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Cedar Point – Coaster Kings’ First Visit!

Alexander: Welcome to a very special Coaster Kings update: our first official visit to Cedar Point (I visited in 2003, 2012, but this was Sean’s first time). We had mixed expectations for the park, but we ended up having an excellent time!

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We’ve arrived! Let’s MOVE! Lots of ground to cover in the next 2 days!

RIP to the credit we were forced to leave on the table. Intamin’s first solo design project, no less!

Everyone enjoyed Woodstock Express (also, we only photographed the screens because there was no staff and nowhere to scan PhotoPass).

Gemini! A proud, incredibly smooth Arrow! Crowds were so light, however, that we only rode the red side. We’ll have to come back for blue!

Everyone say “hi” to the Ohio Coaster Kings crew: Jimmy, Cassie, and Intern Iron Dragon!

If you know us, you might be curious about our take on Steel Vengeance. We’re not exactly the biggest Iron Horse fans, but we’ve much love for Alan Schilke, who’s responsible for some of our absolute favorite coasters (Outlaw Run, Lightning Rod, Tennessee Tornado, X2, and Eejanaika).

Our verdict is that Steel Vengeance is certainly the RMC Cedar Point deserves – massive, impressive, crowd-pleasing all around – however, it’s only our 3rd favorite RMC and our third favorite at Cedar Point. 

To be honest with you, we don’t even think Steel Vengeance is the best coaster in Frontier Town – that title belongs to the exquisite, greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts Maverick.

Nevertheless, we’re big fans of SteVe – in all its forms.

Millennium Force, however, remains a resounding disappointment. Even with low expectations (per my 2012 rides), I found the ride a sluggish waste. We can’t help but feel like the ride fails to achieve anywhere near its potential from both a design and execution standpoint.

Alternatively, Rougarou was a tremendous shock in a positive way. It was the most pleasant surprise of our visit, and certainly a Top 5 Cedar Point ride in our book. 

Echoes of 90s heydey B&M greatness are rivaled only the neo-floorless coaster’s mighty roar.

Jimmy and Cassie insisted that we visit MELT, an Ohio institution with a new location here at Cedar Point. We were not disappointed – the food and atmosphere make this an absolute must for all Cedar Point visits. Extra points for multipule hearty veg/vegan options!

After 3 visits, Raptor finally felt like the hype. There’s a lot of quirk here – glimmers of a young B&M still figuring themselves out (a la Kumba).

Blue Streak is sorta just there; it checks a box, and that’s about it. We take comfort in the ride being a much stronger performer than Dorney’s Thunderhawk, but it fails to impress on the same level as its fraternal twin, Lake Winnie’s Cannonball. 

Valravn is utter trash. We don’t know what wrong here, but honestly we were horrified. The trains. The pacing. The tracking. The layout. Everything completely misses the mark. 

Iron Dragon is too gentle for its own good, but there’s a lotta charm there. The silver lining of the ride’s unprecedented mildness is that it will remain much easier to maintain than any other remaining Arrow Suspended. 

Magnum XL-200 is a national treasure. If you know us at all, it should come as no surprise that it shares top billing along with Maverick.

Top Thrill Dragster is a slight disappointment. We’re accustomed to Xcelerator’s outstanding launch, and, believe it or not, we found our Kingda Ka rides a few weeks ago more thrilling. The front row of TTD has dysmal leg room, so we didn’t even bother.

Seriously though, Iron Dragon is unironically the better ride in this picture. 

Corkscrew is cute but is a bit light on substance. Also the park refused to load the last three vehicles, so no coveted backseat ride for us.

#stillbetterthanvalravn

Wicked Twister still slaps. The launches are strong, the Gs are great, and views are stellar.

The next biggest surprise behind Rougarou was Gatekeeper.

Contrary to what we constantly hear, we believe Gatekeeper is an exemplary wing coaster. A great series of elements, strong pacing, good forces, etc.

After 1.5 days of gloomy weather, mother nature put on a good show for us.

We were already leaving the park, but we took the opportunity to do a quick photo tour of the resort.

SteVe is here to impress, wether you’re onboard or off ride.

Since it’s basically impossible to take pictures of Magnum from the park, we couldn’t help but hit up the resort area for some better views!

The parking lot around Cedar Point Shores definitely delievered.

There’s even some bonus Steel Vengeance views!

I think the biggest issue with SteVe is that, after a while, the ride stops doing anything “new.” After the 3rd inversion, the ride fails to actually improve or expound on anything it’s already done, but instead, retreads the standard RCM moves again and again.

It’s not to say that we don’t love a good bunny-hop return; Magnum, for example, gives us exacly what we want from a ride: every second feels like a necessary moment of the experience. 

The pretzel is full of Arrow quirkiness, the first hills have great dimensions, and the airtime hills on the return get stronger and stronger as riders approach the station.

Shoutout to all that extra track bracing they had to add after it opened!

Here’s the fav picture of the trip. Foliage, nature, and Magnum take their rightful places in the foreground.

The afternoon sun was quite helpful in making these colors pop!

This begs the question: how can trains be going out half-empty on THE BEST RIDE HERE???

Especially THE BEST SEAT, which is the front row of the last car.

Hot take: Magnum is bigger than Dragster (figuratively and also literally…?)

If you ever hear me talking about “going to the beach,” I probably mean “standing in the sand under Magnum to take pictres.”

Also, God Bless this rolling stock that unapolagetically looks like an Arrow Mine Train crossed with a Stormtrooper.

I don’t know what Arrow’s fascination with dashboards was all about, but Arrow Hyper trains give zero f’s about obstructing that front row view. At least Magnum‘s prismatic nose ornament was transparent at one time. 

Such an iconic look. The only other example of this train style was Titan V at Space World in Japan. The entire park was demolished in 2018, but not before junking the Arrow trains and running knock-offs on Titan for a few years. Pity.

Honestly, the forecast for the other Arrow Hypers isn’t great either. Pepsi Max Big One in Blackpool suffers from more than its fair share of functionality issues, and Desperado is practically wasting away in the Nevada desert.

Fortunately Magnum’s outlook is a lot brighter. Great park, loving fans, adequate maintenance budget, etc.

SteVe may be the most popular hyper at Cedar Point now, but Magnum will always be OG bae!

In other news, Windseeker tested for 2 days straight but never actually opened.

Alright! Just a little more pretzel appreciaton before we go.

Fair thee well, glorious Magnum XL-200!

Bye-bye Cedar Point! Thanks for the great time! We’ll be back soon!

That concludes our Cedar Point update! Stay tuned for more updates from across America and around the World! It’s summer theme park season! For now check out these recent updates and reports:

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