Top Thrill 2: What riders should know

Editor's note: Justin Dietz is a Register correspondent representing CPFoodBlog.com and @FUNFoodBlog on X. When Cedar Point opens its new Top Thrill 2 roller coaster to guests starting this weekend for season passholders — and all guests beginning on May 4 — the park will be implementing restrictions guests should be aware of before leaving their houses. First of all, wear comfortable shoes. You are going to be waiting in line a long time to get on Top Thrill. In addition, access to the ride requires all loose items to be stored in a locker. As a result, no sandals without a back will be permitted on Top Thrill. So, if you want to ride, put on the comfy tennis shoes. With the theme of no loose items, everything must be left in a locker or with friends, as guests will be going through a metal detector like Steel Vengeance. What is different is there will be no free lockers on Top Thrill installed within the queue because of a late change by the ride manufacturer. Lockers outside the queue will require additional charges. The only thing guests will be allowed to bring with them into the queue is glasses provided they have a safety strap. For those with kids, Top Thrill will have a 52-inch ride height requirement. This ride is for the big boys and girls, so secure that lap bar to experience all the forces and weightlessness guests will experience during the two-minute ride. A fearful scenario Now, imagine, for a second, the guest experience. They drive two hours to get to the park and head in. Their first goal is to get on Top Thrill. They proceed straight to the attraction, only to find that one friend who wore flip-flops, naturally to a beach amusement park in summer, is being told they can not ride. Nor can they wait in line for the two-plus hour wait and leave their shoes on the ride deck since the entrance and exit to the ride are on two separate platforms. So now their option is to not ride, do a rider swap or try and borrow a friend's pair of shoes. Only now do they have to store their flip-flops. So over to the lockers they go, only to find all the lockers already reserved by hundreds of other guests since this is the newest attraction in the park. Cedar Point ought to be selling cheap water shoes, or something, near the entrance so guests who are not aware of the footwear issue can at least have the option to purchase a rideable pair. Cedar Point literally took years to perfect the Steel Vengeance loose items issue, finally doing what should have been done from the start and installing free lockers in the queue. The blueprint was right in front of them. Yet, somehow, here we are at square one again with seemingly no thought put into the guest experience. With all the previous controversies and lawsuits associated with causing life-changing issues for a park guest injured at Top Thrill Dragster in August 2021, safety and loose items should have been at the forefront of design. As a result, the no loose items and metal detectors should have been the very first thing in the discussion for ride operation. Yet this change is being blamed on a last-minute ride manufacturer request?