Cedar Point begins removal of ride

Editor's note: Justin Dietz is a Register correspondent representing cpfoodblog.com and @funfoodblog on X. SANDUSKY — Back in August, when it was announced that Cedar Point would be removing Snake River Falls, a plan was set in motion for the future of the area. Now that the park has closed for the 2024 season, Cedar Point, on Thursday, began the removal of Professor Delbert's Frontier Fling on the property behind Snake River Falls. "Professor Delbert's Frontier Fling is currently being removed as we make way for future development," park spokesman Tony Clark said. "We'll share more information at the appropriate time." Knowing Snake River Falls was coming to an end, our family took our final rides on Frontier Fling back in September. At $10 per person or $25 for three guests, it was an easy buy to let our kids swing one last time in the likely scenario of its removal. So what's next? With Snake River and Frontier Fling in the process of being taken out of the picture, and we already had the plague of Forbidden Frontier, which closed at the end of 2022, this opens up so much potential. Though do not be so quick to think the next mega attraction for the area could be in the queue. Cedar Point currently has a lot of irons in the fire on where potential new spending could be taking place over the coming years. Just prior to the opening of Cedar Point Shores in 2024, the park quietly took down the Crosscurrent waterslide complex after reaching the end of its service life. The whole southern end of Cedar Point Shores closest to Hotel Breakers is ripe for an overhaul. With a simple lazy river, the Plunge Slide and the kids' Waterin' Hole, this area is likely on the short list of park improvements. Our guess is this area was on the top of the priority list, but with the issues of Top Thrill 2 and the last-minute change to bring over Siren's Curse to the park, this improvement area likely got tabled for a 2026 plan. Water parks are a highly lucrative business for Six Flags, and considering the last Cedar Point Shores rehab was for the 2017 season, we are quickly approaching 10 years since major improvements which means it is coming sooner than later. Circling back to Siren's Curse, we first got an inclination that this was an option during a survey the park circulated back in May. While Siren's Curse is different than what was discussed in the survey, it is interesting to see the various new attractions considered. One of those is a water coaster design with photos used of a similar Mack eight-person water coaster, offering both a banked roller coaster and a free-falling splashdown. Researching layouts for this type of attraction, this meets the perfect specifications to take up the area where Snake River Falls and Professor Delbert's Frontier Fling reside, without even needing to go into the island. The question will of course be timing of when this might happen. Given the large cost expenditure on new attractions at Cedar Point over the last three years with the Boardwalk, Top Thrill 2 overhaul and now Siren's Curse, we have to imagine a sort of slowdown as investments across the entire Six Flag portfolio are re-established. This is why it makes sense to have a smaller-scale investment into Cedar Point Shores in 2026 and then the Snake River Falls replacement in 2027. Our only head-scratching moment, though, is why things are removed prematurely. If the new water coaster replacing Snake River Falls is scheduled for 2026 or 2027, why remove Frontier Fling now? Did it really reach the end of its service life when it could have been used for some incremental income for at least a year or two more? Plus it takes up such a small amount of real estate, it could be taken down at any point. There's a lot going out at Cedar Point, and it's a constant evolution that will be interesting to watch over the next couple of seasons.