http://www.cleveland.com/travel/index.ss...ns_to.html


Sandusky, Ohio – Cedar Point announced Tuesday the last rides on Mantis, a one-time record-breaking stand-up roller coaster that debuted at the park in 1996.

No word yet on what will replace the coaster, which in recent years has lost its appeal to coaster fans because of its rough ride.

In a video on Youtube.com, the park made the much-anticipated announcement, with the words, "Goodbye is never easy."

The coaster's last rides will take place on Sunday, Oct. 19.

"It's time to say goodbye to one of the park's coasters, and it's certainly been a different kind of ride for our guests," said Jason McClure, vice president and general manager of Cedar Point. "But we're extremely excited about what the future holds here at the Roller Coaster Capital of the World."

Mantis was designed by Swiss firm Bollinger and Mabillard, which also created Cedar Point's Raptor and GateKeeper coasters. In its 18-year history, Mantis has given more than 22 million rides, according to the park. When it debuted, it set records for height, speed and steepness.

A park spokesman said additional plans for the 2015 season will be announced at a later date.

Online speculation immediately turned to what will replace the coaster. Among the options: converting the coaster into a floorless, sit-down ride.

Jeff Putz, co-founder of PointBuzz.com, said he thinks Cedar Point will reconfigure Mantis.

"I don't think it's going anywhere," he said. His theory: The park will remake it into a traditional, sit-down coaster.

He said he likes the ride's layout – four inversions, a 145-feet-high first hill, 60 mph top speed – and thinks it will work well as a sit-down ride.

"Nobody wants to stand on a roller coaster," said Putz. "It's just not a real popular style of ride."

Most stand-up coasters at other parks, he said, have been either removed or reconfigured.

The Mantis announcement appeared to disappoint fans, who were anticipating something more significant.

Park officials have been leaking clues and floating teases for the past several weeks, sending Cedar Point fans into a frenzy of speculation on online forums PointBuzz, Coasterbuzz and elsewhere.

Among the (hopeful) conjecture from park fanatics: a complete reworking of wooden coaster Mean Streak, a new water coaster known as AquaTrax and – perhaps most popular – the addition of a dark ride to the midway area near the Blue Streak roller coaster.

NOOOO I love that ride!!! Why will it gooo??? :'(

at 8 pm Oct. 19th, the bells will toll.

lols if it went to Michigan's Adventure. However my bet is, it will be transformed into a floorless coaster next year and retimed.

As long as they won't demolish "Raptor" or "Maverick" everything is fine

Don't get me wrong, "Mantis" was/is a nice coaster, but Stand-Up's aren't that popular than there sitdown/floorlees ones.

A rework is an option, but i think the track isn't that interesting for an floorless or sitdown.
But if they rework the layout a bit, only a bit, than this could work pretty well.

We'll see what Cedar Point do with it.

Lg Cheleste

They will give mantis the "Iron Horse" treatment:P.

seeing as cedar fair probably paid a ton of money for fury at carowinds, I think they will only be reworking the layout. I feel like getting a whole new coaster would cost them too much

avocado lucky that i was at Cedar Point this year and that i was been on "Mantis"

I know, Stand-Up's aren't that popular as maybe Flyers or Inverters, but they had there own charme, sometimes in an way that hurts. Women haven't that problem infact of there female body.
But males can become sometimes "crushed eggs" if you know what i mean.

Anyway, i see it with an whiny and an happy eye. Sad that a nice Coaster come to be gone, but hey, a new one or rework one we'll become or born.
That's life, old people dies, and babys will be born, right.

The aspect that they spend alot of money into Carowinds for there "Fury325", could be the point that they will only rework Mantis into an floorless/sitdown version.
Actually not that bad idea, the old spirit will be alive, only the ride feeling would be different.

Let's wait, drink some coffee (tea) and we'll see which plans Cedar Fair gave us for there RollerCoasterHeaven "Cedar Point".

Soo long, Cobra

im not too sure what to happen here, scrapping Mantis isn't a good option. The ride still has a good amount of time left to be used. Its just hard to think where would they put Mantis if it were to be relocated. There's always Dorney lol because its now kinda the home of lots of relocated rides of Cedar Fair or other parks, and Michigan's Adventure isn't a bad idea because the park could use some attention. Same with WOF. And then there is the floorless rumor which would be awesome for Mantis and would make me come back to CP again just for that. I keep the relocation and floorless idea instead of scrapping becasue of the paint they've been testing some paint on it.



Now the thing thats been scratching my head is this picture that was brought out recently. It was I'm pretty sure from Cedar Point's GM, correct me if im wrong.



It has a lot of interesting ideas on that to do list there you think? It has RMC on it which is my favorite idea so far. If they do relocate Mantis, it would be the coolest idea to add a very twisted and new RMC wooden coaster in there instead of giving the iron horse treatment to Mean Streak. Like sure I'd like to have a twisted and smoother Mean Streak, but its not a bad idea to keep some older coasters in the park for some history and have some more wood in the park that kicks a**. They already have enough steel in there, lets get some more wood. But hey we all have ideas for what we want our parks to do. I'm not sure what they could do with an aqua trax, but it would be pretty cool and it would add another coaster up the line up and get some records. There has been some ideas that they are going to use the Blue Streak and Raptor midway for an official dark ride for the park, which would be awesome if they can pull it off nicely. I don't know how they will top 500 feet on that peninsula, possibly for another park with space? A coaster into the lake would be the coolest coaster ever, I don't know how they can add the coaster in unless they use that boardwalk idea. The boardwalk sounds pretty interesting, and definatley a way to get some extra space to add on. I'm not sure if any of these ideas will happen, but they do stir up some wild rumors that can come true. I hope they do.

And hi guys. c:

This just in: Mantis to be replaced with RMC's newest creation, "Aquaironsquashed Mantis"!

Haha! Just kidding!