Unclear platinum pass info

I am planning to head out to Cedar Point for two days coming up, and I have a few questions that I could not find answers to on the Dorney OR Cedar Point websites.

I have a Platinum Pass from Dorney, but I didn't notice anywhere on the downloadable content if any of the perks are only available at the home park. For instance, Cedar Point offers ride time one hour prior to the public for certain coasters. However, do they only offer this to people who have a Platinum Pass with Cedar Point as the home park? Is this a benefit that ALL Platinum Pass holders get to take advantage of? They also offer MANY discounts on food, beverage, and merchandise, but is this only available for PP holders from Cedar Point?

Also, I heard that you can only use your Platinum Pass once per day, and if you wish to get back into the park, you must get your hand stamped. However, I saw nothing about that on either website.

Finally, I know that there are some parks where you have to go to Guest Relations to use the Platinum Pass. Is Cedar Point one of these parks, or can you go straight to the gates and get in?

I also noticed that Cedar Point had dates for ERT and that my dates are not on there. Do they always only do certain dates, or are there extended ride times on OTHER rides all the time?

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks to the pros here!

I can answer a couple of these based on my trip to CP about a month ago (my pass is from KI).

- If you leave the park and want to return, you have to get your hand stamped. I never tried to re-enter the park the same day by having my pass scanned again, but I can only assume that it won't work.

- Your Dorney pass should scan at the turnstile without any issues, so no need to stop by guest relations.

We didn't get to test the early entry on the platinum pass, since we stayed on property at Sandcastle Suites and got early entry that way. My understanding was that ANY platinum pass would allow you early access, but a quick phone call to CP probably wouldn't hurt just to verify.

Jerry

This response comes straight from CP PR officer Tony Clark on a post on Pointbuzz relating to the same question you're asking, Bunky:

Your Platinum Pass, regardless of what park you purchased it from, is valid for all Platinum-level benefits at every park.

For example, if you have a Kings Island Platinum Pass and you want to come to a Cedar Point ride night, you are welcome to do so. Likewise, if you have a Cedar Point Platinum Pass and want to take advantage of a Platinum discount at Carowinds, you are free to do so.

This is good to know for my trip in a few weeks to Kings Dominion and my September planned trip to Cedar Point. Thanks!

I can tell you from my own attempt to have my DP platinum pass scanned at the CP turnstiles, it does NOT work. After a few moments of head scratching, I was told to see guest relations were they write down your pass number, mark the park it is from and have you sign your name. Then you are handed a ticket to enter.

You will be able to use your DP platinum pass for the early entry. Be warned however that guest relations does not open until 15 minutes before the park opens to get your entry ticket.

^^That stinks! They should let me ride a ride in the front car with no waits if I can't do the early ride time. Ehehehehehe....Seriously though, you'd think they would have all these season pass issues of not being able to get in with the pass taken care of. How hard is it to get universal scanners? I wonder if they'll allow me to get two vouchers since I will be there for two days, instead of making me go to Guest Relations both days and missing the early rides.

Thank you all for your info!

One more question: Does Cedar Point open TTD late like Great Adventure does with Kingda Ka?

Actually TTD is normally one of the early open rides for Resort Guests so it's normally open for the early opening. *** Edited 8/5/2008 6:12:14 PM UTC by dragonoffrost***

Actually, TTD opens at 10 with the rest of the park and is not open during early entry :)

Last year Dragster "opened" early for the ERT, but it was usually down for the first half hour of it, if it opened at all. On the website Dragster is not listed as opening early, so I wouldn't bet in it being open early.

Last year, even though CP is closer, we bought our Maxx Passes(Platinum) through Dorney, and had to go through guest relations at both Geauga Lake and at Cedar Point to get in. THIS YEAR we bought our Platinum Passes at Cedar Point. We have been to both Wildwater Kingdom(GL) and Dorney Park and our passes have been scanned just fine and we have not had to go to guest relations for anything. At WWK our passes scan just fine in the parking lot, at DP they had to stop and write something down, except on the 4th day when the kid just waved us in and didn't even give us a parking ticket.

I do not know about the hand stamps. I ran into that problem years ago at GL even though I had a season pass, this was back in the days when they punched out the date, I didn't get my hand stamped and they wouldn't let us back in. Now I ALWAYS get my hand stamped when I leave a park and I do NOT WASH it until AFTER I am back in the park.

As usual, YMMV.

Tom

Cedar Point stamps the inside of your wrist. I've been in the pool for a half hour and re-entered without it washing off. Always get your hand stamped - you can only enter once with the pass.

You can use any gate with your "other park" Platinum Pass. Even if it doesn't scan, they'll just write down the pass number and what park it's from. If you do use one of the other gates before the park opens and there's a line, you may want to tell the person at the gate you've got another park's pass before they open up. Sometimes they'll write it down (if nessesary) before the line starts moving, making everything move a bit quicker when everbody starts getting hyped and starts to bolt for Millennium Force.

For the record, my CP Platinum Pass did not scan at Michigan's Adventure this year. No big deal - there's a guest service window right next to the entry gate.

You can defiantly only scan it once, on Sunday, someone screwed up with the stamps at the Magnum gate I apparently got the "Saturday color" and the person at the beach gate was not going to let me in until I told him I wasn't there Saturday and flashed my PP. He scanned it, saw that had already been scanned today and asked me which gate I had entered the park in the first time.

The thing that surprised me was that my picture did not pull up on his screen (only a big red X) why would they do that? If there was ever a question about a stamp, rescanning it should just show your picture again, that way there is no question that there was a mistake with the stamp.

When I went to Cedar Point with a Dorney Platinum Pass in June, they wrote down the info instead of scanning it.

I was able to get in an hour early, BUT since I was staying at Hotel Breakers I entered through the "Magnum gate"/"resort gate" and the "Wicked Twister gate"/"beach gate". At the latter one, the staff just printed out complementary tickets and then scanned them at the same time, no problem. At the former one, after waiting in a long line the staff told me I had to go to a little office on the side to get the complementary ticket and then get back in the long line to get through the gate! Luckily, when I complained the guy in the office let me in the front door and out the back door into the park, so I didn't miss the ERT.

They really need to get their act together! I don't know what would've happened if I had wanted to get in an hour early through the front gate. Their websites say that if you have a pass from another park you may need to go to guest services, but just prior to the trip people on the boards told me they had fixed that this year so they just scanned the passes, and then I encountered different policies at the two different gates I went to!

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Touchdown said:

The thing that surprised me was that my picture did not pull up on his screen (only a big red X) why would they do that?

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It means you're a suspected terrorist. Probably one step away from making the "Do Not Ride" list. ;)

^Dang it, they're on to me!
;)

I always go through the office at the Magnum gate.

As far as admissions, Cedar Fair has been getting their act together.

WOF, CF, and GL have all spent big money converting to the Gate Central computer program already in use at the Paramount Parks. The parks that have yet to receive it are MIA, DP, and VF.

Special recognition should go to Dorney. They programed their existing software to read Gate Central Platinum Passes from other parks.

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The thing that surprised me was that my picture did not pull up on his screen (only a big red X) why would they do that?

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The red x alerts the ticket taker that your pass is not valid for entry. If needed he could have easily accesed your picture as well as other related information.

Passes may not be 100% universal but they should be in a year or two. Why can't we be thankful that CF is actually spending the money to do it and actually giving special benefits to SP holders for a change?

Oh, I AM grateful to CF for giving people these perks. I am SO pleased that not only am I getting to go to the baddest amusement park in the world, but that I'm getting to ride for free, and that I can eat food for discounted prices and ride rides early. I'm ecstatic! I just think that it wouldn't be that hard to organize a system that would allow all the parks to read all the passes. I mean, if you go to a store, let's say Target, and you buy an item, you can return said item at any Target, right? Well? How hard would it be to make barcodes at a park the same then?

I have been to Carowinds, Cedar Point, Valleyfair, and Knott's Berry Farm with my KI Platinum pass. I had to go to Guest relations office for all except for Carowinds. All the pass benefits applied including parking although some park employees looked confused at times with Platinum pass.