The hotel has signs on the doors warning guests to keep doors and windows closed in the evenings. Not due to any kind of criminal element, but rather from Mayflies. Apparently, this area's April showers do not bring May flowers, but rather, Mayflies. They are these large mosquito-like things that rise from Lake Erie's warm waters, live for 24 hours, and then drop dead, while sticking to wherever they were at the 24 hour "expiration" time. They said you could see feeding frenzies in the lake as the fish go after them. They also said it's a testament to the good health of the lake. The whole wall of the the convenience store we went to was stuck with them. And it looked like the road was also covered with them.
Cedar Point Amusement Park is open from 10AM - 10PM these days, but we didn't get out in the morning until around 10:30. So we got to the park at around 11AM. (The online tickets I purchased were finally able to be printed out in the morning, so I didn't need to deal with customer service.) We just strolled right in, with a bag of food for lunch (that is supposed to be not allowed) and no one checked the bag. That was quite different from these venues back home. We put our stuff in an all-day locker rental and were on our way. Before we left from NJ, we had purchased these insulated water bottle holders with straps, and those came in very handy as it was quite warm (~80 degrees). It fits a Sports water bottle and has a small zipper pocket to keep money/credit card and stuff so you could leave the wallet in the locker. And we all got a different color bag as seen below!
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| The Windseeker ride is a new one for 2011. It's like those huge towers that are observation decks that rotate around, but this one the observation "deck" is actually an open air swing!! (Not for me!) |
The clouds in the sky were pretty neat. There were some interesting patterns going on. It was a really nice day, perfect for an amusement park and getting a bit wet too on some of the rides. Karen, Adina, and I went on Thunder Canyon (like Congo Rapids at Great Adventure, but on some kind of growth hormone) and we all got drenched. I think me more than the others. Wound up in the direct path of not one, but two, waterfalls!! But it was well worth it, even at 6PM. Sun was still shining bright.
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| "Skyline" of Cedar Point Amusement Park |
Here are a couple of the rides that Arie and Josh went on. They went on their own thru the park, while Karen and I went with the girls. They waited an hour for the coaster, but Arie said it wasn't really worth it.
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| Raptor |
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| MaxAir |
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| Iron Dragon |
No way you can catch me on this crazy thing. Shoots you up this huge tower and then freefalls and bounces back up a little at the bottom. The one in the back is the original (?) "Kingda Ka" type (for Great Adventure enthusiasts) coaster. Arie and I actually did Kingda Ka a few years back during a class trip when I was chaperoning and was selected to lead the "brave" bunch of kids. Kingda Ka is actually a bit taller than this Dragster ride. Great Adventure was trying to outdo this one. But they're both pretty sick.
There was a pretty cool show featuring Extreme Sports athletes. One guy on a bike was actually a double X-Games gold medal winner. They had bikes, roller bladers, trampoline gymnasts, etc. I'm not sure which was more entertaining - the actual show, or the guys sitting behind us ooh-ing and ahh-ing at every single stunt. They were pretty funny.
Naama went on her FIRST "big" coaster with loops and corkscrews. Appropriately enough, it was called Corkscrew! This is part of what it looked like:
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| Corkscrew |
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| Naama enjoying the swings! |
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| Waiting in line for Wildcat, a small, but fairly intense ride with a few decent drops. It's designed like the old Mousetrap game. |
No pictures to show for this one, but Adina really wanted to go on the Maverick ride. We had seen it while taking the steam train ride around the park. It has what looks like a really nasty 90 degree drop (maybe even more than 90 degrees!). It had a long line throughout the day, but at 7PM we decided to check it out for what could become the last ride of the day. It showed an hour wait. Adina really wanted to do it (and I can't deny that I did too) so we decided to wait on line. While on line we met a very nice family (well, at least the mom and daughters were on line) from Tennessee (Knoxville, I believe). We got to talking about all the different good parks in the country, among other things. They've been coming to Cedar Point for a few years now. It's about the same drive as we had from NJ. And of course we got into discussion about this road trip, so she said she would try to follow us along as well here. Maybe we'll bump into them as we pass thru TN in a few weeks!! But we're planning on only hitting Memphis (Graceland). Hopefully they'll join the fun and add some comments here.
Anyway, getting back to the ride... OMG!! What a sick ride (as my nephews, Ephraim and Jeremy, would say). It propels you up the initial climb into that vertical drop. The drop is only a couple seconds long, and then you go into a really twisty, loopy, corkscrewy ride. And then you come to what you think is the end - seems like the brakes engage and you'll be hitting the station, but then all of a sudden you go into a new quick acceleration to hit some more corkscrews and stuff. Then it finally ends. It was definitely worth the hour wait. (And it was pretty much exactly an hour. The estimated times on the rides at this park were all pretty accurate.)
On our way home we got caught at the railroad crossing. Not very interesting, I guess, but living right on the Northeast Corridor Amtrak line back home, we're typically used to seeing/hearing these types of work trains only in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep again for a while after they go by. And what does Josh say when we mention the thing about them going by our house?? "These kinds of trains go by OUR house??" But then again, his room is on the front side of the house, so he doesn't hear them as well as I do.
I love this blog!!! Great pictures! Cant wait to read more!
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