Cedar Point guests experience traffic jams, complain on the Internet

Or close the park at 5 and reopen at 7.

Shades said:

I get the concept but am struggling with how to implement it. How do you make people leave if they only bought the happy fun Halloween ticket? What if I am in line for MF and it has a 1.5 hour line? It seems like logistics would be a problem.

There is no 1/2 day option for Saturday.

Am I really not spelling this out well enough? Why does what seems like common sense to me suddenly become difficult on CoasterBuzz? (smiley)

You can do the night event on Friday for 46/59. You can do the day event on Sunday for 46/59.

Or you can buy admission on Saturday for 79/99 and stay as long (or as little) as you'd like.

The point is, you're not getting into the park on Saturday for less than $79.

This is key because it works on several levels:

1. A certain amount of guests will just stop coming. Great! We're lowering crowds.

2. A certain amount of guests will be more interested in day or night in particular and the new 'value' of showing up on Friday night or Sunday afternoon will shift those folks from Saturday to the other days.

Again, we're reducing the Saturday mess.

3. Anyone wanting to spend the entire day in the park will have to pay at least $79 for a day of riding and a night of haunt. You're getting twice as much, it should be priced accordingly.

4. Anyone not wanting to spend the whole day, but only able to visit on Saturday will have to pay at least $79. This is the equivalent of dynamic pricing. It's the most popular day, so you're gonna pay for it.

Does that all make sense or should I just turn this into a 20 page business proposal?

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Now with all of that said - plenty of other parks clear the park of the day crowd to allow in a separate night crowd. It's really not a mystery.

However, I don't think that's what they need to be doing at CP. I like the higher priced Saturday approach and think it works better for Sandusky.

I agree with that. For the most part, the "day/night double header" parks have population centers much closer by---Knotts, for example. With a larger base to draw from, you can imagine getting a good crowd out for just the evening. Sandusky doesn't really have that luxury.

But Cedar Point does have several large cities* within an hour or so drive, making an evening visit possible.

*by which I mean I know Toledo and Cleveland are about an hour away, but am at the moment too lazy to figure out what other Ohio cities are about an hour away.

^None, there is a lake to the north and nothing but farmland until Columbus to the south (which doesnt even have a major highway to access Sandusky.)

OhioStater said:

That said, we're starting to see a slight up-tick in the Platinum Pass, and I think it's a safe bet that the days of Halloweekends being included are numbered.

I disagree, mostly because of two things. Halloweekends Fridays and Halloweekends Sundays. Those days continue to remain pretty deserted at times, especially earlier on during the event. I don't see them removing Halloweekends from the season passes just as a response to a crowd that happens 1-2 days a year. I could maybe see Columbus weekend getting blacked out, but even that seems like a stretch.

Edited to add: This being said, I wouldn't be shocked to see the Halloween events eventually become an add-on option all across the chain on season passes, if nothing other than a means of bringing in a few more bucks.

A blacked out Columbus Day weekend wouldn't bother me. I'm smart enough not to go anyway.

Perhaps there is no need to blackout Columbus Day weekend or Fall Saturdays because, as experienced park-goers, passholders already know to avoid those times.

^Jason knows.

Jeff said:

Annual passes to WDW, without blackouts, are almost $500 with no water parks. A platinum Cedar Fair pass seems like a great deal from my view.

I don't think comparing these two passes is a good idea.

The WDW annual pass does include multiple parks; however, the key thing to note with this pass is that all of the parks are on the same property and just minutes away from each other. You can hop from park to park in a very short time, and there's a lot of value in being able to do that.

The Cedar Fair Platinum pass doesn't really give you that specific option. Yes, it does allow you into multiple parks - even more parks than the WDW property. The downside is that Cedar Fair parks are not really that close to one another, and certainly not within minutes of each other like the parks at WDW.

Cedar Fair understands this dynamic and prices their Platinum passes accordingly. I would argue that the "value" in a Platinum pass goes largely unnoticed by most local parkgoers in the chain because (a) the number of parks they can realistically use it at is limited due to the distance between them and (b) there's no separation of value at any Cedar Fair park between Gold and Platinum passes (except Cedar Point).

My home park is KI. I'm "lucky" in that I'm less than a days drive to every Cedar Fair park except the ones in California. As far as drive time here's how long it takes me to get to each park from Cincinnati:

Cedar Point (4 hours); Michigan's Adventure (6.5 hours); Kings Dominion (8 hours); Carowinds (7.5 hours); Dorney Park (8 hours); Canada's Wonderland (8 hours); Worlds of Fun (9 hours); Valleyfair (11 hours)

My point is that at Kings Island (and really, every other park except Cedar Point) there are only two major groups buying the Platinum Pass - enthusiasts who travel quite a bit and people planning on visiting Cedar Point for a day or two. The overwhelming majority of people who have season passes to KI are getting the Gold pass because they can't see the value of upgrading to the Platinum.

The Gold and Platinum passes at KI carry the exact same weight (free parking, early entry, discounts, etc.). Cedar Point is a different story because there's a lot more value in the Platinum Pass there vs. the regular pass (free parking, early entry being the biggies). I saw more Platinum passes being used at Cedar Point in my four visits there than I saw during my 50+ visits to Kings Island this year combined. Cedar Point more clearly lays out the value of a Platinum pass where the others don't.

Your argument doesn't interest me, because I do compare them, having both. To me, at the end of the day, they both give me and my family something to do in our spare time. The quality and experience differs, but my point is that I'd still pay more than Cedar Fair's asking price, even if it was one park and one water park.

As far as clearing out the parks, Six Flags has already solved this problem for some of their special late night events. As a special guest of the later event (Coaster in the Dark comes to mind) you have have to show your pass whenever you enter the line for a ride.

You could do the same thing with the afternoon tickets. For the first 2 hours of the evening part of the event you have to show a wristband (which comes with your evening ticket, distributed when you scan your ticket) or a pass to get on any ride.

^That's pretty much what WoF did for our "Prowler After Dark" event...to get in line after closing, you had to show your wristband, lanyard, whatever it was (couple years ago now). I love me some White Lightning, but Prowler is still FAR and away the best thing GCII has built in the US....