Day 7

Day 7 would take us back to Cedar Point where a huge chunk of the day would be spent. From there we'd undertake a drive around Lake Erie crossing the border in Detroit into Canada.

Rather than park in the main car park we chose to drive around the park into the water park car park. There is an entrance here at the foot of Magnum's lift hill that gets you much closer to Steel Vengeance than the main entrance does, and as we were wanting to maximise the exclusive ride time that comes with the pass it was a clever move.

That's Gemini, their racing wood/steel hybrid coaster.

Can it be called "Exclusive Ride Time" if there's so many people all wanting it? All of these people had the same plan as us, get Steel Vengeance out of the way quickly.

The ride has been built to expect queue times of up to 6 hours, such is the rides popularity and poor throughput currently. That was not appealing at all hence the reason for getting it early. One thing I did notice was that during the exclusive period they were not operating the fast pass and the queue went significantly quicker without it, which is to be expected. But it got me thinking maybe the overall experience would be better if they dropped it. We didn't have 6 hour queues, ours were more like just over an hour, however the fast pass queue wasn't fast at all, it was at least 20 minutes. I can only assume the revenue they get from it is just cause; it's definitely not the right thing for those that buy it. 

and when you see this you know that they've got their priorities wrong :)

Grumble aside, the ride was incredibly good again but the airtime induced thigh into lap bar pain was there again. I also got caught out by one of those blind turns, this time being the one going into the mid-course brake section.

From Steel Vengeance it was back onto Maverick, this time without the luxury of having an empty queue line as we did the night before.

Usually this is a sign that there's a bad ride coming, but this sign is a hangover from a year or so ago when the ride underwent a change replacing the hard over the shoulder restraints with new softer ones.

So much better! This ride is so much fun and my favourite in the park.

Not the biggest, but the most fun.

The park does have little pockets of theming but for the most part it's just a lot of rides on a large strip of land.

Millennium Force

Last time I rode this, it was a stand-up coaster called Mantis, a tired ride that looked to be on its way out. Well the standup bit went, as they replaced it with a floorless train and renamed it with the odd moniker Rougarou which is the name for a werewolf in Louisiana-French culture, this is the same etymology as Loop Garou, a coaster in Europe that I always thought had a bad name as it doesn't have a loop. 

The ride has definitely had a resurgence following the change and it would be a standout ride in most other parks but is massively overshadowed by the other rides here.

Iron Dragon, or Dragging Iron as we nicknamed it on our previous trip, has also had some investment to keep it exciting. The park have chosen to add a VR experience to it. I didn't bother riding it in either guise. 

A slightly clearer photo of Valravn. It looks impressive, I'll give them that.

The obligatory Diner shot.

The Derby Racer ride is one of only 3 left in the world (the others being in Rye Playland and Blackpool). This is a larger, faster carousel where the horses also move back and forth giving more of a race experience. I came back here a few times through the day, as well as being a fun-ride it also had shade! Yes, it was another hot day.

Shade also came from the arcade hall, which has a decent pinball selection on its back wall.

Wicked Twister is a fun launched coaster but not one that I could ride on this trip. Despite getting the click on the restraint we couldn't get the secondary strap to fasten. It looks like in an attempt to save costs, rather than replace the belts when they get frayed, they've been trimming them resulting in them being not as forgiving as they should be. Ah well... 

Lots of shots taken from the big wheel, which I couldn't ride alone (too much of a suicide risk supposedly) so I was partnered up with an American couple. As well as chatting about my accent and whether it was me who had one or them, I managed to get some OK photos of the rides down this side of the park. As much as I don't like duplication they could really benefit from having a second wheel at the back of the park to be able to get similar photos up there.

Gemini doesn't always run both sides. They did today and the same side always seemed to win.

Obligatory need to ride the wave disko.

More photos of Steel Vengeance.

The park has a museum in which someone has built an incredible working model of Steel Vengeance.

This is a model of Mean Streak, the original ride on which SV was built.

The museum was a nice addition to the park, I sat and watched the video showing the history of the park. I say "watched" but it was like "fell asleep to". Look, it was hot and a very tiring trip!

The water splash

Maverick was having pockets of downtime through the day.

The mine train, which I didn't ride but remember having a very sarcastic ride op when I last rode it.

Clearly popular entertainment. Instead of circus shows we saw at the Kings Park, the entertainment here is more focused to music revues. I think given the heaving mass of a crowd they might want to rethink this strategy. Even if they do play both kinds of music (country and western) it's clearly not much of a draw, more so when you remember they're playing in a shaded venue. I guess people would much prefer to be out burning in the sun and sweating buckets than listening to this.

Lots more Steel Vengeance.

Catching some of the Dragster launches.

Raptor again.

So, that was Cedar Point and I have to say I'm glad I had nothing to chase on the second day. I was able to have a much more sedate relaxing day just enjoying the park and doing the things I wanted to do, not the things I needed to do.

Our drive to Detroit was uneventful and the border crossing was incredibly straightforward. I'd planned for 30 minutes but we 30 seconds may have been more accurate. It left us a little more time in our hotel which I'd chosen on the Canadian side so we had a nice view of the Detroit skyline and to set us up nicely for the next day.

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