Cedar Point Opening Weekend PTR

This past weekend I enjoyed opening weekend at Cedar Point. While it wasn't the best weekend as far as getting on lots of ride goes, but I still had a great time. Saturday was opening day and it was a beautiful day and the park was PACKED. Sunday the park was EMPTY because it was rainy, cold & miserable. The park operations weren't the best either, as I didn't see Maverick run with people all weekend (not my fav, but would have liked to ride it) and the troublesome MaxAir didn't show any signs of life and looked like it had some construction going on in the motor area.

New this year was Planet Snoopy, a new Snoopy themed kids area that replaced an old Snoopy themed kids area. Myself and the rest of the people I traveled with were generally unimpressed with the new for 2008 addition. A lot of the rides are duplicates of other kids rides in the park (many in Camp Snoopy). I am sure little kids probably won't notice. The Joe Cool Cafe looked to be the star of the additions to the point as it was a good looking sit down restaurant.

Planet Snoopy had a big opening ceremony which included:


Dick Kinzel & Lauren Holly (the actress from one of my favorite comedies Dumb & Dumber) I have no idea why she was there or what relationship she had with Snoopy.


Charles Schulz Son


and most importantly UNO the beagle that won Best in Show at Westminster this year!!

Cedar Points other big 2008 addition is SkyScraper, which as you can see in the pictures, wasn't quite ready for the season.



Of course it wouldn't be a weekend at the Point without a visit to Chet & Matts Pizza, which is outstanding if you've never been. And much better then the East of Chicago pizza buffet we tryed, which is right on the causeway (although that one did have pudding & fries).

My favorite thing I bought at CP was this:



A Beer in a Plastic Souvenir Boot! This was cool, I bought it at the Red Garter Saloon. Having watched the movie Beerfest about a million times, I have always wanted to drink a beer from a boot. And the coolest part the whole thing about the air bubble in the toe they talk about in the movie is true!!!

Back to the rides, two that I had a really great time on (more then usual) were Wicked Twister (sat in the second to last row and that back spike is really wild) and Mantis (rode it in the rain on sunday and the mid-course wasn't on so the train was flying). And I did the total credit whore thing and got my credit on Junior Gemini (Coaster #285).

I also saw these at the parks:



Baby Duckies!!!

Some of the most fun I had was playing in the Giant Arcade near the front of the park. I won two stuffed bears in the crane game. But I think my favorite game was this:



It was this virtual batting cage in the very back of the arcade, and no the bat doesn't glow like that just how it responded to the flash picture. I was awesome at this one hit 9 homers in a row!!

This year CP has these Platinum Perks for the season passes this year and one of them was buy one get one free games in the main midway. This seemed to be a really popular option as I saw many more people then usual playing games at the end of the night.

Another thing I never got the time to really explore the Cedar Point Museum back in the frontier area of the park. This thing is packed with some really cool models of rides along with oodles of memorabilia, but the coolest part were these:
Some old timey arcade games. And some of them actually worked!!

While as you can see below the ride count wasn't great, but I still had a great time at a great place.

Ride Count
Wicked Twister
Mantis
Millenium Force
Top Thrill Dragster
Paddlewheel Excursions
Junior Gemini
Gemini
Skyhawk
Cedar Creek Mine Ride