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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

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I just got notice that the park has closed early due to weather.

Yes unfotunately. However they're allowing anyone who came today to come back another day for free. Nice of them to do that!

 

That's a nice touch! C.P. is good for doing thoughtful things like that. I'll give them credit...

 

Six flags did this as well.

I guess it's a smart move on the parks behalf. I mean...if the weather is crappy and the park is dead, it probably costs them less to hand out return tickets than to continue to operate. Sure it's a bummer for the guests, but from a business standpoint its smart.

 

This seems to be more common in the past few summers. Pennsylvania has been hit exceptionally hard with rainfall this summer. It seems like at least once a week that a few of the parks in that state have been closed due to weather.

 

The exception is when parks use this excuse to close due to "just" low attendance...not weather. We went to a park this summer, and they used the weather excuse to close early, when there was a 30 minute passing storm. So they closed the park 8 hours early. It was sunny and in the 80's for the remainder of the day.

Not good or fair to guests that travel from long distances.

Edited by thrillrider
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^ Based on this I'm astounded Cedar Point stayed open until 8 (as scheduled) 2 weeks ago. The weathermen predicted a 100% chance of thunderstorms so crowds were already light and most of the park left when a big downpour hit for an hour. The rest of the day had walk-ons for pretty much everything.

 

Six Flags and Lake Compounce are the two I've run into early closures the most often. Both stay open in the downpour but are quick to close when it passes.

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Did Ghostrider at Knott's make the list? I'm not a fan of award for coasters, but come on, that's gotta be up there, right? Or The Voyage @ Holiday?

Ghostrider placed at #13. I have yet to ride most of the coasters on the list, but I definitely would've placed GR above Beast and Mystic Timbers.

 

Voyage placed at #3.

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Very excited to be headed to CP tonight for my first ever Halloweekends (but third trip overall). I'll be there Friday night and Sunday, with early entry on both days.

 

What's the best way to balance coasters, scare zones, and mazes? Are there better times to focus on each of them? Thanks for any pointers...

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The exception is when parks use this excuse to close due to "just" low attendance...not weather. We went to a park this summer, and they used the weather excuse to close early, when there was a 30 minute passing storm. So they closed the park 8 hours early. It was sunny and in the 80's for the remainder of the day.

Not good or fair to guests that travel from long distances.

This exact thing happened to us for our first trip to Kennywood this year. We only had one day to visit and we purchased VIP passes. We totaled it up and I think we paid nearly $300 for six or seven rides. It was really disappointing.

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^ Based on this I'm astounded Cedar Point stayed open until 8 (as scheduled) 2 weeks ago. The weathermen predicted a 100% chance of thunderstorms so crowds were already light and most of the park left when a big downpour hit for an hour.

 

The hotel thing is probably the reason. Two weeks ago the park had guests in the middle of multi-night hotel stays who would have been totally justified in asking for a refund or partial refund. If Cedar Point closes their hotels on Sunday nights when they go to weekend only operations then I guess they don't see the harm in closing on Sundays.

 

Very excited to be headed to CP tonight for my first ever Halloweekends (but third trip overall). I'll be there Friday night and Sunday, with early entry on both days.

 

What's the best way to balance coasters, scare zones, and mazes? Are there better times to focus on each of them? Thanks for any pointers...

 

I don't really have much in the way of pointers but since it's your first Halloweekends Friday but note that Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Corkscrew, Gemini, Iron Dragon, Rougarou, Wicked Twister and most flat rides (including Skyhawk, Power Tower and Windseeker) are closed tonight for staffing.

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Actually, Mine Ride is open again this year. Last year they added a Mystic Timbers-like theme of #WhatsInTheShed (and what an incredible surprise that was ). It's listed on the Friday Night Rides page, but the Mystic theme is not mentioned. The Blue Streak apparently has a Halloween theme this year according to the website, as does the Sky Ride... hmmm.....

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Oh, I totally missed Mine Ride but you're right.

 

And yeah, Sky Ride was supposed to have a theme last year too but it basically just stayed closed for staffing for the majority of the event. Personally I think riding with a scare actor would be super awkward after the first few seconds where I guess it would initially be sort of cool. You won't stay scared for the whole ride, so what do you do... sit there and talk about the weather? Do they break character and talk about their insane hours and the rampant under-staffing?

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You won't stay scared for the whole ride, so what do you do... sit there and talk about the weather? Do they break character and talk about their insane hours and the rampant under-staffing?

 

"Yo...uhhh...you want to do something later? Like as long as you're old enough to drink, I have to have some limits."

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Very excited to be headed to CP tonight for my first ever Halloweekends (but third trip overall). I'll be there Friday night and Sunday, with early entry on both days.

 

What's the best way to balance coasters, scare zones, and mazes? Are there better times to focus on each of them? Thanks for any pointers...

 

Interested to hear how the crowds are this weekend, I'm going next Saturday (might add Friday not sure yet) with early entry. Still planning on getting FastLane for rides but if the houses have reasonable waits I wouldn't mind checking some of them out.

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So, I've done every haunt tonight and it's really been disappointing. I get that they're short staffed but the actors they have just don't care. A lot were just sitting/standing around waiting for their shift to end. Hopefully it's just an opening weekend thing and they'll get it up to par soon.

 

Otherwise though it's been a great night here. Only ride with any line to speak of was SV which was about an hour. Everything else a walk on.

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So we made the voyage to the park yesterday for halloweekends. Steel vengeance is still a great coaster! Due to a recent surgery, I did not have to deal with the locker mess as we had a special access pass. My wife and me just took turns holding loose articles. The standby line was at 2 hours, and the fast lane line was at 50 minutes. A few observations about the park since I was there last(about 2 months ago due to surgery).

 

1. The food lines and service has not gotten any better...it was actually worse in a lot of casses.

 

2. A lot of closed food stands, even with long lines at all the open food stands.

 

3. The Halloween attractions seemed to take a step back this year. One that really stood out as being worse, was the frontier trail. Its basically nothing but some bales of hay and a handful of actors. The haunted house we went in(zombie high) was a snooze fest. They were letting groups in way to close together, and the actors just seemed to not really care much. I did like the giant skeletons and greenhouse on the main midway. The only show we were able to check out was the red garter show, and it was the exact same show as last year. The giant pumpkin was missing from the main midway as well. I found that odd, as we did see it on the webcam a week ago. The new projections onto the Coliseum were a nice touch.

 

4. Not sure why, but all the kids rides were closed at night. I seem to remember the kiddy area by maxair was open last year during halloweekends. As a matter of fact, I have pictures of my kids riding the umbrella rides at night last oct.

 

5. The bathrooms and coke freestyle areas were nasty. They really need to do something about the floors in the freestyle areas. People keep spilling pop on the floor, making them a nasty skating rink.

 

6. The kids really enjoyed the family friendly haunted houses. The zombie high had a bunch of kid friendly puzzles and challenges.

 

7. Witches wheel was disassembled, except for the main boon of the ride was raised in the air. The sweeps of the ride we on the ground. And several trees have been cut down. Not sure why they couldn't just run the ride till the end of October, as there is not much to removing the ride. Seems like it fits on perfectly with the Halloween season. You can get a great view of witches wheels remains from Gemini. The dinosaurs have also vanished totally...including the one out by the main entrance.

 

8. They renamed blue streak into boo streak, and ocean motion into ocean potion. Beyond that, there was no other theaming on those rides.

 

I didn't take too many pictures from this trip, but here are a few.

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Beautiful day at the park.

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Great coaster!

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Even better at night.

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Witches wheel looming over the fence.

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An "o-k: coaster all lit up while waiting almost an hour in line at panda express.

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The monster rock show at the red garter saloon. It's the same show as last year, but still good.

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Nice report!

 

Personally I think it's insane that they have staffing issues yet insist on staffing kids rides at night during the scary Halloween event that's not suitable for children (though I know the main midway is technically scare actor free). I'm in favor of them closing them early and transferring the (much needed) staff elsewhere like basically every other park in the world.

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Yea, but would you really classify the halloweekends at cedarpoint as "scary"? Cedarpoint probably has the most family friendly Halloween event in the entire chain.

 

I get that the staffing is an issue, but as a parent of kids that are too short to ride the bigger rides(at cedarfair parks, you need to be a giant to ride most rides) it sucks.

 

Another item of interest, is that they were using the waterpark staff to work on rides. They were even wearing the waterpark shirts opposed to the standard cp ride operator swag.

 

If I were in charge , I would distribute staff a little differently. For 1, close down a few of the games that nobody is playing and staff a food stand, cleaning bathrooms or rides. Seriously...we stopped in frontier land by the basketball game to grab a drink and a seat for a half hour, and not 1 person stopped to play that game. Meanwhile, right next door at the food stand the line was 45 min long.

 

There are probably a few rides I would close down after dark to help with staffing in more critical areas as well. A few examples...

 

The antique car ride in frontier town. The ride was basically a walk on once the haunts started. You have 3-5 employees right there. Not to mention that the entrance is pretty much in a fright zone.

 

A few of the flat rides as well. Cedar downs. Himalaya, lake Erie eagles, and troika were all walk ons and 3/4 empty. That's another 8-12workers.

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Is there a time of year where fog is more prevalent on the peninsula? I understand it isn't terribly common.

 

Coming all the way from Italy, I'd feel like I've won the lottery (so long as all the coasters are running)...

 

It would be most prevalent when you have significant temperature differences between Lake Erie and the air temperature. Cool air and warm water up the odds significantly, but you also need little wind, and that is the weakest link on the peninsula...

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