| Friday-Sunday, September 23rd-25th, 2011: |
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I woke up around 11:20am Friday and eventually called Enterprise Rent-A-Car to have them pick me up so as to pick up my rental car for this part of the trip. They came to the hotel after 1:00pm as that's when they had someone available to come get me. I would get a 2011 Dodge Caliber this year for a rental car. I know some people who own one of these cars will disagree with me on this, but I'm sorry, this car had absolutely NO PICKUP!!! I am a very conservative driver but when I press the gas pedal, I expect the car to move, this one crawled! Maybe it was just because it was a rental car, but still, a car should accelerate quicker than this one did when you press the gas pedal! After picking up the car and filling up the tank, I stopped by Wal-Mart to get some food for the hotel then went and had lunch at a nearby Fazoli's Italian Restaurant. The food was decent but we have better Ma & Pop Italian restaurants back home in New York (Fazoli's is a national chain, and we don't have any in Buffalo). After lunch, I drove back to the hotel and continued writing this travelogue.
CP was scheduled to open at 6:00pm on Friday. I drove to the park and while on the way realized I forgot my old glasses that I wanted to wear while riding roller coasters so as to not ruin my regular glasses. So after making the second drive there (luckily I realized I forgot them before I got all the way there), I spent the evening at the park. CP has earned the prestigious "Golden Ticket Award" from Amusement Today Magazine and has won this award now for the past 14 years for being the "Best Amusement Park In The World". The park also has the #1 steel roller coaster in Millennium Force, a ride that will leave you never questioning the laws of physics ever again!!! New for 2011 is WindSeeker, a spinning ride located next to Lake Erie that provides an incredible view of the park from about 300 feet up. You're secured in your seat with an overhead harness and you swing out to a 45 degree angle going 30mph, it's a great ride! I rode it twice myself and it's truly something to experience during the day because of the view and during the night because of the incredible lighting package that is installed on the ride! I took several night photos of it as the ride looks nothing short of amazing at night! CP once again put on the biggest Halloween party in the state of Ohio! For the 15th year, CP's HalloWeekends events included 2 new haunted attractions "Blood On the Bayou" and "Maniacal, Mechanical Screamworks". Back again this year are several haunted houses including "Happy Jack's Toy Factory", "Club Blood", and "George Boeckling's Eerie Estate"! If you haven't visited this place during the Fall, you need to! The lines tend to be shorter, its not 95 degrees out, and the haunted attractions are included in the price of admission! Also new this year is "Pink's Hot Dogs" which those of you from Southern California who are viewing this site may recognize as this is one of the most famous hot dog restaurants in Hollywood! Cedar Point's sister park "Knott's Berry Farm" in Buena Park, CA also features a Pink's Hot Dogs location. I ate there back in May when I visited the park for Opening Day 2011 and the food was delicious! As I said before, I would be spending 3 days total at the park this year since this is my 20th straight year visiting this world class park. This is also the second time this year that I've visited the park as I was here back in May for Opening Day (I drove here on that trip).
On Saturday, I had lunch with a friend of mine who works at CP that I worked with 10 years ago when I did my internship here. I would spend all day Saturday at the park and Sunday until about 5:00pm because by then, I was in an intense amount of pain after 3 days of a serious amount of walking!!! After picking up my second pair of sneakers on this trip at Dick's Sporting Goods (destroyed 2 pairs already), I had dinner at Chili's on Sunday Evening and my Buffalo Bills managed to beat New England for the first time since 2003 with a final score of 34-31 so Sunday was overall a great day! GO BILLS!!!! And now, here's some photos taken this year at the world famous Cedar Point! |
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