Cedar Fair investing heavily in hotel improvements at Cedar Point

The hotel my wife was at 3 years ago did a partial renovation - which means some things were kept and some swapped, fixed or upgraded and they company spent 3,000,000 for 128 rooms. That works out to around $24,000.

Another hotel in the area that was wooing her did an $8,000,000 update on ~300 rooms. That's around $27,000 a room.

Those don't include public areas - which I suspect will also get the makeover at CP, and drive the cost up to that $50,000 level.

And to add to that, this isn't just going to Home Depot and doing the labor yourself. You're not going to K-Mart and buying a $50 comforter and a few new sheets, a gallon of paint, and some new carpet. I would imagine that most of the supplies they buy will come from a supplier and not just off the shelf at the local store.

I know when we buy new stuff for the rooms at the LTC facility I work with, it's not cheap. Plus you pay for Labor. And commercial bedding, furniture, fixtures, paint, wallpaper, new wall hangings, new TVs, new Phones, Wiring, demolition, new tile, new commercial carpeting, it gets very very expensive.

Plus, if they're smart, and with a former disney exec in charge I'm sure they are, they're going to pay for higher end commercial products so that it lasts till the next time they have to upgrade.

My brother-in-law happens to be an architect, filling a niche for hotel room renovations. He's done a lot of work for certain "business class" chains, from lobbies to rooms. He says a typical full renovation for a room, where you only save the walls, the tub and the toilet, tend to be around $17k for a room in one of those hotels. Honestly Breakers feels almost one step below that, so we're talking about granite counter tops, reasonably good beds, stylish furniture and such.

The budget is the limit on lobbies and common areas, so it's hard to say what those would cost.

Lord Gonchar said:

Another hotel in the area that was wooing her did an $8,000,000 update on ~300 rooms. That's around $27,000 a room.

All that money and they still can't add an electrical outlet that doesn't require moving furniture to access.

Funny you say that. I was at a hotel Thursday night and I was thinking it would be so easy to make some accessible outlets. I'd appreciate that more than 12 pillows on my freaking bed.

I thought most hotels were getting pretty good about having plenty of available plugs on the desk/table in the room. Some are even using little strips of 3 or 4 and attaching them to the sides or top. You can also often find one or two on the desk lamp base.

I was in a suite and the bedroom was the issue. I need to have my phone plugged in next to me. The nightstand had an alarm clock and light plugged in at that outlet. Obviously people just unplug the alarm clock because it was blinking 12:00.

On the other side of the coin, what is the hidden cost of waiting too long until you refurbish/remodel....

"Expensive" is easy to quantify with receipts, etc. But the ture cost of this kind of upgrade takes into account the idea that your room rates may go up, that you might be losing business to old/outdated furnishings, all sorts of things that normally would not be considered.

...and that's why there's Levitt&Dubner....

At Disney's Beach Club, the week before last, I was excited to see that they had the clock-radios with the USB port for charging, but since we both had phones, and the outlets were who knows where behind the bed, it was only half helpful. I'll give them a slight pass, since when the place was built, people didn't have a hundred things to plug in next to their bed.

I actually pack a power strip now. Camera, phone, laptop, her phone, etc. She takes the bathroom with the curling iron and hair dryer. Oh yeah, her phone, camera, laptop, and the list goes on.

I always pack this but haven't had an opportunity to use it much as the rooms I've stayed in have had enough outlets for my needs.

Some people, no matter how rich they are, just need to get a life and unplug.

Holy crap. He is a walking bomb.

I thought the Wall-E discussion was in another thread.

No, we've moved on to Wall-to-Wall Wall-E...

I've been traveling with a power strip for years. Computer, iPad, cell phone, and camera, all spending the night hooked up to power.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yeah, the nicer hotels fool you. The lamp on the desk has a plug. You turn off the lamp, and the plug is off also.

Lord Gonchar said:

But customer service in life in general seems to be slipping across the board. Or maybe my expectations are too high. It just seems like no one cares - or perhaps more importantly, no one seems to have to care anymore.

AMEN!! I could not have said it better myself.

The pendulum swung too far with the advent of "the customer is always right". Customers started becoming downright abusive and, in fact, these days they are often wrong and out of line.

I see no reason to try and save every customer relationship at all costs. Some customers do cost you more than they are worth. The worst customers hurt staff morale which is bad for the rest of the customers.

I think I've told this story before but I once had a guest at Sandcastle that approached the front desk and immediately began screaming at the staff about a dirty room. Everyone in the lobby, and I suspect some people out by the pool, could overhear everything. The Front Office Manager went out quickly to try and intervene and the guest laid into her even more viciously than the clerk. The customer (a male) was yelling, cussing, belittling, etc. Another staff member called me and I quickly came on the scene. I could hear this guy from outside the door and when I walked in I had seen enough.

My front office manager was crying (not typical) and the bellmen were standing guard nearby and looked pissed. I told the guest that we had more than enough of his screaming and asked him to step aside. Before he could get a word in I told him, "sir...if you speak in that tone anymore we won't be talking about cleaning a room for you but we will be talking about finding you a room off property and being escorted out by police."

Suddenly Mr Tough Guy wasn't quite so tough and he walked away with his tail between his legs. His wife actually called down to apologize on her family's behalf.

The point of the matter: this guy probably used this same act to get anything he ever wanted and he was obviously abusing "the customer is always right".

Now, I'm cerainly not implying we don't deserve good customer service. We do. But, I don't think the bad service can be simply explained by a different work ethic. I think that is part of it, but I think abusive customers that suck the life out of line staff have played a part.

I would give you 1000 vote ups for that post if I could, Wahoo Skipper.

It's a double-edged sword.

Seems like we hit an era of "customer is always right" peaking right when customer service seems to be at it's lowest.

And somehow we've created a place where both sides can coexist.