Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

There are some Saturdays when they have 2 trains running, but even then, it will not be a problem.

For about 4 years Mantis had its own crossing after the entrance, inside the queue itself. I always thought that was neat and was a bit bummed when they removed it.

It's mostly a play on supply and demand. The bonus will not keep all their existing staff thru the fall, since many of the college students are from afar and cannot commit to completing their contract (that was the main reason why I declined to apply when I was a young'in as I knew I couldn't complete the season and the low, non bonus pay wasn't enough)...but I digress.

CF leadership needs to get creative...and 'volunteering' won't cut it. Mid Ohio (in Mansburg, where I grew up) used to hire local teams (mine was my HS band). Our HS band had to staff 3 or 4 food outlets for a race weekend....IIRC we would each work four hour shifts per day, then had the rest of the day to watch the race. And there was 1 Mid Ohio staffer per booth, but the rest of us were the worker bees. C'mon, it's not that hard to grill a sausage or pour a Coke or make change. We got free admission, free food, and the band received much needed uniform money.

CF could do something similar with local HS schools or collleges (BGSU, Oberlin, U of Toledo, Ashland College, Heidelberg, BW) or do a LOT more them). And, they could sweeten the pot by throwing in a weekday, nonholiday pass (next season), to every temp member who works a shift in the fall. Heck, even single individuals might be inclined to sign up for a long weekend if free passes were thrown in. And passes in would have minimal to no impact on the balance sheet (might be even better, since they would not have to pay FICA (payroll taxes), on the passes). Visa-ed workers are only going to do so much...and trust me, those visas are getting harder and harder to come by (I know, I run an IT practice) so visas cannot be relied upon as the golden goose...particularly in the shoulder seasons. But they have to get creative to pull in folks within a 90/60 minute radius...the willingness for temp labor to do long weekends is low to not at all.

I've also never understood why they don't do ferry service from Sandusky or Port Clinton to drive revenue into the local economy and cut down on traffic. They might lose a little in parking, but one would think they could make up for it with ferry revenue and extra food spend with time folks could spend in the park. And, with improvements in the local economy, the greater their potential employee and revenue base.

Food for thought...

Staffing levels, rather the lack thereof, were terrible today. They need to get people in the food booths and operating rides. Bumping wages from $9 to $11-$12 per hour to get employees during non-peak times would only result in more profit. It'd be a no-brainer to me, but then again I'm not management at the park.

I thought they were allowing employees 16 years of age to work rides this year (all positions except for controls).

I used to commute from Ohio State on May weekends before school finished. It’s HARD getting staff into the park in May. Always has been.

Back in the 70’s Miami University was on quarters and I wouldn’t clock in until after Memorial Day. I didn’t know or care what had happened at my location before that, but they always looked so glad to see me.

They could try working with a college or two to get a joint program that allows partial online attendance with Cedar Point paying a portion of the tuition. The college and park could market the program together. They could also consider turning over some of the restaurants to contractors after Labor Day like a fair.

CP&LE runs every 20 minutes. Or every 10 minutes when running two trains.

From a staffing perspective, Sunday was especially bad. But the park gets a bit of a pass from me this one time because *every* college and University in Ohio had Spring Commencement this past weekend.

That said, I do question some of the park's priorities when staffing is limited. Starting at Happy Friar and working back past Magnum, Dragster and Corkscrew, the ONLY food vendor open was the yogurt stand across from the Monster. That stand does not serve drinks, so there were no drinks available from the fry stand all the way up to Coasters. Other deserts also existed from Frontiertown to the Main Midway. Meanwhile, in Frontiertown itself, every restaurant and food joint was open including BOTH the Freestyle stand on the boardwalk AND the drink stand next to the Steel Vengeance shop. Why not close that drink stand and open the Freestyle location down next to the yogurt shop?

Meanwhile, down by maXair, *every* game joint was open an separately staffed.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

It was a welcome change, to me. The past few years, everything in Frontier Town was always closed, and it seemed dead and desolate. I'm happy to see availability of food and drinks back there, instead of closed doors and empty buildings.

In addition to college & university graduations, many local high schools had their proms last weekend. There were also high school ball games, track meets and tennis matches. Remember, schools in Ohio (and their related sports) are in session until the end of May.

Then. Don’t. Open.
This preview weekend idea does not come across as the park intends it to the media and general public.
The media ALL promote it as Cedar Point is open with its amazing new ride, go there now!
Even Cedar Point barely mentions it in the promotional material, the message gets lost in the hype.
All they’re are doing with this two extra days of revenue is creating a bad perception of a park that generally operates very well, this is especially pertinent with the advance of instant social media. Maybe, after the SV incident the park will assess this half-assed opening idea and evaluate how much damage they May be doing to their reputation. The general public making their rare trip to the park to check out the amazing ride as promoted is expecting, rightfully so, the park to be open and actually functional. There’s no advance notice from the park that certain attractions will NOT be open, other than the noted water rides and shows.

That is a very good point XS. If the park finds having live trial runs at operations useful they could also expand upon the Passholder Preview Nights and make it a Passholder Weekend with stated limited ride availability. Mostly limiting it to day trip guests would go a long away to curtailing disappointment from those that spend good money on travel and accommodations. Possibly not even opening any flats or kiddy rides.

I would actually think they would want to operate a few if the Flats and Kiddie rides though, limited availability but I'd think they'd need some; just like they had Antiques open during the hoedown. With their push into the Family market those are just as important as the major rides. Plus they need to get those workers trained on those rides too.

XS NightClub said:

This preview weekend idea does not come across as the park intends it to the media and general public.

They didn't communicate it as a "preview" at all:

Official Cedar Point Twitter on Friday, 4-May:

TOMORROW we open our gates for our 148th season and unveil Steel Vengeance!

Official Cedar Point Twitter on Saturday, 5-May (emphasis mine):

TODAY’S HOURS:
Cedar Point: 10 am - 10 pm
Early Entry: 9 am
Happy CPOpeningDay!

Tony Clark's (Director of Communications) Twitter on Tuesday, 1-May:

Just 4 days until CPOpeningDay. Can’t wait!

Tony Clark's Twitter on Thursday, 3-May:

Pull up a seat - the 2018 season begins in just 2 days! CedarPoint

Tony Clark's Twitter on Friday, 4-May:

You guys - we open TOMORROW!!

I could go on.

Now, don't get me wrong - given the choice between a "full" opening a week later and a "soft" opening a week earlier, I think we'd all choose the latter. And full credit to CP for the Hoedown, which I assume was an attempt to alleviate some of the rush to ride SV on opening day. They certainly did not have to do that.

But it seems like they should really call this a preview weekend or soft opening or whatever, and call the first day of daily operations "Opening Day." Because, again, it seems like advertising and charging full admission for a half-assed product is somewhat counterproductive, especially given the reports of the substantial Guest Services line over the weekend. I certainly would have been disappointed (to say the least) if I had brought my family there for the weekend, booked pricey on-site accommodations for ERT, and pre-purchased FLP passes for SV, only to be presented a half-assed product.

Guest service was indeed slammed. They did accommodate most it seemed and acknowledged it was not a good showing.

I wonder when they sat down to create the schedule if they assumed the increase in pay and benefits would attract enough for a somewhat decently staffed park opening weekend. They then saw a few weeks beforehand it still did not attract enough staff. In that case it was probably to late to call it a preview weekend since full price tickets were sold and it was advertised such. No excuse at all for the poor product, but something I hope is a lesson learned.

Saturday could have been much worse. With warm sunny weather and a new ride, attendance was actually much lighter than I would have guessed . Figure they might have actually pulled around 20k but was feeling coming in 30k + could have easily showed. It only seemed like a slammed park because so little was open.

I don't think that's a valid excuse. I mean, even when the economy was not great, they had trouble attracting employees. Unemployment has been historically-low going back to late-2015, and of course low unemployment makes it that much harder to attract employees. So they shouldn't be surprised by their inability to hire.

I’ve been going as a pass holder for several years now, I live about twenty minutes away and choose to go the first weekend mostly because I like to see all of the new improvements. I have zero expectations for anything to be operating remotely efficiently.

Now, the general public making distance trips to the park on “opening day” would be expecting differently. If a business is open, then it is reasonable to expect that the business is 100% open. Not 90, not 80, not 70, etc. On Sunday when I went, it was about 60%. I’m not bothered by this except for the fact that every year, the park gets considerably worse each “premiere” weekend. To the point where it’s embarassing for a place that has a tag line “like no other”. And they’d be right. They are advertising themselves as a full scale destination this year. You cannot do this and even have one half assed weekend. I’m sorry but you just can’t.

We’ve all made excuses year after year for the park, and yet each year it gets progressively worse. I look at staffing and the parking situation as two examples of things that haunt the park each year.

I don’t have easy answers, but if they honestly thought raising the wages and allowing tattoos was going to result in people flocking there to be hired well then all of HR should be fired. It’s not that kind of economy any more.

I absolutely love what they’ve done aesthetically and the park has never looked better. Investments in rides and resorts have paid off but the more they add, the more everything else suffers. I can’t give them a pass anymore. They are fully aware of when opening day is, they are fully aware of their staffing situation, and they are fully aware of what attractions can be opened ahead of time or not (minus mechanical issues unforeseen.)

I don’t care as much because I mostly go for the meal plan and walk on’s for Gatekeeper. But I’m not the target audience here. It’s the people traveling and staying at the resorts that are the bigger demographic. And these half ass starts to the season can’t continue.

They tried hiring temp agencies to get employees, but that didn't work out. They employed ride operators and their employees were getting $15.00 per hour. The employees that were in rides for CP did not like that. Those who were getting $15.00 didn't last very long after seasonal employees started complaining and asking for higher pay to match theirs.

This year they have tried making working there more appealing. Steel Vengeance hoodies, 2 tickets per weekend worked in May on top of the tickets they earn for working 150 hours, showing tattoos, etc. And staffing is still terrible. There were plenty (100+) of employees who accepted their job offer and did not show up. I feel sorry for those who are working there, barely above minimum wage, getting yelled at as if they are running the park.