Cedar Point goes full tilt with new coaster
Siren’s Curse to open next summer at Ohio park
Surprise! Cedar Point, the land-starved Ohio park that sits on a peninsula aside Lake Erie, will be opening a new coaster–its 18th–in 2025. Because it debuted Top Thrill 2 this year, and there would seem to be no place to introduce a new ride without first removing one, virtually nobody was expecting the announcement. The park, however, has found a spot to shoehorn another coaster. And not just any ride, but a tilt coaster. Say what now?
When it opens early next summer, Siren’s Curse will send a trainload of 24 passengers up 160 feet and onto a “broken off” section of track (that’s the park’s fear-mongering description) where they will come to an abrupt stop and stare off into the void. The track section, with the train on it mind you, will then slowly start to tilt, kind of like a one-way seesaw. When it reaches an angle of 90 degrees (otherwise known as straight down), the section will align with the rest of the track and, after a few harrowing seconds, the train will release. It has to be one of the–if not the–wackiest concepts in coasterdom.
What follows looks to be a satisfying coaster experience. Siren’s Curse will plunge and hit a top speed of 58 mph followed by what the park promises will be 13 airtime moments. It will deliver two corkscrewy barrel rolls and a triple-down element that will send the train careening under a pedestrian bridge. That bridge is going to be a popular spot to snap photos. The two-minute ride will traverse 2,966 feet of track. Keep in mind that much of the ride will be spent climbing the lift hill and tilting. But the tilting wackiness is kind of the whole point of this crazy contraption.
As I often point out here at About Theme Parks, nearly all parks love to brag that their new coasters break records, no matter how tenuous the claim. I see it as my job to deconstruct, and sometimes bust, the hype. Cedar Point is pitching Siren’s Curse as the tallest, fastest, and longest tilt coaster in North America. As of now, there are no tilt coasters operating on the continent. In fact, there is only one coaster tilting passengers anywhere in the world. That’d be Gravity Max, which opened at Discovery World in Taiwan way back in 2002. For whatever reason, the concept did not catch on–until now.
That ride, like Siren’s Curse, comes from the twisted minds at Vekoma, the Dutch ride manufacturer. It stands 114 feet tall and maxes out at 56 mph. But there are two other 2.0 versions of the tilt coaster in the works, both of which are scheduled to debut in 2025. The long-delayed Circuit Breaker at COTALAND in Texas will supposedly start tilting next year. It’s designed to climb 131 feet and reach a top speed of 57 mph. Then there is Iron Rattler, which is under construction at Six Flags Qiddiya in Saudi Arabia. That monster, which is also supposed to debut in 2025 along with the rest of the park, will ascend 208 feet, hit 73 mph, and include five inversions among its 4,068 feet of track. So yes, assuming all three of these under-development coasters from Vekoma open next year, Siren’s Curse will hold the records for North America. But the one in the Middle East will demolish them.
A siren, by the way, is a mythical mermaid-like creature that is typically said to live in the sea. Cedar Point is coopting the myth by declaring that sirens dwell in Lake Erie. They are known to captivate sailors with their alluring songs and lure the hapless victims to their underwater realms. With the coaster’s onboard audio–a first for the park–passengers will be able to hear the siren’s melodic call as they climb the lift hill and slowly make their way onto the tilt track. Cedar Point says that the trains will also feature snazzy LED lighting.
It does seem odd that the park would unveil major coasters two years in a row. Then again, Top Thrill 2 was only open about a week until it closed due to undisclosed issues with the train. It has yet to reopen (which made me one of the few folks that got to experience it). Will Zamperla, the train’s manufacturer, be able to resolve the issue? That remains to be seen. If Top Thrill 2 does reopen in 2025, it should be a banner year for Cedar Point. If it remains closed, then the park can shift the focus away from the two oddly quiet, 420-foot-tall towers on its midway and over to its wacky, new tilt coaster.
Siren’s Curse may be the epitome of a gimmick coaster. But it is one heckuva gimmick.
Are the psychological thrills of a tilt coaster too much for you to handle? Might you book passage to Cedar Point and give Siren’s Curse a whirl?
The announcement of this coaster was a complete surprise to me. I feel like I and others wrote on one of your previous articles about how I thought this type of coaster would be everywhere right after the first one came out. Now many year later, it seems to be happening. I love in the animation that the drop will be right on the midway across from the entrance to the Iron Dragon. I believe the Wildcat was partially on this spot. I definitely plan on going to CP next summer to ride this and TT2! Names of coasters don't really bother me, but I do like this one more than Valravn.