Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

[Password121 0]

^ That would be correct. On a summer midnight close at Millennium Force (one particular with a PM ERT and opened for early entry the following day) I had less than 5 hours between shifts. So about 3.5 hours of sleep between 12-18 hour shifts.

 

There's a lot to be said there about loving the job, but pushing that back another hour wouldn't be helping the employees or park out necessarily.

[DILinator 0]

With a midnight close plus a grace period plus running out the line plus transferring trains off, cleaning and finally clocking out there are probably a lot of ride ops that don’t leave until well after 1am.

 

Early Entry starts at 10 so the ops need to be there for those rides well ahead of time transferring trains on and running tests so even if you live in the dorms you’re probably maxing out at like 5 hours of sleep as it is.

 

Kings Island doesn’t have nearly as many Early Entry rides and (based on the fact that they haven’t resorted to closing a bunch of rides early for the season and closing almost half the park on Fridays) they don’t seem to have as much of a staffing problem either so they can probably shift people around a little bit better. At this point I would think that Cedar Point needs to push everyone they can to work from open to close all weekend. I’m sure Kings Island has staffing problems too, but nobody has staffing problems like Cedar Point.

 

I'll add to this, that when we were at KI for Haunt earlier this year, they closed the line for The Beast RIGHT AT 1:00, if not a little before. We got off our last ride on it, ran around, and with 1:00 showing on my clock, there wasn't even a worker around, but the line was closed. Being used to CP closing rides around 7 after, I was surprised, and a little bummed. But again, given the late hour, I can understand why they do it that way.

[boldikus 103]

Yea, Saturday was just insane.

 

I wonder why they dont keep the park open till 1am on Saturday nights like kings island does? I mean, with crowds like this I can see a need to.

 

I still don't understand how seasoned enthusiasts go to any park in the fall and NOT expect them to be rammed. I mean, isn't it a given by now?

[thrillrider 1]

Yea, Saturday was just insane.

 

I wonder why they dont keep the park open till 1am on Saturday nights like kings island does? I mean, with crowds like this I can see a need to.

 

I still don't understand how seasoned enthusiasts go to any park in the fall and NOT expect them to be rammed. I mean, isn't it a given by now?

 

I went in expecting it. That's why I explained the reason to go was to check out the shows, and let the kids do the kids stuff. Really wasn't planning on hitting the rides till Sunday.

[prozach626 74]

 

I still don't understand how seasoned enthusiasts go to any park in the fall and NOT expect them to be rammed. I mean, isn't it a given by now?

 

This. I do love reading all of the facebook comments, though.

[KPfan 3]

Yea, Saturday was just insane.

 

I wonder why they dont keep the park open till 1am on Saturday nights like kings island does? I mean, with crowds like this I can see a need to.

I was there all day Saturday, unfortunately. Might have been the biggest crowd I've ever seen at CP personally. That combined with the chilly weather meant that I spent more time walking than riding. Sunday was a shorter day but warmer. And the crowd was considerably smaller. Was able to get on almost all of the coasters except for Magnum and Gatekeeper.

[jimmiemac02 0]

 

A funny video of Dabo describing his ride on Top Thrill Dragster recently. Go Tigers!

[DorneyKid14 4]

^ That would be correct. On a summer midnight close at Millennium Force (one particular with a PM ERT and opened for early entry the following day) I had less than 5 hours between shifts. So about 3.5 hours of sleep between 12-18 hour shifts.

 

There's a lot to be said there about loving the job, but pushing that back another hour wouldn't be helping the employees or park out necessarily.

 

Didnt work in rides, but in games at Dorney, with midnight closes, leaving work between 1:30-2am getting home 30 minutes later, then having to get up at 7 to be back at the park before 9 was awful. Dunkin becomes your best friend on those days.

 

One of my former managers at Dorney, used to help out at Cedar Point during haunt. He told me about the time he worked maverick on the parks busiest day in history. He said the park closed at 12, with a three hour wait. Ride closed at 3, took an hour to transfer all the trains off. he was stuck in traffic until 7am when he finally got back to his apartment on the other side of the causeway and had to be back at work by 8am.

[southpuddle 12]

I think maybe there was some exaggeration there. Still four hours of traffic ... THREE HOURS AFTER close?

[coasternut 3]

^^ Right. Just a "little exaggeration" I think.

[bill_s 2]

I still don't understand how seasoned enthusiasts go to any park in the fall and NOT expect them to be rammed. I mean, isn't it a given by now?

 

ANY park? Down here in Virginia it usually isn't bad at all, I usually go about 10 times during the Halloween events. Some strategy is needed, but it's still easy to get more night rides this month than in any other 2 months. Edit/rethink: This is short visits as a local, so maybe not fair -- but I'm also prepared to believe even that doesn't work at the parks you're talking about. GAdv is scary to consider!

 

KD has been more crowded maybe due to the new ride, although I think the big difference was it stayed warm longer so there wasn't a lull in the crowds early in the event. Now it's getting cold, but too close to the end to make much difference.

Sunday before Columbus Day I screwed up though and went too early, and just left after a Grizzly, dinner and scarezones. They may be getting too successful.

[DorneyKid14 4]

I think maybe there was some exaggeration there. Still four hours of traffic ... THREE HOURS AFTER close?

 

Told me traffic was stand still. Apparently attendance that day was upward of 75,000. I'd imagine when you have cars parked any possible spot they could, it would take hours.

[DavidB 4]

I sat in the back lot for over 3 1/2 hours 4 or 5 years ago on Columbus Day Saturday when it was busy enough they sold out of fastlane. They cleared the whole front lot first before letting us leave. I can't imagine it would ever take 7 hours to get out in the worst case scenario. It can be awful though.

[Pedrinho 4]

I have a hard time to imagine the park being so crowded. We were there in July 2017 for four days and on the third day there were so many people that Fast Lane was the only way to go - and when we saw the parking lot from GateKeeper is was three quarters empty. It really has to be insane when there are so many people in the park at the same time, that this is completely full and the cars are stacked on the causeway.

[coasterbill 326]

ANY park? Down here in Virginia it usually isn't bad at all, I usually go about 10 times during the Halloween events. Some strategy is needed, but it's still easy to get more night rides this month than in any other 2 months. Edit/rethink: This is short visits as a local, so maybe not fair -- but I'm also prepared to believe even that doesn't work at the parks you're talking about. GAdv is scary to consider!

 

... so yeah. We went to Busch Gardens for Howl o Scream last year and waited for two hours for Alpengeist on the rain.

 

 

Short locals visits late at night or right at opening will get you on everything with minimal waits in basically every park, but during the afternoon and evening it's a sh*tshow. And again... it was a rainy day.

[DorneyKid14 4]

I sat in the back lot for over 3 1/2 hours 4 or 5 years ago on Columbus Day Saturday when it was busy enough they sold out of fastlane. They cleared the whole front lot first before letting us leave. I can't imagine it would ever take 7 hours to get out in the worst case scenario. It can be awful though.

 

He told me he parked in the back of the park near maverick.

[thrillrider 1]

I thought with the crappy whether, the park would be dead tonight. But I was dead wrong.

Edited October 20, 2018 by thrillrider

[Nrthwnd 55]

^ Um...."thought the coffee".....?

[Ed Farmer 4]

Pretty sure he meant covfefe.

[Nrthwnd 55]

^ And after looking that up.....omg

 

I really had no idea about it.

 

So glad I'm old and ignorant where it counts.

[ytterbiumanalyst 0]

^ Oh yeah, Bill, you're really missing out. We've been winning so much here the last two years we're almost sick of how much we've been winning. As it turns out, all the prizes are covfefe, and we're running out of places to store it all.

[Invertalon 7]

Drove to the park tonight and traffic was backed up nearly a mile off the exit ramp. What is usually 5min from park, map app said it would take 50min. Made it up to the causeway, then saw the gridlock across the entire thing. Then just turned around and went the hour back home. This was at around 730. Friend was a few minutes ahead of us and took him around 45min to just make it across to park. No thanks...

 

Place was Saturday-like busy tonight. A bummer... Never can I remember a Friday during HW being so busy. Next year it may come down to avoiding HW completely. Not sure ill even want to attempt next weekend.

[southpuddle 12]

I guess word has gotten out that Fridays are the only days during Halloweekends that are bearable. Maybe they’ll have to rethink having half the rides closed Friday nights... but that’s a whole new can of worms to open.

[Philrad71 0]

That's a bit of a surprise - as others have mentioned.

 

Typically Friday nights in the park (especially if it's cold/crappy) are pretty quiet.

 

So yeah...perhaps we need to quit telling people on here that.

[christianscoasters 0]

I thought with the crappy whether, the park would be dead tonight. But I was dead wrong.

It’s so surprising to me how many people wait in the ticket line and pay full price. They could get on their phone *while in line* and buy CHEAPER tickets online and scan them at the gate.