Cedar Point Shores Water Park

In an effort to rank ALL the rides at Cedar Point, let’s look next at Cedar Point Shores Water Park. Located behind the rest of the amusement park, the water park is adjacent to the Hotel Breakers resort and the campground facilities. This makes it a really nice perk for those staying on the peninsula, but it feels like a bit of overkill when added to the rest of Cedar Point’s stellar offerings.

Water Slides

Cedar Point Shores has 18 different water slides on 6 separate towers. I’ll go through what to expect, from my least to most favorite.

Point Plummet

I’m not the biggest fan of body slides in general. And I’m definitely not a fan of trap-door slides, the ones where you stand on a platform that then drops you into the slide itself, completely vertically. That gets a BIG NOPE from me. Plus, the tubes on these types of slides are transparent, and no one needs to see my 40-year-old backside going down a tube.

The four slides of Point Plummet share a tower with Portside Plunge below. And this whole tower is a clone of what’s in several Cedar Fair-owned parks. I’ve seen it at both Carowinds and King’s Island.

Riptide Raceway

I marginally like better the mat racer-style slides. However, #1, I usually don’t have anyone to race. And, #2, you get a face full of water on the way down. It’s just not that fun. The bigger you are, the faster you’ll go on one of these slides.

Storm Surge

I mainly rate this family raft ride lower because I couldn’t ride it alone, and I didn’t try to find a family to ride with. And I prefer these big raft rides most when they fit with the geography of a park, winding through the woods or dropping down hillsides. This model stands alone, full in the sun, and it just doesn’t look that fun.

Perch Plunge

There are two slide towers at Cedar Point Shores, original to when the water park was built in 1988 as Soak City. One tower holds the three body slides of Perch Plunge and the two tubes slides of Wild Walleye, each named for fish found in Lake Erie.

The body slides of Perch Plunge are on the slow side and are good for beginners. There are some good curves and enclosed sections, but overall, it’s not super thrilling.

Crosscurrent

Crosscurrent is the other tower original to the park, this time with three tube slides. Two are mostly enclosed, and a third is a wide slide right down the middle. A humpback in the slide provides extra thrills. However, this one is almost better to watch than to ride. Many people who might not do a proper water slide will try this one, and their reactions are fun to see.

During my visit, only the wide central slide was open. The other two stayed closed.

Wild Walleye

Wild Walleye refers to the two tube slides on the park’s original tower with Perch Plunge. Since they’re tube slides, I enjoyed them much more in general. See them in the photo above to the left of the Perch Plunge body slides.

Portside Plunge

Portside Plunge features two enclosed tube slides with big airtime hills at the end. I’ve enjoyed these same slides at Carowinds and King’s Island, and I don’t get tired of them. This slide complex only has two slides – some others also include a corkscrew slide that this park is missing.

See them in the first photo with the yellow-and-white stripes.

Lake Erie Nor’easter

My favorite slides at Cedar Point Shores water park is the Lake Erie Nor’easter, two fully enclosed and pitch-black tube slides. There are little windows and portholes above along the way, but they only serve to pour more water on your head. The curves are tight, and since you can’t see where you’re going, it’s even more fun.

There are three slides on the tower, but only two of them work. Even on the map in the app, they only show two slides, so it must not have been working for a while now.

Wave Pools and Lazy Rivers

Besides all the slides, Cedar Point Shores water park has a wave pool and TWO lazy rivers!

Breakwater Bay

The wave pool at the farthest end of the water park (and under the shadow of the Magnum XL-200 coaster) is Breakwater Bay wave pool. I am, on the whole, not a huge fan of wave pools. More often than not, they are a constant teeming mass of humanity (particularly children), all bobbing and crashing into each other as the waves roll by. I mostly use wave pools to get completely soaked first thing in the morning (before it gets too crowded) or before standing in a long line.

Runaway Rapids

I was really excited to experience Runaway Rapids, an “action” river, as opposed to a lazy one. There are geysers in this river, tipping buckets, water features (those that work, that is), and even a wave channel!

Compared to the “regular” lazy river, I found Runaway Rapids to be warmer, slower, and more full of annoying people who can’t just float along but take the “action” part of the river seriously. I even found myself walking forward at times. It’s really pretty slow! Especially around the wave portion (which is a lot of fun in a tube.)

Cedar Creek

Cedar Creek is the proper lazy river at Cedar Point Shores, and I found it cooler and more refreshing than Runaway Rapids. As always, any lazy river gets pretty crowded in the middle of the day. And my pet peeve, full of people who won’t be “lazy” and just float along with the current. And family chains – groups of 6+ tubes all linked together that closeline you as you float along.

But on the whole, I love a good lazy river, and Cedar Creek fits the bill. It doesn’t go all over the park; it just stays in the general vicinity of Crosscurrent.

Kid’s Areas

There are four areas just for kids, from infants and toddlers to big kids. I didn’t experience any of these myself, so I won’t rank them exactly. But I will try to go from small-kid splashes to big-kid adventures.

Lemmy’s Lagoon is a splash pad featuring a long serpentine sea monster to play on. This, along with the Waterin’ Hole and a sand play area, are the three areas that don’t have any height requirement for the smallest of splashers.

Lakeslide Landing, adjacent to Lemmy’s Lagoon, features 12 pint-sized slides ranging in size for your little ones to conquer. SplasH2O is a huge multi-story water play tower with seven slides, a drenching dump bucket, and tons of splashing, spraying, and dumping water features. Both of these areas have a 36″ height requirement.

For bigger kids and families, there is Great Lake Cove activity pool with floating objects to climb on and a Lily Pad Walk to try to cross. Kids here have to be at least 46″ tall.

Adults-Only Pool

Slightly unique to Cedar Point Shores (at least to the water parks I visited this summer) is an adults-only pool with Mufflehead’s Beach Bar right in the pool. Tucked back behind the Riptide Racer, it’s halfway between the Breakwater Bay wave pool and the Cedar Creek lazy river.

The area is nicely set apart, quiet, and you’ll need your ID to get a wristband to enter the area.

Dining

The above Mufflehead’s could really be argued to be a part of the dining options at the water park. The other bar option is Schooner’s Bayside Bar next to the wave pool. Then there’s proper food at Dockside Grill, Crystal Rock Cafe, and a Subway stand, plus a counter for funnel cakes and ice cream. And there’s a Dippin Dots location (because there is one at every amusement park in America – I hate the stuff.)

Lockers, Parking, Etc.

There are two banks of lockers at Cedar Point Shores – one by the wave pool to the left of the entrance and one by the bathhouse to the right. These will cost you $20 for the day, and you can get in and out of them as much as you want.

There’s one large beach shop selling everything you might need, and probably lots more that you don’t. But certainly towels, water shoes, swimsuits, cover-ups, t-shirts, sunscreen, sunglasses, and plenty of souvenirs of your day.

Walking from the Hotel Breakers to the water park is easy. It’s pretty much right there, near the bathhouse and the older slides. Walking from the campsites seems a little further. You would just need to walk through the parking lot.

And speaking of parking, there is a dedicated parking lot for the water park. Definitely don’t park at the entrance to the main park and walk all the way back. Follow the overhead signs around to the back of the park.

But if you want to walk between the water park and the main amusement park, there is a path from the entrance to Cedar Point Shores heading left as you exit the water park. You’ll cross a street and come out between BackBeatQue and Magnum XL-200, by the tall end of Top Thrill Dragster. It is a separate entrance, so you’ll need to have your ticket with you to enter either park.

And I think that’s it for Cedar Point! It’s a huge park, I shouldn’t be surprised it takes four posts to talk about it, and there’s plenty that I didn’t get to. Right now, spooky-themed Halloweekends are on until October 31 with tame treats during the day and scarier attractions at night. While the water park is certainly closed by now, the rest of Cedar Point is open Thursday – Sunday.