Processing CF Platinum Passes @ other CF parks

Jeff said:
He's like a rock star.

OMG! Tony posted here! I'm never going to mark this thread as read!! ;)

Seriously, thanks for the update, Tony. :)

"Add topic to favorites" :)

Jeff said:
He still holds the record for most listened to guest appearance on the podcast. He's like a rock star.

I'm not gonna lie...when I rode in Tony's Maverick train on PP Night last year, it moved a little. ;)

Who says the the park's people don't visit CoasterBuzz? Thanks Tony.

Thank you very much Tony, this makes for very happy loyal curtomers.

Question: I'm extremely happy that I can use my CP voucher for KI opening day, but why doesn't CP simply open their processing center 6 days earlier (Friday 4/17), allowing everyone to process their CP voucher on time?

I have a question about parking since I've never gone to a park without having a pass being already processed.

Are we required to pay for parking and then get reimbursed? Or will they just let us in if we show them our voucher?

Just curious.

~Rob

At CP, you simply show your voucher at the booth. If you're buying the pass at the park and don't have a voucher, I believe you pay for parking and show your receipt at the ticket office for a refund/credit.

In my case I have a Platinum Pass voucher (well three of them) purchased from CP, but I will be processing it at KI. Does KI still have like 25 cameras set up for pass processing?

~Rob

About 20 or so according to a pic posted yesterday. I don't know about the parking. I'm getting mine processed at KI this afternoon to avoid the madness in the morning.

I had my CP Platinum Pass processed at KI Wed night. They took my voucher and exchanged it for a KI ticket. Then I had to fill out the info form for KI as well as the one that CP provided me in the fall. She took em both and issued me a KI Platinum Pass.

The processing is much faster and easier at KI than at CP, with many more positions and camera available. There was a long line in the cold rain but it kept moving at least.

I can't wait for tomorrow.

Line went very smooth for me this afternoon. Probably waited less than 30 min.

^^ RCMAC, that's what they did for us this morning too (opening day), but unfortunately we had to wait 12 minutes to do it. First the person asked us to hold on without saying why, then went to look for someone. Then she came back and vaguely explained what was going on. Finally 10 minutes later (I checked my watch) someone came back with KI tickets, which she scanned and disposed of before processing each of our passes. I'm still unclear why it had to be done that way, or why it took so long. We even asked if we'd done something wrong, because we had called the park last week and were told we had to get our CP-bought Platinum Passes processed before we could get in to KI, but two people said no we'd done it right and apologized for the delay.

If it hadn't been for that little adventure, the wait would have only been 45 minutes, which sure beats the 2 hours we waited on CP opening day 3 years ago. :)

A friend of mine tried to process his CP pass on opening day and spent an hour getting the run around between the pass office and guest relations. He said nobody knew what they were doing. Once guest relations finally reimbursed his parking and let him into the park, he just gave up on trying to get it processed and will wait for CP. Kind of sad that they still haven't got such a simple concept to work at the CF parks.

This has Kinzel's incompetence/apathy with IT technology all over it. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to not blame the CEO, but clearly if this was a priority for the man, the requisite people to make the system(s) work would have been hired long ago.

I don't know if we missed the learning curve but we were able to process our CP Platinum passes fairly easily. Granted, the girl had to search out a manager to get KI tickets and it took about 10 minutes to do it, but other than that everything went quickly and smoothly.

~Rob

^ Yeah, that's basically how our experience went too, Rob. I wasn't sure why it even took as long as it did, since I doubt we were the first CP people to process that day; we were there around 9:45.

Parking was interesting. I showed her my Platinum Pass voucher, she wrote her initials and the date on it and said "Make sure you get it processed today." (Just in case I had bought a separate KI ticket for that day, I guess?)

Another option would have been simply for CP to open their season pass center a week earlier, on the 15th, knowing that many passholders would be likely to check out the new hypercoaster in Ohio on opening day at another CF park.

While waiting for my pass to get processed (which I purchased on opening day) a worker informed those in line that if you had a pass the prior year then you did NOT need to fill out the paper work. However, when I was searched in the database...I was not found. Apparently, this was because I never purchased a PP at KI.

It was my fault for not inquiring about this before I entered the processing room, but still interesting that my name is not in Cedar Fair's database at Kings Island.

^ Again another flaw in the system. Everything is still being localized at each individual park instead of storing that info in one centralized location that is easy for each park to access.

I observed the computer software while she was searching. Theres a drop down box to change the park, but it was tinted grey, essentially locking it to KI.

From the looks of the computer, in theory at least, they could switch to another park. But this is just speculation on my behalf.