Cedar Point day 1

Breakfast was included at the hotel, so after our fill of sausages, omelette, make your own waffles including blueberry flavoured waffle mix, we loaded the car and set off for Sandusky, home of Cedar Point, Roller coaster capital of USA.

The drive up was mainly interstate but about an hr from our destination we turned of onto smaller on roads.  We drove through lots of farming areas, mostly corn and we think soybeans.  We also passed through some small towns.  Really interesting.

Loved looking at and comparing alll the houses we passed!

 

some of the smaller towns we passed through

 

I just love the barns!

and some of the longest trains I have ever seen!

We stopped of in Sandusky itself for a walk round a mall, Sarah bought a Pittsburgh Steelers NFL shirt.  We decided to stop for lunch before heading to the park so pulled into Dennys.  After filling up on milkshakes - Denny's do some of the best milkshakes - and some toasted sandwiches and fries we were finally on our way to cedar point.

The park is situated on a small peninsula on Lake Erie.  We are staying in the Breakers Hotel, owned by the park and right on the edge of the lake with its own beach. As we drove round the edge of the park Stephen was quite excited, spotting all the coasters and thinking about what to ride first.

view of the park as we approached over the causeway

 

We had booked  a lake view suite and we're allocated one on the 1st floor (or 2nd in America! ) overlooking the kiddie pool, towards the centre of the hotel complex.   Although the rooms weren't huge the were adequate, very clean and comfortable with a small netted balcony.

Hotel from the beach

view over lake and pool from our room

walkway along the beach to one of the park entrances

 

The sofa converted to a bed

We dropped our cases, changed clothes and headed for the park.  We stopped just inside the park at a Fun pass booth to exchange our previous ordered photo pass to get all our ride photos digitally.  Onto the rides and we were thrilled to find everything open and very small queues.  Some rides were walk on.  I decided to be bag lady and photographer for the evening.  The others all managed quite a few rides before the park closed at 8pm, including Magnum xl200, Rougarou and Millennium Force, I also joined them on Iron Dragon and Raptor.

As the park was nearly closing the boys headed back to the hotel while Sarah and I walked round the park taking some photos so I could come in empty handed tomorrow.

Back at the hotel, we freshened up and thought we'd try one of the on site restaurants for a light snacks as we had eaten earlier.  Unfortunately Perkins closed at 8, the same time as the park, hmm seems a bit strange to have a resort restaurant close that early, surely all the guests are in your park til then!   TGI Fridays was, obviously, packed with loads of people waiting, so we ended up in the car heading off the resort and ended up in mcdonalds! Not exactly what we planned but filled a hole. Very disappointed in the food arrangements here, couldn't even get a hot drink as Starbucks closes at 9.  That appears to leave only the bar and nowhere else in the hotel to get a hot drink as that would  be stepping on Starbucks toes!  Seriously!!

An early night was needed to get ready for a busy coaster day.