The Absolute Worst Time at Cedar Point

Hey gang.

My school has been doing these end-of-the-year, two-day field trips down to Cedar Point for decades - long before I was employed there - with our graduating 8th graders (well, those 8th graders who didn't get in too much trouble during the school year.) For $200, a student got charter bussing to and from the park (located in scenic Ohio, the butthole of the United States), an overnight stay at The Breakers with four of their friends, a complimentary, all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and two full days in the park. 

It's a hell of a deal, to be sure, but with all the inflation we've suffered in this country over the course of the last year, the cost of the bussing sky-rocketed, and as a result we went over budget by a few grand. Not that that's my problem, I didn't organize it - I'll let someone else stress out over that crap. I'm sure part of the budgetary discrepancy was due to the fact we had one of the lowest student enrollments in this trip since I've been at the school - we only had about 60% of the 8th grade attend this year. Times are tough, and teaching in a relatively low-income area like we do, even $200 was tough to swing for cash-strapped families barely making ends meet.

Numbers aside, this year just, well, sucked. The weather on our first day was the worst that some of our more veteran teachers had ever experienced in their decades of going on this trip. 40mph wind gusts, rain, and temperatures hovering around 50 degrees. None of the staff tackled any rides to speak of on the first day, opting instead to hunker down indoors whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was huddled in jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, with a rain jacket over top of that. . . and I was still freezing. Absolute misery, gang, and a far cry from last year's bad-ass, bronzing weather.

On the second day, weather - and morale - improved somewhat. It got sunny out, with barely any clouds in the sky, and temperatures role to the low/mid-60s. I was good in a hoodie, and even managed to knock out my two favorite rides at the park: the Iron Dragon and Mine Ride. By the afternoon, however, my cornea started acting up again - something that flares up every five or six months for a day or two, a lasting reminder of the scarring I suffered from contracting ophthalmologist shingles back in 2022. I was stuck in my contacts for hours - wearing contacts compounds the problem substantially - and wasn't able to take them out and put on my glasses until getting back on the bus for the drive back to Saginaw until, like, 5pm. Until then, I basically had to sit indoors with my right eye squeezed shut, in absolute misery.

So, long story short, this year's trip to Cedar Point was hands-down the worst one I've ever experienced. I was just looking forward to it being over and done with for nearly the entirety of the trip, which totally sucked as it's usually something both students and staff look forward to all year. Hopefully next year's trip will be better.

God knows it can't get worse.

Here you go, folks - check it out. . .

We arrived at the park around 10:45am - somewhat earlier than our usual 11am arrival time in years past - and got the two hundred or so students into the park without issue. As usual, once dropping off all the student medications off to the park's First Aid Station, a group of us teachers decided to walk around the park for a bit.

While passing through Frontierland (or whatever the hell it's called), a group of the 8-1 teachers (there are three 'learning communities' in 8th grade, I'm on 8-3) called their pic in the stockade. Left to Right: Simmons (Social Studies), Abbott (Special Ed), and Benkert (Math.)

After an hour or so of walking around, we were all chilled to the bone and scrambled to find a place indoors where we could hide out for a few hours. There was a bar/restaurant/entertainment venue that was themed like an ol' timey saloon that was surprisingly empty, so we established headquarters on the ground floor to wait out the cold.

Would've been cool to grab a beer here, that's for sure. . . but, you know, it's a school function, so we weren't doing that. 

It's early in the season, so a lot of the stuff in the park was still closed until after Memorial Day Weekend - which was starting the day after we returned to Michigan - but usually they have live music at this place.

Simmons braids Benkert's hair while folks sit around snacking and attempting to warm up.

After attempting to warm up for a bit, we decided to walk around for a bit more to try and keep an eye on groups of students, but we didn't see many. Kids were either indoors (at like the arcade or crap like that), or else waiting in line for rides. Why anyone would want to ride roller coasters in the freezing rain is beyond me. . . .

Around 4pm, we headed out of the park to the adjacent marina in order to grab the scheduled dinner at this Marina Bay Restaurant (think that's what it was called.) Benkert - who organizes this trip for us every year - got us a reservation so we didn't have to wait around for a table.

Unfortunately we got there like 15 minutes early, and the doors were locked, so we had to stand outside, huddled against the walls to avoid the chilling wind and rain, before they finally opened the door and let us in.

Being led to our table. The food here was only okay - I've had better at, like, an Applebee's - but it was super expensive. Fortunately, this was all on the Cedar Point account's dime, so I didn't spend anything.

After dinner, most of the staff left to try and hit up a ride, seeing how the rain had stopped. Abbot, Sawley (the ELA teacher on my team), and I ventured into the adjoining bar and had the staff turn on the gas fireplace for us so we could hang out indoors and try and warm up some more.

We were in no rush to wander the park in the cold.

Eventually, though, we realized we had to go back in order to help usher kids in the park towards our 7pm rendezvous point at the front entrance carousel. Once we had our hundreds of 8th graders assembled at the rally point, groups of teachers led kids back to their designated charter buses and we loaded up in order to drive the 5 minutes over to the Breakers Hotel.

In order to get to the hotel, you have to do this weird victory lap around the outside of the park, along the peninsula, as the hotel itself is located on the Eastern coast. That's the Blue Streak, there to the right.

First glimpse of the sun we'd seen all day.

A passing freighter on Lake Erie.

Arriving at The Breakers. To add insult to injury, what is usually, in years past, a 15-minute process of two teachers running in to collect the dozens of hotel room keys (we only give out one room key per room) before returning to the buses for distribution instead took over an hour. The rooms were all ready, but they hadn't programmed the keys yet, for whatever reason, so those of us teachers on the bus had to keep our 50+ exhausted students from rising up in mutiny for an hour. It was maddening.

After FINALLY getting kids off the buses and into their rooms, we secured kids down for the night and all the staff turned in at 11pm. Usually, the staff goes down to the hotel bar and we all hang out for a couple hours and hang out, but no one was up for it this year. Everyone was exhausted, chilled to the bone, and weary after what will probably go down in history as the worst day in Cedar Point history. The following morning, we began the 7am process of waking kids up, prepping the buses, then ushering kids out of their rooms with all their crap to reload the buses and prepare to set off for Day Two.

Abbott and I were the only male teachers on the trip this year - there are three times as many female teachers as male teachers at our school, so this isn't surprising - so he stayed up on the boy's floor of the hotel to start sending kids down to the buses, where I was waiting to check them in and load up their luggage stored underneath the buses. Our bus was incredibly ghetto, with no chargers for kids to charge their phones, chewed up upholstery, and moldy, old seats. We're definitely not using this busing company again, that's for damn sure.

Seriously.

A promising start to Day Two.

My bus was the first bus with all the kids out of the hotel and assembled, so I took the lead for our group and led my kids around the side of the hotel for the five-minute-walk to the pavilion for the breakfast.

Sunrise over Lake Erie.

Our walk took us behind the hotel and past the pool that the kids never get to make use of.

The bar area we didn't check out this year (though we have in years past.)

I handed out the breakfast tickets to my group and ushered them into this convention center so kids could gorge themselves on free food.

The all-you-can-eat buffet line.

No issues with breakfast tickets, so at least we had that going for us this year.

After an hour or so, kids collected their park entrance tickets for Day Two and set off for the side entrance of the park for their 'early access' to the park (staying at the hotel means we get to enter the park an hour before general admission, which is helpful for those kids that want to get in line for the higher demand coasters that always have long-ass lines.)

You couldn't pay me enough to go up in this thing. F*** that noise.

Coming in the side entrance of the park.

It was still kinda chilly out this morning, but it was supposed to warm up fast.

Much better weather today, and morale was significantly higher.

Here's a bunch of rides I never go on.

Albertson (the Special Ed teacher on my team), Smith (a 6th grade teacher who volunteered to help us out because we were short-staffed this year), Benkert, Priem (ELA, 8-2), and Abbott decide on what ride to do first.

We hit up Iron Dragon first, because it was nearby and there was zero wait time. I went on this one, too, because it's one of the few I can do without pissing myself.

Once done with that ride, we crossed through the tunnel bridge to walk through Frontierland.

This outhouse plays a recording of some ol' timey prospector (or cowboy or whatever) screaming at you to close the door because the shitter's occupied whenever someone opens the door. Never gets old.

All these places were still closed for the season.

I wish my classroom looked like this.

After passing through Frontierland, we headed towards the back of the park so the other teachers could ride Maverick. Yours Truly watched their bags in the sun and knocked a bunch of pages out of The Two Towers (I try and re-read The Lord of the Rings every other year, thereabouts.)

Some folks then went on Steel Vengeance, which - obviously - I had zero interest in riding.

Once they had wrapped up that one, we passed by this one, which barely had a wait time. It's kind of a lame ride, very similar to Disney's Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom, but I love it. Folks know this, so they offered to ride it for me.

(I'm hardcore.)

In the queue for the ride.

Yours Truly, Albertson, Smith, and Milbourne (the 8th grade Guidance Counselor.)

Venturing through the park, monitoring teenagers (that's Gemini off to the left, there.)

Around this time, in the early afternoon, my cornea started acting up and I split off from the rest of the group. They all continued doing rides and I walked around for a bit and took breaks indoors whenever the light started to get too much.

After awhile, though, it became too much and I sat inside a Starbuck's towards the front of the park and just put my head down on a table. Absolutely miserable.

Around quarter-to-five, I left the park and prepped our charter bus to start receiving students. I couldn't take my contacts anymore and had to get them out of my eyes and get some eye drops in.

So that was Cedar Point this year. Definitely NOT the best time I've ever had there, but it sure as hell beats spending time in the classroom teaching I guess. We'll see you guys next time.

- Brian