeting him.

Once I got to Sandusky, I got turned around a bit trying to find Maples Motel, but I eventually found it. This hotel had come highly recommended on rec.roller-coaster, and it seemed ok...older, but quaint I guess. And Joan, the owner, was really friendly while I checked in. With my key in hand, I headed out to the park. It was very easy to find, and I thought it was really cool that one second you are just driving on this road...then you pass some trees, and there's Cedar Point off in the distance! It seems to come out of nowhere!

I quickly parked and headed into the park for the first time around 1:00pm. I was meeting Kevin at Johnny Rockets, and found him easily once I was in that area. I was so excited to be there that I said we needed to immediately run for a coaster and get my trip started!

Disaster Transport was the first coaster of my trip (he'd gotten there at park opening so he'd already done a couple of rides, but had purposely left Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster to ride with me). We had about a 15 minute wait or so, which was good because it gave us a chance to catch up with each other and soak in a little bit more air conditioning. The ride was great...the only other one I'd ridden was Screamin' Delta Demon at Opryland and had loved it, so Disaster Transport did not disappoint. Credit #90.

Next we went to Blue Streak, which had a one train wait. Is this a Sunday at Cedar Point, seriously? The ride was great, and kept both of us screaming and laughing. Credit #91.

As we passed Cedar Downs, we decided to ride it since it was loading, and since it was a unique ride. It was very cute...sort of like a carousel, but with race horses that actually move forward and back, one taking the lead and then another. It was a very fun ride, and we had a great time trying to see who was going to end up ahead (I won!).

We meandered our way around to Iron Dragon next, which also had almost no wait. This ride was kind of a let down for both of us. The first half was really slow, with minimal swinging and thrilling elements. The second half was better though, as it picked up some speed and some forces. Still overall, it wasn't that great. It was ok, but we'd already ridden better. Credit #92. After that we hopped over to Wildcat, which had maybe a 5 minute wait. This was a great mouse...no painful laterals, and lots of fun curves and hills. Credit #93.

We tried to get on Mantis but it was down temporarily, so we wandered toward the back of the park. We found a great store where everything was 35% off, so I decided to get a hat, at Kevin's urging, to keep he sun off my face. Kevin also found a "Seahorse on a stick" and "S&M Lioness on a Stick" which we both got a good laugh out of. We'd joked at length earlier about cheese on a stick, then seahorse on a stick...so when I found a stick laying on the counter by a register, I took the opportunity to make "Hula Girl on a Stick." We also joked that the only "on a stick" item we hadn't found yet was "Stick on a stick." The employees must have thought we were truly nuts.

With hat on head, we rode Mean Streak next. Wow...what a rough pile of wood. This was one pelvis-breaking, ovary-quaking ride. The ride wouldn't have been half bad if it didn't try to shake itself to splinters on every drop. I got a hefty blow to the stomach from the restraint as we entered the break run...definitely not a coaster I ever care to repeat. But still, it was credit #94.

Next was Gemini, which Kevin had already ridden earlier in the day. He described it as a "starter coaster" but I had to disagree! This was a fantastic ride, but quite a bit more intense than a coaster newbie might like. There were great drops, wonderful floater air, and it was really smooth for a coaster of it's age. We rode the red side, then blue...and I don't want any lip about counting this as two coasters! Red tried to eat my newly purchased hat when I went down one of the hills, but I caught it and held onto it tightly for the rest of the rides. I was surprised at how much I liked Gemini, and figured it would be one of the sleeper hits of the trip (which it was!). Credits #95 and #96.

Since Woodstock Express was right next door, we hopped onto it for a front seat ride in the engine of the train! Woo! haha I left my hat on since it was a kiddie coaster, and wouldn't you know that close to the end, the wind caught it just right and snatched my hat off! Could not believe that of all coasters, it was Woodstock that ate my hat! We were told that they wouldn't be able to retrieve it until after the park closed, so I was out of luck until then. I hadn't even had the hat for an hour...we both got such a good laugh out of it. Credit #97.

At this point the battery in my digital camera went dead, so I don't have any pictures from that night, but we did go back and retake some pictures the next day. We went on the river cruise next, which Kevin had also been on earlier. He said that he'd heard gunfire and gone to investigate haha. It was really funny, and not something I expected to find there. Plus it was a nice way to get off my feet and enjoy the breeze for a while.

Magnum XL-200 was next up, and we both really enjoyed it. It was fast and crazy, though it could stand to be just a tad smoother. In any other park, this coaster would be the star attraction, but here it was at least third from the top, maybe lower! We never got around to riding it again, which is a shame since it was a great coaster. Credit #98.

We were starting to think about dinner at this point since I hadn't eaten since my Big Boy breakfast at probably 7:30 that morning, and it was at least 6:00 by this point. After perusing the map, we decided on Macaronis since it was a sit down place where we could get in from the heat for a bit. It was definitely hot, but it was a pretty dry heat, and there seemed to be lots of breezes from the lake, so it was very tolerable.

On the way to the restaurant, we passed Corkscrew and decided to go ahead and get that credit so we could run straight for Millennium Force after dinner. Honestly, I braced for the worst since this really looked like a headbanger to me...but it wasn't! At all!!! I was truly shocked at how pleasant and smooth this ride was! Can't judge a coaster by it's track I guess Credit #99.

We hopped on the sky buckets so they could deposit us closer to the restaurant, and they were very nostalgic for both of us. Once at Macaronis, we both seemingly drank gallons of water since it was so hot. I got the chicken parmesan and Kev got the spaghetti and meatballs, and both of us really enjoyed our meals. It included a trip to the antipasto bar (read: salad bar) so I loaded up on pasta salad and watermelon. We sat for a quite a while just chatting since we don't get to see each other all that much, and enjoyed soaking up the air conditioning.

When we were done, we decided to go on the Ferris wheel to let dinner settle a bit before heading to Millennium Force. From the Ferris wheel we got a good look at this really RCT looking kiddie raft ride that looked exactly like the RCT rapids ride if you don't add rapids to it! Too cute! As soon as we left the Ferris wheel, we tried to go ride it, but were denied because we didn't have a kid with us :-/

From there, it was off to get my #100 credit! Millennium Force had an hour wait, which we expected, but was ok since dinner wasn't quite settled yet anyway. The wait seemed to go by pretty quickly at least, which was good. Neither of us were very nervous until we were watching how fast the trains climb the lift hill. They really book it! A little more nervousness also hit when we were noticing just how steep the lift hill is. Once the ride actually got going, I was very disappointed by it. It was so fast and the wind was hitting me so hard that it was difficult for me to breathe and keep my eyes open. I had to struggle to breathe through the whole ride, and my eyes were watering from the wind. The ride also had very little airtime. I was expecting it to be similar to Superman: Ride of Steel at SFNE, but it wasn't at all.

When the ride was over, I caught my breath and was ok quickly...until I looked at Kevin and saw that his face was covered in dead bugs!!! I just started laughing hysterically because I had completely not expected him to be assaulted by bugs during the ride! Then he was hysterical because I was hysterical, and we were halfway down the exit ramp before I could even stop laughing enough to catch my breath again. What made it even funnier was that eventhough he was trying to rub them off, he couldn't get them all...which just made me laugh even more! He's such a good sport about my laughing...and he said I didn't have a single bug on me! Go figure!

Once we regained our composure, we headed to Mantis. This wasn't a bad ride, especially as far as stand ups go. It did bang my head really good a couple of times, which was the first time all day that had happened, and the g-forces made my lower legs itch. I still think I prefer Chang by just a hair, but I do put Mantis above Georgia Scorcher. Credit #101.

It was time for the evening laser show thingy, and eventhough I wouldn't have stopped had I been by myself, Kevin wanted to see it, so I obliged. The show was ok...it was random and funny...though much more random than funny! Kevin seemed quite irked by the fact that the last 10 minutes of the show were overbearingly patriotic with no warning (he's Canadian, remember?). And I agree...a small bit of patriotism would have been ok, but there was just too much of it, and it seemed very out of place, and bordering on out of good taste. I mean, I'd just had a fantastic day in the park...and then I'm reminded of the 9/11 tragedy in an almost tear-jerking montage??? Seemed very out of place for a theme park laser show.

At the end of the show, it was just about time to head back to Woodstock the Hat Eating Coaster to retrieve my hat, so we headed off that way. On the way, we passed a sign saying "Butterfinger Milkshakes" so of course, we both had to get on...and it was really really yummy! We ate as we walked, then stopped to play some skee ball and other ticket yielding games.

Once at Woodstock, we joked with the two ride ops about the hat surviving Gemini but not Woodstock. They also convinced us to take one last ride on it, so I jumped in the back and Kevin in the front and we took another lap (this turned out to be the only ride at Cedar Point I rode twice! Too funny!). Once the ride was closed, it took both the ride ops looking, but they finally found the hat! Yay! We thanked them for their help, then headed back to the hotel since everything was closed. Kev drove me to my car since he was parked considerably closer than I was, then he followed me back to Maples Motel.

I'd originally thought it was just gonna be me staying there, so I booked a cabin, which are smaller than the standard hotel rooms. It only had one double bed, but if I was scared to share a bed with Kevin, I wouldn't have invited him to stay with me! So we both had to squish into the double bed. The shower was weird...seemed like a really strong fine mist...but it got us clean, so who cares. When I tried to dry my hair at 1:00am, I blew a fuse, which cut off all the power. We had another good laugh about that...but it was more the fact that that wasn't the first time I'd blown a fuse drying my hair! I also blew one out in the Wigwam Village in Cave City, Kentucky last year hehehe. The night was very comfortable, so we didn't need the fan in the room, so we didn't disturb the owners to reset the breaker.

All seemed ok for a bit...until the trains started. Unbeknownst to us, there were train tracks probably 80-100 feet in front of our room, which yielded ungodly loud trains about every 20 minutes or so all night long. We both woke up for petty much every train since they were basically rattling the walls of the room they were so loud. Neither of us slept very well for being constantly awoken by the deafening train noises. So if you ran a motel, don't you think you should mention this to someone? "By the way, those train tracks there will have trains every 20 minutes while you're tying to sleep." It had to be the single worst night I have ever spent in a hotel. No power, cramped sleeping arrangements and trains!!!