Trip Plans: 2020 Season

This year marks my first as a Cedar Fair Platinum Passholder. I will be striking a balance all year between maximizing the value of the pass and adhering to a prudent budget. However, we are only young once, and so it will take only the flimsiest of excuses to send me further afield than I would previously have gone for coasters. The following plans are all loose, and I may post follow-ups when I have more concrete itineraries:

Trip Report 2: Cedar Point - Saturday, July 13, 2019

Last summer, I took a road trip with my girlfriend to Sandusky on a sweltering July Saturday, for her first experience at Cedar Point. We met her best friend, and her best friend's soon-to-be fiancée, making this an ambitious first double date.

The park was congested. I was surprised to find the causeway running much more slowly than it had on my previous visits, and it took us a solid 45 minutes to make it from the causeway to a parking spot, and then another ten minutes to walk to the security line. After our time in a car, the walk was honestly welcome.

Give credit where credit is due - to the park, for providing enough charming sights that we never focused on our sticky discomfort in the heat, and to the other patrons, who were generally polite and amiable despite lines spilling out from most attractions. As this was my girlfriend's first trip, I tried to play the role of tour guide and strike a balance between hitting flagship rides and maximizing ride time (and minimizing line time). Her only must-ride was Millennium Force, which she had heard about since childhood. Not knowing about Top Thrill Dragster's chronic maintenance issues last season, I suggested skipping it, probably a mistake. However, she seemed to enjoy the day, so hopefully I did my job.

Ride Review 1: Vortex at Kings Island

In October 2019, I took advantage of a free day between two busy spells of work to sneak down to Kings Island in response to the announced closure of Vortex. It breaks my heart that this review will be written in the past tense.

The ride generally yielded strong opinions from riders, both positive and negative, and the negative seemed to outweigh the positive. So it goes with Arrow loopers: daring, innovative rides that have not always aged with grace. Cincinnati is generally not a reasonable day trip destination for me, and so I am surprised as I am pleased to declare that my journey was worth it for this retired masterpiece.

Trip Report 1: Kings Island - Sunday, October 06, 2019

(This report was originally posted to /r/rollercoasters. I have revised it to improve the writing, reflect my current ride rankings, and match my new ride cataloging format. Most reports will not have a Preface; this trip was in response to the closure of Vortex.)

Preface

I am brand-new to the coaster enthusiast community. I have always been fascinated by roller coasters, but only recently did it occur to me to delve into their history and learn how to accurately describe what makes them so special.

As I reflect on my past experiences, I have realized that Arrow Dynamics played a role in some rites of passage, both in coasters and in life. My first view of a roller coaster as a child was of Shockwave dominating the skyline of Six Flags Great America. My neck craned, my jaw agape, Shockwave set off a morbid fascination. I feared and admired extreme coasters in equal measure.

A few years later, when I'd somewhat confronted my neurotic love-fear, my first inversion (and hi-five with a "big kid") came on Demon. Sadly, I never made it back to ride Shockwave. My tenth credit was Corkscrew at Cedar Point, and as I rolled over the midway, I learned to appreciate coasters not just as amusement, but as art.

My first theme park date began and ended with rides on Phantom's Revenge - a Morgan ride, but the feel of its Arrow predecessor is undeniably still there. In the summer of 2019, I shared a kiss under Cedar Point's Corkscrew with a girl who might be The One.

My point is that Arrow loopers are what come to mind first when I think, "roller coaster." My mental image is always of some massive, Shockwave-esque ride. Arrow coasters, with their bright colors, stark contrasts, and sinister sci-fi names, epitomize for me the aesthetic and zeitgeist of late-80s and early-90s consumer culture, for which I constantly feel a bizarre, nostalgic longing.

I was just acclimating myself to the idea of spending serious money on coasters as a travel and leisure expense, when Kings Island announced the closure of Vortex. Having missed out on Shockwave and Great American Scream Machine, and doubting that I will ever make it out to ride Viper barring a surprise work event, I immediately planned a destination trip specifically for Vortex. For reasons I have yet to understand, it meant a lot to me personally to hop on a big, mean Arrow mega looper. It is through that paradigm that I consider the trip - 10 hours of car time for 5 hours of park time - a complete success.