OMG 10/12/2013

How much was Fast pass and fast pass+ Being sold for. I know when i was there over the summer on Saturday it was like 85 bucks or something like that and then on Sunday was around 65 so i didn't know if they pushed the price more then 85 or if that was the most it could be?

Someone posted this:

"One big problem with the parking was they had "volunteers" working as attendants to earn their dues for fraternities and sororities. They had no training! They had no means to communicate with workers to get any information about the situation."

Does anyone know if that's true???

I don't seem to recall a free-for-all leaving the park decades ago, there seemed to be more order and direction. This was also back in the days of the shuttle. But even if that wasn't so it's not working now. I've noticed how it seems a little chaotic even leaving on not so busy days. I think people would reasonably expect some wait considering the geography. Saturday was an extreme example.

I did find this little tidbit online since my last post:

http://www.kicentral.com/forums/index.php?/topic/28454-cedar-point-...ng-a-mess/

The 53,100 people does sound about right. Seems like a nightmare of a day!

It's worth bearing in mind that Disney World was designed to efficiently manage large crowds and heavy traffic, and Cedar Point was not.

I've gone on Saturdays twice this year, both HalloWeekends in September. When we left around 11:30pm it was clear we weren't getting out any time soon. The chausee was backed up all the way to the park exit so even if we could get out of the lot we would just be inching along anyway. I decided to do as my mom would when we would leave concerts at Blossom when I was in high school. I didn't bother starting the car. We rolled the windows down, got a snack out of the cooler. The kids putzed around in the back of the car with the stuff they had brought to entertain themselves on the ride in and then we just chilled for about 45 minutes before we left the lot. I could either sit in bumper to bumper moving an inch at a time traffic for 45 minutes or I could enjoy the warm breeze, have a lunchable, finish off the cookies, rest my eyes and give my husband a call. If I had to do this for 3 hours I wouldn't be thrilled but like I said earlier if people are parking in the grass I just leave.

Scottyf said:

joncars05 said:

e x i t english said:
There's really no such thing as bad press.

And this is directed to ScottyF too.

Just go ahead and call up Six Flags over Texas and see what their PR people have to say about "Any press is good press" when they had to deal with lady who fell out of the NewTexas Giant coaster and died...

I think they would call your comments asinine to put it politely...

My comments were asinine, but that doesn't make them untrue, plus, you act as if I made up the rules about how humans digest news.

Also, call it what you want, but that fat woman got a whole lot of people talking about that Texas coaster, that park, and theme parks in general. As crappy as it may seem to you and her family, just like the CP parking thing, it nets awareness and hopefully better policies and procedures like...don't let fat people ride rides they shouldn't, or don't let people in the park when it's "full."

You're pretty sick dude and judging from your other comments pretty pessimistic. If you truly think that CP benefits in anyway from this problem or that Texas Giant truly benefited from that lady's death then I really don't want to know what you consider bad news. The only positive out of this is a possible change in policy, but from the accounts that I have heard CP doesn't really care and most likely wont make any changes. People who are enthusiasts do know to stay away from the park on busy days like this one. The news from a general public standpoint is about as bad as it gets. I just don't see how this event can be considered good news. Maybe I am just too rational.

The general public has the same access to information on the Internet, the same amount of common sense, as enthusiasts. It's a bit insulting to suggest the the general public just doesn't have the knowledge or wisdom that enthusiasts do.

If you truly think that Cedar Point doesn't care about its customers, don't go to Cedar Point. It's a for-profit business, yes, but the park doesn't make money by angering customers.

noggin said:
The general public has the same access to information on the Internet, the same amount of common sense, as enthusiasts. It's a bit insulting to suggest the the general public just doesn't have the knowledge or wisdom that enthusiasts do.

If you truly think that Cedar Point doesn't care about its customers, don't go to Cedar Point. It's a for-profit business, yes, but the park doesn't make money by angering customers.

We will see if they care by adjusting their exit protocols for heavily attended days such as this. With Ouimet at the helm I hope this situation can be changed.

My post is directly above yours, so quoting it really wasn't necessary.

Cedar Point's executive management team are corporate executives. No matter how much data they might have, sometimes the wrong decisions are going to be made.

Is the situation being discussed here typical, or an anomaly?

^^ what adjustment to exit protocols do you suggest CP make? People parked in the rows closest to the Main gate cannot leave until Tuesday?

How can Ouimet change the situation other than building a 2nd causeway?

We spent 1.5 hours in our minivan with children and adults. What saved us included a great kids DVD movie, snacks and drinks. We waited another hour to leave the park at midnight using Cedar Point Road. The parking lot and causeway was made up of a large population of Jerry Sprenger contestants with no social skills. Inside the park everyone seemed to behave nicely. The large crowd flowed well, etc. We traveled with friends who we were able to catch-up with in the van as well. Great conversation and laughter. Just imaging how these folks would act during a natural disaster etc. I am proud of Cedar Point, use those profits in 2015 for your new attraction!

There's a certain amount of personal responsibility here. If you get to the park, and the parking lot is full, you have to expect there will be lot of people in the park and a lot of people trying to leave when the park closes.

You can adjust your plans -- leave an hour or two before the park closes -- or deal with consequences -- wait as the park personnel do their best to get everyone out as fast as possible.

CPfan1976 said:

The 53,100 people does sound about right. Seems like a nightmare of a day!

I remember watching Dick Kinzel give an interview many years ago, I think to the City Club of Cleveland, where he mentioned an attendance record around the 60,000 mark. I've heard that number elsewhere as well, so without actually knowing, I'm at least 50% sure that's a pretty accurate guess. :)

Now whether last Saturday was record-breaking for the season or all-time, who knows.

I do want to comment on the photo taking of the monitors as I saw this discussion a few pages back.

As a local Orlando resident, I spend a lot of time at Disney. The comments are correct that Disney allows photo taking of the on ride photo monitors. This past summer when I visited Cedar Point, I was horrified by the language used by the employees in the on ride photo gift shops. Their job essentially became a yelling war where all they did was try to find the person who was taking pictures with their phone (which is essentially every batch of riders) and screamed at them.

I understand why the rule is in place, but there comes a time where enforcing a rule like this becomes obsolete (Disney has discovered this). I remember feeling extremely uncomfortable with how the employees were speaking- almost like they took joy in busting the ones who were breaking the rules. It certainly needs addressed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtyrDZG-eDo

"And, at the end of the day, when the lot’s all full… and everybody’s fighting to get out of here… we’ll be the first ones to get out, too, right! Why? Because we're the Griswold's!"

@Captain I don't know. I have only been to CP once. It's not my job to design exit strategies for this park. I would either suggest that add another causeway or improve the way traffic is handled by the CP parking staff to better facilitate a smoother exit. As you guys have said plenty of times that Columbus Day Saturday is one of the worst days to go to the park. If you guys know this as common knowledge then wouldn't the park put extra staffing to direct traffic, and have more employees ready to handle the larger crowd. If I know I am going to have one of the largest crowds of the year on hand I wouldn't staff the day like it was a Tuesday in May. Maybe add signs or even signals to flow traffic out to the causeway for events like this. Yes we all now know this is a horrible day to visit the park. But a 4 hour exit to travel 2 miles to leave the park in unacceptable. I mentioned Ouimet's name based off of his experience with Disney. I figured he would have decent experience on dealing with large crowd. Maybe I am assuming wrong?

@Noggin Sorry for the quotes. We use them on KIC because the board is more active than this one. Again I will say again that traffic on a day like this one is a guarantee. But 4 hours in a parking lot is just awful. Let me put it this way, it takes me 4 hours and 15 minutes to get to CP from Indianapolis. It took that long for people on Saturday night to travel just over 2 miles. That is inexcusable. I am all about personal responsibility but from the stories that you hear on Facebook and other media outlets their complaints do seem valid. I'm not talking about wait times being long or the park being crowded I am talking about people were saying they were getting drinks without ice, food lines extended for 30+ minutes, bathrooms were trashed, on top of that when they placed calls to security or talked to staff they were blown off and their concerns were not addressed. I don't care how crowded a park is if someone has a concern it should be addressed or at least acknowledged and not blown off.

They're not going to build a 10 lane highway out of the park. Saturday's crowd was not typical. I don't know if additional traffic staff would help either. There is a bottleneck at the exit. Due to CP being surrounded by water, additional exits aren't possible. At one time Cedar Point Rd, a 2 lane road was the only way in and out of the park. The causeway was built back in the 50's. That has handled traffic well since then. Saturday was just a fluke. They won't invest millions of dollars building another bridge to accommodate a traffic level that rarely happens.

Thabto pretty much summed it up. I'm sure there could have been better traffic direction from what I've read as far as the back lots not being allowed to merge into the traffic from the front but in the end I think no matter how it was handled somebody was going to be there 3 hours. This was also not typical traffic or crowds. As far as turning people away this gets tricky because lots of people complain that they should have turned people away to improve the experience for the people in the park but I'm sure if they actually did turn anyone away they would just be all over facebook complaining that they had been turned away. I'm sure there may be things that can be done to improve the situation if it happens again but I don't believe there's any way to stop it from ever happening again other than making the park suck so that nobody wants to come.

i think they should only let cars in the main parking lot and put in a second parking lot on the main land and run shuttles to the park

"Add another causeway..." Sure. Heck, why not add helicopters to fly cars to the mainland? Really. This is a ridiculous suggestion.

"Improve the way traffic is handled..." Saturday was an anomaly. The park employees did the best they could. When you try to stuff ten pounds of sausage into a five pound casing, you have problems. When you try to funnel thousands of cars onto a causeway that wasn't designed to handle that many cars, you have problems.

"I wouldn't staff the day like it was a Tuesday in May..." Do you really, honestly, believe that Cedar Point does not have years of data to analyze when developing staffing levels? Is it not possible that a) the park mis-judged and b) attendance exceeded expectations?

"It took that long for people on Saturday night to travel just over 2 miles...." For which they bear some responsibility. The park is not entirely to blame for them going to the park on an extremely popular day.

"...stories that you hear on Facebook and other media outlets..." Stories that you "hear" on social media are from people who may or may not be embellishing their experience.

"I don't care how crowded a park is if someone has a concern it should be addressed or at least acknowledged and not blown off." If a park is crowded, the park staff are likely responding as best as they can. If a park expects 10,000 guests and 13,000 guests turn up, the park staff has to do the best they can. Nobody's perfect, not even the people who try to determine the optimum staffing levels. And, people who are on social media saying they were "blown off" are people with an agenda. They may be exaggerating.