coasterbill

The park has quietly updated their operating hours. The 11-9 days are all gone. They've shortened the summer operating hours to either 12-8 or 11-7 . Every day now has an 8 hour operating day including weekends and holiday weekends until Labor day. On a positive note, they have added daily ops through the first few weeks of August on days that were originally listed as closed.

I totally remember the Millennium Force vs Superman days and like any good teenage virgin coaster dork I had them 1 and 2 in my Coaster Grotto rankings (in that order because... I mean... come on). I don't really think that anybody is boycotting the ride. If we took the top steel coasters and removed everything built in the last 15 years then the top 5 steel coasters on the list would be: 1) Expedition GeForce 2) Millennium Force 3) Goliath 4) Superman the Ride 5) Phantom's Revenge I don't think that's really that insane for a top 5 steel list that someone made 15 years ago. Goliath butted in between the two but they're still ranked pretty close together.

No, they make them good now. /ducks

Nice! I learned something new today.

If you pre-purchased at Cedar Point then you have to wait in that line, but if you purchase on a whim you can just buy it in basically any store.

psssst: This conversation took place over a year ago

I was just making a joke, I didn't mean to derail this thread (but also I'm 100% serious, lol). The only thing that I'd add is that in many cases there's no harm just buying the passes at the park. You often need to do that anyway to get pass discounts to apply properly. Unless it's a park where pre-buying or buying as soon as you arrive saves you a ton of time (like a Six Flags park) or you're going on a weekend where there's a very real chance that they'll sell-out you can always just budget for the pass and then play it by ear because there's no real reason not to. Whenever I see a post like this about a Cedar Fair or Busch park where buying the pass in a shop takes approximately 8 seconds I scratch my head.

* except Dorney

I wonder if Finnegan's Flyer is having a mechanical issue or if it's just in refurbishment now since it operated all winter (unlike a lot of other rides in the park). Hopefully as they get into the groove of year-round ops they start posting refurb schedules like BGT.

I agree with this entirely. Last year at Kings Island we counted 12 people on the Orion platform (on a day where Windseeker was closed for staffing, which isn't a big deal but still... lol). Let's be generous and assume that some of them were training and some of them were supervisors who were just popping by to chat with the people in the booth. Still, whatever... Nitro needs 3 people on the platform and one of those people groups and does Flash Pass merge (though not scanning) before checking 18 seats (because it has one more row than Orion has) and shockingly they don't double stack most days. On slow days they won't have a greeter at all and they'll use the exit ramp for Flash Pass so they still only need 3 ops. And I also agree that Six Flags has major food staffing problems, but they usually just make a bunch of places Mobile Order only so that they have to pay less people and food gets out just as fast (or slow lol). On really bad days they bring in some food trucks and then call it a day.

Credit to @onlinehyde on Twitter for this, as I have better things to do than watch the Goldman Sachs Travel and Leisure Conference webcast without actually being a shareholder and there’s no transcript to skim, but there was an investor conference yesterday. Cedar Fair shared that they anticipate burning average of 60 million in cash a month during Q2. As a reference, Six Flags expects to be cash flow positive for Q2. Busch / SeaWorld is already cash flow positive this year. They’re looking to “improve efficiencies” (see: cut budget). The fact that they made another budget move on the same day that they said they were going to do exactly that must be a coincidence, right? Saying “kids these days don’t want to work... please ignore the fact that Six Flags is paying people half of what we’re paying them, staffing their parks just fine chain-wide, not cutting hours, operating 7 days a week and in many cases extending hours to capitalize on pent-up demand” is easier than saying “We’re absolutely clueless as to what we’re doing so now we have to pay people $15 an hour to work at Kings Island and we’re closing early for budget since we’re losing tons of money thanks to our poor decision-making”. Based on the comments here, I guess it’s working. PS: I’ve also seen the over-dramatic Facebook comments. Those people are ridiculous but that doesn’t mean Cedar Fair isn’t also a train wreck. Those two things can both be true.

So like I said... the bar for “least screwed up Cedar Fair park” isn’t the highest...

I don't prefer it over the July 2019 version of Cedar Point which was probably the last time the park was running well, but we haven't had that in two years. Every shoulder season and in the last two peak seasons Cedar Point is a world-class theme park being operated like it's Lake Compounce. I went from being mortified at the thought of Six Flags buying Cedar Fair a few years ago to wishing that they had so that park wouldn't be closed today, they wouldn't close ride lines early, they wouldn't close rides for staffing every Spring and Fall and would have a longer operating season. Like... if you think Six Flags would close Top Thrill Dragster on Halloweekends Fridays you're actually on crack. If you think they would close at 8 and not do haunts on Halloweekends Sundays you're also on crack. In contrast, Kings Island is the best-run park in the chain right now except for possibly Knott's. The bar is pretty low, but it's true. That said, everyone's improving opinions of Kings Island isn't just because Cedar Point has fallen off of an operational cliff. I used to believe that Kings Island was one of the most overrated major parks in America. It was like Kings Dominion with worse rides and an uglier main street that needed trees desperately (that's still true, by the way). They had a lot of "good" rides but no "great" rides until it got dark out. Since my first visit though, they've really beefed up their offerings. I think Diamondback is one of the better B&M hypers, Banshee is a blast, Mystic Timbers is also a blast (and the shed is fun with the right expectations) and I really do feel like Orion finally gave them a real headline coaster. Now look... I get the complaints and I like it more than most people. No 91 mph coaster with clamshells and a wave turn is ever going to be boring to me (though I crap on Candymonium a lot so I admit that I don't really know where the line is, but even that ride is fun). I get that it's a budget-giga but I really do like the ride. I also feel like they've just really rounded out the collection in-general over the last decade or so. Plus, additions like the Brewhouse patio, Antique autos (which look really nice), sprucing up the Bat, the Flight of Fear theming enhancements and similar things have also really improved my opinion of the place. They also have an incredible Fastlane system which is nice. Also, removing Firehawk and Vortex were addition-by-subtraction. They also just clearly give more of a shit than most parks in the chain. When we went last year every effect was working on Backlot stunt coaster. You're not getting that at another Cedar Fair park. I've liked everything they've done lately (except for their crappy Winterfest but I've resigned myself to the fact that Cedar Fair is hopeless with that).

You couldn't pay me to stand in that watching them dispatch 1 train every 10 minutes.

I hear what you're saying and don't entirely disagree, but they really seem to be positioning themselves as the cheaper option based on the price point and are more focused on competing on that front than on quality alone.

Slow clap for Hershey...

“Frostbite” coming to Howl-O-Scream 2021 is going on

I can't wait to check out this event from the top of Rip Ride Rockit ... in all seriousness, this is exciting. I feel like it has high suck-potential because they're clearly positioning it as the cheap option and selling the combo ticket for this and BGT for the same price as one night at HHN but more competition has to be a good thing for HHN and every time I've gone to the BGT event I've really enjoyed it. I think there's a chance that every animal thing will be closed and it will just be rides, pop up bars, mazes and scare zones but please make Clyde & Seamore's high school slaughterhouse of death (or something like that) happen. Then I would buy a ticket immediately.

As time has gone on I've started to feel more hesitant to recommend credit cards because obviously they're great for some people and not great for other people and in-general people overspend on them and pay interest which is the entire reason that they exist. I like them though, they work for us and if you like playing the card game too then keep reading, otherwise stop reading right now and pretend this was never posted. Anyway... right now people are paying down their balances and credit card companies are freaking out (lol let me break out the world's smallest violin) but that's kind of good news since it means the sign-up offers are getting crazy because they want to suck more people in and get them into debt. If you're on top of things though and know you won't over-spend, it's great news. I expect more crazy offers from other card issuers to follow along so keep an eye on those issuer websites and even your snail mail, the best example right now of a crazy offer is the Chase Sapphire Preferred: 100k points ($1,250 on their Expedia portal) for spending 4k in 3 months offer (or if you want to go nuts they have tons of transfer partners but anyone that wants to deal with that already knew about this anyway, I'm just posting this disclaimer since I know those people are coming to correct me). There is a $95 annual fee, the benefits might make it worth it for you but you have to look into that. If not, cancel after the first year. I already have this card and have for years and I'm salty as hell because I didn't get 100k points but I got Brit to apply for this today so now I can use Brit's points. I also expect more crazy offers so you don't have to jump at this one. Chase has no-annual-fee business cards with $750 signup bonuses which is also nuts and you know that Amex, Barclays and Capital One will respond. Just keep an eye on card issuer sites and snail mail card offers, they're getting insane.

The parks aren't dead, but in 2019 if I would have told you that Magic Kingdom was at capacity you probably wouldn't have expected to wait only 35 minutes for Peter Pan, 25 minutes for Haunted Mansion, 40 minutes for Space Mountain and less than an hour for Mine Train (the current wait times with the park at capacity). I know fastpass isn't a thing, but there's no way that these parks are anywhere near their real capacity. I'm not saying that this is even bad, I'm just saying that it's weird.

It's not an illusion, you physically can't make a park reservation for those days unless someone cancels and you get lucky with the refresh after you already buy tickets to make you eligible to even try.

Queue times shows it as open today though, so crisis averted. Are you really going there on purpose? Explain yourself

So is anyone else kind of confused as to what Disney is doing right now? While most parks including Universal are using Virtual lines less often and bumping up capacity to at-or-near 100%, Disney is doing... well... this... (The only park available on any yellow day this month is Epcot) The next day that all parks are available for day-guests is July 31st. Also, Bob Chapek stated on a recent conference call that virtual queues and park reservations are here to stay. It seems like this may go beyond just being overly cautious with covid and they may actually be trying to make some major changes to the guest experience going forward. I guess park passes aren't really anything new as day tickets were always dated so that may just be a new thing for APs, but does it seem strange to anyone else that they're still limiting capacity this much?

... and everyone in the parade will be making $20 an hour so I expect about 2 floats.

The problem is that any day that would be expected to be super-dead means you now run the risk of them taking your money, not answering the phone and closing the park for staffing. I guess a healthy medium where they won’t close but won’t be 100% slammed is like a Wednesday in July.