thrillrider

Does anybody know if they announced the list of rides open for winterfest? Can't seem to find it anywhere.

Six flags America used to have a reversing log flume as well. Skull mountain?

You're in for a treat. After doing our mega coaster tour this summer, RMC is now my favorite ride manufacturers. Had the opportunity to ride most of there creations, and I am really looking forward to this one.

It's a great ride. I was able to ride it down at six flags over Texas this summer. The himalaya ride looks similar to the version that jeepers has.

This information has already been leaked. New for 2018... There will now be more food options available at the park when they open for the 2018 season. The park is proud to announce that they will now offer grilled cheese sandwiches to the menu. This is the parks plan to compete with the booming popularity of grilled cheese restaurant chains nationwide. In addition, the sandwiches will have the familiar peanuts gang imprinted into them. The grilled cheese sandwiches will be available at the churro cart starting opening day. This marks the 8th straight year of aggressive capital investment for Michigan's Adventure, that is bound to make it a top player in the amusement industry.

Weird.....

A weird thing about the fast lane that we noticed, was that all the locations in the front of the park were sold out. However, the locations in the back of the park looked as if they were still offering them as the signs still showed them as being available.

See, here's the thing.... I totally expected the crowds and prepared for them the only way I could by buying fast lanes. I have been to several halloweekends, and never experienced bad service on the scale we did this weekend. It was unacceptable, even for a knowing enthusiast.

There is always temp agencys, and bringing back the employee bonus program. I also know somebody that submitted an application for weekends in Oct, and never got a call. There are avenues they could explore, but I don't think they want to open there wallets to do it. They could also cut back on certain rides like planet snoopy, and use those employees in other area as needed. On Sunday, we ate at midway market. They had several workers just standing around. Point is, they can pull from certain areas to help other areas. I'm not sure who is doing the staffing, but they may want to take a better look into that person(s).

I totally get after Labor Day, and also maybe the first week or so of the season. But honestly, as somebody who attends CP virtually ONLY during the month of May, I have experienced very little in the way of poor operations most of the month, outside of Opening Day, and maybe that first week. Generally, it's an awesome time to go to the park, and I HIGHLY recommend it! Please don't take me for being a straight up @$$ for the following comment, because I'm really not trying to be... but... You went on a Halloweekends Saturday. Towards the end of the season. I mean... I pretty much could have told you that you would have experienced virtually everything you experienced ahead of time. As for greed? HECK YEAH!!! CF is ALL ABOUT $$$ Let's be real here... When they cared about customer experience, they had a free hand stamp, one for each hand, that allowed you to utilize a skip the line feature twice a day. Fast Lane is 100% about greed, and 0% about giving you a better day at one of their parks... Don't get that twisted! Now, if you happen to have a better day at one of their parks in the process (like Prozach reports at KI, or KD), then everybody wins! But that certainly isn't CF's #1 priority, nor concern. Not trying to sound cold, nor uncaring, just being real about it. And I'm saying that as a lifelong CP lover, and attendee, who will practically live there next May! Greed is just what CF has become all about... The bottom line. *shrugs* And yes, Halloweekend Saturdays are living, breathing nightmares that need to be avoided at all costs, and I've been telling all of my friends that for well over a decade now! I just don't understand how that could be fun for anyone, coaster fan or not. Wait... What??? Are you saying you never went to an amusement park before the advent of this insipid (IMHO) thing called fast pass, or that you never had fun there if you did? Dude, that's how us "old school" peeps did it all the time! That was simply the amusement park going experience! Sure, I've now learned how to avoid having to do that at CP, and in my "old age" don't care much for waiting in those kind of lines if I can avoid it (but I won't waste my hard earned money on skip the line passes either when I can just go at a time when I'll wait 15 minutes for Valravn Opening Year.) I'm just surprised by the notion that waiting in a long line for a coaster, without paying for a skip the line pass, is now suddenly such a foreign, or outdated concept! lol I've waited about 3 hours for Raptor before, in its early years, and probably the longest I've waited for a coaster at CP is TTD, opening season, including breakdowns, about 4-5 hours... Yeah... Baked and burnt that day! So your saying that lousy service, slow ride crews, lack of product, short staff, closed locations, hour long fast lane lines, closed rides and lack of any customer service is ok because it's halloweekends and should be expected? Sorry, but that's a weak argument for people that spent a LOT of money to have a good time this weekend. It's not the people's fault that cedarpoint decided to over sell fast lanes and make the lines an hour long. It's a total money grab, and the furthest thing from good customer service. I suppose it should be the people's fault for not knowing that a bunch of rides, food stands, and stores were going to be closed ad well after paying the same amount to enter the park during the summer. I suppose that we should have know better than to think that going to a Halloween event at cedarpoint was going to be fun. I guess our expectations were a bit high.

Coasterbill... That's seems a little light on the wait times, but they were at least that. Put it this way...mine rides que line was full. Corckscrew had an hour wait.

At some parks we do this, however the crowds were insane and people were parking on the grass. We got into the park before opening and the rest of our family, so had princess parking. Besides that, the line at the tolls to get into the park were backed up all day. So leaving would have been an even bigger hassle, not to mention time consuming. Plus, we have the season dinning plan.

I hate to do this, because I typically try to be positive but.... RANT TIME! So this weekend(Saturday) my wife's family made plans to visit the park durring halloweekends because they have always heard us talking about how much fun it was. So a few weeks ago, they booked a room and made the plans to come to the park with us to enjoy the day. They typically only make it to the park every 2 to 3 years. I had mentioned to them that the park can get buisy during this time and that fast lane was probably something they wanted to get as the lines can get long. They all enjoy the coasters as well. In total, there were 11 of us. 8 of us purchased fast lane plus(The other 3 were kids). With all this being said, here is where it goes downhill fast... 1. It took an hour and a half to get into the parking lot from there hotel that was only 3 or 4 miles from the park. They ended up not getting into the park untill around 2pm because of this. Once in the parking lot, it was just chaos, as they had people parking cars that had no idea what they were doing. The car next to them got boxed in, and couldn't leave at the end of the night untill the other cars left. 2. When they finnaly got to the front gate, we approached the ticket line that took forever(35 min) so we could use my wife's and myselfs platinum pass discount on tickets for them. At this time, they picked up there fast lane bracelets as well. At this point, they had spent nearly $1,500 at the park, and had not even been inside yet. 3. The first thing they wanted to do was hit the rides. So we made our way to valravin first. The fast lane entrance was spilling out of the entrance down the midway. This line ended up being 40 min long. We got to talking as to why the fast lane line was so long. I had figured that it was because it was the popular new ride near the front that everyone wanted to hit first. This couldn't be further from the truth. They had a temp worker running the entrance into the station, and only letting in a couple of fast lane people for every 20 or so stand by line people. 3. So after spending over an hour at valravin, we all needed to eat. Every food line was backed up at least 35 min. Just to fill our cups at the freestyle place by raptor, we had to wait 25 min. Half the cups wouldn't scan , and the other half were buying new souvenir cups. Throw in a worker that has no clue, and you have crazy long lines. Why can't they do like six flags and not have to scan the cups? Six flags has a certain color cup. Ridiculous! So my mother in law was standing in line durring this time at a food stand, and still was only half way thru it. She just left the line and gave up. So did everyone else. We ended up putting our name on the waiting list at chickie and Pete's, and waiting the hour and a half to eat. By time we got seated, served, bill paid, we had almost 3 hours invested in just eating lunch! 4. So now that we ate, everyone wanted to hit up some coasters. So we headed to millennium force only to be welcomed with a 1 hour wait for fast lane. Totally unacceptable! At this point, the group just wanted to ride something....anything! So we headed to the back of the park to see what we could ride, only to find another almost hour long wait for maverick fast lane. Kids wanted to ride the antique cars, but they were closed. So, we ended up hitting the wave swinger. Mine rides line was near full, and did not offer fast lane so we skipped it as well. We then took the kids to camp snoopy while we fast laned Gemini. So they were only running 1 side of gemini(racing coaster) during a Saturday in Oct. Even Gemini had a half hour wait with fast lane. What's the point of having a racing coaster open if your not gonna race it? 5. The haunted houses were about as much fun as watching paint dry. So a few of the group wanted to do slaughter house, and we waited 2 hours in line. Once inside, it was just a steady stream of people walking thru. No time for the actors to scare or reset. Waste of 2 hours, and needles to say...the family was not thrilled. We were not the only ones pissed off, as just about everyone coming out of the haunt was saying something along the lines of....we waited 2 hours for that?....what a waste of time....too many people....was not scary in the least....i want my money back.... 6. Dinner time. Dinner was about as much fun as lunch was. We waited in what we thought was a shorter line at subway. So 30 min later, we start to order our subs and were notified that they were out of cheese. How the F do you run out of the main ingredient of your product? We ended up waiting another 30 min at pinks for a hot dog. So....another 1.5 hours gone on food. 7. Cut throat island(The walktrue under maverick) was next. Another waste of time. 15 min line to get into it, no scares because of the amount of people. It was basicly a line of people with lights shining directly in your eyes with an occasional actor walking by. Almost got into a fight in here with a few teenagers because I asked them nicely to watch there language around the kids we had. Every word out of there mouths was f_ 8. Why were so many rides, concessions, and stores closed? Off the top of my head, power tower, sky ride, dragster, windseeker and antique cars were closed. The weather was perfect, and there was no wind to close these rides down. A whole slew of concessions and stores were closed...too many to mention. 9. At this point everyone was just frustrated and in a pissy mood. They spent over $1,500 on fast lanes and tickets, and got onto 6 rides all day. At this point they just wanted to leave. So on the way out, they stopped by guest services to complain about the experience. Needless to say, it fell of def ears. Guest services told them that fast lane is only ment to decrease your wait time. To finish up this lengthy rant, here are a few things . First...it seems like cedar fair is just interested more in a money grab than guest experience. In no way should they have sold that many fast lanes. If you pay $150 per person, your wait should not be an hour still. Not to mention that they failed to mention that so many rides were not operating and the price was still the same. They had no problem taking our money though. Second...if your going to be that short staffed, you need to distribute your employees a little better. People gotta eat and drink. It was a total mess. Weird thing is that on sunday, most of the places that were closed on Saturday were open. After speaking with the family and feeling embarrassment for recommending they go check out halloweekends, they really do not have a desire to return to the park. For the amount they spent for cedarpoint, they could have done Disney with free fast lane, and still had saved a bunch of money. The park should be embarrassed. This was more than just the big crowds...this was operational, and could have been prevented if not for so much greed. End rant...

We were at the park this past weekend, and I took a few pictures to share... Love the entrance A cross between Halloween, and Christmas Scary eyes..

Thank you.

I forgot all about that song.

It was only running 1 train, and I did not see a second train anywhere. Not sure how many seats, but I'm guessing a total of 16.

If anybodys interested, I posted a full trip report to the park right here... http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75288

I love to try and support places like this, over the big commercial places.

One picture of notice, is the first drop. Looks like the supporters for the first drop are in place, giving you a better idea of how the drop will look.

A few more...

My pleasure! I definitely recommend checking them out.

Just took a few pictures of steel vengeance. Clearance cart

It's pretty old(built in the 30's). There is a little bit of a musty smell because most of the furniture is original, but still in great shape. The owner told me that they were trying to keep it as original as they can, and that they really don't make a lot of money on them to replace with modern items. They do it out of passion to keep it alive more than the money.

The wigwams were a blast!