Cedar Point - Review

Cedar Point has been voted the best amusement park in the world by roller coaster enthusiasts for 10 years in a row and it seems to be many peoples favorite park, and on paper it is easy to see why - the park has the largest collection of roller coasters in any amusement park (sometimes outdone or equaled by Six Flags Magic Mountain in California), as well as the largest selection of rides in an amusement park (previously beaten by Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey). However, it is not just the rides and coasters that have made this park so popular, other contributing factors include enthusiastic staff that not only do a good job at dispatching trains but also do their best to hype the ride by reeling off the rides stats, but also asking riders 'how was your ride?'

The park is located on a peninsular of Lake Erie and is part of a resort, which includes the separate admission parks Soak City Water Park, and Challenge Park. The resort also comprises of several hotels and restaurants. The amusement park itself is huge and consists of a large midway and then a loop at the end. The park is an amusement park and not a theme park so it is not divided up into themed lands, with the exception of the kiddie areas, of which the park has three, with Planet Snoopy being the latest addition in 2008. Some amusement parks do have a lot of themed rides but Cedar Point is not one of them, the Frontier Trail area of the park is probably the only real themed area and is also the best landscaped area of the park. The park does have flowers and trees, but due to the large midways it does give more of a concrete feel in some areas. Most people probably don't care about this, but I myself do like parks to be nicely landscaped with trees and shrubs, for one it provides shade on sunny days, but also makes standing in line a lot less boring, and makes walking around the park more pleasant.

Cedar Point gets extremely crowded during the summer and weekends, even on so called quiet days the park is busy, but due the fact they usually run rides with maximum trains and the staff work hard to dispatch trains quickly the lines at least move. The park has always been spotlessly clean on my visits, and I've never had any problems with line jumpers or people smoking in prohibited areas such as lines. The food is very overpriced here; it is even dearer that Disney and Universal, and the service is often slow as well. Some things to note are that you get your parking refunded if you spend over a certain amount in a sit-down restaurant (please check beforehand), and if you stay in one of the resort hotels or have a Platinum Pass (not the normal seasons pass) you get into the park an hour early and get to ride several designated rides (such as Millennium Force and Maverick) before the park opens to the rest of the pubic at 10am.

Now for my opinions on the park. The first time I visited was in 2000 the year Millennium Force opened; this marked the beginning of me being a roller coaster enthusiast, where I had actually planned a trip to visit several theme parks whilst on vacation. With Cedar Point being regarded as the best amusement park in the world I was excited about my visit; unfortunately it did not live up to its reputation. I visited in May and the park was packed, I'm talking about 2 hour plus lines for major attractions and even 30 minutes waits for the mine train. Everyone had come to the park to ride Millennium Force which turned out to be closed all day, despite them posting outside it would open at midday. I tried to enjoy the rest of the park, but in all honesty the other roller coasters were not much to write home about.

In 2001 I returned and attended Coastermania (an event for roller coaster enthusiasts), this was a good visit and I finally got to ride Millennium Force and had decent rides on Raptor and Magnum which I was not impressed with on my first visit. However, it rained a lot of the day, which did keep the crowds down but made the rides less enjoyable. My next visit was for Coastermania in 2002 and what did I find - the new roller coaster for the year, Wicked Twister was closed all day. Again in 2003 I visited, this time Top Thrill Dragster was closed, and this was becoming a bit of a joke. Am I just unlucky or does Cedar Point have a maintenance problem (at least with their Intamin coasters?) How can roller coaster enthusiasts criticize other parks (usually Six Flags) for having rides closed, yet no one bats an eyelid when Cedar Point does? This time round I decided I would have to complain, it was not posted outside that Dragster was closed and I thought I would rather come back the next day when it has been fixed. I asked for a refund and was not given one, I was told to go and enjoy our 15 other roller coasters - oh you mean the ones I have ridden numerous times before and I'm not really crazy about anyway? He called security, and believe me even a woman waiting at guest services said she couldn't believe he did that, I was not aggressive or anything. I am sorry but to me that was just pathetic. I said 'you are supposed to be the world's number one amusement park how can you treat guests like this?' 'We are the world's number one amusement park' he replied. So I left the park after 1 hour 30 minutes, what a waste of $40, but I went to Six Flags instead and had a much better time until they had a power outage.

I understand all parks can have problems with new rides, but the attitude of customer services, and this was a manager I spoke to was appalling, his attitude was 'we are no.1 how dare you complain or disagree, we've got you're money, have a nice day.' Not only him, but some of the ride operators are very abrupt and rude and made me feel like I was in a concentration camp. When I left I met up with two other members of my party and all three of us had a bad experience that day and vowed never to return.

Well, it's now and I have just left the park after a two day visit and I am pleased to say that I finally got the good visit I deserved. There were still maintenance issues at the park, with several coasters being down throughout the day (Maverick, Dragster, Wicked Twister, Blue Streak, and Raptor), but I got to ride every coaster except Wildcat. I want to like this park so much because it is so big has so many rides and several great roller coasters, but I can never forget my past experiences and how I was burned. I think what makes it worse is the reputation this park has and has failed to deliver to me.