Day 25: Cedar Point!

Today was the biggest day of the trip, at least for Nicholas. He’d been looking forward to Cedar Point ever since we told him what it was and that we’d probably be going during this trip. He was adamant that we arrive early so we wouldn’t miss a single moment. It was all smiles as we started.

Upon entering, we immediately started executing our strategy to go to the far end of the park and work our way forward, with a quick stop along the way to ride Iron Dragon. Nicholas and Rob then quickly jumped on Steel Vengeance and enjoyed it so much they got Kelly and Cooper to join them for the second round.

That was a bit much for Cooper, so we split up, with Rob and Nicholas seeking out more extreme rides, and Kelly and Cooper taking a slower pace. We met back up for lunch and a quick photo op.

Iron dragon ended up being Cooper’s favorite ride, so he did it several more times, and rode on a few other rides.

Rob, Kelly and Nicholas even rode the world’s tallest and fastest (120mph) roller coaster Top Thrill 2. Kelly and Nicholas went all out and took the front seats and Rob was right behind us. We all loved the thrill and novelty of this ride and are so glad we did it!

Nicholas and Rob did nearly all the roller coasters, but their favorite was Valravn, and specifically the front row of Valravn. Nicholas did it at least a half-dozen times. The hottest coaster was the one that just opened: Siren’s Curse, but both Rob and Nicholas were underwhelmed.

In the early afternoon, Rob couldn’t find his work phone, and we pretty quickly figured out it’d fallen out of his pocket on Valravn, which was confirmed by Google’s tracking.

We searched the area but couldn’t find it, so we decided there was nothing we could do and just kept going. After a few more rides it was time for dinner and a ferris wheel ride.

After that, Rob and Nicholas jumped on GateKeeper, then Nicholas and Kelly went for another round. That time, the ride had an unscheduled stop on the incline for about 10 minutes, giving them some extra quality time together.

At the end of the evening, Cooper finally got into the front row of Iron Dragon, and Nicholas was the last person through into line on Valravn at 9:59 p.m.

Yes, we entered at opening (actually the gates opened 15 minutes before 10 a.m.) and started heading toward the exit at 10 p.m. making for a very long day. Everyone was happy but tired.

Logistical notes: because we were there for only one day, we wanted to make the most of it, so splurged for the Fast Pass Plus, which saved a significant amount of time waiting for rides. In the most extreme examples, it turned a 30-minute wait into a 2-minute one. We also got two “Dining Plan Premium” plans, which gave us a meal every 90 minutes, which worked out pretty well. The premium parking, on the other hand, was not worth it since we arrived so early.