Cedar Point

We visited Cedar Point in Ohio on June 8. The Roller Coaster Capital of the World has a world-record 71 rides including 17 roller coasters, and although there is easily enough to justify a couple of days we were able to enjoy all the best.

As we were staying on site at Hotel Breakers we could take advantage of Early Entry, which should have included access to 4 roller coasters for an hour before park opening, but unfortunately only 2 were ready in time.

We went straight for Maverick, which has a low capacity so draws some of the biggest queues, and were able to walk straight on. The stats completely undersell this ride, its a 105ft high launch coaster that's one of the best at the park. Similar to Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay but far more intense: accelerating, twisting and rolling through a tight and windy course low to the ground, through canyons and over water.

Millennium Force and GateKeeper were both down so with only Valravn working a huge line formed through the park, so we opted to join a line for one of the other rides opening with the rest of the park, Wicked Twister. Unfortunately when opening time came the ride immediately broke down, so we went in search of another ride.

We headed to Top Thrill Dragster, an incredible launch coaster, which does a breathtaking 0 to 120 mph in 3.8 seconds before flying 420ft into the sky and back. The ride delivers an incredible rush and is set in a well themed raceway setting, complete with grandstand viewing. It can be seen from miles away, standing tall in the middle of the park. It's the best of it's type in the world.

With GateKeeper now open, we returned to this spectacular 170ft high B&M wing coaster that forms the entrance to the park. It's a solid version of this type of ride, with some very effective chopper effects.

Wicked Twister was now working too. It's the tallest and fastest inverted roller coaster in the world and despite having a basic shuttle layout is not to be missed. Multiple bursts of acceleration through the station deliver quite the thrill and sitting towards either end of the train maximizes the height you reach and the spiral effect is very effective.

We then headed over to Raptor, which stands at 137ft tall and is a good version of a B&M inverted coaster, with an eye catching paint scheme.

Magnum XL-200 is a 205ft tall hyper coaster that sends you along the peninsula beside the beach, taking you over a series of airtime hills and through multiple tunnels. It has a real 1980s vibe and is pretty rough to ride, but being an older coaster it had no queue at all and was still a lot of fun.

Next up, one of the longest wooden coasters in the world, Mean Streak, with 5,427 feet of track and a ride time of over 3 minutes!

Rougarou is a reinvention of the former Mantis standup coaster, now a floorless coaster standing 145ft tall. Riding front row is a must, seeing the track rushing under your feel as they dangle above, swooping along a sprawling course above a lake. One of our favorite rides.

After an hour of queuing we had reached the Millennium Force station only for it to breakdown with riders on board. No updates were given to those in the queue until half an hour later when the riders were released from the trains. At this point the queue was evacuated but unlike at every other park that we've experienced this, no passes were issued to return once the ride was fixed.

Valravn is a new 223ft tall B&M dive coaster, the world’s tallest, longest and fastest. A visually impressive ride that is a dream to ride, an intimidating first drop leads into a series of sweeping curves and dives. We loved it!

Now working again, we returned to Millennium Force, the 310ft tall Intamin giga coaster voted the best steel coaster in the world. Upon completion in 2000, it broke six world records and still delivers impressively on height, speed and length, in combination giving riders an intense experience in an iconic setting. It was fantastic.

During the course of the day we had time to ride the charming Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad and also spent time exploring the well themed Frontier Town and Frontier Trail areas.

To finish off the day we took flight on WindSeeker, the 301ft swing ride provides spectacular views of the whole park and across Lake Erie. A chilled out on board soundtrack enhanced a surprisingly relaxing experience, considering that you are flying through the air at a potentially vertigo inducing height.

Cedar Point has a world class collection of incredible roller coasters and has a beautiful setting surrounded by water. Reliability is an issue, during the course of the day most of the main roller coasters in the park suffered breakdowns for varying periods of time so there was a lot of walking back and forth across the park. Unlike at many theme parks, there aren't wait time updates along the queue and most are just unthemed concrete zig zags which does make your time queuing feel long and boring. There aren't any single rider lines either, so on many of the roller coasters there are often empty seats on the trains reducing the capacity of the rides. Despite this, with some forward planning and plenty of walking, you can have a great day at this unmissable park.