Park is a little busy today. 

So you are using your 25 pass at CedarPoint (according to Debbie). You have not activated your 26 pass at your home park yet. If you now only go to CedarPoint, but have a 2026 KI pass, you will not be able to go to any other park in 26 until you “activate” at KI first. (Maybe this is all theory and it doesn’t really matter in actuality, but that’s the answer they are telling people) Using this example, if you bought NEW at KI, but went to CP first, you wouldn’t get in. 

I think that the weather had ALOT to do with the crowd.  With the cooler weather the dry park will be more crowded.  When the heat index in 100 people either stayed home or were in the water park.  This could be easily deduced by the line at either the season pass sales booth or taking forever to get in the park because of people getting their pictures taken at the gates.  Too many people are concerned with spending on school supplies and will likely wait till the last minute to buy new/renew their pass. I do have a theory that there may be alot of pass holders that buy every other year.  Thinking about it they would only miss Mid April - July (4 months) in a 2 year period.   They buy a pass now for the rest of 25 and all of 26, take off mid-April - July in 2027 and buy a pass when they go on sale in 2027 for the rest of 2027 and all of 2028.

I went to KI last Tuesday evening and had a walk-on for every ride except FoF. All the sudden MVP sale comes out and the parks are PACKED. The nice weather has contributed to that a little, but like you said, everyone wants to get use out of their brand new shiny pass. It'll be crowded until school starts back up. Everyone's getting their last trips in before school starts. I'll explain some of the stuff I noticed at CP in my Trip Report

Yes, I renewed my KI season pass without activating it at KI and they asked no questions and I was good to go once I scanned my pass Stay tuned for my CP Trip Report