Ride / Cedar Fair Entertainment

Fun. To us, it's serious business.

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company (simply known as Cedar Fair) is publicly-traded company headquartered in Sandusky, Ohio that operates twelve amusement parks, five water parks (four outdoor, one indoor), and five hotels.

The company started in 1870 as a recreational park named Cedar Point, which initially belonged to Cedar Point Pleasure Company. In 1978, Cedar Point acquired Valleyfair, after which the company was renamed to Cedar Fair (a portmanteau of "Cedar" from Cedar Point, and "Fair" from Valleyfair). In 2006, the company purchased a group of parks around the US (and one in Canada) previously owned by CBS as Paramount Parks^note before then, they had been under KECO, the Kings Entertainment Company, formed in the mid-1980s by a group of managers and executives who purchased the parks from their former owner, Taft Broadcasting, owners of Hanna-Barbera; ironically, Kings Island, the Cincinnati flagship, featured in an episode of The Brady Bunch, as Paramount was an investor in Taft at the time. KECO was acquired by Paramount in 1992 and was later ranamed to Paramount Parks. Paramount Parks was later transferred to CBS Corporation in 2006.. In 2023, Cedar Fair announced that it would combine with Six Flags, which is set to be completed by 2024.

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Cedar Fair properties (former KECO/Paramount properties are marked with a {*}):

Cedar Fair Parks

• Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio) - opened 1870
• Dorney Park (Allentown, Pennsylvania) - opened 1884; acquired in 1992
  • Wildwater Kingdom (waterpark)
• Knott's Berry Farm (Buena Park, California) - opened 1940; acquired in 1997
• Michigan's Adventure (Muskegon, Michigan) - opened 1956; acquired in 2001
  • Wildwater Adventure (waterpark)
• Kings Island (*) (Mason, Ohio) - opened 1972; acquired in 2006
  • Soak City (waterpark)
• Carowinds (*) (Charlotte, North Carolina; portion in Fort Mill, South Carolina) - opened 1973; acquired in 2006
  • Carolina Harbor (waterpark)
• Worlds of Fun (Kansas City, Missouri) - opened 1973; acquired in 1995
  • Oceans of Fun (waterpark)
• Kings Dominion (*) (Doswell, Virginia) - opened 1975; acquired in 2006
  • Soak City (waterpark)
• Valleyfair (Shakopee, Minnesota) - opened 1976; acquired in 1978
  • Soak City (waterpark)
• California's Great America (*) (Santa Clara, California) - opened 1976; acquired in 2006^note Sister park of Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois; set to close at some point before 2032 after land was sold in 2022
  • South Bay Shores (waterpark)
• Canada's Wonderland (*) (Vaughan, Ontario, Canada) - opened 1981; acquired in 2006
  • Splash Works (waterpark)

Water Parks

Require separate admission for entry:

Outdoor

• Cedar Point Shores (formerly Soak City) - opened 2017 (in 1988 as Soak City)
• Knott's Soak City: Orange County - opened 1999
• Schlitterbahn Galveston (Galveston, Texas) - opened 2006, acquired 2019
• Schlitterbahn New Braunfels (New Braunfels, Texas) - opened 1979, acquired 2019

Indoor

• Castaway Bay (Sandusky, Ohio) - opened 2004

Hotels & Campgrounds

• Hotel Breakers (Cedar Point)
• Cedar Point's Express Hotel
• Camper Village (Cedar Point)
• Lighthouse Point (Cedar Point)
• Castaway Bay Indoor Waterpark Resort (Cedar Point)
• Camp Wilderness (Kings Dominion)
• Knott's Berry Farm Resort Hotel
• Worlds of Fun Village
• Carowinds Camp Wilderness Resort
• Spring Hill Suites by Marriott at Carowinds
• Hyatt Place / Hyatt House at Canada's Wonderland
• Camp Cedar (Kings Island) (Opened 2021)

Former Parks

• Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom (Aurora, OH) - opened 1887; acquired 2004; Geauga Lake closed 2007; Wildwater Kingom closed 2016
• Gilroy Gardens (*) (Gilroy, California) - opened 2001 as Bonafarte Gardems; acquired in 2006; lease expired 2022
• Knott's Camp Snoopy (Located inside Mall of America, Bloomington, MN) - opened 1992; acquired with Knott's Berry Farm; sold 2006
• Knott's Soak City: Palm Springs (Palm Springs, CA) - opened 1986; acquired 2001; sold 2013
• Knott's Soak City: San Diego (Chula Vista, CA) - opened 1997; acquired 2000; sold 2012
• Star Trek: The Experience (*) (Las Vegas, NV) - opened 1998; acquired 2006; closed 2008

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Cedar Fair Entertainment provides examples of:

• Abandoned Playground: Geauga Lake in Aurora, Ohio. Cedar Fair purchased the park from Six Flags in 2004 and closed it following the 2007 season after 120 years of operation. Most buildings were taken down and all the rides that could be moved were sent to other parks in the chain. Notably, the historic Big Dipper rollercoaster remained standing until 2016. Geauga Lake's waterpark, Wildwater Kingdom, remained in operation through the 2016 season, allowing its visitors to look out on the ruins of the former park.
• Aborted Arc: Cedar Point and Kings Dominion once had free mobile games called The Battle for Cedar Point and The Battle for Kings Dominion respectively. The apps provided a way to entertain yourself in line, featured Augmented Reality, and even gave rides their own backstories.^note  Notable examples include Millennium Force keeping the kingdom at peace, Dominator being a superhero, and Top Thrill Dragster's vehicle being from an advanced civilization that's been long gone. However, due to the diminishing playerbase, the apps are impossible to play and any references to the game existing in the first place were removed.
• Absurdly Long Wait: Expect this on the major attractions. Wait times for rides like Millennium Force or Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point, Yukon Striker at Canada's Wonderland, or Fury 325 at Carowinds can be up to 2 hours or longer.
• Advanced Tech 2000: Worlds of Fun has a ride called Cyclone Sam's, the ride's full name is Cyclone Sam's Cloudpoofer 2000.
• Artifact Title: The former Safari Village at Kings Dominion was a real mishmash of themes, which was seen in its roller coaster collection. Anaconda was probably the only one of the five coasters to fit in with the theme implied by the land's name. Avalanche was themed to Olympic bobsledding, Backlot Stunt Coaster is themed to a Hollywood backlot, Flight of Fear is outer-space themed, and Intimidator 305 was NASCAR themed up until the end of 2023. That said, the 2022 retheme of this area to Jungle X-Pedition seems to be fixing this, with the addition of Tumbili and retheming of Avalanche to Reptilian.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The virtual reality glasses that were added to Thunder Run in Canada's Wonderland provided paying guests with a ride through a VR city matching with the movements of the train. However, this new addition drew plenty of criticism from guests, which ranged from longer loading times to the overall quality of the VR goggles.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • La Revolucion - Spanish for "The Revolution"
  • Sol Spin - Sol is Spanish for "Sun." Spin is already in English
  • Tumbili - Swahili for "Monkey"
  • Valravn - Danish for "Raven of the Slain"
• Black Site: Area 72 at Kings Island is themed after a top secret military base. However, due to the desperate need of volunteers to participate in the Orion Sequence, the base is open to the public.
  • One of the occasional announcements in the area outright mentions Area 51.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Or to more rides, at least. Cedar Fair parks offer 'Fast Lane' ('Fright Lane' for Halloween Haunt), where (for an additional fee) guests can bypass the lines for many rides. Some parks offer 'Fast Lane Plus', in which higher-demand rides are restricted to this tier.
• Colony Drop: The story for Orion at Kings Island is about testing a newly created vehicle to escape this.
• Company Cross References: They're everywhere. Notable examples include the cargo on Snake River Expedition at Cedar Point^note  For example, there's a crate labeled Miami River Lumber Company, a reference to Mystic Timbers at Kings Island., the Blue Ridge Country Kitchen at Carowinds^note  Several references to other parks can be found in the restaurant. , and Area 72 at Kings Island.^note  there's tons of references there.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Maverick, according to Steel Vengeance, was once an illegal moonshiner, before moving to Frontier Town and founding a mining company. Aside from using his illicit moonshine income to start up the company, he also failed to compensate Digger after a workplace accident and bribed his own brother to stay silent about the aforementioned moonshine business.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Some characters on the original version of Knott's Bear-y Tales can be heard humming or whistling the ride's theme song, Welcome One and All.
• Edible Ammunition: The guns the riders use on Knott's Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair are jelly blasters.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Some of the parks' locations are in their names: Michigan's Adventure, California's Great America, Gilroy Gardens, Canada's Wonderland. Carowinds, with an address in North Carolina and portions of the park's land being in South Carolina, is less upfront but still applies. A stealth version is Kings Dominion; its state's nickname is "The Old Dominion".
  • Intimidator 305 and Fury 325, the respective giga coasters of Kings Dominion and Carowinds. No points for guessing the heights of these.
  • Racer and Racer 75 at Kings Island and Kings Dominion, respectively, are both racing coasters, as is Gemini at Cedar Point.
  • Cedar Point, Valleyfair, and Michigan's Adventure all have a coaster named Corkscrew, where the eponymous inversion is their signature element.
• Excuse Plot:
  • Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point gives a backstory of three outlaws banding together and building a machine to get revenge on corrupt mining tycoon Maverick. Though surprisingly in-depth for Cedar Fair at the time, this backstory is clearly a backdrop for the world-class roller coaster.
  • Mystic Timbers at Kings Island has a much simpler plot. Taking place at the site of a cursed lumber mill, there is a shed with unusual activity. Despite warning, the riders trespass anyway.
• Giant Hands of Doom:
  • You would expect a ride called Vortex to be themed to a tornado or cyclone, but Kings Island's and Canada's Wonderland's Vortexes were themed to a giant metallic hand (Carowinds uses the same text for the logo, but the hand is nowhere to be seen).
  • In 2019, Canada's Wonderland ended up removing the hand theming for a mining theme to line up with their new Frontier Canada section, however, the name was unchanged. ^Explanation  In order to extract gold from river water, dirt and sediment, prospectors during the Gold Rush would use tools to create a water vortex to do the job for them. Sluice boxes and special pans could create this effect and separate the elements.
  • California's Great America averted this by theming their Vortex to a tornado.
• I Have Many Names:
  • The family wooden coasters at the ex-Paramount Parks have gone through an assortment of name changes. They all started as Scooby-Doo's Ghoster Coaster (or some variation thereof). Only the Canada's Wonderland version still goes by Ghoster Coaster, as the other three have all now been renamed Woodstock Express due to their kids areas becoming Planet Snoopy. Kings Island's version went through two intermediate names between Scooby-Doo and Woodstock Express, though: it was renamed The Beastie in 1980 after The Beast opened (with a tunnel installed on the first drop), then renamed Fairly Odd Coaster in 2006, and finally Woodstock Express in 2010.
  • The Flying Cobras at Carowinds originally opened at Geauga Lake as Mind Eraser, back when Geauga Lake was a Premier (and later Six Flags) park. When Cedar Fair took over the park in 2004, it became Head Spin. After Geauga Lake was shuttered in 2007, it was moved to Carowinds and renamed Carolina Cobra. When the ride was incorporated into an expanded County Fair 2017, it became The Flying Cobras and took on an air show theme.
  • Possessed at Dorney Park also started out at Geauga Lake. Initially named Superman: Ultimate Escape, the ride was renamed to Steel Venom after Cedar Fair's purchase of Geauga Lake. After it was relocated to Dorney Park in 2008, it was renamed to Voodoo, but the name was changed in 2009 to Possessed because Six Flags owned the rights to the name Voodoo.
  • The Bat at Kings Island was originally opened in 1993 as Top Gun. Upon Cedar Fair's acquisition of the Paramount parks, the ride was renamed Flight Deck in 2008 (like also happened to the Top Gun coasters at Canada's Wonderland and California's Great America). Then in 2014, with the construction of Banshee on the adjacent space formerly occupied by Son of Beast, the ride was repainted with a bright orange track and renamed again to The Bat, as a tribute to the park's first suspended coaster with that name (which operated in Coney Mall from 1981 to 1983 on the space that was later occupied by Vortex from 1987 to 2019).
• Jungle Japes: The Jungle X-Pedition area at Kings Dominion is themed to a vast jungle containing multiple ancient temples.
• Large Ham: The ride operators hype up your ride experience like there's no tomorrow.
  Average ride operator (during dispatch): You guys are all clear and outta here! Enjoy your ride on [Ride name]!
  Average ride operator (after ride): Welcome back riders, how was your ride? (Riders cheer) Good! Lift up on your restraints and exit to your left and enjoy the rest of your day here at [Park name]!
  • Special mention goes to Flight of Fear's operators.
• Last of Its Kind: Sledgehammer at Canada's Wonderland is the first and only Giant Jumper in the world. Unfortunately, its constant state of disrepair does it no favours.
• Long-Lost Relative: California's Great America is the sister park of Six Flags Great America. The two parks were originally built, owned, and operated by Marriott Hotels. Six Flags bought the Illinois park, while Kings Entertainment Company got the California park, which later was a Paramount Park from 1993 to 2006 before the Paramount parks were bought out by Cedar Fair.
• MacGuffin Title: Michigan's Adventure has a family coaster named Zach's Zoomer, although there isn't a Cedar Fair character named Zach. Turns out it's actually named after Zach Mark, one of the family members that owned the park before Cedar Fair purchased it.
• Mine Cart Madness:
  • The Cedar Creek Mine Ride at Cedar Point was one of the first mine train roller coasters, and is the park's oldest operating steel roller coaster.
  • Kings Island has the Adventure Express, which has a jungle adventure theme.
  • Thunder Run at Canada's Wonderland, which makes two runs through Wonder Mountain, whilst making several near-misses with the adjacent train track and other obstacles.
  • Wonder Mountain Guardian at the same park also counts. Even while moving at a crawling pace, riders on board are tasked with shooting at various monsters inside the mountain, before you're all eventually caught and fight against a fire-breathing dragon.
• Never Mess with Granny: Copperhead Strike at Carowinds features a character named Granny Byrd, who won several blue ribbons at the county fair for her prize winning jam. But she really doesn't want you to sneak in to find what her secret recipe is, because she's also brewing moonshine.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Some videos used to announce or promote new coasters have music that is unique and made specifically for the ride. Said song is never used at the park.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Beast at Kings Island is nestled in the woods at the far back of the park. You can't see anything of the ride until you're deep into Rivertown and near the ride entrance. Moreso at night as the trees block out any light from the moon and stars.
• Oddball in the Series: Amongst the former Paramount parks, California's Great America is the only one of these on the West Coast, as the others serve the East Coast or Midwest markets.^note With Kings Island drawing from the Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton metropolitan areas; Kings Dominion drawing from Washington, DC, Richmond, Virginia, and Hampton Roads; Carowinds servicing Charlotte, North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina; and Canada's Wonderland servicing Toronto, Ontario
• Parental Favoritism: Certain parks in the chain get larger and more frequent investments due to their attendance or growth potential. The parks that get the most attention include Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Knott's Berry Farm.
• Playing Card Motifs: The leader of the three outlaws for Steel Vengeance is named Blackjack and has the four suits etched into his hat. He is also extremely good at card games, which is how he earned the name Blackjack.
• Portmanteau: The company's name is derived from the first two parks it was comprised of, Cedar Point and Valleyfair.
• Product Displacement:
  • The former Paramount Parks had plenty of rides that had been themed after their properties. While Cedar Fair had a ten-year licensing deal for Paramount names and icons from Viacom (as well as the Nickelodeon license from them^note While they still had another license agreement with Universal Parks & Resorts at that time., the Star Trek license from CBS, and the Hanna-Barbera license from Warner Bros.) they opted to terminate the agreements and not pay an annual licensing fee. So any Paramount/Nickelodeon/CBS/Hanna-Barbera-themed rides had to be de-themed.
    • Canada's Wonderland, Kings Island, and Kings Dominion all received The Italian Job-themed launch coasters in 2005/2006. After detheming, the rides were all renamed to Backlot Stunt Coaster, and the Mini Cooper-themed ride vehicles had to be made generic.
    • Several inverted coasters at the Paramount Parks were themed after Top Gun: B&M inverted coasters at California's Great America and Carowinds, an Arrow suspended coaster at Kings Island, and a Vekoma SLC at Canada's Wonderland. After the Cedar Fair takeover, all of them were renamed Flight Deck^note Kings Island would later rename their version to The Bat in 2014, in tribute to their original suspended swinging coaster of the same name save for Carowinds' version, which was instead renamed Afterburn.
    • BORG Assimilator at Carowinds (Vekoma Flying Dutchman; formerly Stealth at California's Great America) was renamed Nighthawk.
    • One of the worst affected was the HUSS Top Spin known as Tomb Raider: The Ride at Kings Island. Built for $20 million, with impressive water effects, lasers, Hollywood lighting, a pre-show, synchronized musical score, film props, artificial fog, and flame effects; almost all of these were removed by Cedar Fair when the ride was rebranded as The Crypt, and it would stay this way until closing quietly in 2011 (it didn't help that Diamondback's construction led to its show building becoming an eyesore in Rivertown). By comparison, its sister at Kings Dominion ran until the end of 2019 (when it was torn out and eventually replaced by Tumbili), and by virtue of being outdoors, retained all of its original theming, music, film props, lighting, fog, and flames.
    • The Scooby-Doo's Haunted Mansion dark rides at all but one of their parks^note California's Great America to be specific had to be completely stripped of their Scooby-Doo theming and animatronics. The rides were renamed Boo Blasters on Boo Hill for the 2010 season.
    • Oddly enough, the SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D movie managed to outlast the rest of the Nickelodeon themed attractions by just a few years. This is likely because the licensing agreement with the movie's distributor Simex-Iwerks allowed it to run in the theater until they signed to replace it with another film. The last remaining ones at California's Great America and Carowinds would be gone by the 2013 season.
  • In 2004, Cedar Fair acquired Geauga Lake from Six Flags. As they did not have the rights to use DC Comics or Looney Tunes characters, any rides themed after those properties had to be renamed.
    • Batman: Knight Flight (a B&M floorless coaster) became Dominator.^note Relocated to Kings Dominion in 2008
    • Superman: Ultimate Escape (an Intamin Impulse coaster) was renamed Steel Venom.^note Relocated to Dorney Park in 2008, where it operated as Voodoo for a year before being renamed Possessed in 2009
    • The Road Runner Express (a Zierer junior coaster) was renamed the Beaver Land Mine Ride.^note Currently operates as Roller Coaster at Papéa Parc in Yvré-l'Evêque, France
  • Cedar Fair constructed two NASCAR-themed roller coasters for the 2010 season, a B&M hypercoaster called Intimidator at Carowinds and an Intamin gigacoaster called Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion. After their licensing agreement with Dale Earnhardt's estate expired at the end of 2023, the two coasters were rethemed and renamed.
• Product Placement: Intimidator and Intimidator 305 had a NASCAR theme from their debuts in 2010 up through the end of 2023 when Cedar Fair's licensing agreement with Dale Earnhardt's estate ended. During this time, they had ad stickers on the lead cars of the trains, like on actual stock cars.
• Pun-Based Title: Carowinds' family suspended coaster is called Kiddy Hawk. No guess what it's named after. The same is true of Kiddy Hawk Cove at Carolina Harbor, the water park.
• Randomly Generated Levels: The shed portion of Mystic Timbers can have one of four songs play while waiting to reenter the station, these are; "Cars" by Gary Numan, "Maneater" by Daryl Hall & John Oates, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler, or "Can't Take my Eyes Off You" by Boys Town Gang. Then as you turn right to enter the station, one of three monsters break down the doors and scare you, these are; a large demonic bat, a giant snake, or a tree.
• Rearing Horse: The logo for Maverick at Cedar Point features this.
• Revenge: The backstory for Cedar Point's Steel Vengeance is this, with the three protagonists coming together to bring down Maverick. Specifically, Digger was an ally of Maverick, before being written off after a boiler accident took his arm, Chess was threatened after rejecting Maverick romantically, and Blackjack lost all respect for his once revered brother.
• Rewrite: Maverick's clan video from the original 2016 version of The Battle for Cedar Point states that Maverick built FrontierTown, however, the story for Steel Vengeance states that he simply settled in and established a mining business.
• Room Full of Crazy: The walls of the penultimate section of the shed on Mystic Timbers have 'IT'S IN THE SHED' scrawled on every conceivable surface.
• Shoot Everything That Moves: Knott's Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair. Everything from the signs, other characters, and even the bears themselves give you points when hit. But most of the time, you'll be targeting the pies, Crafty Coyote's pups, and the occasional appearance of Crafty himself. And due to the fact that you're using jelly blasters, whatever you shoot stays on screen with the exception for the pies (which respawn shortly after being hit) and Crafty Coyote (who makes a swift exit, but not before being dazed after being hit).
• Silver Bullet: The B&M invert at Knott's Berry Farm is named Silver Bullet.
• Shout-Out:
  • Thunder Striker at Carowinds was known as Intimidator from 2010 to 2023, in tribute to Charlotte's role as a hub for NASCAR activity.^note Almost all of the NASCAR Cup teams have their shops in the Charlotte metropolitan area, the NASCAR Hall of Fame is in downtown Charlotte, Charlotte Motor Speedway is in Concord to the northeast of the city, and the ride itself used the nickname of Dale Earnhardt, who hailed from the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis. After Cedar Fair's rights to use the Earnhardt name on Intimidator and its sister coaster Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion, the two coasters were renamed and rethemed. The new name serves as a nod to the park's defunct wooden racing coaster Thunder Road.
  • Delirious at Valleyfair is an obvious homage to Prince, who was from Minneapolis. In addition to the ride sharing a name with one of Prince's songs, it's also painted purple.
  • The queue line for Orion at Kings Island is filled with tributes to many of the park's past and present attractions.
• The Bus Came Back: Dave, a fan favorite character from Disaster Transport was obviously removed with the ride in 2012, but he made his return in the GateKeeper gift shop in 2021 where he occasionally says pre-recorded lines including but not limited to, discussing his absence, singing, and even a verbal Wall of Text explaining why Disaster Transport was replaced with GateKeeper.
• The Rival: To Six Flags. Both companies provide each other with stiff competition for thrill seekers, though have different business approaches so as to cater to slightly different audiences.
• The Un Favourite: On certain parks in the chain get smaller and less frequent investments than other parks. These parks include Dorney Park, Michigan's Adventure, Kings Dominion, Worlds of Fun, and Valleyfair. Most of these parks haven't received a new original coaster in over ten years.
• Title: The Adaptation:
  • Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm is always referred to as 'Xcelerator: The Ride' from the ride's sign to even its page on Knott's Berry Farm's website despite there not being any other sources of media called Xcelerator.
  • Orion at Kings Island also suffers from this, but only in merchandise.
• Toon Town: Various Cedar Fair parks have these. For example, the former Taft parks (during their Paramount era) had their Hanna-Barbera Lands and Nickelodeon Central for their kids areas. After which they were both replaced with Planet Snoopy. At Dorney Park, there used to be a small children's area themed after The Care Bears during the mid to late 1980s. The area featured an audio animatronic show, a live stage show, and a few attractions aimed at very young visitors. This area also had a few walkaround versions of some of the Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins that guest meet. Several of their parks in the 80s and 90s also had Bear Country themed children's areas, based on The Berenstain Bears series of books. However they'd be replaced with the Peanuts theming after the company's Knott's Berry Farm acquisition gave them the license and the license agreement they had with Stan & Jan Berenstain (the owners of The Berenstain Bears franchise) later expired.
• Viewer Name Confusion: Michigan's Adventure is often mispronounced as 'Michigan Adventures', 'Michigan Adventure', or 'Michigan's Adventures'.
  • On a similar note, Shivering Timbers at the same park is often pronounced 'Shiver me Timbers' despite having no relation to pirates.
• Wicked Wasps: The theming of Carowinds' Fury 325, in reference to the city of Charlotte's "hornet's nest" nickname.

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