What's new at Cedar Point?

Editor's note: Justin Dietz is a Register correspondent representing cpfoodblog.com and @funfoodblog on X. SANDUSKY — The gates for Cedar Point opened this past weekend, and guests got their first look at everything new. So let's take a look at what guests can expect as we walk around the park, starting with the main midway area: • Insight into ice cream: As guests go down the main midway, the first thing they will notice is the cow missing in front of the ice cream parlor. The blue building will now sell Toft's soft serve and milk, but hard-scooped ice cream and novelty items are being outsourced to a new partnership with Blue Bunny. The parlor was not open this past weekend but will once staffing levels increase over the coming weeks. • View the vintage mural: A little further down the main midway on the opposite side guests will be greeted by a new vintage-style Cedar Point mural on the outside of the Coke Freestyle building in front of the Raptor roller coaster. We will turn our way toward the Boardwalk area since this makes up the majority of the 2024 early entry attractions. • Arcade updates: If you wait long enough for it to open — not open at early entry — the Funway Arcade, inside the old Johnny Rockets, has replaced all of the arcade machines with easy-win claw machines. Now guests have better odds of winning as many stuffed animals as they want to purchase credits for and then they can be turned in for larger items. The mirror maze is still inside the arcade, too. • Where's Dave: Heading toward the GateKeeper gift shop, a staple for the last several years has been removed. Guests loved seeing the historic "Dave" robot inside the store from the former Disaster Transport attraction. Sadly, he has been removed for 2024 and replaced with a stuffed animal and snack rack. • Grand Pavilion perks: For the early birds, the Grand Pavilion returns as the go-to place for breakfast. The upstairs food stand is, once again, serving breakfast sandwiches on the dining plan. As of opening weekend, it is also the only place in the park to redeem the new drink plan plus add-on that gets guests coffee. While there were some issues with the machine during the Sunday morning opening, we waited around a little while and, fortunately, it was up and running. Hot chocolate will likely be seasonal and not available until the fall. • Planet Snoopy staff whereabouts: For families that come to Cedar Point early in the season, note the Planet Snoopy attractions are not staffed until May 25. Guests are instead directed to Kiddie Kingdom for early entry or Camp Snoopy once the park opens for the day. • Melt change felt: Wrapping around back toward the main midway, guests will get their first glimpse of the now-vacant Melt Bar and Grilled restaurant, first announced by the Register. While the outside signage has been removed, the inside remains relatively the same and is being used by the employee commissary indoor seating area. • Topping tragedy: While certainly not a deal breaker, it is always sad to see a meal perk taken away. For guests that visit Coaster's Diner on the main midway, it has been commonplace for years to have a condiment bar for your burger that includes fresh produce like lettuce, tomato and onion. Sadly, in a top-down decision from Cedar Fair — and not Cedar Point — took away the condiment bar. Luckily, the burgers at Coasters are pretty solid even without some extras. Now let's take a walk down the Millennium Midway and toward Frontier Town • Stage left: For starters, the HalloWeekends stage has been removed and outfitted with the new summer stage. • New Dragon's lair: Further down is the former Dragon's Inn. This food stand has been reimagined for 2024, now called the 21 Degrees and Colder Frozen Cocktail Bar. • VIPs only: For those who upgrade to the Prestige Pass or those who purchase day access, the Millennium VIP Lounge has been updated from a tent to a permanent open-sided structure. Those using the lounge will also see they now have access to a fountain machine for soda, iced water and snacks. They also offer a limited supply of merchandise as well as beer and bottled water available for purchase. • Pop progress: Throughout the park, guests will see new updated Coke Freestyle machines. New for this year: The freestyle machines have been outfitted with a signature drink for Top Thrill 2, the Top Thrill Chill. It's based on the Mello Yello soda. As someone who likes Mello Yello, this mixed recipe did not live up to the hype. • Staying cool with Icees: Also of note for guests with the drink plan plus: The included Icee frozen drinks are available all around the park with plenty of options and all stands open. • Fresh Farmhouse food: From a menu standpoint, almost all the options are relatively similar to what they were in 2023. But one of the new additions at the Farmhouse is a chicken pot pie dish. Served with two biscuits, the pot pie was loaded with flavor and includes your choice of sides. We opted for the new broccoli casserole, which was absolutely fantastic. The Farmhouse continues to be a guest favorite for the great options and nice serving-size portions. Returning down the Gemini Midway, there's nothing really new to note. • A twist at pretzel stand: Near the Magnum entrance, the pretzel stand has been outfitted with a covered outdoor soda fountain row that will help move guests more quickly through the line. Top Thrill 2 Now we come up on the big news, the 420-foot news. Of course, Top Thrill 2 is the biggest and newest attraction gathering guest attention for 2024. While it was not our intention — when considering that opening weekend always has long lines, especially for a new roller coaster — our three sons decided they wanted to head to Top Thrill 2 first and skip all the early entry attractions on opening day. So off we went with every single other guest on opening day. Upon entry to the new Top Thrill 2 plaza, we got into the queue for the locker system as the line for guests with Fast Lane continued to grow. We waited in line for about a half hour. And about 15 minutes before the park opened, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, employees started letting the queued guests through the metal detectors and into the main queue. Shortly thereafter, we were allowed to exit the queue and get in line for the lockers. This appears to be the big hang-up that causes a back-up of guests, not necessarily the actual queue. For starters, they only offer four kiosks to reserve a locker. While there were employees present to make the process as efficient as possible, this can still cause gridlock waiting for the kiosk. In addition, we were shocked to see the kiosks are not outfitted with electronic forms of payment like Apple Pay. Guests have to use a physical credit/debit card to reserve the lockers. The price is $3 for two hours. This may be a problem for guests who do not bring in an actual wallet or credit card and rely on electronic forms of payment — while Cedar Fair, of course, pushes with its cashless system. Once a locker is received, guests then get into the queue for the metal detectors. From there, it is a straight-up wait in the main queue. We rode twice on Saturday morning — and even with being at the very back of the queue, we only waited about an hour on our second ride. From a rider's point of view As a big original Top Thrill Dragster fan, we were very excited to ride this new attraction. First, the new Top Thrill 2 trains by Zamperla were amazing. Super comfy seats with no issues for those of fluffier dimensions. My only issue was they really jump on the lap bars to make sure they are locked, and it can get tight and uncomfortable under the sudden pinch. While guest feedback seemed to balk about the slow initial launch, it was anything but forceless. The initial launch nicely takes guests about halfway up the tower — and, much to my own happiness, not into the initial twist up the top hat, a name for the ride's apex. From there, gravity takes guests back, and the acceleration in reverse takes one up to 101 mph and onto the spike. This is way more impressive than I ever could have imagined. It is shocking how high the train gets with the ability to look down onto Power Tower, which received a new paint job in the offseason to match the area's color scheme. Once getting to the top of the spike and staring down at the ground, the train freefalls, and guests experience the head-chopper effect coming into the station. From here, it is all systems go, and the linear synchronous motors power ramps up, launching the train at 120 mph into the top hat. The last launch is way more intense than the original. If you recall, in the old days, the train would barely make it over the top hat. Now there is no looking back, as the force over the top is forceful. It's almost too forceful when going into the twists. Coming down the backside of the top hat and staring down at the ground, the gravitational forces are really felt by riders. While it was never an issue for me on the original, coming into the final break run, we felt on the verge of the greyout effect — in which one is still conscious, but the forces are so strong you begin to lose vision. Finally, coming into the break run, Zamperla engineering has been perfected with a butter-smooth finish with no rapid deceleration or jerkiness. I If you have ridden the Bolliger & Mabillard Valrvan, you know what we mean by where the break run is the worst part. Top Thrill 2 final thoughts Overall, our family was really impressed with the new Top Thrill 2. The operations of the coaster are absolutely incredible. As long as the ride is up and running, the crew really has already perfected loading and unloading where there is little delay in getting the next train launched. Sitting for more than an hour in front of the ride on Sunday, as soon as the train went over the top hat, the next train was already leaving the station, and the switch track was moving over. Outside the ride, guests will experience an all-new plaza complete with new signage, an updated gift shop and paint on the pavement. While the painted concrete is nice, there is also a big issue. On Saturday, the overcast skies did bring down some rain, creating wet pavement. The paint used did not provide any slip resistance, and we saw several people fall on the pavement. In addition, the light gray paint color made it look incredibly dirty when wet. Walking back toward the front of the park, not much has generally changed. The only thing guests with a dining plan will want to know is Chickie's & Pete's no longer accepts them or drink plans. Honestly, for us, it is not a big issue. We have not eaten there in years due to the small portion size. While the contract with Chickie's has been floating around for the past several seasons, on whether it would remain at Cedar Point, this might just be the last nail in the coffin. While it was always an inconvenience to try and get food at Chickie's if you were not sitting down, with fewer dining plans being used here, we will see if the demand remains to keep it open in the future. Overall the park looked great and it felt wonderful to be back. Look for more over the next couple of weeks as some new things will be offered soon. Be sure to check out the 2024 Cedar Point Dining Plan list for the latest list of dining plan locations.