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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

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

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^Paddlewheel is going to be taken out next year because of Dinosaurs Alive. They need to build a land bridge to get to the island (much like they've done with Terror Island for Halloweekends), so it'll be impossible for Paddlewheel to do its thing anymore. From what I've been told, the entrance to Dinosaurs Alive will also be where the Paddlewheel station is now. Pretty sad, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

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^Agreed, but I think a bigger part of the reason is also that they are using the Paddlewheel station as the entrance for the exhibit. Which also begs the question, "Why not make the entrance somewhere else?" To which I would answer, ridership on Paddlewheel has been declining steadily for a while now, it's just time to retire the ride, and this was a convenient excuse for them to do so. We just need somewhere else to get our corny jokes at CP from now on.

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^The boats use Honda CNG outboard motors, so it's not nearly expensive as using Petrol (also fun fact: the CNG tanks are located further up the lagoon heading toward Dragster where the boat's usually "sleep" so if there's ever a leak Dragster has to be shut down!)

 

However, I don't doubt that lower ridership and massive accessible land on the island is responsible for it's demise.

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Unrelated to 2012, but today I came across an old park site and among the many awesome 7-8 year old park photos is a panorama of the Dragster midway before Dragster. The panorama itself is small and slow, but wow did I forgot how nice the midway was.

 

http://ohiothemeparks.homestead.com/files/360main/c00pchaos.html

 

And here's the site if you want to look through it: http://ohiothemeparks.homestead.com/OhioThemePaks.html

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My question is, why take out Paddlewheel to install Dinosaurs Alive! when they can at least install something a little more, oh I don't know, better?!

 

Just my two cents.

We've been over this countless times already. Money. Kings Island has been making crazy good money off the attraction. Adults with kids go to Cedar Point. Kids love dinosaurs.

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Chances are this will be a one season attraction. If the sole purpose of Dinosaurs is to make money it will do that in its opening year. After that however it will lose money rapidly. An upcharge attraction like that won't bring in guests two or three times if it doesn't change or renovate itself somehow.

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Chances are this will be a one season attraction. If the sole purpose of Dinosaurs is to make money it will do that in its opening year. After that however it will lose money rapidly. An upcharge attraction like that won't bring in guests two or three times if it doesn't change or renovate itself somehow.

 

That's exactly what I'm talking about.

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I would think Cedar Point is enough of a resort destination that they have a fairly larger number of new guests every year and something like this could easily survive for 3 or 4 seasons, maybe longer. Up charge go karts and mini golf all seem to survive at most parks without changing too much, don't see how this would be any different.

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You're comparing apples to oranges.

 

First of all, Mini Golf is really cheap to operate. You have to pay for the lights for about 2 hours per day, the fountains, occasional maintenance and you have to pay someone to sit in the booth and get paid probably about the cost of 1 game of golf per hour. Go Karts are more expensive to operate but they charge more. These are games... the experience is different every time because it's a competition.

 

With up-charge rides, they are usually a high charge and low capacity so you only need to attract a few hundred people per day to make a profit.

 

Something like Dinosaurs Alive is charging a low price so you would need a large amount of guests every day for a long time and with this kind of experience it's not going to happen. It's the same reason that museums swap out exhibits with other museums all of the time.

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You're comparing apples to oranges.

 

First of all, Mini Golf is really cheap to operate. You have to pay for the lights for about 2 hours per day, the fountains, occasional maintenance and you have to pay someone to sit in the booth and get paid probably about the cost of 1 game of golf per hour. Go Karts are more expensive to operate but they charge more. These are games... the experience is different every time because it's a competition.

 

With up-charge rides, they are usually a high charge and low capacity so you only need to attract a few hundred people per day to make a profit.

 

Something like Dinosaurs Alive is charging a low price so you would need a large amount of guests every day for a long time and with this kind of experience it's not going to happen. It's the same reason that museums swap out exhibits with other museums all of the time.

 

I'm sure that Something like this would take even LESS amount of money to upkeep then Go karts or Mini-Golf. Think of it this way, If you didn't know already, they have a team of employees that tend to the park's various animations. In essence they don't even have to be fired or the team reduced as the train still has there animations even if Paddelwheel does in fact get the ax so that budget stays essentially the same.

 

The entry for King's Island exhibit is $5 per person. That's $20 for a family of four, or about three hours of the employee needed to sell tickets per family. So basically five families per day to pay for an employee to man a cash register. And if they were smart enough, they could also sell tickets in an already existing merchandise location making it even less of a extraneous expense and maximize profits. Turn this into an upcharge haunted trail for Halloweekends and boom repeat (and a ton of new) customers in an entirely different demographic.

 

You mention museums, but what's usually the most popular exhibits at a museum (or at least the ones that seem to get swapped out the least)? The dinosaurs of course. I don't doubt this is only a semi-permanent move (if they indeed do get the attraction that is) but don't underestimate the popularity an attraction like this can have. I can see this easily staying four -five years as it would bring in far more money then Paddlewheel currently does.

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From a business point of view (which is the view of Cedar Point, obviously) bringing in Dinosaurs Alive! is a great idea because it has the POTENTIAL of bringing in a lot of money and getting rid of Paddlewheel (which has a lot of maintenance and no individual income) which means profit. From a thrill seekers point of view, it is bad because we want to see actual rides and more roller coasters.

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As someone who paid the upcharge for the Dinosaur thing at Kings Island I'm a little surprised to think CP will put that in. Unless they just move the Kings Island dinos up the road a bit.

 

It was not very busy and there were a ton of survey employees asking us a million questions. In addition to the burned down dino there were also other broken ones as well. KT had more fun in the digging area than looking at the dinosaurs.

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I am just wondering with all of the people who already live in this geographical area that went to KI's and saw theirs, how many would want to pay the repeat money to see the same thing at CP? Maybe this will be a travelling attraction that moves from park to park, and CP gets it next year just to hold people over until 2013 when the next big thing comes to the park?

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^ So do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea the Cedar Point may put one in as well?

 

It was 'okay' as a $5 upcharge, but it didn't really feel like it deserved to be an upcharge. A lot of the people we heard doing the surveys said they wouldn't pay for it again. I think it would be good for Cedar Point if they just rotated the dinosaur thing around to all of the CF Parks and it got it for one or two seasons, but I can't see it being any more popular or cheaper to run/maintain than Paddlewheel.

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I think it would be good for Cedar Point if they just rotated the dinosaur thing around to all of the CF Parks and it got it for one or two seasons

 

I agree! Buying one or two sets and "rotating" them around park to park in the chain would be a smart decision because eventually these things are going to lose most of their popularity at each park and not be much of a money maker at all...

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As someone who paid the upcharge for the Dinosaur thing at Kings Island I'm a little surprised to think CP will put that in. Unless they just move the Kings Island dinos up the road a bit.

 

It was not very busy and there were a ton of survey employees asking us a million questions. In addition to the burned down dino there were also other broken ones as well. KT had more fun in the digging area than looking at the dinosaurs.

 

I was at K.I. the past 4 days, and the "mechanical lizards area" was always empty. I wouldn't pay to see this, so I didn't. Not a good choice for the Point. The thing that you'll see will be the fast lane at C.P. Lot's of usage on weekends.

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