The Line for the Line

Newsletter 2026-06-07

Having completed the most dangerous ride of the day—a five-hour car trip with my sixteen-year-old in the driver’s seat while I was squeezed in the middle of the back row—we were finally ready for a much milder thrill: some of the largest roller coasters in the world. We arrived in the massive parking lot for Cedar Point shortly after 11 a.m.. I had driven the final leg, having exhausted the amount of time my real legs could handle being squeezed into a space too small for a mini poodle. I targeted a spot on the very end of one of the rows of a thousand cars. I learned my lesson from Kings Island a month earlier. I had been boxed in by a truck the size of a cruise ship, a Tesla that thought parking lines were mere suggestions, and an SUV directly behind me that thought parking halfway out in the aisle would be a funny thing to do. I had to complete a nineteen-point turn to get out, with my brother-in-law, Jerry, standing outside the vehicle, directing me down to the inch and a massive line of cars waiting for me to finish on either side. It was one of the most stressful and embarrassing moments of my life. Surprisingly, my captive audience was on my side. As we drove away, none of the dozen cars that had been waiting for me to clear out even attempted to take my spot. As far as I know, it’s still open to this day, left permanently empty as a monument to the worst collective parking job in the history of the world.

The first thing we did when my van stopped moving Tuesday was eat. My guiding principle on any adventure is soul-crushing frugality. Jerry spent hours strategizing the cheapest way to visit multiple amusement parks this year. He bought an annual pass for himself that allowed him to purchase discounted guest passes and also got us free parking. Eating inside the park was absolutely out of the question, even with the ten percent discount from his annual pass. An order of chicken tenders inside the gates would still cost the rent for a small apartment plus tip. Instead, we brought a cooler full of sandwich materials, which we ate standing on the asphalt as the cold winds from Lake Erie whipped around us and seagulls circled menacingly overhead. It was a little early to eat, but the alternative was to go into the park for an hour and come back out, which would burn precious daylight. We stuffed ourselves full of picnic food we weren’t really hungry for and then covered ourselves in as much sunscreen as physics would allow. My biggest fear was that I’d be so slippery that I’d fly out of the harness on a roller coaster. There was only one way to find out. Shortly before noon, we finally entered the park.

Before us was a roller coaster paradise. We checked the park’s app and targeted two medium sized rides with very short wait times. Going on roller coasters is like getting into a cold pool. You could jump in and get the shock over with immediately, or you could make the process as long and painful as possible. I always go with option two. We targeted progressively bigger coasters, aiming for short lines and building thrills. Eventually, we ran out of convenient options. Our first big ride was Millennium Force, where we were in line for forty-five minutes. The wait would have been much shorter were it not for my newly discovered nemesis: capitalism. Let me introduce you to the corrupt but profitable world of line-cutting.

Every modern amusement park has some version of a fast pass. You pay money to move to the front of the line. It makes sense from the amusement park’s point of view. Why not give priority to people who pay extra? Impatience can be commodified. After we stacked all of our deals, we paid forty-five dollars per ticket per day. Since fast passers were setting money on fire, I’m guessing they paid the full retail price of sixty-five to seventy-five dollars, depending on how early they bought their tickets. Fast pass prices are based on park congestion. That day, they were $169 on top of the ticket price. There might be a world where that math works out. If you pay five times more for tickets but get to ride ten times more coasters, you’re actually paying less per ride. Maybe you can even shorten your new visit from two days to one because you finish it all in one shift. I refuse to do that, not just out of cheapness, but on principle. If the only way to compete with the fast passers is to become a fast passer, then pretty soon everyone is paying $244 and the fast pass line is just as long as the regular line. In short, I think fast passes should be illegal and that anyone who offers them should be launched by a catapult into Lake Erie to be eaten by seagulls. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

We spent much of our line time strategizing how to avoid the fast passers. There had to be a way to predict where and when they would show up. We never determined a pattern, but at least it gave us something to talk about as our time was aggressively wasted by the forces of the free market. After we finally got on Millennium Force, we walked to the mega rides at the far end, hoping to avoid the biggest concentrations of cheaters. The app said the distant rides had their shortest lines of the day. The problem was that they were a mile away. By the time we got there, the waits were as long as ever. Either the app had lied or we had been too slow. The best way to trick me is to make me verify the truth by doing cardio. The only alternative was to walk a mile back, with no guarantee of what the wait times would look like at the front of the park. We used laziness as our tiebreaker. We got in line for Maverick and settled in for what turned out to be our longest line of the day.

I stood in line for exactly 83 minutes. The wait was especially tough because my legs were feeling the effects of the van ride plus what would eventually amount to ten miles of walking. Meanwhile, the same fast passers went past us multiple times as we watched from the poor lane. When we finally got near the front of the line, the attendant asked if there were any single riders to fill an empty seat. Our party of seven always had at least one solo adventurer. I volunteered so fast I broke the sound barrier. I rode the coaster, which was fine, then waited ten minutes for the rest of my group to finish. The excitement of the ride briefly restored my morale, which was a pattern that repeated itself throughout the day. We’d have a long, depressing wait, followed by two to three minutes of exhilaration. Then the process would start again. It was literally an emotional roller coaster.

Photo by Skyler Gerald on Unsplash

Our next ride was, in my opinion, the best in the park: Steel Vengeance. It was so fast and intense that we were required to empty our pockets. I don’t mean that metaphorically for once. We had to get rid of all loose items, even if they were secured by zippers or straps. There was a display of shattered cell phones as a warning. This wasn’t done on the honor system. We had to put everything in lockers and then walk through a metal detector. That boded well. After spending what felt like weeks in line for Maverick, we got to the front of the line for Steel Vengeance in just half an hour. It was instantaneous by comparison. The minimalist seats made it feel like we were going to be thrown out at every drop. It was awesome. The only downside was the bugs, which emerged at dusk. They splattered on my arms and legs like I was a car driving down a country road. When we got done, we immediately got in line to go again. This time, we made it to the front of the line even faster. Betsy and her friend were in the front row, proving once and for all that they’re both fearless. We rode the ride again, getting splattered with even more bugs. It was one of the best days of my life.

It was getting late, but we had hours left. We planned to stay until the park closed at 10 p.m.. We made our way toward the parking lot. At the gate, the attendant was confused when we asked for passes to get back in. He gave them to us anyway. We walked to my van and had a second feast of sandwiches. At 7:30 p.m., we reentered the park. All of the lines had magically disappeared. We boarded Valravn, which had had a ninety-minute wait for most of the day, in mere seconds. After we rode it, the attendant let us stay in our seats to go again. Before he launched us, he said it was the last ride of the day. We were perplexed. We rode it for a second time around. When we got back, we pulled out our phones and realized the park actually closes at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays in early June. Cedar Point might have saved us from ourselves. I was too old for two more hours of coasters, even if I would have made the attempt anyway. My life goal is to die trying.

Our Airbnb was only a few minutes away. It was my favorite part of the trip. It was clearly somebody’s parents’ house. When they died, their sons—they definitely had to be male—simply threw out everything that wasn’t a couch or a bed while offering no replacement decorations or furniture. The massive rooms were ninety-five percent empty, and all of the kitchen cabinets combined had exactly five plates and cups and nothing else. The place was perfect. All we needed were some soft surfaces where we could sleep. I was so tired, I probably could have slept on the pavement. As a bonus, the place had a super creepy basement that we all explored together like we were in the opening scene of a horror movie. It was exactly what we deserved for the forty dollars per person we paid to sleep there. We made a quick trip for ice cream, then took showers and went to bed. Nothing came out of the basement to murder us in our sleep. I left the place a five star review.

The next day, we got to the park when it opened at 10 a.m.. We targeted the mega rides we had avoided the day before that had had wait times that never dropped below ninety minutes. We waited an hour for Top Thrill 2 and then an hour and a half for Siren’s Curse, all while fast passers sauntered past us. I didn’t want to stay in line, but my pride wouldn’t let me leave the park without conquering its most famous attractions. With the marquee rides out of the way, we could do whatever we wanted. We bounced around to the roller coasters with the shortest lines until midafternoon, when we were all tired enough to go home. This time, I drove most of the way. I’d rather die than sit in the back row again. That’s the one ride I’ll never try twice. Our two days at Cedar Point were an incredible trip, but it will probably be several years until I go back. That’s about how long it’ll take me to recover.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James