fine whine

I haven’t been to Cedar Point in a year. The only time I go anymore, despite its being a relatively easy two-hour drive north, has been the annual company family day at the park.

It was a hot sunny day in the park, and I found myself glad to have grabbed a hat at the last minute. Years ago a friend of ours had lost a bucket hat on the Mean Streak, and while I was leery of wearing the one hat I own (that I’m comfortable wearing) to the park, I’m glad I did. I may have looked strange constantly flipping the brim to the back, but it kept the sun off my neck and face and left me with no sunburn.

Having mentioned the Mean Streak, I’d like to point out that it’s still the best wooden roller coaster I’ve ever ridden, and holds its own against many of its metal brothers in the park. What I noticed this year for the first time is that it has an amazing view of the park (situated northernmost as it is) that I someday must somehow take a picture of it. I did have a cheapie disposable (film) camera and took a surreptitious shot here and there that I’ll probably develop in a year or two, but I doubt many came out well. I wasn’t at the park to take pictures anyway; I was there to have fun.

Which I did. I rode many of the big-ticket attractions, and even some of the less-popular ones. Since they add one major attraction every year, some of the older ones lose their luster even though they’re still solid rides. Immediately the Magnum XL-2000 comes to mind.

In any other park, one that doesn’t have Magnum Force and the Raptor, the Magnum XL-2000 (what a stupid name. Didn’t they realize it would stand for more than a year?) would easily be the best ‘coaster in the park. It was, at one time, the fastest and tallest in the world. Just because it doesn’t hold the top honors anymore doesn’t mean it’s any slower or shorter.

And the lap bars are so much more forgiving than the newer coasters. Not that I need extra space; I like to have it loose so I can (nearly) stand up atop that tall hill. Few thrills match the pause between the front reaching the apex of the hill and when the back, just before the train hurtles everybody back groundward. It’s the perfect moment for a ‘V for Victory’ or ‘Invincible!’ (or even ‘I am not a crook’) yell, arms thrust skyward. Trust me, and try it at your own peril.

Even less popular than the Magnum is the Gemini. The Gemini can’t compare for height, or speed, or much else except for the fact that it’s a fun ride. I don’t know how many other double coasters there are in the world, let alone ones on which the operators sometimes run a train backward, but this one’s worth it. The line’s always short, and even choosy people can be in any seat they want in under fifteen minutes. I’ve seen more people running straight from the exit back into the entrance on that ride than any other. Not bad for one that only reaches a height of 125 feet and speeds no faster than 60 mph.

Oddly enough it is those very same numbers they mention in the pre-launch routine on their newest ride, the SkyHawk, though the riders of the Gemini aren’t facing almost straight down when it happens. SkyHawk is a giant swing, and the ride’s over much more quickly, and yet the line was easily five times longer than the Gemini’s. It’s newest, and the operators were only running one of the two arms, but for the wait the ride wasn’t all that great. In a few years, when the hype has died back down and fewer people ride it, it might be a worthwhile thing to do, but until then I think I’ll stick to the coasters.

Speaking of the line for the SkyHawk, though, I was forced to do something I’ve never done before: snitch on fellow riders. After about half an hour of waiting thee teenage boys climbed under the railing to join a sullen and lonely girl a few people ahead of me. She was happy to see them, but the couple next to me and the youngish frat boys/Abercrombie customers weren’t so pleased to see the kids. We spent the remaining ten or twelve minutes of waiting giving each other suspicious, telling glances, or discussing the kids, deciding that “somebody” should “do something” about it.

When the time came to stand on the circles for the seats, the three boys bounced ahead like they’d done nothing wrong, and it wasn’t until I tapped the line attendant and pointed out that they were, in fact, evil line-jumpers before anything could happen. Signs all over the park point out that line-jumpers will get tossed out, but I’d never seen it actually done. Having fingered the guilty parties, I looked away to avoid (presumably) their withering stares, as they were led out of the ride. I don’t actually know if they were ejected from the park (for them to use that term makes me laugh, since Cedar Point has no shortage of rides that could easily launch a normal-sized adult well over the fence and into the parking lot) or merely the ride, but when the people around them thanked me I felt a tad bit better. I was the bad guy to the kids, but a minor hero for the rest of the people around me. All was soon forgotten in the last few minutes of waiting, as the frat boys were admonished by the dad of a youngish girl near them to keep their hands off his daughter. This became a running joke for the couple-minute runtime of the ride, and before long I didn’t feel too bad about the three rule-breakers. Sadly no employees had seen them cut, but it would seem that few people would ever get thrown out if customer witnesses aren’t enough.

Not an hour later, though, while I was standing in line for the Bobcat (a pint-sized coaster distinguishable for having a single-car “train” more than anything else) three people again jumped the line in front of me. They weren’t even kids, but unattractive, smelly adults, and the woman behind me only grunted when she saw it happen. She didn’t even shrug, and without backup from her I wouldn’t be able to get this trio in trouble. So I let them ride, and thought almost nothing of it thereafter. I had bigger fish to fry, like scaring the small children that the operator put in the seat in front of me, the ones who quickly converted from “I’m scared!” to “Let’s ride it again!” though they were on their own for the return trip - one ride on the Bobcat is enough for me for each visit to the park.

So should I have snitched on the grownups, for skipping ten or fifteen minutes of a line? It’s against the policy to skip any line, but hey, it’s just the Bobcat. Punsihment for jumping that line should be less severe, like making them stand in line instead for the Iron Dragon* or something.

* The Iron Dragon is, to my knowledge, the only coaster in the park that spends more time going uphill than down, though I wasn’t able to time the Top Thrill Dragster. That’d be a close call. I’m not saying the Iron Dragon’s not a passable ride, just that riders spend more time on the clack-clack-clack uphill portions of track than anything else. This was the first visit wherein I did not ride the Iron Dragon at least once.