Cedar Point Summary

This weekend, we got to meet some of our neighbors from the north. Hello, Michigan Bronies! You guys are always welcome in our shed. We had about 30 people in our group at Cedar Point, and many of us were brohoofed by others at the park. The whole weekend was tremendous fun, and we'll definitely be doing this sort of thing again at some point.

Along with this writeup, here's some more photos. The platefics will be posted on this blog separately once they're transcribed.

Notable Quotes:

“I’ll acquire your satellites!” – Edinpony
“Are you bronies? What’s your favorite brony, uh, horse?” – Random Cedar Point girl
“I have a Vegeta forehead.” – DashAttack
“Oh wow, REAL BRONIES!” – Another random person

Friday:

They weren't kidding.
These things were
EVERYWHERE.

A few ambitious people got there early and hung out for a while at the registration area until Starshine finally showed up, having taken the least efficient route to get to the park. After check-in, Edin took a portal to get from the registration desk to the cabins five minutes before the rest of us. As it turned out, we took a stupid route to get there instead of going straight down the road. The buildings looked disturbingly small, but like a TARDIS, they turned out to be bigger on the inside. The cabin loft is the best place to roll.

Suddenly, parasprite mayfly midge invasion. Can’t say we weren’t warned, they were handing out flyers about them at the reg desk. There was a huge cloud lurking by the door, which promptly rushed into the cabin as soon as we let them in. Much towel-waving and swatting ensued. Darkly Cute ran into the other room to hide.

"I've got a golden ticket!"

Once we’d all gotten into the cabins and dropped off our stuff, we crammed back into cars, leaving King and Kilt behind, and went to Cici’s for dinner, then across the parking lot to Meijer to get food and supplies for the rest of the weekend: brats, ground beef, buns, chips, drinks, cups, plates, charcoal, more drinks, blind bag ponies, sidewalk chalk, alcoholic drinks, and streamers... but oddly, no balloons. When we got back, EliPony started ponifying the sidewalk up to the cabin while some others “tested” the alcohol. Trixie lurked in the cupboard and watched us make bad decisions about drinking on a night before riding roller coasters.

Saturday:

Most everyone got up really early despite how late we stayed up the night before. It took a while to figure out how to split up the tickets, and how to get everyone into the park, but we managed to sort out who actually wanted to get in early, and got a stack of 10 early-entry tickets from the reg desk. The rest of us herded toward the group sales booth at the front of the park, where we lurked suspiciously for some time before everyone showed up. With some assistance, Starshine finally managed to count to 18 correctly, purchased a stack of tickets, and handed them out right before the park opened. Then everyone split off and ran in all sorts of directions.

Sidewalk ponies!

For reasons unknown to us, basketballs are extremely popular at the park, enough that there are actually signs in front of the coasters informing riders that basketballs are not permitted on rides. Was the B-Ball Removal Department actually affiliated with Cedar Point? Could it be true?! Only Charles Barkley knows.

RACCOONS ON THE TRACK! As we got to the front of the line for Mean Streak, the ride operator made an announcement that the ride would be closed for a while. We stood there anyway for a half hour and watched Party of One. The ride attendant was totally watching it with us. Meanwhile, Darkly Cute and Brickule waited paitently by the exit, wondering if we had all gotten lost in the line. After the episode, we gave up and left to ride something else.

Meanwhile, Edinpony and Kilt raced to the Millenium Force to beat the line, only to find out it didn’t open until half an hour after we got there. Andapanda and EBD (?) rode the Raptor while we were on the line ride and then came to join us and rode the Millenium Force at the same time as us, proving that they are a lot smarter and that I like run-on sentences.

Mean Streak, with cabins in foreground

After waiting a little at the ride exit, the group swelled to include King and DB, and we herded over to ride the Maverick (which is awesome) and the Skyhawk. We rode the Skyhawk like a zillion times because that ride was the best thing ever and had almost no wait time. Edin and EBD decided that everypony else walks way way too slowly.

We arranged to meet by the Sky Tram at 1:00 in order to discuss how hungry everyone was. A group of people headed back to the cabin, where andapanda cooked some delicious burgers. The rest spent $9 apiece on less-delicious burgers and chicken.

(Voltekaru)
It was the first time I ever had Chick-Fil-A, thanks to the fact that there’s only two locations in Michigan for it, one in Jackson and one in Oakland University’s food court for Celestia-knows-why, so honestly I didn’t mind paying so much for spicy chicken. It was pretty good spicy chicken too, and I got some awesome chicken nuggets by accident so that made up for the price. The waffle fries weren’t really up to par, though, but I’ve had them quite a few times before so it wasn’t much of a lost. Also got to acquire a cup of holding in the process, filling it up with water about... 15 times. Man was I thirsty.

I didn’t actually finish eating before our group left, so I decided to wait out the next ride, Gemini, as I finished the yummy nuggets on a bench near the ride exit. I people-watched a bit, seeing out another non-group brony exit the ride with a few friends as well as, out of all things, a pair of Homestuck cosplayers eating ice cream on a curb across from me. I didn’t personally talk to them, but Jessica and a few others discussed a mutual love for the webcomic for about 15 minutes after I pointed it out. Turns out they were part of a group of I think seven cosplayers. Neat to see another fandom group in the park like that.
(/Voltekaru)

A bunch of us went from there to Disaster Transport, which was almost a good idea, except the air conditioning in the building wasn’t working, so we got to stand in line inside a big tin box that was about ten degrees warmer than the already-hot outside air. Darkly Cute hung onto Starshine’s arm the whole time and complained that she didn’t know if it was going to go upside-down because it was dark. After that we attempted to ride the WindSeeker, which mysteriously closed after we’d been standing in line for about fifteen minutes. (We’re blaming raccoons.) Darkly gave up and went to stare at dinosaurs, and the rest of us dispersed in various directions.

The Blue Streak is the safest ride in the park, by which I mean it literally leaves the tracks every time it goes over a hill. Yeehaw.

At 7:00, we all gathered together again and planned to take a picture. Everypony expected Starshine to make some sort of announcement about what to do, but he’d all but lost his voice by that point from screaming like a maniac on the rides all day long, so half the group had no idea what he was saying. A bunch of people wandered away to ride Millenium Force again, but the rest of the group surprisingly managed to keep together for the whole 500 feet we walked to the Top Thrill sign. After more unclear communication, we actually got a photo of about half the group.

Paper plate fanfic reading at the cabin

After this photo-op, we all split up again to go kill off a couple more hours and ride whatever rides we hadn’t ridden yet. A few of us thought it’d be a great idea to chill for a few minutes on the Ferris wheel. We soon learned that Ferris wheel lines are really, really long, and skipped out to ride something else instead. Riding the Raptor at 10 PM may not have been the best decision at the time, but it was amazing, upside-down, and in the dark, and stars spinning around in all directions made the hour-long wait worth it. Also, Edinpony got a brohoof from the ride attendant. (We gave him an Ohio Bronies card. He grinned.) Too bad our plans to crush each other afterward while spinning around in circles on the Himalaya didn’t pan out, but that was a good closer for the night.

Chrysalis is best queen

With sore feet and tired legs, we trotted all the way across the park back to the cabin to have more delicious grilled foods. Ponies were playing on the biggest wall in the cabin until 3 AM, everypony snuggled Queen Chrysalis. Many alcohols were consumed, and many fanfics were written... in crayon... on paper plates. We slept eight feet in the air, and everyone who didn’t get that joke laughed awkwardly every time it was brought up.

Sunday:

After a few short hours of sleep, we managed to get up and clear out of the cabins. Hearing the battle cry of “Pins! Pins!” Darkly Cute and Starshine set up a makeshift shop in the parking lot so that everypony else could throw money around. At some point, Starshine noticed that his one tire had mysteriously gone almost completely flat and briefly panicked until EBD slapped him around and brought him back to reality, where tools and spare tires exist. While this was happening, the rest of the group headed to the local Toys”R”Us, whereupon we were given very strange looks by the employees as we ransacked the blind bag boxes. After Starshine finally showed up, we hung around the store for a little while more, discussed toys and games, then meandered over to the Thirsty Pony.

Their kid's menu is called the
Little Pony Menu. Really.

Arrival at the Thirsty Pony was pretty well coordinated, and Sombrero got to ride in a sweet convertible, courtesy of DB. The gentleman serving us did an admirable job of taking care of all eighteen of us, several of which were carrying MLP plushies. He seemed to think they were prizes from the park, though. Food took about an hour to prepare, but was good. (Can’t really blame them, as the place had literally just opened and they weren’t expecting a big group.) Discussion gravitated toward anime and video games, for the most part.

Edinpony showed us that he was ballin’, and paid the entire $300 bill for the whole group, because for whatever reason they couldn’t split the bill that many ways. After plenty of confusion trying to figure out how much money everyone needed to throw at him, we migrated out to the parking lot to take one last group photo. We then hung around awkwardly until Starshine remembered that he had a bunch of temporary tattoos with ponies on them and handed them out. After some more awkward staring at each other, we all went our separate ways.

Somehow on the drive back, andapanda and Edinpony managed to run into each other, quite literally. What’s more, Starshine just so happened to be going the same route at the same time, recognized the two cars, and stopped to say hi. (Yes, everyone is fine, although Peanut Bucker sustained minor damage... oh yeah, andapanda’s hood and Edin’s bumper might need some attention too.)