Cedar Point Pre-Opening Weekend Thoughts (4/28/17)

I wanted to quickly comment on a couple things dealing with Cedar Point prior to opening weekend: new Mean Streak, the new security measures and what I am/am not looking forward to:

Since around August, we've known that Mean Streak was not only closing but that it would be undergoing an RMC conversion similar to what New Texas Giant underwent before becoming the first RMC coaster. We had no idea the scale of the project however and still are somewhat in the dark although those in the coaster community are not dumb and can make sense of a lot of what they see from leaked photographs.

Personally, I like many others figured that when the RMC trucks first were spotted, basically confirming the conversion, that NMS would be about 200 feet tall and have 3 or 4 inversions. I felt like Cedar Point being Cedar Point, they'd go for every record they could. As I've started to see the pictures though, I think the height and speed will likely set records, but I'm not sure there will be a ton of inversions. We've seen what appears to be a zero-g stall as the first inversion and I'd be willing to bet they put some type of corkscrew in somewhere, but not sure what else is going to happen. The one thing Mean Streak has going for it in terms of secrecy is its location in the park. Additionally, with the way it was built, it also becomes hard to see anything on the inside part of the track. I'm really hoping the coaster cuts through itself a few times, I think that would give it a great feel.

Pictures below are courtesy of the @NewMeanStreak twitter account, which I still firmly believe is a troll account that Tony is running. Follow it regardless though for MS construction updates throughout the year.

The other big debate is the naming. Cedar Point released that interesting teaser video on April 1st that said "they're coming" leading to debate as to what exactly "they" means. Does it have something to do with the name? Could it be a dueling coaster? What exactly are they hinting at? Personally, I can't see the dueling aspect of it, just based on the way its set up and how the track is being placed. I'm not sure they would put the entire track up for one side of a dueling coaster before building the other part of the track (if I'm wrong, someone who knows more about constructing coasters can correct me on that -- not sure how they did it when they rebuilt Twisted Colossus). I honestly believe it has something to do with the name. I've been looking at the U.S. trademark database pretty much daily to see if Cedar Fair has trademarked anything new, which they have not in the last few months. We know they own that Centurion name since around 2010 or 2011, but that really wouldn't fit the Frontier theme (since we know Cedar Fair is so great at theming, Mystic Timbers aside). I personally thought something like Iron Bandit or Iron Cowboy or Steel Bandit could be a possibility but the "they" also makes me wonder about that. Despite being released on April Fools' Day, I think this is a real teaser they threw out there and I'm interested to see where it leads. I loved when Holiday World did their teasers leading up to Thunderbird and I'd rather have something like that than being left in the dark for a long time on the true nature of the project. For more pictures of recent construction progress, check out @CPRundown on Instagram. Also check on Focused on Fun Photography on Facebook - they recently released several new pictures from above which detail the current construction progress: https://www.facebook.com/focusedonfunphotos/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE

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New Security Measures:

First off, metal detectors might be a slight inconvenience upon entering any park, just like bag checks... but I'd much rather be inconvenienced and remain safe than take any chance of somehow bringing a weapon into the park.

My 9-year old niece was at the IX Indoor Amusement Park when that whole fiasco took place this year and its not something I want to see happen again anywhere else, especially my home park. Kudos to Cedar Point for being proactive here and moving forward with keeping every guest safe.

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Things I'm Looking Forward To: - Watching the New Mean Streak construction and all of the speculation that goes with it. - Taking more pictures - I've drastically improved and learned a lot in the offseason in terms of photography as a process and an artform. I'm looking forward to putting it into practice. - Meeting some of the people I've interacted with online such as cpfoodblog, Jantzen, cprundown, coaster_bean and more. - I'm not a big water park guy anymore, but looking forward to Cedar Point Shores after watching the construction online and at Winter Chill Out. Looking forward to Crystal Rock Cafe as well. - Night rides on Millennium, Maverick, Gatekeeper and TTD (and actually Valravn at night is passable).

- Coastermania! and hopefully some more progress updates on NMS?

- Trying to find Tony at his tweet-ups to win one of those elusive coins.

Things I'm Not Looking Forward To: - Crowded days - I hate lines greatly although I know rising attendance means more money to spend for the future. - Tony being the only person I follow that is more snarky and sarcastic than I am. - The line every time I'm craving a milkshake from Johnny Rockets. - All of the locker fees to store my camera bag and tripod. Sure I could take it back to the car every time, but I'm constantly putting it in the locker and taking it out, so it would be an even bigger pain that way. The goods outweigh the bads for sure. I'm hoping to get there on May 7 or the following Saturday before I head down to KI for Coasterstock.