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Cedar Point: General Discussion

As confirmed in the latest video by IMAscore, they're partnering with Cedar Point. Here's hoping for a Thorpe Park-esque audio makeover here.

Also, on another entirely unrelated point:

My sister gave me Always Cedar Point for Christmas:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Always-Ced...ords=always+cedar+point&qid=1610464841&sr=8-1

It's a fantasic book with some really interesting stories. For example: to encourage their cleaners to take pride in cleaning the toilets, every year they'd organise a sleep over in the toilets. The cleaners would bring blankets and pillows and sleep in the toilets. I've heard a lot of stories about what it's like to work in different theme parks, but I've never heard of anything like that before.

Thanks for linking to this. My copy arrived yesterday and it's been a great read so far, even only a few pages in!
 
I like what IMAScore have done with Thorpe Park’s audio, so I look forward to seeing what they can do at Cedar Point!
 
Lots of rumours that they are getting this world record breaking Gerstlauer coaster for 2022. Most likely being an Infinity coaster too. Absolute madness this place.

I'm so tempted to book a ticket for summer 2022 if this is confirmed soon. I want to get back out and experience SteVe again as well as Dragster, MF and Magnum.
 
I'm going back next summer so I can't wait.

Just can't see it being any parks in the Cedar Fair chain, they've said they aren't planning any major investments currently. They aren't even opening parks in parts of the country were local rival parks have.

Plus some random website making this announcement isn't the way they do things. I mean Steel Vengeance was in the middle of construction and they wouldn't say anything.
 
I've moved some of the posts in this thread to the thread about the new record breaking Gerstlauer for 2022. Until we know which park it is going to they are more relevant to that thread!

But on the topic of Cedar Point, they are certainly due another major investment soon. SteVe was a 2018 addition and ride wise there hasn't really been anything substantial since. Although I think they have put a little more focus on the family side of things. A wooden coaster has been long rumoured and would fill a gap in the park's coaster lineup. No doubt Covid had changed and delayed plans.
 
Apparently it's been a disaster there since reopening.

Steel Vengeance Fast Lane queue has reached up to 2 hours apparently.

I've mentioned it before but their Fast Lane policy is absolutely shocking. I paid $100 to have a slightly less miserable queueing experience.
 
Yeah it's clear that fast lane has spiralled out of control at Cedar Point. I visited in 2013 and 2018, using basic fast lane both days of the first visit and FL+ for 1 day of the 2nd visit (we used main queues on the first day of that visit).

In 2013 it worked exactly as you'd expect it to at Towers with nominal waits on all rides (maybe 20min max for Millennium Force mainly due to merge being so far from the station) By 2018 the number of people using it had skyrocketed and some of the waits were approaching 50% of the main queue time. It's just bad for everyone at this point - the main queue moves at half the speed it should do and fast lane users feel ripped off. Whilst I've always been firmly in the Cedar Point camp in the CP vs SFMM debate, it seems a lot easier to have a good day at the latter as the year-round opening spreads the crowds out and results in more opportunities to visit when it's not busy. That's despite the operations at MM being so much slower that it can't cope with crowds at all.
 
I visited in 2012 which was the year Fast Lane was introduced at CP. Its selling point was it would reduce your queueing time by 50%. I didn't use it and got on quite well during my stay (barring the 2+ hour queue for Maverick).

I visited in 2019 and had Fast Lane plus for the entire trip. Only real queues I can remember was for millennium force (due to the location of the merge point), Valrayvn (it's operations), and Steel Vengeance (the newest ride. Max I waited was about an hour).

Cedar Fair seem to have handled the pandemic and its effects atrociously compared to their main competitor in Six Flags. Keeping parks closed, slow to announce reopening dates this year.
And now announcing new closure dates with two weeks notice, how many peoples trips and holidays could that potentially ruin.
 
Gatekeeper's chain appears to have come apart. Oops.

199597897_10159136887996006_8497974162923001421_n.jpg
 
Don’t think this has been mentioned here yet but this season Cedar Point are closing ride queues prior to park close. So if park close is at 6pm and there is a 40min queue for Millennium Force, it would close at 5:20pm. It’s quite questionable customer service from a park of this caliber and it seems lots of people are not having great visits to the park this year.
 
I don't think Cedar Point's the only Cedar Fair park doing this. The general manager at Kings Dominion recently discussed it in a water park panel:
https://www.iaapa.org/funworld-live-water-parks-2021

The regional american parks have had massive recruitment challenges this year. At Kings Dominion they had to delay opening the water park this season, due to a staffing shortage. Some American theme parks are closing rides so that the staff can have their breaks. Some parks have reduced their opening hours. Some of them have significantly increased their hourly wages.

Cedar Point has a lot of staff accomodation and typically brings over quite a few international students for the summer on J1 visas. Because of Covid they can't do that this year. There has been a lot of discussion about this in the industry:

https://www.iaapa.org/funworld-live-seasonal-staffing-solutions
 
The Cedar Fair parks all seemed to delay their 2021 park openings as late as possible this year which wouldn't have helped recruitment in areas were competing parks had already announced their plans thus making themselves more desirable for people to apply to.

Plus some parks they've announced midweek closures with only a few weeks notice, and in one case a matter of days.
 
In comparison to Six Flags, Cedar Fair really seem to be struggling with the implications of the past year.
 
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