One of the reasons we came here was to see the second oldest amusement park (opened in 1870) in the United States and it’s wooden roller coasters.
The park features 71 rides, including 16 roller coasters. The weather was beautiful, we had purchased the discounted tickets and parking online and were told by the locals to go Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as these were the least busiest days.
We arrived shortly after it opened and already had to park in the 20th row. Less busy – we do not want to be here when it is really busy.
The plan was to head towards the end of the park, where we hoped there were fewer people and thus shorter waiting lines and slowly work our way back.
In order to prepare folks, the park developed a scale from blue (boring) to red (risky) in 5 steps to prepare riders for what to expect. A fact we did not pay attention to until after the first ride.
The first roller coaster we rode was the Maverick, described as “nothing wilder in the West”. It looked simple, we got in, rode the roller coaster, and were glad we did not have breakfast.
That’s when we discovered the 5-step thrill level scale and found out we had just done one of the red (5) rides. Maybe we should have started with a blue ride.
We walked through the park and every red level ride made our stomachs churn and look for something less dramatic. After all we had come to ride the wooden coasters. We found it amazing to see the younger generation stand in line for up to 45 minutes to ride all the level 5 roller coasters.
We found the Blue Streak and were amazed afterwards that a 53 year old coaster could still provide as much thrill to us older folks as the other rides did to the younger generation. One of these “you know you’re getting old” moments.
After a lunch of famous Cedar Point fries, we headed out of the park, feeling like we had just discovered our age related limits, but still feeling like kids.
Good fun and definitely worth the money.