Waterpark Seasons, Weather, and the Pursuit of Revenue

As we begin the Memorial Day holiday weekend, more parks have announce delayed openings of their water parks due to storms and poor May weather. The "swim season" industry, especially outdoor water parks, rely on great weather for a brief 3 month period of time and it got me thinking about the role evolving weather patterns have on a water park season.

Tradition has been that water parks operate Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend. In recent times we have seen delayed openings or closed days in May/June due to poor weather. At the same time, we experience record warm temperatures in September/October but water parks are already closed and there hasn't been a reaction from the industry to capture revenue on weekends in late Summer/early Fall. Is it an ingrained cultural thing or just an unwillingness by operators to adjust their seasons to capture additional revenue? What would that adjustment take?

Staffing is clearly a barrier to extended seasons. High school/college students are back at school and typically involved with school events on weekends. The J-1 international student visa program remains volatile given the current state of the Federal Government. Competition from other service industry career options plays a part where those jobs are full-time, year-around. Development of programs to "grow a pipeline of lifeguards" by working with local schools' swim teams and youth swim clubs probably doesn't get the attention from park HR teams given the full-time staffing cuts experienced at companies like Six Flags. Workforce culture has changed requiring flexibility in scheduling and the need for lifeguards to see career development opportunities. An unwillingness by major national park operators to offer lifeguards full-time employment w/benefits, utilizing them in other roles when water parks are closed for the season to solve staffing issues for seasonal events, also plays a role in securing and retaining dedicated staff.

A park leader willing to think outside-the-box might be best positioned to achieve revenue growth as our weather patterns change, the planet warms, and people re-think the value of a college degree vs. the cost and the rise of AI eliminating jobs. I am seeing staffing shortages as well for life guards with local community pools, private clubs, recreation centers, etc. Is it time that we view life-guarding as a serious career profession in order to grow the water park industry/swim season and revenue?

If I remember right, Dollywood's Splash Country closed on Labor Day until maybe 2022. Since 2023 the park has stayed open several weekends into September. It stood out to me at the time since it was one of the first instances I had seen of a major park operator acknowledging that warm weather continues through the month even with the traditional "end of summer" being Labor Day. In 2026, the first weekend of Dollywood's fall Harvest Festival actually overlaps with the last weekend of Splash Country.

The only way to experience Schlitterbahn with everything open (including the river tubing back to the park) is going in the month of July. It used to be you could count on everything being open late June-early August but now “bonus days” are all of June and August. Anytime the park closes before 8, not all rivers will be open. It’s really frustrating planning to go there as it requires me to go to South Central Texas in July.

Cedar Point announced they were closing at 8:00 PM earlier today "due to weather". It was 71 and the off and on rain ended way before then. But I guess saying "closing early due to not enough per capita spending" doesn't sound great.

I get it if there is some type of inevitable foreboding system coming in, but it was the exact opposite; consistent improving conditions throughout the day.

Have a Six Flags day....er....evening.

Is closing at 8pm vs. 10pm really that significant? Many rides were down due to weather throughout the day as weather systems moved through. Park President Colleen Brady is one of the top managers in the company and she doesn’t take having to cut hours or close the park lightly unless it’s warranted.

June 29th, 2021.

One of my absolute favorite memories ever at Cedar Point. My daughters could both tell you the story as well (they like to tell it).

Rainy, rainy day at the park. It was also very stormy, and everything was shut down from about 5:30 on. Earlier in the day was OK, but crowds were light so it was one of those great days to be in the park and not need fast-pass. Everyone knew storms were coming later but it was hot and this was the last day of our big Father's Day trip so we were going to enjoy it rain or shine.

We spent a good chunk of time in and out of various indoor locations, and it was so dead the Last Chance Saloon bartender gave my kids the rest of his popcorn for free. Be nice to your bartenders. This was about 7:00.

After hours of riding nothing and closing time looming, we decided to head out to the front of the park, calling it a day and a fun vacation. I snapped this pic of a rainbow on our way as the rain had finally stopped. It was about 9:00.

We hung out for another half-hour or so and right when we were deciding to officially leave, we saw Millennium testing. It was about 9:40. We did a 180 and ran to Millennium, and to our surprise they were opening the ride. There were about 35 of us guests in total left in the entire park, and they ended up letting us marathon Millennium 6 times. It was 10:15 before they finally said "we have to say goodnight".

So yea, staying open matters. You don't know who in that park was there for a once-in-a-lifetime day. You don't know who could have made some awesome unforgettable memories with 2 hours of awesome (dark!) ride-time.

I feel lucky that we had this memory, because it apparently would not have happened in 2026.

It's Memorial Day Weekend.

Gunkey Monkey said:

Park President Colleen Brady was one of the top managers for Cedar Fair

Fixed that for you.

Those are the kinds of things that not only make for great memories, they create unpaid advocates for life... until things change for the worse. Ouimet used to call it "vacation DNA," where you'd pass on vibes generationally.

I had just arrived at the park when I heard the news and I thought this weekend's 8PM closure at Cedar Point was pretty lame. I'm not sure if that decision is made at the park president level or above, but regardless, it wouldn't really change my opinion. The forecast actually was much improved compared to all afternoon with there being just a 5% chance of rain from 8-10PM. As it turned out, it was dry during that time and Toft's was the beneficiary of our per cap spending that evening. The park was pretty empty by 8M and I had two SV and three Maverick rides during the last hour. That was pretty nice, but it could have been an epic night if they had stayed open as originally planned.

I'll echo that some of my best CP memories are on rainy or otherwise slow days when I got to ride a lot without waiting a lot. Or even sunny days in the early 2000's when it was literally possibly to ride Gemini 100 times in a day, do dozens of rides on Magnum with a station wait since they always ran three trains and always hit interval, etc. Things like that or CP maintenance going the extra mile to get a ride back up and running before close or a supervisor walking you to another ride if the one you were waiting for went down near closing time are all things I've experienced and it made me a loud promoter and defender of the park for a long time. Now they seem to either cut trains or cut hours so there just aren't many opportunities to create those crazy memories.

An early closure might have made a little more sense if not for all of the hotel and campground guests who had very little to do after 8pm while they sat in their rooms or campsites looking at relatively nice weather.

I saw the news of the early closure down here in Florida and I did a quick look at the weather forecast and thought, who made that call?

Ride operations were very difficult Saturday throughout parks in the East with multiple issues. Canada's Wonderland had to deal with Behemoth and Leviathan (with guests) valleying and then the ordeal of planning recovery from that which is an unplanned expense.

I know it is easy to have expectations of years past, yet the reality is the company is $5.3 billion in debt with no way out of the mess that others put John Reilly and his newly assembled team in. Can we not cut them some slack and let them manage their businesses with the multiple data points they have to make the best decisions with? I can recall decisions by the prior CEO and his team closing parks all together for an entire day due to weather, at least Reilly & Co. did what they could to make the best out of a very challenging weather weekend.

No one is keeping them from managing their business. All we're saying is that with decisions like they made this weekend, they are making it a lot harder for this generation to let Cedar Point (and others) become engrained in their "vacation DNA" because they are taking away opportunities for some number of people (even if small) to have an amazing time at the park. Sure they saved some dollars on Saturday, but how do you quantify what it might cost them in the long run when people can't recommend the park to their friends in good conscience, stay home when there is any rain in the forecast, or just skip renewing their season/dining/drink passes altogether?

You don't make a dent in macro-level problems (billions in debt) by making micro-decisions that save you thousands, yet damage your reputation in indirect ways.

You said this:

Gunkey Monkey:

Is closing at 8pm vs. 10pm really that significant?

Which is my point. What exactly did they save by closing 2 hours early? Peanuts (pun intended). The better question is, what did they lose?

In my decades of experience in water park operations, I was often one of the key decision-makers when it came to early closures due to weather. One factor that sometimes influenced that decision was overall staff morale and well-being.

Most of these teams are made up of young adults and teenagers who aren’t earning a lot to begin with. The last thing you want as an operator is a miserable staff that’s been out in the cold and rain all day, only to sit around until closing time in an empty park.

At a certain point, you have to recognize when the day is a lost cause. In operations, that means making the call to pull the plug, let the staff head home, warm up, dry off, and come back ready to go the next day.

When speaking of CP specifically, the 2025 season was the 2nd highest attendance season on record, only missing the record 1994 season of 3.617 million by 5,000’ish guests. I don’t think this represents a market that is experiencing shattered dreams of a disappointing day at an amusement park. If anything, it represents a market that could still grow revenue by adding additional operating days if staffing shortages could be overcome, the original point of the topic.