Cedar Point announces Shoot The Rapids for 2010

My only thoughts on what it would be were based off of their announcements. Therefore I was misled and disapointed along with many other people. I would bet that if you did a survey most people were disapointed because their marketing misled them. Just so you know I don't care that it wasn't a coaster, and I think the new ride looks alright. I just think their marketing was over the top and unnessesary for the type of ride they got.

^ Nah, what I'm getting at, is that they were simply listing the things it wasn't going to be.

Some "enthusiasts" chose to read into that, and some how reverse its meaning so as to say "maybe it will be this...".

They do read this site, and others. I'm sure they're having a good laugh at all the people right now saying "but but but it was supposed to be a GCI"

BDesvignes said:
My only thoughts on what it would be were based off of their announcements. Therefore I was misled and disapointed along with many other people. I

I don't know how else to say this:

You were mislead because you read into their "announcements" rather than taking them at face value.

What they were saying did lead people to believe it would be a big announcement. They misled people.

Also, I'm sure that most people following CP on twitter are enthusiasts. Neither of us can say foir certain though unless we do a survey, but you can assume that if people are going to follow a park's activities outside of going there they are enthusiasts.

Raven-Phile said:
edit: Oh, and about that 99.9% thing - It's true. How much of the annual visitor percentage do you think "enthusiasts" really make up, anyway?

I totally agree that enthusiasts make up less than .000000001% of the general park visitor population. But I am not sure you can correlate that statistic to the percentages that follow the parks' social networking avenues. Of course I have no data to back up that assertion, but I suspect that the fact that the parks plant messages to enthusiasts in these channels indicates that they also believe this.

Besides. anyone who signs up for those channels is to some small degree more of an "enthusiast" than regular general public, even if they don't qualify as a traditional "coaster enthusiast" as we define it around here. They are interested in the park and what is going on there on an ongoing basis, as opposed to someone who just visits the park and has a good time.

Wow, I am really behind on this. I need to think faster.

From what I have seen most of the comments on facebook and elsewhere are of disappointment. Therefore one can deduce that CP overhyped the ride and disappointed people. There is no doubt that CP can hype a ride; however they need to hype rides appropriatly. That means toning it down for smaller announcements so people aren't always expecting the biggest and best thing.

Dude. Get off the "tone down the announcement" horse. It's not going to happen. That's the way they do things, and it's the way they've done things for quite some time. You just haven't realized it, because it's always ended it something you wanted.

Every time something new comes around, they've got to be creative in the way they announce it. They're not trying to "trick" anyone.

Enthusiasts are annoying. I'm going to bed.

^I like how you are telling the park what they "need" to do. :)

Josh, you are too quick on the post button there. I had to add a ^ thing!

Sorry about that. Shift change. You can take over for me. :)

Maybe it is time
For whiny enthusiasts
To read some haikus

Conspiracy nuts
Get over yourselves the park
Does not owe you squat

Everything anyone says here is just an opinion so I don't think I need to qualify what i say with that everytime. I think they announced it badly and so do many other people. They can do what they want, but it just gets to be like the boy who cried wolf.

You have stated your opinion. People disagree with your opinion. Restating your opinion the same way over and over again is annoying. We get it. You are disappointed and you think the park needs to do it differently. You do not need to tell us that again.

Actually I think he's right. I think all along the park should have said, "Meh...we're not adding a coaster just a stupid old water ride. Its nothing special, just a flume. Heck, we're not even excited about it! (yawn) We may release the stats eventually. Why make a big deal out of it...it's not like we want people to come ride it anyway or make a return on our investment..."

Do I hear something dripping. ;)

Someone better have their prostate checked then... :)

As I said, I don't care what they get and am not disappointed by this [I have never actually been to Cedar Point and have no plans on going, I just love a good argument sometimes :)]. My only point was that I did not think it was fair for people to jump all over those who thought this might be a coaster and were therefore disappointed, because the park intentionally led them to think it might be a coaster for the very marketing reasons everyone is citing. I am not saying that the park should not have done that - as I mentioned, it is their job to promote the park, period. I don't think they should have toned it down at all.

Raven-Phile said:

I can say with absolute certainty, that someone knows how to push buttons within the enthusiast community, and it provides with quite a few chuckles.

This quote tells me that you agree that the park knew what they were doing and were pushing some buttons. So I think it is hypocritical to criticize people for arriving at a conclusion that it "might" be a coaster, when they were clearly led to believe that in order to sustain interest in the 2010 addition and push some buttons.

What was the reason for postponing this ride a year?

Option A: What Cedar Point did, in reality, this time.

Consequences:

99% of enthusiasts are aware of the ride, but there's a vocal segment of the group disappointed. The group not pumped about a new flume were not going to be pumped about a new flume no matter what the announcement was like and are no more or less likely to visit the park now anyway. They only have a gazillion other rides, no?

50% of the GP in Cedar Point's target market are made aware of the new ride (hypothetical number but you get my drift) and a certain percentage (half? why not) are now more likely to visit than before. That's a good thing, more $$$ for the park's bottom line.

Option B: Don't hype the ride, provide a modest announcement with very little build-up or marketing.

Consequences:

99% of enthusiasts are still aware, because it's Cedar Point after all. A small segment of enthusiasts may be less vocally disappointed, but again if they weren't going to be excited for a new log flume anyway then the announcement isn't going to change that.

25% of the GP in Cedar Point's target market (again, made up number but whatever it is, it's less) are made aware, and a percentage of that segment is now more likely to visit but the pool to draw from is smaller because 1. fewer people are aware of the new ride and 2. the marketing was less sexy to begin with.

In other words, if you personally as an enthusiast are not happy with the new ride, then fine, whatever. Air your complaints. But otherwise, the park doesn't care about you (this time around) and they're in the business of making money, not keeping your wildly out of line, totally self-fabricated roller coaster expectations in check. Take some marketing classes if you bothers you so much.

Have I said lately how excited I am about this new ride? I think this is a great new ride and looking forward to riding it! And yes I am an enthusiast and not disappointed one bit. There was a lot of people (me included) who knew all along that it probably was not going to be a coaster. This is no ordinary log flume, so people got to stop whining about it being just some stupid log flume, because it is not! Yea, marketing said big announcement and they should have as I believe this is big news! This is not small news! They have people talking about it so they did a good job!