Millennium Force and Cedar Point Burnout

Still, we got up and made it to the park. We arrived two and half hours before the rides were scheduled to open. I was initially planning to enter the park blindfolded as I had not seen any pictures of Millennium Force. I was going to remain blindfolded until Sean Flaharty and I were heading up the lifthill. As it turned out, Sean and I got separated and I had my doubts about finding him in the crowd. I also didn't want to get trampled as people made a mad dash for the coaster. So I peeked.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!

Millennium Force is cartoonish in its appearance. It is impossibly big! What a sight it is to see it for the first time! It also makes the Cedar Point skyline much more surreal.

Shawn and Steve were awestruck by their first sight of the park. Or were they? I asked Shawn what he thought and he said it was not quite what he expected. I asked him what he was expecting and he answered "I thought it would be bigger." Shawn's a funny guy.

At ten o'clock the gates opened and the expected mad dash for the Force began. For some reason Cindy did not want to join in the rush! She and Shawn strolled along at only a moderate pace the entire way to the ride's entrance. This infuriated Steve and I who kept running for the ride only to turn around and find Shawn and Cindy waaaay back back back in the crowd! We finally resigned ourselves to either leaving them or getting behind them and walking at their pace. Of course we weren't going to leave our friends so we waited and walked behind them.

Sure enough when we finally got to the ride's entrance we saw Sean Flaharty, Tim Melago, Dave Sandborg and gang waaaaaaay up in front of the line. They generously gave up their place in line to join us further back. Thanks, guys! You didn't have to do that! But OH MY GOD IT'S TODD LONG!!! What the heck are you doing here!!! Todd explained that he was William L., the poster who started the roll call for this day! I was *very* happy to see Todd as I was very sorry not to see him at Stark Raven Mad.

Our wait was approximately one hour, and Cindy, Shawn, Dave and Tim opted for a ride in the backseat, while Sean and I, Todd and Steve decided to wait it out and have what would probably be our only ride that day in the front.

It was the slowest moving line I have ever stood in. We very nearly didn't get to wait, as the ride op kept trying to steer us toward row 2. But Todd was adamant, and Sean resorted to shameless begging ("this guy came all the way from Minnesota to have his first ride in the front seat!) The ride op caved and after four more people were allowed to wait, all front seat queuing was denied.

We waited an extra hour and a half. Would the ride be worth it? There sure were a lot of hoots and hollers going on, both in the station and at the exit. As our place in line grew closer to riding time, I actually started getting nervous! Then we saw up close how fast the lift chain pulls the train up the lifthill. I started shaking.

Finally, we board. Both Sean and I were allowed generous amounts of space between the lap bars. YAY!!! This ensured us great airtime, assuming any was to be had. When the chain kicked in and we started barreling our way to the top, we both started screaming - Sean using a bit more profanity than I! When we crested the lifthill Sean said "this doesn't seem like 300.....whoa! WHOA!!! WHOOOAAAAAHH!!!"

You absolutely could not see the bottom of the first drop until you were dangling over and heading down it. The degree is listed as 82, but it truly looked and felt like 90! The drop seemed to last forever, and as loose as our lap bars were, I was *very* tempted to push mine down, I was THAT scared! I found out later that Sean felt the same way! Instead we both pressed our legs harder against the bar and allowed ourselves to be lifted off our seats and DUMPED over the front! We reached the bottom of the drop, then entered the insanely sharp pullout, which nearly inverted me as I was sitting on the right side. Instead I was completely horizontal, facing the ground below me. That turn scared the HELL out of me! Up the third hill we go GO GO WHOOAAHH!!! We were lifted out of seats before we even crested the hill and remained floating all the way down! Both Sean and I looked at each other, our mouths open wide and screaming at the top of our lungs. I watched the early morning testing and it looked like the ride was running slow, but this was fast! Again on the sixth hill we got a major, MAJOR sustained float and again we exchanged looks of shock. Another little bunny hop as the coaster flew past station and this one ejected us out of our seats momentarily! The final overbanked turn put me again at a horizontal position so I turned my body outward and just faced the ground below me! Finally we came roaring into the brakes and WE JUST RODE MILLENNIUM FORCE!!!!

Both of us were out of breath and shaking. This was unquestionably NOT the ride I was expecting! I expected to like it, not LOVE IT!!! And I LOVED IT! This was by far the greatest steel coaster ride I have ever had in my life. Apparently the others who rode in the back weren't all that jazzed about their rides. And Todd and Steve both voluntarily stapled themselves into their lap bars. But Sean and I obviously got the best ride possible under the best riding conditions. And based on that one ride Millennium Force is my new number one.

Boy did that wake me up!

We walked over to Wildcat and shortly met up with the others. We rode Wildcat, then Power Tower. I supposedly screamed like a girl on this ride, which I'm not denying because these turbo drops truly scare me. It is just too high. I don't think I'll be able to ride Valleyfair!'s Power Tower very much this summer, it just scares me too much!

By this time fatigue had again set in and because of this something kind of sad happened. Cedar Point lost its magic. This was only my second time visiting and my first visit was truly magical. But on this day I was truly burnt out. And burnt up! I had a terrible sunburn and my arms developed some kind of allergic reaction to the sun. I got bumps all over them and had to spend the rest of the day walking with my arms behind my back because it hurt so much whenever they made contact with the sun!

We rode several rides which disappointed me - Corkscrew, Iron Dragon, Magnum and Mean Streak. All three of these coasters are in much worse shape than they were three years ago. Prior to getting on Magnum Dave Sandborg warned me "now just so you know, it's a gotten a little rough." A LITTLE! I finally understand what some people were talking about with Desperado and its wheel seats. But this was seat 1.3, what should be a great seat! And this was really not a great ride. Magnum has not only fallen out of my top ten, it's dropped out of my top twenty.

Mean Streak, too, was far worse than it was three years ago, and the brake down the first drop was so severe that the train just barely made it over the second hill! Mean Streak will now reside very near the bottom of my wooden coaster list! Iron Dragon was fun just getting to watch Steve Nuss' expression during the ride! The Iron Dragon shuffle wouldn't look good on a dance floor, and it didn't feel good on a coaster track neither! We found ourselves laughing because it was so shockingly bad!

On the plus side, there were six rides that I truly enjoyed. Millennium Force, Raptor, Blue Streak, Mantis, Gemini, and Disaster Transport. I was thrilled with Blue Streak, since my rides three years ago were distinctly un-impressive, lacking any airtime. These rides, however, were awesome! We rode Blue Streak three times, the only coaster I got repeat rides on.

I did not expect to enjoy Raptor as much as I did! This is a very underrated inverted coaster! The back right seat provides the same intense whipping action you get on Montu. Steve said he wasn't all that crazy about it, but Cindy told me later he was "whoa!"ing all throughout the ride.

During our hour long wait for Mantis, some dopey guy in line saw Steve's Stark Raven Mad shirt and asked him about it. When we told him it was at Holiday World he said "I used to live in Evansville, and I heard that place sucked!" When I asked him what he meant, he said that he heard that all they had were a bunch of kiddie rides and a water park. We all shared our enthusiasm for the park. Then he said "I thought they only had one coaster there." Finally Cindy and I both said something along the lines of "if your only interest is coasters and you don't care how good they are" and "if all you care about is quantity of coasters and not quality, then Holiday World is probably not the best place for you" and he goes "yeah, that place sucks, all I care about is number of coasters."

Before our ride on Mean Streak we said our goodbyes to Sean, Tim and Dave, who were planning to ride MF one last time before leaving the park. Turns out the wait for MF was now up to four hours and while Sean did indeed leave, Tim and Dave ran into Julie Stone and Geoff and decided to stay. I'm glad they did because we all ended the day with a hilarious ride on Disaster Transport. This "theming of the mind" strategy for this ride is outstanding! I really liked Dave's strumming the aluminum walls! The ride itself is a lot of fun, but it was even more fun because we made it that way. We took a picture for posterity outside under the Disaster Transport sign.

Steve wanted to do some shopping, so while he shopped we sat down in the midway and were thoroughly entertained watching a five or six year old boy with a whoopie cushion. This kid blew up the whoopie cushion, scoped out the leaving guests and staked out his next victim. Then he innocently walked up behind them and blasted his whoopie cushion at them right at rear level! The looks of some of the people were just hilarious! One guy turned and looked around with his mouth open and his eyebrows raised like "ooh! Somebody nearby just cut a nasty one!" And every time, that little boy would look up at them with the biggest smile on his face! He must have done this for over half an hour and we were all in hysterics watching him scope out the crowd and blast his next victim from behind!

At this point I was grateful the park had closed. I don't remember feeling quite so burned out at a park before. I love Cedar Point, but it does have a few drawbacks. I like the way it looks, but after spending two days at Holiday World I wish more of the park had that Frontier Trail look. When it comes right down to it, the park is pretty much a concrete and steel jungle. All that walking on concrete in the hot sun, without any trees, is just exhausting.

I also think you need to be *up* for a day at Cedar Point. Part of the goal of visiting Cedar Point is being able to get through all the coasters, and that's not necessarily a good thing. If you're busy trying to get through all the coasters in one day, that can be kind of stressful and take some of the fun out of the experience. You can't really relax until you've done all the coasters at least once, and then it's like you have permission to relax and have fun now. And let's face it, there's a lot of waiting in line at this park. The line for Mantis was an hour, Mean Streak was 45 minutes! And that can be unpleasant if there's not any shade. I was dripping buckets in line for Mantis and I seriously thought I was going to pass out!

Last time, I came to Cedar Point first and stayed for two days. And I felt the same kind of burnout then that I had during this trip after two days at Holiday World. The only difference is that after two days at Cedar Point, I went to Kennywood and had no problem getting "up" for that park, in spite of my exhaustion. On this trip, however, the only thing I could get up for was Millennium Force.

I think both Steve and Shawn were a little disappointed by the park. I'm not sure why, but their comments led me to think they thought it was a bit overhyped. That's not to say they didn't have fun! But I think they were probably a little bit spoiled by the fun times at Holiday World and just exhausted from riding their coasters so many times. Next time I would probably schedule a visit to Cedar Point first. But as much as I loved Millennium Force, I really doubt that next visit will come anytime soon.

Up Next: My Dinner With Todd Long