Roller Coaster Trip August 2025 - Cedar Point

After the trip to King’s Island we drove for a little over an hour and stayed at a Best Western outside of Columbus, OH. This would make the ride to Cedar Point the next day about two hours. We showered, slept, and ate some food at the sad breakfast they provided. We stopped and got gas and I got a drink where the lady behind the desk called me “Honey”. You see, Ohio is the south.

When we arrived in the ‘heart-o-Sandusky’ Matthew’s phone was still navigating and playing music so I used my gold pass to get in the partk. We parked by one of the watch towers and headed toward the gate. Almost an hour after opening and they only had one security line open so it snaked to the parking lot and almost to the other security area.

Once we were hurded through security and the main gate we headed to Siren’s Curse. Nothing like starting your day with a 75 minute estimated wait. The new ride has more theming than just about any ride in the park but largely amounts to junk scattered around and red paint simulating rust on some metal parts. There is not much shade to speak of so we spent much of this time standing in the sun on a cloudless August day.

About halfway through the wait time the ride was closed for maintenance which took about fifteen minutes. Many people ahead of us left, so much so we probably recovered ten minutes of the delay due to leavers.

This is the second ride, after Steel Vengeance, to introduce queue lockers and metal detectors. It doesn’t really slow anything down and you don’t have to worry about people sneaking things onto the ride which I actually like.

Siren’s Curse is a tilt coaster ¹ the first of its kind at Cedar Point and the first I’ve been on. It looks like a long time from the ground but the tilt element actually goes quite quickly when you’re in it. From there the ride is incredibly smooth and has some great inversions and airtime hills during its short run time. It’s a fun ride and I look forward to riding it again hopefully with a shorter wait time.

Next we headed to Top Thrill 2 which required placing everything in lockers before entering the 45 minute queue. I’m not a fan of this setup especially if the wait time is this long. There was quite a bit more shade on this queue which was nice.

This new incarnation has new cars and a powered rollback mechanic that is a fun addition. First it shoots you forward and you don’t go over the hill, then you roll back with speed increasing to the second hill where you reach the top and hang for a bit before you descend, having your speed boosted again but just enough to clear the main hill for a twisting 90 degree descent. It’s still over quite quickly but this extra step and the new restraints really help with the experience.

By now it was 2PM and we had ridden two rides so we decided to have something to eat. We ended up walking back toward the front and grabbing some pizza in an air conditioned restaurant.

Next we headed to Matthew’s favorite ride the Millennium Force. This ride was a first of its kind 25 years ago and it is still just so good. Back in the day the station queue maintenance was terrible and everyone would just cram in there and jockey for the lines. It’s not like that anymore, which is good, but it also means you don’t get to listen to this song nearly long enough.

It was almost 4PM at this point and I think we just wanted to pad out the day a little bit so we rode the Rougarou. There was no line basically with us just having to wait for one train to get on before we could ride. I get why as they’ve replaced the bicycle seats from the Mantis with pull down restraints that box your ears. The ride itself is interesting enough but it still requires some defensive riding.

We were heading toward the front and seeing what we could ride so we went to see the wait time on Valraven. It was 60 minutes and a pass from us. I don’t think we’re ever going to enjoy this ride after waiting over three hours when it first came out. Mistakes were made.

The wait times here seemed to be increased due to the Raptor being down. It seems to be down every time I’m there now but that could just be coincidence. This also seemed to impact Blue Streak which is also right there.

Despite the 20 minute wait to ride the Blue Streak we committed to the queue. Matthew was under the impression that like Racer the Blue Streak had been updated. This does not appear to be the case and it was not the best ride. It’s a shame that this ride hasn’t had the maintenance it needs. I hope they keep it around and give it a similar treatment to Racer.

Now it was almost 4:30PM and we were planning on leaving by around 5PM. For one last ride we queued up for an estimated 45 minute wait for GateKeeper. Luckily the line did not take that long. I feel like GateKeeper is underrated as I always enjoy it. It’s not the tallest, fastest, etc but it is a solid fun ride. If we had time I would have liked to ride once on the other side of this winged coaster ².

As is roller coaster trip tradition we stopped at Mexican Village on the way home. I got the Trio Enchiladas, Matthew got The Arizonian, and we both got Fried Icecream. Delicious!

This is day 49 of #100DaysToOffload.