Holiday World posts reopening plan...

Someone pointed out to me that Holiday World has posted their preliminary operating plan on their website...

https://www.holidayworld.com/covid-19/

Looks to me like they have a pretty sensible overall strategy that should accomplish what they need to do, while not ruining everybody's experience or making the trip too much of an added hassle. Some highlights--

o No reservations, but no good-any-day tickets either. All tickets good for the day they were purchased for.
o Daily estimates for season pass holders and good-any-day tickets already sold. No reservations needed for those folks either.
o Drink service still included; they will add attendants if necessary.
o No waterpark until July 4th weekend (tentative)
o Ride virtual queues. No advance reservations; you can enter the virtual queue only after you enter the park.
o Social distancing markers throughout the park
o Face coverings expected to be optional per State of Indiana, and will most likely not be permitted on some rides
o Expected opening dates begin June 14 for some passholders, June 17 for everyone.

Except for the virtual queueing...which, we shall see how that goes...it sounds like a pretty reasonable plan to me. No word about the operational impacts (will coasters be running full trains?) just yet, except that they previously announced that due to the situation in Pennsylvania it is most probable that Raven and Legend will be running one train each while the Voyage sports a red train and a purple train until the Voyage trains come back from PTC.

The virtual queue system will be interesting to watch. They are planning to leverage smart phones, which may require some special arrangements on the coasters as Holiday World is very strict about not allowing those things on their rides. The item handling is one of the trickier things that needs to be worked out from a social distancing perspective.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I do like the little dig at Disney that mentions you won't need a 30 day advanced reservation for rides.

This is all experimental, that's for sure. I can wait a season if I have to. The question for the market in general is, how many people are thinking like me?

The experts say 438.

We are up in the air about our Cedar Point trip, which we pushed back from June 1 - 5th to the first week in July (we were actually chatting to cancel when the worker helping us mentioned they expect to be open "in some capacity" by then and suggested we move it out to that week...OK sure).

But, whether we go or not depends on what their set up is.

If Cedar Point pulled off something like this, I'm pretty sure we would take advantage of our reservation and give it a shot. Looking forward to trip reports.

On a side note, CP is being laid back when it comes to your reservations. Our dates were for a cottage at Lighthouse Point, and 1) the price we had reserved stayed the same despite it being July 4th time, and 2) if we want we are still entitled to a full refund no questions asked.

I honestly see a lot of it depending on what the political climate is in some of these areas. I'd bet places like Knoebels have demand. But I do think many people will go to a park like Cedar Point.

That's what's so frustrating. Why is it political at all? The science is not ideal, and experts warn it's going to get worse before it gets better.

This is why I just put an order in for $300 worth of wine and liquor. I want to be stocked when it gets worse. 😁

Science is a left wing conspiracy.

Assuming the logistics are reasonable enough, I'll almost certainly go to Holiday World and Indiana Beach. Definitely Kings Island and Cedar Point if I can (I wonder if Orion will be able to run during Winterfest...). And with the proposed plan, initially it sounds like Holiday World has tried to make the logistics workable, assuming I can get a ticket.

But I don't think I'm interested in doing the "destination" resorts this season. Even if they get the logistics worked out, even if I took the time off to drive down to Orlando, I just think the financial risk of taking a major vacation and having a rotten experience is too great. And even if WDW or Disneyland were my 'home park' I might still not want to go just because of the more geographically diverse crowd that those parks draw. And yeah, I know, half the people at Cedar Point come from Detroit. It's still not nearly the worldwide...or at least nationwide in light of travel restrictions...meeting point that Sea World, Universal or Disney tend to be.

And I probably won't be at any park on its first weekend of operation. Second, maybe.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree with that last part for sure. No way am I going to any midseason Opening Days this year. It has nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with letting these parks iron out the kinks. If I travel this summer to any parks it will only be after I read some reports on how the guest experience is.

I’m gonna sit right here and wait for the complaints from the enthusiasses to start rolling in.
Here’s the thing- this is all unprecedented. It’s not like shut downs for weather, flooding, or national disaster. All the plans on earth can be laid and then again may have to change.
I’d guess that things will not look much like they used to. I read a lot of posts from park fans that seem to think it will be business as usual and the biggest concern is crowd size and length of wait for rides. It very well may be that at parks like CP and many SF that hours will be short. Like noon to six short. Employees will be hard to come by. Attendance allowance may be high, then extremely limited later if everything turns out to be a cluster.
At least passes, offers, and such are rolling over so if anyone has a complaint they can just be sent home with a “see ya next season” kind of answer.
And then again, maybe people and employees will turn up in droves and the joke will be on me. I’ve said it before, but I’ll still be at home watching.
Good luck to the kind folks at Holiday World. It’s probably a little easier for them being a smaller park with employees who are either lifers or local kids They may be in a manageable spot after all of this.

Ohio has a 14 day quarantine rule in place for anyone who's traveled outside of the state (it expires May 29th but could be extended). Are you factoring that possibility into your travel plans too Dave? That little caveat is enough to keep me from planning an out-of-state park visit.

How exactly is that being enforced?

Free lakeside camping in Aurora. :)

Just don't slip on the wave pool slime

I hadn't even investigated that far yet; in fact I know there was a quarantine request in the original shutdown order but didn't know if it extended to the current "now we're cancelling Memorial Day" order or not; it's certainly something I can examine. I'm aided by the fact that, for the moment at least, I'm working from home...

There's also a non-zero probability that I've already had The Virus (although I really doubt it) and got over it. The seriousness of my recent illness was such that even if it wasn't The Virus, if I had that in my system it would have nailed me then. 'Course at this point that was almost a month ago, so anything could have happened since. I might look into getting an antibody test just to see...

I do know that Holiday World and Indiana Beach are both on my "want to visit" list, and both have tentative opening dates. Which is more than I can say for any of my local parks.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.