gearbm95

***Update*** Appreciate the kind words from everyone here. I received a call from Tony Aaron, Director of Food Services, this morning, he was extremely apologetic and went above and beyond in terms of an apology and response to the situation. Cedar Point handled this with class and a true A+ in customer service. He offered to bring my boyfriend and I back for free and include fast lane and water park access. I doubt I'll be able to make it back this year due to work so he said he'd extend the invite to return to any year we can make it back. Very classy response. They identified the employee and spoke to him, and he ralyed the info that the employee felt terrible about the situation and immediately knew what he had done was a mistake.

Ok, so I hate posting something like this but I had a really terrible experience at CP on Sunday. My boyfriend and I drove down from NY to go to the park for the day on Sunday. I've been to CP easily 10+ times since I've been a child (31 now) and was taking my boyfriend for his first time ever. The trip was going great, minimal lines, decent weather until we decided to grab lunch and watch a little bit of the hockey game at Chickie & Pete's. We showed up around 3:30pm and it wasn't overly busy, we grabbed 2 seats at the bar, also at the bar was a young couple and 2 older gentlemen (mid-late 40s) at the opposite end of the bar. Bartender was really friendly, one TV was set to the game the other was on Sportscenter, I asked him to turn the other one to hockey too at our end of the bar, he obliged. We then grabbed a couple beers and ordered an app right away. I came back from the restroom and when I sat down, I put my arm around my boyfriend's shoulder, the older gentlemen at the far end of the bar almost immediately made the comment to the bartender "Queers like hockey? Who knew?". The bartender laughed and said "Guess so". I was completely caught off guard by this. I understand people have their own beliefs and that's cool with me, strangers can say whatever they like, it doesn't bother me. What did bother me was the bartender engaging in the conversation with him. I ignored it and we were almost done eating, when again the same gentlemen at the bar said "of course fags would like a Canadian team" after he saw my Ottawa Sens hat. The bartender, again, laughed. I asked for the bill right away and we paid and left. My boyfriend was fairly upset by the comments and kind of got self-conscious and afterwards felt like everyone was staring at us in the park. We ended up leaving around 5pm to head home because he wasn't feeling it anymore. When we returned home I shot off an email via the link on the CP site, and mailed the same letter as well. I also followed up with a phone call today and was unable to reach anyone. Am I overreacting to this? I thought I'd hear back from CP fairly quickly but haven't heard anything. Anyone else ever had to reach out to CP's guest relations for an incident before? What channel did you use to contact them? Thanks!

A couple new concerts were announced today for 2017: May 24 - Future/Migos/Tory Lanez May 31 - Chance The Rapper

They're still adding shows so they'll be another 7-8 shows added. Also, you won't find a better lineup at a park in the US, granted these are paid shows, the free park admission realms adds to this.

They're still adding shows so they'll be another 7-8 shows added. Also, you won't find a better lineup at a park in the US, granted these are paid shows, the free park admission realms adds to this.

It's a LiveNation venue that holds 26k people, it's the summer concert venue for the Buffalo/Rochester metro areas so they always get huge acts. They usually book about 25-30 shows each summer.

This is actually pretty big news but it looks like Darien is offering FREE admission to the park with the purchase of any concert ticket this year. In years past, it was an additional $18 to go to the park for the day. Where this is really interesting is that some shows this summer have lawn tickets priced at $15-20 which is less than the price of one day admission to Darien. So essentially, you can buy a lawn ticket to a show and be able to go see the show AND go to the park all day for less than the price of a one day park ticket. The concert lineup so far this year features: 6/3 - Jason Aldean 6/20 - Train/OAR 6/25 - Zac Brown Band 6/29 - Third Eye Blind/Silversun Pickups 7/12 - Nickelback/Daughty (puke!) 7/18 - Chicago/Doobie Brothers 7/21 - Foreigner/Cheap Trick 7/29 - Muse/Thirty Seconds to Mars 8/2 - Kings of Leon 8/4 - Dierks Bentley 8/25 - Luke Bryan 8/26 - Green Day

First trip ever to CW for haunt, went last night Sat 10/22, not sure if I'd attend this event again, here's a quick recap: I knew not expect HHN level detail in the mazes, and I was actually impressed by the design and sets in the mazes...where it drops off big time, is the scareactor talent...in almost every maze, they were so blah, giving maybe a growl or a strong stare, never giving an actual jump or scare...now I believe this lack of scares may have been due to the constant conga lines going through the mazes, the actors would never really be given a chance to hide or reset Beyond, th a mazes the park itself was not ready for the crowds they had tonight. When we arrived at 7:05, we had about a 10 min wait to get into the lot, with 6 lanes and all parking tollvooths ooen, yes, it was that busy. To get into the park, all gates were open, I'd say 15-20 lines, but the lines were 100 deep and not very organized. It took about another 15 mins to get into the park. Once inside the front gate "scare zone" was anything but. It was simply a couple grave stones and 2 or 3 scareactor with no specific theme (dead cheerleader, zombie, devil) just walking around doing very little. From there we walked towards the back of the park and actually stopped to check out Sky Hawk, about 10 min wait, fun ride. After that went to hit the mazes in the back of the park, Spirit Manor and Cornstalkers. Spirit Manor had about a 40 min wait, however the line constantly moved due to them just allowing a continual conga kind,of people into the mazes. The sets and design were actually quite nice, there were a couple rooms where the lights did seem a little too bright though. The real problem with the maze was lack of scares though. The scareactors were kind of just milling about in the middle of rooms not doing much beyond the occassional growl. It was very dissapointing considering the MANY great set pieces they had to hide and work with. After Spirit Manon we waited about 45 mins for Cornstalkers, complete waste of time. This maze really suffered from the large group of people being in the maze at the same time, scares were nonexistant. Again, in this maze there was the problem of lights being a little too bright and killing the atmosphere. Also a big problem with this maze was the wind killing the fog, btw did I mention it was 37 degrees all night. Considering we didn't get into the park until 740, it was already 930 and we had only done 1 ride and 2 mazes, the park is only open until 12. Now the extreme crowds killed any chance for the scarezones to work...the one by Time Warp was especially pathetic as the 5 scareactors were literally sitting down talking to each other. At this point Time Warp was down, Psychlone was down, Behomth was down...Windseeker was down...the only rides operating in this side of the park were Jackhammer and Backlot Stunt Coaster and Minebuster. My group wanted to hit a coaster, we ended up waiting 40 mins for Backlit Stunt Coaster. Riding this coaster in the 37 degree temps made for quite the cold face. We walked over to Streets of the Undead. We waited about 20 minutes. This maze had some fantastic sets, especially the subway car with the strobe light. However, there were VERY few scareactors, and the ones in there were doing nothing. Also, we started to notice a trend where there were more workers guiding crowds through the mazes than actual scareactors in the mazes. But again, this was probably the most impressively designed maze of the night and had tons of potential for scares but the scareactors just mailed it in. It was now almost 1030, we decided to walk to the other side of the park where the majority of the mazes were. We waited about 30 mins for Bloodshed and Club Blood. You actually went through Bloodshed then after the exit, walked directly into the entrance of Club Blood. Bloodshed suffered from lazy scareactors and the conga line crowd...however, Club Blood, the walk over from the exit from Bloodshed created smaller groups going into Club Blood. We went through Club Blood in a group of like 8 which was nice, I didn't get the theming much beyond the deadmau5 playing. There were some decent scares in here though, best of the night. After this we waited about 10 mins for Sci Fi house, which was actually not bad. Had there not been a conga line crowd there would have been some nice chances for scares. We missed out on all the scares, but the black and white twilight zone was very nicely done. It was now 1130 and the park closed in a half hour. The line for Leviathan was an hour, all of the flats had decent waits over in this part of the park...Drop Tower and Shockwave were down. Vortex had a 30 min wait, The Fly had about a 20 min wait...we ended up settling for the 4D Zombies ride in the mountain. This ride could have been pretty good, but the fact that my gun didn't work sucked. The visuals were cool, it was kind of lame how there's literally no theming, just the screens in the mountain, they could've done so much more with this. The drop track portion at the end was actually nice, and provided a quick scare. We ended up waiting 40 mins for this, we had gotten off and it was 1210. To recap, we got to the park at 705, we ended up only doing the following in 4 hrs: Sky Hawk Spirit Manor Cornstalkers Backlit Stunt Coaster Streets of the Undead Bloodshed Club Blood Sci Fi House Zombies 4D I guess looking back at that it's not too terrible for only have like 4.5hrs in the park. As a tip for people going in the future I'd suggest getting Fast Lane for the rides as the lines are much longer than the maze lines. The conga line crowd management on the mazes allows the lines to just keep moving, however eliminating most scares.

Was debating attending HHN at Univ when I'm out in LA for a couple months, however, with the decent reviews this event is getting and the reports of 2.5-3hr waits for the mazes at HHN, do you think this would be a decent alternative? Also, never been to SFMM before to ride any of the coasters.

Oh yeah, that's another thing...it's gotten way too crowded for its own good. Not only does a $100 (give or take) ticket NOT guarantee you access to all of the attractions (unless you pony up for another $100 for a fast pass)...I agree that I'd pay more in exchange for a lot less people. Endless conga lines have been the norm for a while now...it's more common than not to see scares happening ahead of you (and by 'scares' I really mean startles). I will say, the set design gets better every year (except this year which seems lacking compared to last year's admittedly high bar) and that has become the main draw for a lot of people. Yes, exactly! It actually felt more like I paid $100 to walk through movie sets as opposed to a huanted maze attraction. There was absolutely nothing scary the entire night, and after talking to other guests while in line (for hours, I might add) I noticed that many of the other guests felt the same way about not being able to experience the scares due to the lack of crowd control. In a couple of the attractions I actually slowed my walk to a crawl to get some space between myself and the never-ending group in front of me. This idea didn't work out very well as there were employees within the houses telling me to keep walking and "catch up" to the group.

I went last weekend and uhhhh...was this event scary at one point? How are you supposed to be startled when youre walking through a maze with 200 other people? All night we consistently walked into scenes where the actors were getting back into their hiding places or the animatronic/effect had just went off. I've never been more disappointed by a halloween event. Granted, the mazes were all top notch when it came to design but the crowds and the lack of "pulsing" individual groups through the mazes really ruined the event. I would GLADLY play an additonal $30-40/ticket if they reduced the capacity of the event.

Just got back from CP this weekend and had a question for people w/Platinum Passes. As we were waiting to get into the park (5-10mins) we overheard a group of teens/early 20's talking about how they were all getting into the park using their friends platinum passes. We were directly behind them so we thought for sure we were about to witness some drama go down... However, they were scanned and walked in no questions asked. Is this a regular occurrence? My friend and I decided to stand around for a minute and watch...and over the nest 10 mins we never once saw anyone look at a monitor to verify the passes at all. Kind of bizarre.

Damn, I'll probably pass on HHN then and hit up SFMM during the day for the coasters. It's disappointing that this "conga line" is a regular occurrence at their HHN events. I'd be willing to pay $25-30 more for a ticket if it was possible to go through the haunts in a group of 4-6 people.

I'm going to be in the LA area the first weekend of October and was thinking about hitting up HHN. I've been to the event in Florida once and was wondering if the mazes are on-par or better at the Hollywood park? Also, I wasn't the biggest fan of HHN in Orlando due to the mazes just being one big conga line throughout the entire thing, it killed the atmosphere and eliminated any chance of being startled or scared. Is this common practice at the Hollywood event as well? Also, do you think FJ will be open during HHN? Thanks!

Wow, really??? You did this??? What an a$$hole. The verification process is that they are actually putting some trust in people not to crash the morning EMH sessions. It's people like you that will make it so they have to put more rules and restrictions into place at the parks. Oh, and you're banned from our forum. This happens WAYYYY more than youd think. Having used to be a CM at the gates we experienced this quite often, and would usually just let the party inside instead or creating a scene and arguing. Never really saw it as a big deal. Seems a bit unfair on the people who have probably spent years saving for that once in a lifetime trip in a Disney hotel including the perks of early entry especially by rewarding people who are intentionally breaking the rules. My wife and I always talk about doing Florida but we don't think we could afford Disney hotels for our family and that puts us off a little since we feel with the only 2 weeks we get off being the busiest in the calendar year, so on top of huge queues, prices will be highest for hotels and airplane etc... fastpass+ and early reservation (for example be our guest) is something we would definitely need. If we ever do reach that point where we could do a Disney hotel for those perks and i'm talking 10 years of putting every little bit away it'd be really, really disheartening to see anyone walking in after all that saving "to avoid a scene." I mean, I know there will always be people who break the rules intentionally and be horrible if you call them out on it (look at my last Everland TR) but it seems a big difference between people cutting in line and smoking anywhere compared to going into what is essentially almost a private event. You wouldn't be allowed in the fast pass line without a ticket and I doubt a group would be allowed on if they used the single rider line even if you caused a scene in public so I'm not sure why this is different. Sorry, didn't mean to turn it into such a lengthy rant. Don't let not being able to afford a Disney property be the reason to keep you away from the parks. You can find VERY reasonable hotels in the Orlando and if you have a larger family I suggest VRBO or Air BNB in Orlando. You can also save money skipping the meals plans, the food is very meh and the cattle herding style of some of the restaurants is off-putting. Airfare will be your biggest expense!

Wow, really??? You did this??? What an a$$hole. The verification process is that they are actually putting some trust in people not to crash the morning EMH sessions. It's people like you that will make it so they have to put more rules and restrictions into place at the parks. Oh, and you're banned from our forum. This happens WAYYYY more than youd think. Having used to be a CM at the gates we experienced this quite often, and would usually just let the party inside instead or creating a scene and arguing. Never really saw it as a big deal.

Could really use some help deciding on an attraction to attend while out in LA in October. We'll be coming in for the weekend to go to the Bills v Rams game in LA and are looking to hit up a Halloween theme park event on the day before the game (Oct. 8). We have a group of 4 mid-20s-30s adults and are looking for something more adult-focused and scary. Alongside the mazes, are the regular attractions at each park open? Also, do any of these events serve alcohol? Between HHN at USH, Fright Fest at SFMM, and Knotts Scary Farm, which event would you recommend? Thanks!

Quick little TR... Went to the park last night for the first time in 3 years. I thought upgraded Boardwalk and Rowdys Ridge areas looked great, you can really tell Herschend spearheaded the renovations in those areas. All of the rides were operating except for Ranger, I asked a couple employees about it and didn't get a solid answer on if it will ever reopen, most said more than likely not. The recently renovated waterpark was also a pleasant surprise! The wave pool area with the Big Kahuna, Tornado, Brain Drain, and Swirl City slides was all very well landscaped and clean. Cleanliness is my biggest pet peeve in watermarks and I will say they did a great job here. The restrooms and changing room were all clean as well in this area. Also, Brain Drain might be the first time I've ever been slightly scared on a waterslide, there's no feeling like it when the floor drops out. The only negative to the water park was Hooks Lagoon, the children's area, it could use a little refresh. I don't thing a full reno is needed but some paint would really go a long way. The dry rides portion of the park was also not as bad as I was expecting. Granted, single train ops on all the coasters but we never waited more than 20mins in line, and that was only for Ride of Steel. Speaking of ROS, still an airtime machine and delivered big time. Predator, rode in the very last car, was rough but not unbearable and it def had some serious speed in the back. Motocoaster was fun, a great family ride. However, the placement of this ride is bizarre, it's technically not even in the park? Mind Eraser was a typical SLC, however headbaging wasn't very noticeable. The supports look freshly painted, asked an op about the track and said itd be off season if it gets painted, take it fwiw. Viper was smooth, fun Arrow looper, not many of these left. Boomerang was typical, but the newer style trains really reduced headbanging and brought out the intensity in the ride. Overall the park impressed me more than I thought it would. The lighting on the rides at night was excellent throughout the park, minus the Giant Wheel. Food service was efficient, had wings at the Anchor Bar in the park, excellent! Walking through the park I got the feeling there are some dead areas though, specifically the area back by Twister/Motocoaster and the area adjacent to ROS. A couple small flats would go a long way to bringing more foot traffic to these areas. If they can get a solid addition next year, a couple flats or maybe even a small coaster l think the park will be well on its way back. Having a massive campground and an on-site hotel are perks that not many other seasonal parks offer. Also, the performing arts center seemed to drive park attendance as well, last night Kelly Clarkson was performing which might've been the reason for the crowds between 5-7p in the park. From a sign in the park it stated they also have Incubus, Jason Aldean, Deftones, Luke Bryan, Van Halen, Chris Brown, Slipknot, and a couple more I can't remember all coming to the park this summer. Might go back and spend the night and hit up the Incubus show later this summer.

1) Everyone can park in that lot. Stay to the left when entering the tollbooths and tell them you're going to the Soak City lot. There will be an OMFG massive line at that gate but don't worry, Cedar Point moves the line so fast that once the gate opens the line moves at a walking pace and you'll be in in 5 minutes tops. I know you won't believe me when you see the line but trust me on this. Dragster is not usually open for Early Entry so don't go there first, I'd suggest Maverick or Millennium Force. Normally I'd say avoid the front of the park until later in the day but you'll have Fastlane Plus so you can really do whatever you want. The only advantage to going to Dragster first is that if you go there as soon as the park opens for early entry you won't have a long wait for the front row. You seriously need to ride Dragster in the front row but it will add an hour to your wait if you don't go there first thing. This could totally backfire if the ride doesn't open until 10 anyway though as you'd have already spent an hour in line. Random tip: Raptor is best in the front row too and it only adds an extra 1-2 train wait. There's no reason to go to any other row. 2) Cedar Point has large crowds every day so Fastlane Plus is always a good idea, especially if you're only going for one day. Generally Millennium Force, Maverick and TTD will have waits between 1 and 2 hours. Gatekeeper and Raptor will have 2 hour waits in the morning but only an idiot would ride them in the morning without Fastlane Plus anyway. 3) Yes, anyone is welcome to use any entrance at Cedar Point. Also, do you know if you buy FL+ online can you redeem it at the Soak City ticket office or do you have to goto a specific kiosk in the park itself? Thank you both for the tips!!!

Looks like I'll be heading to CP for the first time on 8/4 next week. I have a couple questions for you guys that have been there numerous times, and I'd greatly appreciate any help. 1) Can anyone park in the Soak City lot if you are only going to Cedar Point for the day? Do you just bypass the main lot and drive around the park on the access road? Also, we will be getting to the park at around 9AM and are staying off-site, is parking at the Soak City lot a good idea to try and get a jump on the crowd entering from the front. Obviously, looking to try and knock TTD/Mav/MF out of the way ASAP in the AM. 2) Should we be expecting a large crowd on a Monday in August? We are debating purchasing Fast Lane+, on an average day what do the waits look like with FL+ vs stand-by line? 3) Is anyone welcome to use the entrance near Windseeker for access to the beach? We have 2 non-riders going with us and they're more interested in spending the afternoon on the beach. Will they be able to use this entrance to get to the beach and then to re-enter the park after? Thanks so much for your help!

Batman:The Ride will never be re-built at Darien, as I said earlier they have dismantled the trains for it and are using it as part of their Carnival scare-zone this year for their halloween event. The trains are in pieces and have skeletons and other stuff hanging from them.

I got a chance to see a little bit of a preview of the Halloween event at DL that kicks off tonight due to a friend who needed some assitance at the park last night. The "Dark Waters" event was cancelled due to some production/safety issues involving the boats that they originally planned on using. However, the CarnEVIL and Haunted Boathouse attarctions that were tied to the "Dark Waters" event will be open for the event and still happening. I didn't have a chance to see inside the Boathouse but the CarnEVIL scarezone looks pretty cool, check out the cameo that the old B:TR stand-up trains are making in there lol. The park is also doing a Haunted Mine walk-through which looks pretty impressive, as well as the return of the haunted bumper cars (ie. fog, metal music, strobe lights, chain link fenced in attraction). Also, for the first time in many years the entire park will be open for the event, however, be warned that during the day some flats may be down due to staffing. The park will focus on having all of their kiddie areas fullty staffed open-6pm and will then focus on having EVERY flat and coaster open from 7pm-close.

The PAC rumor is false. Live Nation owns the venue, not Darien Lake or Herschend. The venue will continue to operate as a Live Nation venue, every year there's some stupid rumor that the group behind Kingdom Bound Christian Festival is buying the PAC. The truth is a festival that attracts 20,000 people doesn't not have a group behind that could purchase a venue like the PAC where just this year alone has seen 6 acts bring in 20k+ on seperate occasions.

If they remove Cuda Falls I think they'll eliminate the bridge and use the land where Cuda Falls was for a future attraction. They could fit a Eurofighter or family sized coaster there. The waterpark has land to expand on their current side.

Haven't posted here in a couple years but after visiting the park last night thought I'd post a quick update on the current state of the park for anyone who cares... I ended up meeting soem friends at the park after I got out of work at 6pm, the park had a decent crowd for 6pm on a Monday in late August. having previously worked at the park in a non-operations role in my teenage years I have a decent familiarity with the park. Upon arriving I was pretty impressed with some of the small improvements Herschend has made, noteably landscaping and general cleanliness in MOST areas of the park, there still are a problem areas which I'll address later. Also, got a little bit of a 2014 update.. Pros: 1) The Boardwalk area, new for 2013, looks excellent! The refurb to the old food-court, the new pavement, refurb of the Carousel, and the general signage/landscpaing in the area looks great, expecially at night! The mist/water effect in the midway area is a huge hit with kids no matter the time of day. The Giant Wheel looks great with the re-painted cars and now that little things like that lights in the queue have been repaired, these had been out for porbably 5-6 years. The Anchor Bar is AMAZING being inside the park, and the prices are the exact same you find at the original location in downtown Buffalo. Blast Off, S&S Space Shot, is a very welcome addition and it looks great with the lighting at night. 2) Rowdy's Ridge area, which they put in last year looks pretty great too. Slowly it seems Herschend is refurbing the park an area at a time, which I think is a nice approach for a park this size. The flyers, Moose on the Loose, and the pulley-tower ride all seems to be huge hits for families. The only thing in this area that needs a little TLC is the blacktop in the area by the Ranger, but that is such a minor issue. 3) The new additions to the waterpark over the last couple years have def made this a very nice "included" water park. The ProSlide complex is awesome with the 4 different styles of slides. The maintenance and landscaping in the area also seems to be kept up very well. However, the Cuda Falls portion of the waterpark is closed for refurbishment. having worked at the park in the past I know that there was always talk about the pumps on that slide tower and their lack of reliability. Hopefully they are working on this issue and also working on removing Floodgate Falls, which has become an eye sore. The larger issue here though, is that I have heard they are unable to remove Floodgate Falls as it could create a potential hazard with the support for Cuda Falls since they are both built into the same hillside. Who knows, maybe they're axing both of these attractions all together and starting over on that side of the waterpark? 4) The new nighttime laser show got a welcome facelift this year and it's actually very cool. They added a 50x50 lagoon in front of the screen and it now features water elements (ala DCA fountain show, not nearly as large though), fire, lasers, fireworks, smoke, and ground pyro. The soundtrack could use some help (very Top 40/Country) but it's not like I expect them to be playing some Deadmau5 or Nine Inch Nails, which would be bad ass though! Cons: 1) The operations on the coasters were pretty bad. Predator is down to one train and had a 20 min wait. Viper with one train was a walk-on, Mind Eraser, also one-train was 30 mins, Boomerang was a walk-on, MotoCoaster was down for maintenance, and Ride of Steel was 45 mins with one train. 2) Quite a few rides down, which is dissapointing. Rodeo Round-Up, Grizzly Run, MotoCoaster, and Pirate were all down. However, Pirate did open around 8pm for some great nightime rides over the lake! Having these 4 rides down for the day is a pretty big blow to the 48' crowd at the park. 3) The area back by the Twister, Antique Cars, Go-Karts needs an overhaul in a big way. The ride selection isn't bad, however the lack of food options, restrooms, landscaping, etc. give this area a very poor feeling, which is a shame considering how nice they've made the Rowdy's Ridge and Boardwalk portions of the park. ***2014 Update*** Ran into a friend who is still working at the park in ops and I asked about Predator. She said significant changes are coming to it in 2014 and that's about all she would mention. However, the exciting thing is that there may be more coming, not in the way of new rides necessarily (sorry, didn't ask), but there will be a general overhaul to the Predator/Ride of Steel midway area similar to what we saw in the Boardwalk area this year. I would assume some new lighting and general upgrades to the current shops/food stands, possibly a new ride? It looks like Herschend has a long-term master plan for the park and is slowly transforming it into a great regional attraction for NY State.