Our Trip To Castaway Bay & Cedar Point

I did not ride a single roller coaster in 2018.
I was pregnant with Leander for just about the entire year, so that put a gigantic “damper” on our roller coaster adventures. If you’re thinking, “Poor Derrick” right about now, you would be 100% correct. It was a long, “sad” year for my roller coaster obsessed husband.

Needless to say, I think we’ve made up for the “roller coaster drought” that was 2018, with all the amazing coasters we’ve ridden this summer. We’ve been to 11 different amusement parks across 6 different states this summer – we’ve had the most wonderful, exciting time!

As the end of weekday park operations was nearing though, we still had one more adventure to embark on: Cedar Point – the roller coaster capital of the world.

Derrick & I have been planning to visit Cedar Point together, sometime this summer, since 2017. That might seem a little far-fetched, but here’s the deal: pretty much for the entirety of 2017, we watched Rocky Mountain Construction (arguably the current foremost roller coaster manufacturer on the planet) completely overhaul the worst roller coaster at Cedar Point: Mean Streak. It was this massive beast of a wooden coaster that sat all the way in the back of the park & let’s just say, when Derrick & I rode it in 2016, it beat the crap out of us. So, RMC went all Chip & Joanna Gaines on Mean Streak & took the worst coaster in the best park & turned it into the park’s dream coaster (if you have ever watched Fixer Upper, you’ll understand that reference!)

Steel Vengeance opened in the spring of 2018 & everyone went literally insane over this coaster. It instantly sprang to the top of every coaster nerd’s “list” & immediately skyrocketed to the coaster that everyone needed to ride last year – Derrick included. There was just one “problem” – I couldn’t go with him. Thankfully, Derrick did manage to sneak a quick trip to Cedar Point in with my brother, and he’s been dying to take me & get me on Steel Vengeance ever since. And thus I can say, we’ve been planning this trip since 2017.

Disclaimer: Just in case you can’t tell, about half of the images in this post were taken on my iPhone and the other half were taken with my DSLR. Sometimes, the best camera is the one you have easiest access to! I’m not crazy enough to have my DSLR in my hands at an amusement park all the time – especially with two little ones – that’s just not happening.

We had originally thought that we’d leave the kiddos at home with my family & simply go to Cedar Point for the day. It’s 3 hours away from us, so it’s really not awful to drive out & back from in a day. Unfortunately, we hit a few snags in that plan and ended up needing to bring the kids along with us – no big deal, they’ve been to every other park with us this year, what’s one more?

Knowing that driving out & back in the same day with the kids would be really hard on them, we decided to drive out the day before & stay somewhere overnight. We did a little looking around & discovered a great deal at Cedar Point’s Castaway Bay – their indoor waterpark! Having been to an indoor waterpark back in 2017, we knew that it would be a ton of fun & a great way to end our summer adventures as a family.

We spent almost the entire day on Sunday in the waterpark & we had the best day. Castaway Bay is on the smaller side, but it was perfect for us. They have a really nice toddler area with a shallow pool, fountains, sprinklers, and little slides. Then, they have the “pirate ship” area (which most water parks have) – meant for older kids. They have a wave pool, some body slides, and a water coaster. The park wasn’t too busy (we were there on a Sunday, and as most people were checking out & leaving, we were checking in – it was great!) so there really weren’t any lines to any of the slides & it was just so fun & relaxing.

We took a break & went to dinner, which broke up the day really nicely, but then it was right back to the pool!

After going down the little slides in the toddler area about 100 times (no exaggeration), Braelynn was finally comfortable enough to brave some of the bigger slides in the “pirate ship” area. I could hardly believe it! These were big, open, body slides & even though she was a little nervous to go down the first time, she was instantly sold. We literally could not tear her away! She marathoned the two big body slides off of the pirate ship for hours. She’d climb out at the bottom & instantly run straight back up to the top – it was both hilarious & heart-melting. She had the best time (those are her feet below as she comes down the green slide)!

Leander loved playing in the shallow pool, splashing in all of the fountains, and “swimming” in the wave pool (plus he took a really good nap thanks to all the white noise of the indoor waterpark!). Of course, Braelynn loved swimming in the wave pool too (she got to be super brave with riding the waves) and would swim over to “surprise” Leander – which he would laugh & laugh at. Can you tell that we had the most wonderful time?!

So, after we all slept like rocks Sunday night, we woke up & made our way over to Cedar Point. One of the perks to staying the night before in a Cedar Point hotel, is that they give you early access to the park – meaning, we were able to get into the park & high-tail it back to Steel Vengeance a full hour before the park opened to the general public. It was a good thing too – because Derrick waited about 40 minutes to ride (and then we parent-swapped so I could ride – and I scored a seat in the front row – YES) and the line never dropped below 2 hours for the rest of the day!!

Oh, and if you’re wondering if Steel Vengeance lived up to all the hype?
Yes. Yes, it did.
I loved riding Wicked Cyclone at Six Flags New England a few weeks ago – and Steel Vengeance is like Wicked Cyclone’s big bad older brother all hyped up on Monster energy drinks. AMAZING.

We had a wonderful day at Cedar Point, but the park was super busy. We were hoping (since so many schools started back into session this week) that Monday would be a slower day, but it was actually busier than even the park seemed to project. (Here’s a secret, you can tell how busy Cedar Point is projecting to be based on how much their Fast Passes cost – the higher the price, the bigger the crowd, the lower the price, the smaller the crowd. We strategically picked a day where the Fast Pass cost less, but then we noticed as the day went on, that the advertised price in the park went up – meaning attendance was higher than they had been projecting.)

We still had a ton of fun though! Braelynn got to ride a bunch of rides – and Leander loved the Skyride & the Ferris Wheel! His favorite though was the train ride! I think Leander is going to be super into trains when he gets a little bigger!

I spy a “wild” Derrick – can you spot him below?

So, unless something crazy comes up & gets planned super last minute – that is the “end” of our 2019 amusement park tour! I literally can’t even think about it – how is summer over already? But with just about all of the schools around back in session, parks in the North East are all dropping back to only being open on the weekends. It’s literally the most depressing day – thankfully, Kennywood is still open on the weekends thru September, so we still have at least one more visit there planned, but otherwise, that’s about it for 2019!

Needless to say, we’re already making plans for where we want to go in 2020!!

If you missed my posts about our last two big trips, you can go back & see those here:
Our Trip to New England
Our Trip to Visit 4 Parks in MD, PA, and NJ