New Cedar Point App - Ride Times?

So here's a thought, Universal Studios just announced their version of the magic band, which of course holds things like your hotel key, tickets, credit cards, etc. What would the potential be for something like this to be implemented at Cedar Point? Even if it's just for pass holders initially. You could store your pass, a payment card, fast passes, meal plans, etc. Then you virtually eliminate the need for carrying anything, and install ride wait times throughout the park.

To me, even having an app is encouraging folks to bring their phones, and then in turn results in phones being brought onto rides.

Mr. Potato said:

Put Bluetooth receivers at the beginning and end of the line to automatically capture time entered and time finished.

You aren't the first to think of this, but I can tell you that the legal and privacy concerns around this make lawyers surprisingly nervous unless it's a 100% opt-in arrangement. Then factor in the surprising fact that a large percentage of people leave their Bluetooth radios off most of the time. Perhaps habits and perspectives have changed, but it's not as straight-forward as you would think.

On the other hand, there are some novel ideas to "gamify" the process, and the implementation is pretty cheap. You stash some cheap beacons at the start and end of the line, and the phones report proximity to them to figure out time, and the user wins a high five or something.

I certainly have never worked in th industry or studied it in school but but of curiosity wouldn't an old school CCTV system work fairly well if tied into a central hub monitoring the system. I would imagine 2-3 cameras for each ride would be sufficient to cover most of the que. 1-2 associates could cycle through updating each ride every 15 minutes or so. Still a guesstimate but seems like it would be more reliable than the ride crew phoning it in which is how I assume it works now.

This will only work for people who have the CP app, but I'm thinking that since the app requires location services, you can geofence each ride area. When the geofenced area is entered the app could send the time and a identifier code to a server. When that identifier leaves the geofenced area, you get another timestamp and the system figures out the length of time that identifier was in the area. To improve accuracy, the system can take an average of, let's say, the last 5 completed time calculations.

I used the updated app this weekend and I have to say I don't like it at all. I couldn't find the wait times anywhere, except a few on the list said no wait, but others gave no times at all. I have location turned on. They turned a good app into a confusing mess. They should've just left it as it was. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Has anyone figured out the wait times lately? I have yet to see this new app work?

It's HO-RRI-BLE!!

I'll spare the awful layout, hard to find showtimes, overlay of everything on top of each other, etc...as other's have mentioned....

I sill can not figure out the wait times!? I have a Samsung S7. I have the app updated. I have gone try to click on the roller coasters, I have tried to go under the 3 lines to change it to list. I still can not get wait times? What gives. All the roller coasters list a fast pass option only. All the "carnival ride" show the wait times and they appear to be right. I have all location settings turned on everywhere on my phone and the app. I still can not get any ride times since they changed the app?

Has anyone been able to get the ride times in the last week? If so, how, what days, what phone, etc? I'm wondering if the park has to be at a certain capacity, or amount of people using the app, etc?

Thanks for any help!

I was having a hard time trying to discover the ride times last Sunday. Then, I switched the app to allow location services all the time instead of just when the app was turned on and the ride times magically appeared.

RollerCoasterGod said:

I still can not get any ride times since they changed the app?

Looking back through this thread, I can't see any mention of the fact that allegedly some versions of Android do not appear to display the wait times. I must have read that on another forum. I cannot confirm for sure it is true.

I was there this past weekend and used the app. The wait times are there if you have location services turned to "always on" but they weren't reliable most of the time. We went up to Gatekeeper once when it said 30 minutes and it turned out to be more like an hour so we didn't even go in. That said it did at least seem reliable to see when rides were closed, like TTD most of Sunday.

A friend of mine was using the old version of the app when we were at the park a few weeks ago so later, maybe after the switch I don't know, I looked it up to check it out and got the message that the app was "not compatible with this device". I knew my phone was cheap and old but I didn't realize it was this bad. Of course now that everyone is aggravated by it I don't feel so sad anymore for not having it.

I just got a notification from the app saying they have corrected the issue with wait times. Can anyone confirm?

I cannot confirm that you received such a notification but can confirm that I received a similar notification.

i meant confirmation if the issue has been fixed. I won't be at the park until the 16th to see for myself.

ha, yes. I understand. As the grandparents liked to say "I was just pullin' your chain."

Now if they can only correct the issue with displaying *accurate* wait times.

I honestly don't like the update. Ride times are often off, and some areas on the map just look like a jumbled mess of words.

I've experienced this issue firsthand at Kings Dominion trying to find Grizzly. For those of you that don't know, you have to go through a gift shop to get to Grizzly. Because I didn't know this, I used the app to find the ride, and ended up getting lost for 30 mins trying to find it, ending up at Ricoshet instead. On the actual map, however, it's obvious you have to pass through a gift shop.

I can confirm they DID fix the wait times issues. This has been confirmed fix for Carrowinds, Kings Island and Cedar Point.

I notice on Google Play it says under new improvments that they finally fixed it. I tried it out at Carrowinds first on vacation, followed by Kings Island then Cedar Point on July 4th.

I have a Galaxy S7 of which it wasn't working earlier these past few weeks, each visit.

All wait times and closed rides are now displaying (once you click on the ride or better yet the list icon (the 3 lines above the rides/shops/coasters on the map.)

Now they are REALLY REALLY not correct though. On the app it said Raptor was 1.5 hour wait on July 4th. Right when I was by it was showing a 30 minute wait (on the actual sign at the front of the line). It was truly a 30 min wait...now I can say it did get MUCH longer during the day as the park picked up...so maybe it's an anticipation of what's to come that day wait ;-)

It also showed Mine Ride closed when it was up and running.