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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

P. 2037: Siren’s Curse tilt coaster announced for 2025!

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I hadn't been around for awhile because, you know, disease, pandemic, not many parks, et al. But I had to at least show up and smile when I see that Cedar Point is being forced to pay something approaching a living wage. 

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I get that there's a global pandemic and everything, but it does seem a little unfair and irresponsible to put up a schedule, commit to that schedule two weeks ago, and then announce a bunch of closed days today two weeks out. I've always said for 20 years now that Six Flags and Cedar Fair balance each other out.  They're never both great or terrible at the same time, they seem to flip flop on some sort of cycle over the years.  Right now Six Flags seems to be doing a pretty great job all things considered.  Cedar Fair, well, I'm glad they're raising their pay!

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^ I agree completely. The labor shortage isn't new news, so I don't totally understand why the park didn't better anticipate this scenario and publish a reduced operating calendar to begin with. Yes, operating hours are subject to change without notice, but from a customer relations perspective, adding days at this point would've been much better than removing them.

I feel especially bad those who already had vacations planned for these dates with non-refundable elements (e.g. time off from work, rental car fees/airfare, etc.). I hope the park finds a way to do right by them.

But the $20 an hour wage is great for employees! If I lived closer to the park, I'd definitely take advantage of that for a weekend job.

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Oof yeah....seems best to underpromise and then if possible over perform, but at the least you didn't overcommit, deff not a great move and I would agree, park would kinda have to refund people. I mean no, they dont have to and Im sure "subject to change" covers their ass but would be pretty brutal. 

Is it really $20? Bc Im a pretty pro labor guy, like much as I love my coasters I will never chagrin workers for not wanting to get shafted but that is well, better paying than my last job for the City and needed a degree XD So I do agree, seems like a good gig. I know working the park is a vastly different beast than going but that is deff solid pay, I too would gladly take advantage. 

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3 hours ago, teacherkim said:

Yeah I spend all day with 7th graders. There is no theme park day that is as painful as that, I don't care how long it is.

LOL!  I concur!

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We just tried to get into a Chili's in the Detroit area.    At 5p on a Friday night with only three tables occupied, 45-60min wait.   The hostess said they have ONE SERVER.   😱😱😱

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Yeah it really is happening all over, and again I don't fault anyone I am all for people doing whats best for themselves/not getting shafted and maybe part are still dubious about being around people (esp in areas where let's just say...the populace has been less compliant) and even if mucks up my coastering....I can let it go. There are bigger things in life. But I won't be super happy haha 
But to be selfish, long as they are fully staffed for June 4 I'm OK XD

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That really does suck for those who already planned vacations. I would be furious, honestly. And it's not like they cancelled some dates that are several months out. It's a matter of a few weeks away - well within the "we already have everything booked and ready to go" for vacationers. I hope the park accommodates these visitors. The park is probably expecting lots of angry phone calls and emails.

Glad to see they raised the wage to $20/hr though. That is probably very enticing for a lot of people, especially those from far away who would need to stay in housing and want a bigger wage to make the move worth it.

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To me, it's not even so much that they changed the schedule. It happens, whatever. But I called Hotel Breakers literally 8 days ago because the website said there were no rooms available and said to call for further information. So I called and they said they were full for the dates I was looking for. They didn't use the words "sold out" but I assumed that's what they meant. That same day I booked the flights and car, and later on ended up booking a room off site since Breakers was "full". I also bought a Platinum Pass for both myself and my wife mainly so we could get early entry. Probably would've been cheaper to get a couple 2 day passes and pay for parking, but I figured it would be supportive of the park to purchase their premier product and it would also be an excuse to take a ride to KD this year.

Then the rumor popped up here yesterday (as well as in the comments on the park's social media pages) about the June closings. So I joined in and asked the park the question by email as well as on Facebook and Twitter, all of which were ignored despite the park answering questions about every other subject. Naturally, they decided to take the Friday Afternoon news dump route, and buried the announcement underneath the whole $20 an hour announcement. All of this a mere 10 days before the first affected date. Piss poor communication at its finest.

This isn't some rinky dink regional park where 99% of the patrons are there on day trips from within an hour or two drive. Outside of Disney and Universal, this is one of the top destination parks in the country and I know I'm far from the only one who booked something one of the weeks in June. Some people will probably just do what I'm gonna do and go to their sister park 3 hours to the south. But I'm sure there's also a lot of people who don't have a season pass and booked at a non-resort hotel who are pretty much left in the dark since this happened so last minute, and for some airlines, car companies, and hotels are past refund points.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that booking this was a gamble. If I booked it 6 months ago or even 3 months ago, sure. But I feel that it was almost the opposite of a gamble to book last week. We're at the point where things are opening up quickly AND many people who haven't traveled in 15 months are all booking vacations now. Every industry is trying like crazy for people to take their first vacation with them to try to make up the money they lost last year. There's going to be staffing shortages everywhere and people need to be patient when they visit other places. But literally every other industry (and seemingly every other park in this industry) is doing what they can to bring in as many people as they can. If they have to limit attendance to their respective businesses so that theyre not overrun, they do it. Cedar Point knew before today that this could potentially happen. If theyre that short staffed on employees, they wouldve known that by now AND they know they're not going to be able to hire hundreds or thousands more employees overnight. Two weeks ago, they lied and stated they have adequate enough staffing to be ready to go. Instead, they got caught with their pants down and didn't bother informing anyone until the absolute last minute when millions of people are finally travelling.

Sorry for the long rant, it just really pisses me off how poorly this was handled and communicated. I'm lucky to have a backup plan (and I believe my room in Sandusky is refundable still). Others arent going to be so lucky and the park's attitude was basically "oh well. BUT LOOK TWENTY DOLLARS PER HOUR!!!"

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Yup, absolutely justified. All you say is fair and I don't follow this type of stuff but if they did say staffing is no issue (Which seems they did) now they don't got it....deff they lied or grossly misjudged in which case yeah, should've gone limited schedule to be safe. They deff screwed up. Glad things seem like they will work out for ya but yup some people gunna get screwed by it. 

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I’m seeing a lot of reports on Twitter from people who purchased Fastlane for those days that the park is refusing to issue refunds and only exchanges. Hopefully they correct that and it’s just a communication error.

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So I figured now that I'm forced to go on Sunday and Monday next week, I should get my reservations in. I signed on and clicked Sunday and tried to make the reservation but it gave me an error message. I refreshed and went back in and suddenly Sunday is sold out. I got Monday but now I have nowhere to go Sunday unless I go to Michigan's Adventure? Not sure how far that is from DTW...wasn't looking to drive all over the Great Lakes region though.

I am absolutely LIVID at this park right now.

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@ZandIf you have your existing reservations, you need to log in and modify those reservations to the new date.

On this page, https://www.cedarpoint.com/reservations, there is a button for "Manage Reservation."  You need to click that and edit your reservation from the old day to the new day.

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Just now, Mike240SX said:

@ZandIf you have your existing reservations, you need to log in and modify those reservations to the new date.

On this page, https://www.cedarpoint.com/reservations, there is a button for "Manage Reservation."  You need to click that and edit your reservation from the old day to the new day.

I never had any other reservations since they never opened them up for Tuesday/Wednesday (since they knew they were going to do this last week). So this is the first time I tried to make reservations. When I first went in, Sunday and Monday were open. I clicked Sunday, after entering my info it gave me an error message so I refreshed and then Sunday was gone. But it let me get Monday.

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6 minutes ago, Zand said:

I never had any other reservations since they never opened them up for Tuesday/Wednesday (since they knew they were going to do this last week). So this is the first time I tried to make reservations. When I first went in, Sunday and Monday were open. I clicked Sunday, after entering my info it gave me an error message so I refreshed and then Sunday was gone. But it let me get Monday.

It's possible that as you were doing it, someone else booked up the last one.  Sunday is showing booked up for me as well.  I would check back later in the week, it's always possible that some people cancel.  Sorry you're experiencing this.

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Damn....CP has f***ed this for sure.

2 hours ago, coasterbill said:

I’m seeing a lot of reports on Twitter from people who purchased Fastlane for those days that the park is refusing to issue refunds and only exchanges. Hopefully they correct that and it’s just a communication error.

Yikes, also oddly generous from you XD but yeah I doubt it's an error. Though I have to hope they will cave bc that's pretty screwed up

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You can still buy day tickets for next Sunday but no more season pass reservations. Talk about giving your core customers the middle finger.

I'm just gonna go to bed before I discover more things that set me off. 

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13 minutes ago, Zand said:

You can still buy day tickets for next Sunday but no more season pass reservations. Talk about giving your core customers the middle finger.

I'm just gonna go to bed before I discover more things that set me off. 

Those with season passes cannot make reservations?!?!!? 😱

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10 minutes ago, Carrie said:

Those with season passes cannot make reservations?!?!!? 😱

For days which all of the passholder slots have been taken, that is correct.

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Not sure if I'm adding anything new here but I just read about this and it's ridiculous! If this happened at a Six Flags park I would be angry, the fact that it's happening at CP is just absurd. When was the last time Cedar Fair fucked their customer base like this? I can't think of anything. Just horrible, I really feel for you guys who planned trips it's not fair at all. 

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Of course they prefer single day ticket sales. That's reservations 101. Hint: these are not 2020 level restrictions most places, if you can't get a reservation, probably dodged a bullet. 

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The weather is actually supposed to be quite shitty this weekend, so I'm hoping that keeps some crowds away.  I've got CP reservations for Friday, Saturday, and Monday, with Sunday at CP Shores.

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