Cedar Point, the popular Ohio amusement park known for its record-breaking roller coasters, said Thursday morning that a new thriller, Siren’s Curse, is set to open next year as North America’s tallest, longest and fastest tilt ride.
The announcement, on the park’s website, which was only a few paragraphs long, included a video posted to YouTube that is just over a minute long with music, an animation of what the ride will be like, and the tag line, “ANSWER THE CALL.”
The video ends, with the name of the ride, using stylized s’s in “Siren’s” and a stylized downward slant in the word’s “N,” “Coming 2025,” and then Cedar Point, with the description, “The Roller Coaster Capital of the World.” The screen fades to black, leaving you, for a few seconds more, to imagine yourself on the ride.
A few quick ride stats: Height: 160 feet. Speed: 58 mph. Duration: two minutes.
And the ride backstory — every big thriller there has one — that ties into the park’s location on Lake Erie.
“Often spoken of— but never spotted, the sirens of the lake who lured sailors to their underwater demise with their sweet, seductive songs will finally rise to the land.” They will “attempt to entrap you in a sinister two-minute fate of non-stop roller coaster innovation.”
Sirens, in Greek mythology, were female beings who usually sent sailors to their doom.
But in the Odyssey, Homer’s epic Greek poem about Odysseus’s sea journey home from Troy, the hero saved his crew lured by the siren song by lashing himself to the mast as the ship makes its way through a narrow area surrounded by cliffs and other danger.
More: Cedar Point replacing Snake River Falls, once world’s ‘tallest, fastest, steepest’ flume
Siren’s Curse is set to be across from Iron Dragon near the park’s marina.
The ride description said that “the legend is real,” which, it added, you will “hear and see,” a tease to some new features, such as “on-board audio,” which allows you to listen to the “sound of the siren” as you “escape her grasp,” and, “high-tech LED lighting,” so you can watch “the silky motion” and “nature of the mythical creature.”
Cedar Point, which has been around since the late 1800s, has long touted record-breaking roller coasters. In 1989, Magnum XL-200 debuted as “the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world” at more then 200 feet tall, going at least 70 mph.
In 1994, Raptor was “the tallest, fastest, and longest inverted roller coaster in the world,” and two years later, Mantis was the “tallest, steepest, and fastest stand-up roller coaster in the world.” In 2000, Millennium Force debuted as the “tallest and fastest complete-circuit roller coaster” climbing 310 feet and going 93 mph.
And in 2003, Top Thrill Dragster opened as the “tallest and fastest roller coaster” at 420 feet and 120 mph. It has since been surpassed, and the ride, itself, after an accident, was re-engineered so it could be marketed as a record-breaker.
Perhaps to reassure all — especially the nervous moms, dads, state regulators, insurance underwriters and park lawyers — the announcement detailed some of the ride’s features: “over-the-shoulder lap bar with flexible vest restraint.”
But the animated video gives perhaps the best sense of what the ride will be like: It shows a train of cars climbing up, leveling off, and then heading toward a vertical drop-off on a track that pivots from a horizontal position to a vertical one.
Then, there is the plunge.
And the cars twist and spin on an iron track not quite 3,000 feet long at not quite 60 mph.
Cedar Point’s description notes that there are “13 weightless airtime moments, two 360-degree, zero-gravity barrel rolls and a high-speed ‘triple-down’ element with twisted and overbanked track,” and, the park adds, that riders must be at least 48 inches tall.
So you aren’t quite that tall yet and still growing, the wait time may be just what you need.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Cedar Point to open new ride Siren’s Curse, a tilt coaster, in 2025
