Cedar Point guests experience traffic jams, complain on the Internet

And sometimes conversations evolve into different topics. On the Internet. Then some troll compares anything amusement park related to a civil rights issue, and trivializes the brave acts of people who were actually being oppressed.

And don't come to Orlando, Doo Doo. There are all kinds of things here to feel are unfair and pout about.

Well, now we're just demagoguing.

I get so tired with the "if you don't like it stay home" reply.
I have an action for you, and it involves my middle finger getting a boner!

And you're done.

Yay!

eightdotthree said:

But you're not getting any less than before.

I almost didn't reply to this, because I think you are somehow kidding or leading me somewhere. Maybe you misunderstand my meaning. You get less now than you use to get before pay-to-cut was imbedded into the system. You wait longer now than you used to. I hear people complain about it every time I am at a park. I do not participate in the bitching either. I just listen and smirk.

And about your comment to visit when the park is slow, although it is not always possible, I agree that that is the best way to personally fix the problem.

Save your strength. In this thread the goal is to have one lane open at WalMart but raise the prices so no one is standing in them.

CPJ said:

Did Cedar Point reach its capacity?

When you're parking cars in the grass on the causeway, you're dealing with a bigger crowd than you're equipped to handle. The parking lot exceed it's capacity.

I would argue they are priced correctly, but didn't handle the volume properly.

I would argue that when the parking lot won't hold all the people showing up, that more people are showing up than the facilities can handle. They need to find a way to lower the turnout.

If they had turned people away, your argument would hold more weight.

If the parking lot was capable of holding the crowd, your argument would hold more weight.

I keep going to parking, because that is the subject of this thread. "Cedar Point guests experience traffic jams, complain on the Internet."

Cool. The discussion evolved past that a while back.

Universal doesn't have a parking issue because the parking garages have a better design, this is a valid argument that Cedar Point needs to adjust its traffic flow.

The scariest thing to me is that this keeps making sense to you. Seriously, read this sentrence:

Universal has a parking garage, so Cedar Point needs to adjust its traffic flow.

Knoebels has a gravel field and they don't have these issues. Maybe Cedar point needs to reduce their lot by 50% and let grass grow in and drop some gravel.

My driveway doesn't have these issues. Maybe they need a few cement slabs.

Universal isn't parking people on the grass because they've reached their parking capacity. (and they don't have grass in the parking garage)

And even if Cedar Point somehow magically created a perfect ballet of traffic patterns that got an overflowing parking lot cleared in record time with no issues, it doesn't change the other part of the conversation - the park is unbearable with crowds at that level.

Save your strength. In this thread the goal is to have one lane open at WalMart but raise the prices so no one is standing in them.

Derp.

LostKause said:
You get less now than you use to get before pay-to-cut was imbedded into the system. You wait longer now than you used to.

You know that entire argument is predicated on the idea that the "pay to cut" people wouldn't be in line anyway, right?

Wait, so you're trying to tell me that if 8000 people were at the park before pay to cut, and 8000 people are at the park post pay to cut, and 1000 of those pay to cut, my wait isn't going to be significantly longer?

Mind = Blown

Oh wait, no it isn't...

In Travis's defense, a person using Fastlane could be the equivalent of several people who aren't as far as impact on wait times. If they can ride three times in the amount of time it takes you to ride once, then yes, it's like artificially increasing the size of the crowd.

LostKause said:
You get less now than you use to get before pay-to-cut was imbedded into the system. You wait longer now than you used to. I hear people complain about it every time I am at a park. I do not participate in the bitching either. I just listen and smirk.

But you and the people complaining have no data to back that up. It's all anecdotal.

sirloindude said:
In Travis's defense, a person using Fastlane could be the equivalent of several people who aren't as far as impact on wait times.

They could be but I am not convinced that's how the average Fast Lane user is using it.

And that's assuming every person who has fastlane is riding 3 times in a row. Like 8.3, I have a hard time believing that they're doing that.

I have seen poor implementation of pay to cut or pay to queue virtually. That's a problem, and it doesn't have to be. But for the most part, it's been around long enough now that most parks, if not all, have learned how to implement it without it being a huge negative impact.

I don’t have the numbers to properly analyze whether or not fast passes add to wait times but I really don’t think it matters. It’s the perceived wait time of the consumer that matters. In this case, anecdotal evidence trumps actual performance. It is not a stretch for a typical customer to wait in line and watch other people walk right on or to wait in line from a point that used to be 20 minutes but is now 30 minutes and to think they are waiting in a longer line. It doesn’t matter to them that if not for fast pass they’d actually be waiting from a different spot in line. I do have some sympathy for Mr. ParkGoer who saved their money to take their family/friends to the park only to sit there and feel like they aren’t getting the value they’d expected. Like I mentioned a few pages ago about the commoner remark, park operators had to know this was a possibility and built any potential (and I’d suggest minimal) lost revenue into their models.

Rather than argue that waits are actually the same, or only minimally longer, because of fast pass, I’d be more inclined to point out that general admission prices would have likely had to be raised even further than they have if fast pass revenue weren’t coming in and thus the value of their tickets have actually improved thanks to pay-to-cut.

Now, if a season pass holder who (in the most extreme cases) paid less than a single day admission to go to the park and is there for the umpteenth time complains about fast passes, then I have no sympathy. But that’s another discussion altogether.

I don't have sympathy for anyone period in this case. Even with the perception that people are getting something that they didn't, it's available to anyone that wants to purchase it, and I just don't see that many people that are complaining that are also not going to the parks after complaining.

I wonder what the breakdown is for every person that sees a fastlaner and complains vs every person that sees it and asks what fastlane is and where can they purchase one.

Anecdotal evidence trumps actual performance? I disagree. I just don't think there are a lot of riders out and about in parks upset that they waited 30 minutes for Wicked Twister in 2013, but only 22 minutes in 2011.

If parks experienced serious, substantive pushback from non Fast Lane/Flash Pass/etc customers, they would have long since revised or cancelled such programs. They make more money by making as many people as possible happy.

Members of the general public who even notice this "unfairness" are likely few and far between. (And a small percentage of those are likely people like our friend SnoopyDoo, who showed Cedar Point how angry he was about their terrible park by spending mountains of money at the park several times a year. All bark. No bite.)

slithernoggin said:

Anecdotal evidence trumps actual performance? I disagree. I just don't think there are a lot of riders out and about in parks upset that they waited 30 minutes for Wicked Twister in 2013, but only 22 minutes in 2011.

I agree completely with the second half of this and with most of the rest of your post. What I was trying to say was that you could try to tell someone who thinks they are waiting in line longer that they aren't (or aren't by a significant amount) until you are blue in the face and it won't make a difference. Their perception is what counts. Do many people care enough to quit going? Absolutely not. I totally agree with that.

slithernoggin said:

Members of the general public who even notice this "unfairness" are likely few and far between.

Purely speculation, but I suspect that this number is actually higher than you suggest. Again, as we agree, that's because most people who think that way don't really care anyway.

It's been my perception that only a handful of rides are really affected by the Fastlane. Millennium Force, and especially Maverick seem to have the most Fastlane use, (though Skyhawk seemed bad too, when its running one swing). The lines move at a much slower pace than they used to. How much longer is the actual line? Its very hard to estimate, but when the "from this point" wait time is, say, twice as long as it used to be, I think they are selling too many Fastlane passes. I fully support a priority queuing system, provided that it doesn't affect the stand by too much. At this point, especially for Maverick and to some extent Millennium Force, I think they have too many people using it. I don't think the Fastlane to standby ratio should be much over 1:4 (20% Fastlane, 80% standby)

Uncle Coaster said:

Rather than argue that waits are actually the same, or only minimally longer, because of fast pass, I’d be more inclined to point out that general admission prices would have likely had to be raised even further than they have if fast pass revenue weren’t coming in and thus the value of their tickets have actually improved thanks to pay-to-cut.

This is an interesting angle and exactly where I was headed with this post that got glossed over by everyone.

You might be getting a ride or two less during your day, but you're getting it without a price increase. For those worried about being priced out of a visit to the park or ticket pricing going too high, this should be a positive not a negative. The Fastlane users are subsidizing your visit. In exchange for not being priced out of a visit, you lose a ride or two during your day there.

I don't necessarily believe this is how it actually plays out, but it's an interesting theory.

0g said:

Its very hard to estimate, but when the "from this point" wait time is, say, twice as long as it used to be, I think they are selling too many Fastlane passes.

Before Fast Lane, if Maverick's line extended to the entrance of the queues, it was almost exactly 90 minutes. Since FL started, I've heard talk of that same length being 2 hours. I can't vouch for that personally, but I *have* gotten in line when the end was just past the vending machines (i.e. the first 3 rows of queues were empty), and it ended up being just shy of 90 minutes.

Upon getting to the platform, nothing seemed to be slower operationally as far as ride hosts or people putting stuff in bins was concerned, and they were running all trains, so I can only guess that Fast Lane was the cause of the difference.

I'm not saying that's a problem, just providing a real-life example. I do think limiting Maverick to Fast Lane Plus is probably a good idea.