Vaughan to Cedar Point: the roller-coaster weekend by chauffeured Sprinter

Cedar Point, the capital

Cedar Point has called itself the Roller Coaster Capital of the World since it had more coasters than any park anywhere, and the claim holds: seventeen of them on a sand peninsula that juts into Lake Erie from Sandusky, Ohio, including Millennium Force, the ninety-four-metre giga-coaster that Vaughan teenagers name before they name the park; Steel Vengeance, the wood-and-steel hybrid that the coaster polls have ranked first in the world since it opened; Maverick's launch, Magnum XL-200's 1989 record-breaker, the Raptor's inversions, Top Thrill 2's vertical spike, GateKeeper's wing seats over the entrance, and the wooden Blue Streak of 1964 for the grandparents. Around them are Cedar Point Shores water park, the mile-long beach, Hotel Breakers on the sand with an hour's early entry for guests, and — across Sandusky Bay — the Kalahari indoor water park for the February version and the ferries to the Lake Erie islands. It is seven hours from Vaughan and Canada's Wonderland is thirty minutes, and Vaughan families make the drive because the park is the argument; the chauffeured Sprinter is the reason the seven hours are a holiday and not the trip's cost. The park's site has the season and the tickets; the border guide has both bridges.

Two roads

The western road is the 401 to Windsor, the Ambassador Bridge or the tunnel, I-75 south through Detroit and Toledo, I-280 and Route 2 east along the lake's Ohio shore to Sandusky — just over seven hours by the estimate and seven and a half with the booth — with Detroit as the night's split for a family that wants the Henry Ford on the way; the eastern road is the QEW, the Peace Bridge, I-90 west through Erie and Cleveland and Route 2 the last hour — about the same time, with Erie's beach or Cleveland's Rock Hall as the stop. The chauffeur picks by the day's waits and the family's stop; a family that does both directions sees the whole lake.

The coasters, in the order the park is ridden

The park opens at ten and Hotel Breakers' guests enter at nine, which is the hour the two biggest lines are avoided: Steel Vengeance first — the hybrid on the old Mean Streak's frame, sixty-two metres, four inversions and a ride the polls call the best on the planet — then Millennium Force's cable lift to ninety-four metres and the first drop over the lagoon; Maverick's two launches on the Frontier Trail; Magnum's view of the lake from sixty-two metres; the Raptor at the front; GateKeeper's wing coaster over the gates; Top Thrill 2's spike; the Gemini's racing wooden track; the Blue Streak. Seventeen in two days is the teenagers' target and the Fast Lane wristband — the park's paid line-skip, sold on the park's site — is what a family with a seven-hour drive behind it buys for the Saturday. Height requirements decide the youngest's day: the family area's Planet Snoopy and the Woodstock Express are the under-forty-eights' park.

Hotel Breakers and the beach

Hotel Breakers, the 1905 hotel rebuilt on the park's beach, is the reason the two-day version works: the rooms open onto the sand and the lake, the park's gate is a five-minute walk, the guests' early entry is an hour before the public, the pools and the beach are the afternoon's rest between the morning's and the evening's coasters, and the family sleeps two hundred metres from Millennium Force. The park's other lodging — Castaway Bay's indoor water park hotel across the causeway, Lighthouse Point's cottages, the Express Hotel — is the cheaper version; the travel desk holds Breakers, which for July and August weekends books by March.

Cedar Point Shores and the lake

The water park beside the hotel — the slides, the wave pool, the lazy river and the children's structures, on a separate or a combined ticket — is the Saturday afternoon's heat escape, and the mile of beach is the free version; the lake is swimmable from June, and the park's causeway drive along the peninsula at dusk with the coasters lit is the photograph. The park's site has the combined tickets and the water park's shorter season.

Sandusky, Kalahari and the islands

Sandusky's downtown across the bay has the Merry-Go-Round Museum in the old post office for the younger children and the waterfront's restaurants; the Kalahari Resort on the town's edge is one of the country's largest indoor water parks, the February weekend's version for a Vaughan family with children under twelve when the coasters are closed; and the Miller Ferry from Catawba and the Jet Express from downtown Sandusky cross to Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island — Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial's column, the golf carts, the wineries, the caves — for a Sunday that a family adds when the coasters are done. The Lake Erie Shores & Islands site has the ferries and the islands.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at 9 from Maple, the 401, the Ambassador Bridge at 1, Toledo at 2, Hotel Breakers by 4:15 with the lake in the window, the park until closing on the Friday ticket if the family has one; Saturday's early entry at nine — Steel Vengeance and Millennium Force before the gates open — the coasters until two, the beach and the pool until five, the coasters again until the ten o'clock close with the Fast Lane; Sunday's early entry for the ones missed, the water park or the Put-in-Bay ferry, the Sprinter at three, the eastern road home through Cleveland and Erie, the Peace Bridge at 9:45 with the 48-hour exemption, Maple by 11:30 with the teenagers asleep from Erie. Two nights, the Sprinter as a return, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Seven hours each way and two bridges as a driver, on a weekend whose point is standing in line for coasters; the park's lots, which the hotel's guests do not need; and the Sunday night's I-90 home with a family that rode seventeen coasters in two days and cannot keep a driver awake. For a couple of coaster enthusiasts the trip is a car's; for a family of five with teenagers, or two families in a Sprinter, it is one fare and a parent who rode Steel Vengeance instead of driving Route 2.

Seasons

May to Labor Day for the full park, with the water park June to August; the HalloWeekends in September and October for the haunted mazes and the coasters in the dark, and the park's last weekends; the winter for Kalahari's indoor version and the park closed; July and August Saturdays are the fullest and the Fast Lane's days, and a June or September weekend is the chauffeured family's choice when school allows.

Pairing it

Cedar Point pairs with Detroit on the western road for the Henry Ford's day, with Cleveland on the eastern road for the Rock Hall, with Erie's beach as the drive's stop, and with Darien Lake as the nearer park a family tries first.

The Saturday, in order, for a family with two teenagers

Hotel Breakers' early entry at nine from the beach path: Steel Vengeance at 9:05 with a ten-minute wait that will be ninety by noon; Millennium Force at 9:40 twice; Maverick on the Frontier Trail at 10:30 as the gates open; Magnum at 11:15 for the lake view; lunch at noon at the Frontier Town's smokehouse; the Fast Lane wristbands from one on the Raptor, GateKeeper, Top Thrill 2 and the Gemini; the beach and Breakers' pool from 2:30 to 5 with the Sprinter's cooler; the Blue Streak and the Cedar Downs racing carousel at six for the grandparents' turn; the Steel Vengeance night ride at 9:30 with the lake black beside it; the fireworks at ten. Fourteen coasters in a day, three to finish on Sunday, and the parents rode nine of them because nobody had to drive.

Put-in-Bay and the islands' Sunday

The Miller Ferry from Catawba's dock, thirty minutes west of Sandusky, crosses to South Bass Island in twenty minutes — the Sprinter stays on the mainland and the family rents a golf cart at the island's dock — for Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial's 352-foot column with the elevator to the observation deck and the lake's islands and Canada's Pelee Island on the horizon, the Heineman Winery's Crystal Cave, Perry's Cave and the butterfly house, the village's bars and the island's loop; the Miller Ferry site has the sailings, and a family that has done the coasters does the island as the Sunday before the eastern road home.

Costs, plainly

The Cedar Point weekend is a return in the booking engine — the Sprinter for a family of five or two families, the SUV for four — with Hotel Breakers, the park's tickets and the Fast Lane as the family's own bills and the 48-hour exemption on the shop. Against the fare are seven hours and two bridges each way as a driver, the park's lots and the Sunday night's I-90 home after two days of coasters; a couple of enthusiasts drive, and a family of five with teenagers or two families in a Sprinter book it for one fare and a parent who rode Steel Vengeance at night.

The Frontier Trail and the park's quiet side

Between the giga-coasters the park keeps its 1870 origins: the Frontier Trail's blacksmith, glassblower and candle shop, the Frontier Town's smokehouse and the Cedar Creek Mine Ride's old wooden track, the Town Hall Museum's history of the park and the Cedar Downs racing carousel of 1921 — the hour a family with grandparents and a four-year-old spends while the teenagers queue for Maverick, and the shade the peninsula's July afternoon needs. The Boardwalk's Pagoda Gift Shop at the beach end and the Hotel Breakers' porch are the resting places, and the park's map shows the trail.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address for the weekend, or a daily hire for a family that wants the Sprinter for the islands' ferry; tell us the hotel, the Fast Lane, the road's direction, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the crossing and the plan the evening before.

Book the Cedar Point weekend