Why Cedar Point is #1

Why Cedar Point is #1

April 3, 2005

For the past seven years, Cedar Point has been voted “The Best Amusement Park in the World” by Amusement Today.  So what does make Cedar Point so much better than the other parks?  Is it the history, the location, or the coasters?  Is it the staff, the shows, or hotels?  Well, it is many different things that factor together in the perfect mix.

I just got back from a trip to Florida, where I went to some great parks; Busch Gardens, Cypress Gardens, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure.  Now I love themed rides, Men In Black: Alien Attack is one of my favorite rides along with Spiderman.  However, there is just something that always makes Cedar Point better.  Cedar Point is not a themed park, but it still accomplishes what so many theme parks try to.

The whole point of going to a theme park is to ‘escape’ this world and go into another one.  I ask this one question, what is so wrong with this world that we have to leave it?  At Cedar Point, you still have the comfort that you can start your day with a Starbucks Coffee and a Krispy Kream donut and that you can end your day at a T.G.I. Friday’s or Famous Dave’s.

Since Cedar Point is on its own peninsula, you only see Cedar Point, not all of the other businesses trying to make a buck off Cedar Point.  At Busch Gardens Tampa, even though you could be watching lions in Africa, you still can hear the sirens of a police car outside the park.  You also could decide what fast food chain you want for dinner when you go through the turnstiles in the morning, as they are just across the street.  At Cedar Point, you have just Cedar Point, nothing else.

At Islands of Adventure there are several different lands you walk through; Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, and Seuss Landing are a few.  Throughout each land you walk through, something is missing.  It lacks major areas of floral design and landscaping.  Cartoons do not have any flowers in them, so there are none in Toon Lagoon.  Jurassic Park does have plants and such to match the theme, but that is about it.  Seuss Landing does not have a whole lot either.  Considering there are no right angles (what do they have against right angles?) in Seuss Landing, flowers are too straight.  Yes, there are a few trees in odd shapes, but nothing more.

Apart of the theme in most parks is the midway.  Usually they have a different type of concrete and fit nicely with the environment.  By doing this though, you have to compromise one thing, the size of the midway.  You can not have a massive midway going through the jungles of Jurassic Park or through Timbuktu in Busch Gardens.  At Cedar Point you can.  All of the midways are large and straight, you can see what you want to ride and what you don’t.  You do not have to walk from land to land just to ride all of the thrill rides, only to see that they have extremely long lines or are broken down.  At Cedar Point, Top Thrill Dragster and Magnum sit right next to each other and there is no guessing where the other one is.

During the summer, it gets hot.  In Florida, its always hot.  If your thirsty at Cedar Point, you go to a vending machine.  If you are thirsty at a Florida park, you wait in line at an eatery.  Vending machines cannot be themed and are too much like ‘reality’; therefore, they cannot be in a theme park.

So the question remains, is Cedar Point a theme park or an amusement park?  My answer is that it is a theme park, but then what is its theme?  Well, its theme is this world, the one we live in.  Not one from the movies, TV, or a book.  That is what makes Cedar Point #1.