Usually I head for the back and work my way towards the front. Tactic two is to hit the older/lesser coasters first (Dragging Iron for example) and then jump in any of the “premier lines” included in the fast pass during times when folks are heading for food. The “fast pass plus” is pretty much good for anything and if you splurge that far, just mosey around and have fun.
I’m 48 and have lived in Ohio my whole life:
- I have never received a speeding ticket for doing 2-5 mph over the limit.
- I have never met anyone (Ohioan or otherwise) who said they received a speeding ticket for doing 2-5 mph over the limit.
- I have never heard of anyone (Ohioan or otherwise) receiving a speeding ticket for doing 2-5 mph over the limit.
I just got back from Cedar Point and here are my experiences, though it was a Thursday in June. I do believe the schools might have been out, or close to it, as there were a lot of kids around.
We got there Wednesday afternoon, checked in to the Breakers Express and bought late tickets to get in at $27. I don’t know how they work later in the season as it was only open until 8 both days. We were able to do eight of the seventeen coasters, two of those are kids’ coasters though. The only wait that we had was for Millennium Force, and that was about 30-40 minutes. I don’t think we waited more than 15 for the rest and we were able to get on. We didn’t get on the new Valravn because there was an hour+ wait.
The next morning, since we stayed at a resort park, we were able to get in at 9. We went straight for the Valravn, and at 9:20 that was a 45 minute wait. After that we hit Millennium Force right about 10 and the wait was maybe 10 minutes. We made our way mostly clockwise around the park. We didn’t ride the Wicked Twister the second day as my buddy didn’t really like it.
In the early part of the day we didn’t wait more than 10-15 minutes for any ride, but as the day went on some of them went to 45+, especially the Maverick and Millennium Force. We were told the Valravn wait was two hours plus so we never went back.
The rides that took little to no time to get on at any point of the day were Blue Streak, Iron Dragon, Gemini, Corkscrew, Rougarou and surprisingly the Gatekeeper.
The best rides, that the three of us who went were Millennium Force, Gatekeeper and Rougarou. The others were good, though I wasn’t too impressed with Iron Dragon, Gemini and Mean Streak. I disliked the Corkscrew as being too rough.
You might want to think about going the night before and doing the late entry and early entry the next day. I think we paid $120 for the Express and it was only a couple of minute drive to the park. You can still get in the park at 9, but only to the front part where the stores and such are, but getting there early is probably a good idea to get parking and ready to go in to the rides part of the park.
Not impressed with the Gemini?! That used to be my favorite, mostly for the short line, smooth ride and high-fiving the folks in the red car. I would also nominate the Maverick as a tremendously underrated ride.
You will notice I called it by its unofficial name — Dragging Iron. Its one of those coasters we consider if there isn’t a line; its better than no coaster at all. 
Now Raptor on the other hand is one we always enjoyed. It may be our all-time favorite B&M hang-n-bang.
Follow-up after our day at CP last Thursday…
One of my son’s best friends managed to convince his parents to make the trip from FL and spent the day with us - opting for the Express Plus as mentioned upthread (they did the Breakers Express deal with the early arrival and actually went back on Friday). Their presence made my day much more enjoyable, as the two boys rode a few rides on their own while we took much needed breaks.
We got to the park at about 10:10 AM - weather could have been a bit cooler, but really, no complaints. We parked in the back (near the water park) and met our fellow Floridians at Millennium - a perfect way to start the day. We hit Rougarou and Valravn next, and already I needed to sit out the next few (Corkscrew and Raptor). I’ll mention that only Valravn had the longest wait (about 20-25 min) - the rest were no more than 15-20 min - I found out later in the day that the park was uncharacteristically less crowded than usual.
Unfortunately, a non-coaster (MaxAir) was my son’s temporary undoing…after we all hopped on Gatekeeper 10 minutes after, he lost his cookies while we were stuck waiting for a cleanup of the car ahead of us due to a similar mishap. So, we checked out the awesome throwback arcade for an hour or so, grabbed a light meal, and the boys hit Iron Dragon and Magnum - the latter requiring another short break afterwards (without the mess).
Once recovered, we rode Top Thrill Dragster next (him 2x, me once); he rode Maverick on his own and we finished up where we started at Millennium. We left at about 9:30PM and made it back to the 'Burgh by 12:30A with a quick dinner stop.
Cedar Point was definitely more than we both expected, and I really needed the entire next day to recover (as much from the driving as the park itself I’m assuming). I suppose I would be better equipped stomach-wise if I had taken this excursion on in my 30s rather than in my 50s - I’m finding now that not just spinning rides, but also coasters with too many hard banked turns will set me back. That being said, TT Dragster was no problem for me, and next to Millennium Force was a close 2nd if I were to rank the rides I braved, with Valravn in 3rd.
Hopefully my son and his friend got the lifetime experience they dreamed of and talked about for so many weeks - it’ll be hard to top. Thanks to all who offered advice to the thread.