Goodbye Cedar Point

With our season tickets itching to be used again,  and Stephen desperate to get every possible moment of ride time available, we had breakfast (muffins from Perkins again), packed the cases, loaded the car and we're back at park entrance for 9am.  With the plan to be out of the park before 11 we started at the front of the park with a final ride on Gatekeeper, we missed Valravn because of the queue, did Millennium Force, then off to the back of the park for Stephen's favourite, Maverick, before one final ride on Top Thrill Dragster.

Although it was tempting to keep riding, we sadly said goodbye to Cedar Point and headed east to Cleveland, about an hour away.

The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame stands right beside lake Erie,  between the Chicago Bears NFL stadium and Burke Lakefront Airport, which today had an airshow so lots of military aircraft flying very low across the city.

Keith, Sarah and I could have spent quite a while visiting get the exhibits and watching the documentaries and videos in the hall of fame.  An eclectic mix of memorabilia from a whole range of musical eras, including The Hollies, Elvis, Otis Redding, The Supreme,  Madonna, Deep Purple, lady gaga and Taylor Swift.

Leaving the city of Cleveland we headed on eastwards.  Our initial plan had been to stop for a late lunch check picnic at a park called Waldameer to ride their wooden coaster, but with our early ride session at cedar point making us later than intended we gave it a miss, grabbed some sandwiches at a gas station and arrived at the border crossing of Rainbow Bridge at about 7pm.  The crossing back into Canada was less stressful than our American entry and we were on our way within a few minutes. 

We had booked a guesthouse for our Niagara Stay.  Grandview Manor overlooks the Niagara Gorge.  As well as onsite rooms it also has a 4bed house just behind the main guesthouse which is where we had booked.  It was lovely and clean and peaceful away from the main Niagara tourist hub.  Sarah and Stephen had initial reservations as it was quite old and in their words "like something out of scooby doo".

We drove into the tourist area to find Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  Keith wanted a bloomin onion!

Keith and Stephen then had a chicken main course while Sarah and I had steak and ribs.

Cedar Point day 3

The park today seemed slightly quieter than yesterday and we rode all we wanted to with relative ease.

We took a break again mid afternoon and like yesterday had a late lunch/early dinner although Keith wasn't feeling great during the afternoon so had a snooze while the rest of us ate.  He also didn't do much riding on our return to the park so we took the camera back in with us.

Twister

 

Raptor

from the sky ride

Millenium Force

Magnum XL220

Power Tower

Iron Dragon

Valravn

Rougarou

 

Millenium Force

Blue Streak

Raptor

Twister

Maverick

 

Stephens favourite ride was Maverick

Rougarou

Highlight of the day - Sarah and I next in line to ride Top Thrill Dragster when the car in front didn't make it over the hill and had a roll back!   We were so excited!  Big cheers on the station and lots of clapping when the relaunch just made it over.  Down side to this was a fault occurred on the next car and they shut the ride for a short while. We left the queue to go and do other rides.

General thoughts about Cedar Point.

Coasters  - all seemed very well maintained, most ran smoothly and all looked in good condition with bright paint work.  Everything was operating that we wanted to go on. I think the only the not open was the log flume.  All rides were riding with multiple trains despite the short queues.

Staff were amazing, all smiled and greeted you as you passed them.  Some were exceptional with great conversation and helpful advice.  There also appeared to be a great rapport between the team members on each ride.

The park was very clean, no rubbish anywhere, even saw the cleaners scrubbing the walkways under trees to get rid of bird poop!  The gardens and flower beds were also beautifully kept.

Park food - expensive.   Took a look at chicken tenders and fries but decided $15.99 plus tax was stupid for one portion.

Hotel food and drink -  Breakers Hotel has a Perkins and TGI Fridays on site.   Perkins opens at 7am, great if you want breakfast, but closed at 8pm, same time as the park closed!  TGI ended up very busy as the only eatery in the hotel open after the park closed.   There was also a Starbucks, but this closed at 8pm too. There is a small bar open til late but there was nowhere in the hotel to get hot drinks after 8pm, not even a vending marine  - as tea drinkers this was not great.  Although the room had a fridge and microwave, there was no kettle or even cups to put in the microwave, or any other utensils.  I did ask/moan at reception but was told as they had signed a deal with Starbucks they weren't allowed to offer tea/coffee making facilities. I think I may be writing to them about this!

Funpix - had ordered this prior to visit - meant that all ride photos during our stay were stored digitally for download when we get home.  With individual ride photo costing $15, $40 for the pass seemed very reasonable.

Low crowds - so much better than expected, had assumed we would be queued for most rides so bonus not having to buy fast passes.

Hotel room - we had a lake view suite, bedroom with 2 doubles beds and lounge with kitchenette, sofa bed and small balcony plus bathroom. Whilst neither room was huge they were sufficient.  Everything was clean, fresh and modern.

Some of our FunPix photos ...

Cedar Point day 2

America's Roller coaster capital.  What can I say, we have rattled and soared, climbed and dived through many different roller coasters today.

After a breakfast of crackers, cheese and ham, plus some cheesecake we smothered ourselves with  suncream ready for the forecast scorcher of a day of high 80s.

Hotel guests and pass holders get an extra hour on certain rides so we were at the gate and  ready to go at 8.55.  The first hour the queues were non existent, literally up to the station and on the next ride.  This only changed slightly through the day, most rides were 5 or 10 minutes wait from the station entrance the only exceptions were Valravn, their newest ride, and Maverick which both regularly had wait times of about half an hour.  I had expected to buy fast passes to enable us to ride all the coasters we wanted today but that was totally unnecessary and I'm glad I hadn't pre-ordered.

Stephen had a plan of attack and armed with our funpix photopass we headed for Gatekeeper.  No queue so 3 rides later and we were off to a great start and off to find more coasters, not difficult here as everywhere you look there is track and speeding coaster cars.

Gatekeeper

Valravn

Valravn was soon done with a short queue wait and then it was time to face the one we were all a little nervous about, Top Thrill Dragster! 420ft high and 0-120mph in .8 seconds.

What an awesome ride! Loved it. 

Me and a very happy son 5 rows back on TTD

 Video of Hubby (row 6, blue shirt) having his turn!

 

We took a break mid afternoon, the heat was draining and we headed back to the hotel for a rest.  Having seen how busy the hotel restaurants had been the night before we decided to have lunch in Perkins and maybe a snack later.  Keith and Stephen ordered breakfasts while Sarah and I sandwiches and fries.

Ready for more coasters, we walked the 5 mins back to the hotel park entrance and kept on riding.  No idea how many we did and re-did, but the park closed at 8 and we were shattered.

Another day of coasters tomorrow.