Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

[christianscoasters]

^It was indeed very busy. Quite bizarre for a Friday. Parking lot seemed maybe 3/4 full?

[CP Maverick]

Close to that. I forgot that some area schools had off today instead of Columbus Day. Waited 45 for MF for the first time on a Halloweekends Friday.

[CaptainUnknown]

It was also a Friday the 13th. What better time to visit a haunted attraction?

[prozach626]

I was at Haunt and safe as houses. You don't get that last part in combination with the rest elsewhere.

I get the safety factor in it all, but to me that's what makes it 100% not frightening. I know these people can't even lay a finger on me (nor would I want them to). I just stumble though with my wife clutching to my arm amused at the surroundings and completely entertained by my wife always being targeted.. Every great once in a while I'll be startled and it's good for a quick laugh.

 

The only controlled safe scare that ever worked on me was news media... and then I stopped paying attention to it.

[Philrad71]

"What is happening to our society?"

 

Exactly!!!!

[prozach626]

^This wonderful film was before its time. That particular human evolutionary representation clearly left out the stooped over "smart" phone posture. It was a missed opportunity in the film, overall. What a shame.

 

There were 20 people in our local hipster coffee shop we visited this morning, but it was dead silent due to all of the young millennials being buried in their I-Phones, I-Pads, I-Fux, etc. I hate small talk with strangers, and even I couldn't help but to be saddened by all of the social growth opportunities those kids were missing out on.

[WolfBobs]

An as adult the Haunts do not scare me unless they generally do get me by surprise. Which happens once and a while.

 

BUT.. again these events aren't for enthusiasts. *GASP* I know, I know, how dare a park not cater to us?!

 

I take my nieces and nephews to these events, they range in ages from 9-12 currently. Even they are noticing how poorly staffed the Haunts can be. I do love Halloweekends (The Haunt) or whatever it's called now. I love the atmosphere it brings, the additional food options, the Haunts. All I was saying is that I believe it has grown too big for what Cedar Point can handle staffing wise due to it's unique situation of being more reliant on staffing that houses than locals compared to other parks. Which quite honestly is a shame, cause it's my favorite time of year to be at the park.

[CP Maverick]

In as few words as possible, how do you explain the complete lack of scare-training they give these guys?

 

"Hey!"

 

"Where are you going?"

 

Seriously, you have to come up with something better than that.

[Invertalon]

^

 

About sums it up, though... While the houses have some potential, the terrible "scaractors" completely ruin it. I find the ones in the scare zones *can* be excellent, as they tend to be a more passionate bunch.

[coaster-mm]

Hi guys,

 

I'm planning a trip from europe to CP, combining the park with a visit to Toronto and Niagara falls.

We definitely want to visit CP on 2 weekdays, not on a weekend(we hate big crowds ).

Do you guys think it's safe to book a trip the 2d week of May and plan the visit to CP on Monday the 7th and tuesday the 8th?

As you know CP didn't release their opening schedule for 2018 yet, and because of the very low ticket prices right now we are planning to book the trip this week.

We have been to CP 2 times before and both those times we were there the 2d week of May so is it safe to assume it is also the opening week of 2018?

 

Thanks for the help and suggestions,

 

Paul

[FeelTheFORCE]

Cedar Point's "opening weekend" has been the first weekend in May the past few years, then closed the entire proceeding week, then beginning daily operation the next weekend. I would guess the park will be closed on May 7th & 8th.

[prozach626]

In as few words as possible, how do you explain the complete lack of scare-training they give these guys?

Bruh... Did you really just use the term "Scare training?" They dress them up in costumes and say "Don't use curse words."

 

Would anyone like to comment on the quality of toilet paper in the crappers? We might as well, since we're running out of things to critique.

[DoinItForTheFame]

Would anyone like to comment on the quality of toilet paper in the crappers?

 

Well, now that you mention it... I do wish Cedar Point would spend a few more dollars on something other than single ply toilet paper. I mean, it's really annoying when you go to wipe and end up with a finger up your because of the cheap ass toilet paper. I mean, it can make for a really sh!tty rest of the day at the park.

 

[coaster-mm]

Cedar Point's "opening weekend" has been the first weekend in May the past few years, then closed the entire proceeding week, then beginning daily operation the next weekend. I would guess the park will be closed on May 7th & 8th.

 

Thanks for your quick response!

Looks like it it’s better to wait for CP to announce their 2018 schedule before booking this trip, just to be sure.

We’re married for 5 years on tuesday the 8th and I am really looking forward surprising my wife with this trip and celebrating the 5 years with a ride on Steel Vengeance.

 

 

 

 

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Edited October 16, 2017 by coaster-mm

[CP Maverick]

[..] end up with a finger up your [...]

 

Rumor has it, some people like that sort of thing.

 

I've been fortunate to not experience the TP in the park. I can't imagine it's much different than most other public restrooms.

[Philrad71]

Cedar Point's "opening weekend" has been the first weekend in May the past few years, then closed the entire proceeding week, then beginning daily operation the next weekend. I would guess the park will be closed on May 7th & 8th.

 

Thanks for your quick response!

Looks like it it’s better to wait for CP to announce their 2018 schedule before booking this trip, just to be sure.

We’re married for 5 years on tuesday the 8th and I am really looking forward surprising my wife with this trip and celebrating the 5 years with a ride on Steal Vengeance.

 

 

 

 

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Yeah, I would definitely wait for the 2018 season as I don't believe that the park will be open that early. Also note that the weather in Northern Ohio in early May can be a grab bag - meaning it could be raining, snowing or sunny and 80.

[southpuddle]

Also, don't go opening weekend if you're planning on your only trip. The park has been notoriously underprepared on opening weekend the past decade. Honestly, the best time to visit all year is the first week (during the week) of 10:00 closings in June. Super light crowds, full staffing, perfect weather, and long hours. The big issues that rides experience after being on ice all winter have also been worked out by that week. Go then.

Edited October 15, 2017 by southpuddle

[coaster-mm]

Thanks for the help!

Going to look into going the first week of June like you suggested, especially because in that period I think we can fit a day at CW into the week.

 

 

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[Nrthwnd]

^ Plan for the first Friday of June, and then you can plan to go to CoasterMANIA! at CP.

Great day there, the weather was pretty good around that weekend. Great day!

June 2, 2017. CoasterMANIA! morning. (Next year, it should be Friday, June 1st.)

[ajfelice]

Taking into account the amount of discussion and negative feedback regarding the effects of short staffing, I think more people are noticing that Cedar Point and many seasonal parks are in a tough situation for Halloween events. Attendance is at its peak, and staffing is at its worst. Some other parks in bigger cities can sneak by during Halloween events because they have a larger population base to pull from and less attractions to staff. Speaking from experience of handling poor park staffing,the park pretty much has to go into basic survival mode to simply get by.

 

Reduced capacity and attraction closures are inevitable, but CP can't just cut the flats and kiddie rides on those tricky Fridays. We can say all we want that a Friday night should not have kiddie rides open as those evenings are meant more for older families. Speaking from experience, I can say with certitude that the first group to complain about ride closures is young families. Cedar Point is also a resort, so much of the Friday night crowd is families who will be spending the whole weekend there. To keep as many people happy as they can, they need to have something available for everyone.

 

With the park in basic survival mode, the remaining staff is working absurd hours trying to stay afloat with peak attendance and somehow pulling off the haunt events. It is a different crowd of people who want to work as scare actors compared to rides, games, foods, etc., so there will be a fair amount of people coming out of the woodwork for that kind of job. Parks will often combine efforts with the entertainment and water park departments to build their management teams who will coordinate the actors. However, with survival mode in full force, "Scare Training" comes down to a list of do's and don'ts as simply getting people to work and in their positions is the main goal.

 

So when visiting Cedar Point this time of year, I suggest keeping in mind their situation. The operation of the park overall becomes less about capacity and service, and more about just being open and functional. Until whoever in charge of these events finds the magic staffing cure, or a park starts losing money during this time of year, we can expect these issues to continue indefinitely.

[JT325]

^Totally understandable. I worked for the park for 3 years in the 90s and staffing in late August/September was always an issue. However... CP is a business, and if you pay people enough, they will come out to work.

[coasterbill]

^^ I understand this, but I still avoid the park like the plague before Memorial Day and after Labor Day. I understand their struggles, but it's also not my problem and I have no desire to attend that clusterf*ck when I can go to basically any other park in America where the staffing issues that take place during Halloween are barely noticeable to the guests aside from MAYBE some slower food service.

 

I love Cedar Point, and the park runs like a well oiled machine between Memorial Day and Labor Day so that's when I choose to go. Outside of those times the staffing problems here are much more noticeable than at any other park I've ever seen. That's not the totally park's fault (I know they have a much smaller population base to pull from), but again... I don't really care who's fault it is. They're a business and I'll go during the summer when they provide a vastly superior product. Almost every park has staffing issues this time of year but you hardly notice at other parks. At Cedar Point, it's insane.

[thrillrider]

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...

[coasterbill]

Yeah, that's ridiculous and really just backs up my last point. This park is miserable during Halloweekends.

 

Dragster is down to a major mechanical problem, but Sky Ride, half of Gemini, Windseeker, Antique Cars and Power Tower have been closed for staffing. I'm curious as to whether or not it would be feasible for this park to do what Busch Tampa or Knott's does this time of year. Open during the day for a family friendly event, then re-open later for Haunt as a hard ticket event, possibly offering a passholder discount but not allowing admission with a season pass to help control the crowd (and likely increase profits).

 

Busch Tampa closes every ride except for the coasters and Falcon's Fury for the hard ticket event since those rides actually fit the demographic of the event and then you free up staff for everything else. I wonder if that's feasible. It's not a perfect solution but there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution.

[BitterOldHag]

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.

 

This 100%.

 

Apparently, Cedar Point still hasn't found the 'breaking point' for FastLane Plus prices on busy HalloWeekend Saturdays if that many people were willing to part with the $150. Maybe they need to raise the price to $250 and see what happens. I don't run a business or pretend to know how to run one, but it does seem like CP is irritating their guests with the FastLane program on the busier days. Granted, you ARE getting on the rides in less time than the regular line, but when you hear the word 'Fast', you kind of think of wait times less than an hour.

 

I was there on Friday and as others have pointed out was shocked by how busy the park was. I am so glad I ate before I visited as the food lines looked like they weren't moving at all!