Life in the Fast Lane…PLUS
On Thursday, June 11, 2015, my family and I headed down to Cedar Point for an impromptu day at the park. We decided that we were going to purchase Fast Lane Plus for the day, as most schools were done for the summer by now and we wanted to get the most riding as possible done in a day. As Platinum Passholders, my mom, brother and I, as well as other Platinum Passholders, are able to upgrade to Fast Lane Plus for the price of regular Fast Lane. As far as I know, it says on Cedar Point’s website that this is a limited time offer.
For those of you not familiar with Fast Lane Plus and how it differs from the regular Fast Lane…here’s a quick overview. Fast Lane is available to purchase for as low as $55 and is valid on 21 rides at Cedar Point such as Millennium Force, Corkscrew, Magnum XL-200, Raptor, and Dodgem. Fast Lane Plus is available for as low as $75 and is valid on the same rides as regular Fast Lane, AND additionally valid on Rougarou, GateKeeper, Maverick, and Top Thrill Dragster.
Anyways, we began our day at 9 a.m., when the gates open to Platinum Passholder and Resort Guests for an hour of early entry. We first purchased our Fast Lane Plus passes at the front of the park. We then started heading to the back of the park. We rented a locker at Millennium Force for the day (these are hourly lockers, so we had to renew a few times throughout the day.) Then we started our day of roller coaster riding at Rougarou, followed by Iron Dragon. Next, we hit up Millennium Force. By this time, it was only 9:40 a.m. We then began heading back towards Maverick. Keep in mind, Fast Lane access does not apply until the park’s regular hours, so that was 10 a.m. on this day. We arrived back at Maverick at around 9:55 a.m. so we had to wait about 5 minutes before we could use the Fast Lane Plus access. Once we were able to do so, we got in line for Maverick and waited for about 10 minutes before boarding the ride (By the way, the new Maverick restraints are amazing. This is definitely a great improvement for the ride.)
Next, we headed over to the Gemini Midway to enjoy some rides on Gemini, Pipe Scream, and Monster. Then, we made our way over to Top Thrill Dragster. The regular line was fairly busy already, but with Fast Lane Plus we were able to make it to the ramps, to where we would have about a 15 minute wait until we actually got on the ride. However, when push comes to shove, Top Thrill Dragster can get cranky at times and decided to go down a few times for mechanical. So, my family and I were getting hungry and we didn’t want to wait a long time because that would be pointless with Fast Lane Plus. So since we had only lost ten minutes, we got out of line and decided to head to the front of the park to get something to eat. We grabbed some pizza and fries over by Raptor. After, we enjoyed a ride on Blue Streak. By the way, here’s a random shout-out to the Blue Streak crew for making our ride that day extra special. Y’all are very friendly, energetic, and fun to make conversation with while waiting in line to ride. After enjoying a ride on Blue Streak, we made our way over to GateKeeper. The line wait at the time was about 40 minutes for the regular line. With Fast Lane Plus, we waited about 15-20 minutes. GateKeeper was only doing a 2-train operation at the time, which seemed to slow the line down a little bit.
Later on throughout we day, we enjoyed more rides like Magnum XL-200, Mean Streak, Skyhawk, Power Tower, etc., and we also stopped by the petting farm. My brother and I took a few rides on Shoot the Rapids. We also took another ride on Maverick. Oh, and we enjoyed a nice trip on the C.P. & Lake Erie Railroad from the back of the park to the middle of the park near Millennium Force and Rougarou.
Near the end of the evening, we stopped in the back for another quick meal break, grabbed our items out of our locker near Millennium Force and then started heading up front to ride Wicked Twister.
Afterwards, before leaving the park, we stopped in a few of the gift shops at the front of the park, then grabbed a funnel cake up near the main gates. My mom, brother and I then departed Cedar Point from a full fun day of roller coaster riding and family time.
-Jordan Smith
