My Detailed Review of the Highly Scrutinized and Often Misunderstood Michigan’s Adventure

As part of my 2022 summer vacation I decided to take my family to that wonderful Cedar Fair amusement park on the lake – Michigan’s Adventure!  Michigan’s largest amusement park originally opened in 1956 as Deer Park, was renamed in 1988, and later purchased by Cedar Fair in 2001. This was actually my second visit to the park, the first being in 2006, but it was brand new to the rest of my family. Has much changed? Was it worth our time to visit? Did I get on all seven roller coasters? Read on to find out.

michigan's adventure entrance 2022

Why Michigan’s Adventure?

Of all amusement parks we could’ve gone to, why did we decide to visit Michigan’s Adventure?

We were already planning on a driving trip up Michigan’s west coast to see the Sleeping Bear Dunes, crystal clear lake waters, beaches, and hunt for Petoskey stones. Concurrently, the Coaster101 team was throwing around trip ideas and landed on visiting Canada’s Wonderland later this year. After doing the math, I realized the cost of a single day ticket plus parking for Michigan’s Adventure, Kings Island, and Canada’s Wonderland combined is almost exactly the cost of a Cedar Fair Platinum pass. If I could make it to Kings Island more than once, or even a Cedar Point trip, the pass would be worth it. So I bought the pass and we added on a day to our road trip to check out the park (and if you want some tips about how to plan your own coaster trips read my guide here).

michigan vacation 2022 pure michigan

We left home in Columbus, Ohio on Thursday, June 3oth and drove ~4 hours to Lansing, Michigan. Friday morning, we departed the hotel around 9am and drove the remaining hour-and-a-half to Muskegon. Arriving twenty minutes before opening, we rolled right into a front row parking spot.

michigan vacation driving route

I was a little surprised the opening hours of the park were only from 11am to 8pm, especially being the Friday of the July Fourth holiday weekend. This told me they either didn’t expect to be super busy or they didn’t have enough staff to stay open longer. Turns out, it was probably a little of both.

michigan's adventure future plans

When the ropes were dropped my family made a mad dash for – the petting zoo! Having been burned before, I decided this time to be a bit of a selfish coaster enthusiast and instead I left them and headed straight for Shivering Timbers, the most well known and respected attraction of the park. Upon approach, I was glad to see two trains running, as I had heard it was down to one train operation for awhile after the two trains bumped in the station last June. I was on the first train of the day in a middle seat and quickly rode again in the front. What did I think of Shivering Timbers? Let’s revisit that in a minute.

shivering timbers michigans adventure 2022

Camp Snoopy at Michigan’s Adventure

Reunited with my family, my kids weren’t ready to brave any of the larger rides yet, so off to Camp Snoopy we went. The Be-Bop Blvd car ride was removed in 2019 to make room. This new area was originally supposed to open in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The area looks great, everything shiny and new, the one complaint there not being enough shade or tall trees.

camp snoopy at michigan's adventure

I was bummed to see the one roller coaster I hadn’t ridden at Michigan’s Adventure, Woodstock Express, ended up being closed all day. No new credits for me and I now have around 40 coasters on my list of “seen it in person but didn’t get to ride it.”

woodstock express coaster

Woodstock Express wasn’t the only ride closed all day. In addition, the train and Ferris wheel were closed. The Flying Trapeze swing ride was in pieces and while there was a sign and queue for bumper boats there was no sign of actual boats anywhere. But we didn’t let this bother us.

michigan's adventure park

They did have a swan boat ride in the central lagoon that I was happy to see wasn’t an upcharge attraction. I learned the boats actually came from Cedar Point where they were removed when Maverick was added in 2007. It’s very relaxing and gives great views. With such low capacity I don’t think you’d see this attraction at many other parks, especially not free, so I hope Michigan’s Adventure always keeps it.

michigan's adventure swan boats free

There are several more rides for kids scattered throughout the park, including the second smallest coaster, named Zach’s Zoomer after the grandson of Michigan Adventure’s former park owner Roger Jourden. My wife and son Henry rode the 41 foot tall CCI coaster that opened in 1994 while I was stuck on Winky the Whale with my daughter (longest ride cycle time of the whole park).

zach's zoomer coaster

Waterpark is Where It’s At

I don’t usually like to leave a park because it wastes a lot of valuable time, but since we were parked in the front it made it quite easy to return to the car to eat lunch and get our swim gear. We ended up spending more than two hours in the waterpark where we all had a blast, especially in the wave pool. The Beach Party water play structure, opened in 2011, was very cool. Not only did it have the usual giant dumping bucket seen at nearly every water park, but it also has the world’s first giant geyser. Every so often a fog horn would wail in warning before blasting water out of a lighthouse ninety feet into the air.

michigan's adventure water park

I truly believe to get the full value out of a visit to Michigan’s Adventure, the water park is a must do! There’s just not enough to do in the dry park for a full day but the water park is great on it’s own, especially if it’s not too busy and you can walk onto the waterslides.

There are several water rides outside the boundaries of the water park, including the superbly named Grand Rapids. The only one we did was the log flume which got me thinking I wish more parks still had. They’re fun rides the whole family can do, help you cool off while not getting soaked. Please don’t remove this!

Henry Tackles the Coasters

Having warmed up on Zach’s Zoomer and riding the log flume three times, my eight year old son was now ready to tackle the bigger coasters. We started with Wolverine Wildcat, which I was excited to try due to the addition of 200 feet of Titan Track, the latest wooden roller coaster to receive this innovative, weld-free track, which Skyline Attractions designed and engineered for Great Coasters International, Inc. No exaggeration, the Titan Track was the smoothest part of any ride in the entire park.

Wolverine Wildcat has a very similar layout to Phoenix at Knoebels. It starts with a long dark tunnel before ascending a 85 foot lift hill. The first drop and uphill are butter smooth thanks to the new steel track. The rest of the ride is brutal by comparison. The Titan Track doesn’t feel like a wood coaster anymore, but if the wood coaster isn’t fun anyways, then you might as well convert the entire thing, especially if that will bring some thrill and airtime back to the ride while also cutting down on maintenance.

We didn’t ride the Mad Mouse coaster as it looked to have the longest line all day, but it did look good with it’s new color scheme. My advice if you want to ride all the coasters: hit Mad Mouse up first.

We also didn’t ride Thunderhawk, the Vekoma suspended looping coaster relocated from Geauga Lake in 2008, as I had already ridden it at its former home. I will say, while it has a reputation for roughness, it looks great – the paint job, the signage, the station, the location on the lake.

We also skipped Corkscrew, as I had been on it before, but it also has a new paint job and looks great.

I do recommend playing the miniature gold course in the middle of the park, if nothing else for the incredible views. It’s only $5 a person but your platinum pass gets you buy-one-get-one free deal.

What Happened to Shivering Timbers?

Now, what you really want to know. How was Shivering Timbers? I wanted so bad for it to be a great ride, like I remembered from 2006. I rode it three times, not because it was worth riding again, but because I kept wanting to give it chances to wow me. I rode in the front, middle, and back, I rode in the morning and in the evening. And every time I was disappointed. No airtime, not smooth, and really not that enjoyable. I was shocked. This is a coaster that from 2001 – 2004 was ranked as the 2nd best wood coaster in the world by the Golden Ticket awards. During my last visit in 2006, it was ranked 6th. Shivering Timbers was once a noteworthy ride worth traveling for. After last week’s rides, I don’t think I’d rank it in my top 100. Heck, I’d rank every GCI and Gravity Group coaster I’ve ridden above it.

shivering timbers at michigan's adventure

Did the ride get worse or am I just becoming a cranky old man? Or have my standards been raised by modern coaster design? I love airtime and I like wood coasters, so the 4th longest wood coaster with nothing but hill after hill should be an incredible experience – but it just wasn’t. Maybe they forgot to switch out the square wheels for the round ones that day. Have you been on Shivering Timbers lately? Have you had a similar experience?

Is Michigan’s Adventure Worth Visiting?

I think your enjoyment level with Michigan’s Adventure depends on what lens you view the park and what mindset you have going into it. If you’re a coaster enthusiast, and you’ve just visited Kings Island or Cedar Point, and decide to make the drive to Michigan just to ride the coasters, you’re going to be disappointed. There is no single ride or coaster at the park that is worth traveling a large distance for. Shivering Timbers used to be that, but I’m sorry to say it just isn’t right now. Maybe Gravity Group can work the same magic they did on Racer at Kings Island to restore it to its former glory.

This park’s target audience isn’t experienced and well traveled coaster junkies. It is, however, great for future coaster nerds as Michigan’s Adventure’s coasters are sized in such a way to make great step ups from small to medium to large coasters: Woodstock Express > Zach’s Zoomer > Mad Mouse > Wolverine Wildcat and so on.

My mindset heading into our visit was “I just want to have a fun day with my family” and guess what, we did have fun. It was a great day at an amusement park with perfect weather and almost no waiting in any lines. The working title for this review was originally “Ohio man drags family to Michigan’s largest amusement park, and actually enjoys himself.” So for us, yes it was more than worth visiting Michigan’s Adventure…but I don’t see us going back anytime soon being so far out of the way, not even if they get some hand me downs from California’s Great America.

Tip: If you’re visiting Michigan’s Adventure with your family and you’re looking for more fun things to do in the area, we highly recommend Lewis Adventure Farm and Zoo. It’s by far the best petting zoo style attraction we’ve ever done and is only around 15 minutes away. The only place I’ve been to where you can feed Capybaras!

See more pictures from Michigan’s Adventure on our Facebook page.


Have you been to Michigan’s Adventure? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below!

Share