DispatchMaster

Yes, this. The ability to ban people is likely just to lay the groundwork to prevent abuse. It'll likely only be used in extreme cases, but when they need to use it, the park will be on solid ground to enforce it. You really oughta be charging me rent for living in your head. Lotta lost revenue there. Sad!

The way I look it is to calculate what my time is worth to me, and my personal time should be worth at least as much as my time is valued by my employer, and really should be at least 50% more than that. But for the purposes of this example I'll just use hourly wage. For easy math let's say you can save about 60 minutes of queue time per ride, and we'll assume a FLP price of $150. On the lower end of the scale making, say, $15/hr, you would need to ride 10 rides to make the FLP "worth it". Hitting 10 rides in a day is doable, but might be a lot for some. At $30/hr, you need to hit 5 rides, and at $50/hr, only 3 rides to make it "worth it". And of course as the FLP price goes up the number of rides needed will increase, but higher FLP prices generally coincide with more people in the park, and thus potentially more time saved per ride, but you get the idea. Obviously YMMV, but this is the standard I use when considering leisure/entertainment purchases.

Do you ride anything during the season? Purchase anything? Use the bathroom? Park your car on site? If the answer to any of those or similar questions is "yes", then the park you're visiting is incurring additional costs based on your use of those amenities. Rides need maintained, purchases in stores incur a cost to the park, bathrooms utilize consumable resources, etc. All of this is common knowledge to anyone who's worked in or around a customer-facing business, and should certainly be intimately familiar to anyone who has run a business. This pathetic "joke" was old before the first time you used it. If the best defense or contribution to the discussion you can muster is "har har, must be their lawyer LOLOLOSZZZ!!!!!111!!", that speaks volumes about you. Do better.

I have not to this point seen any indication that TT2 will have lockers accessible by both boarding and disembarking riders. And if that's the case, it's frankly inexcusable that the park is enforcing a no loose article policy during the entirety of the line. Very disappointing.

No, but a single visitor is at least as likely, if not moreso, to produce positive ROI per than a pass holder. So, while a non-pass holder visits less frequently, they tend to spend far more per visit, and because each visit by a guest incurs a cost to the park, the profit margins for a non-pass holder are higher. In other words, pass holders are not the most desirable customer, and certainly aren't as important as some assume they are. I mean, just look at it from a value perspective. The more of a value someone is getting out of a pass, the less positive ROI the park is realizing from that customer.

That... is quite obviously not true. How is it possible that someone who has "owned a handful of businesses in the past decade" is somehow unaware of variable costs? That's wild. This perfectly distills down the enthusiast/pass holder entitlement attitude. That anyone would think spending $500 for several months of something is more than trivial is deluding themselves. The annual visitor is almost always going to spend more than that on a single/few visit(s). Hell, we've spent more than that PER DAY on occasion, in addition to our passes. And I'm not bragging, as we are NOT wealthy, extravagant visitors. Just a middle class family that likes to splurge on vacations when possible. And the park is filled with people like us, visiting a few times per year while contributing vastly higher per caps than the pass holder who visits 4 times a week all summer.

Keep going? Like, infinitely, without a fixed budget? It's odd that someone who has allegedly "owned a handful of businesses in the past decade" would be unaware of cost constraints.

Agreed. Dude's (or dudette) ad hominem nonsense is insufferable. Best advice is to ignore and move on.

Well, I don't think they'd leave unused footers, but it's not unimaginable. What is unimaginable is that they would install a non-temporary sign without any footings, as that be dangerous and also wouldn't pass code.

I know you're being a snarky troll, but to be clear, no one fed me the line. Enthusiasts ARE predictable, in the worst ways.

The new sign does not look permanent. The posts are not set in concrete, and instead are just temporarily stuck in holes in the ground and backfilled. I would imagine a more permanent sign and/or structure will come at some point, using the existing footers, at which point they'll remove those posts and fill in the holes with the dirt they intentionally left there.

I'm not sure why this is relevant? That loan amounts to less than 0.2% of CF's annual revenue. It's barely a rounding error. A tiny fraction. And any earned interest is obviously a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction. Free money is always good, but it's relatively trivial. And it's not like that's free money, since pass holders tend to visit quite frequently per dollar spent, which costs the park money in terms of operating cost. So again, I'm not sure why this is at all relevant. No, I am not a stakeholder of any sort. I haven't even purchased a season pass in a few years. I just find pass holders, who are not the revenue-generating bread and butter they envisions themselves as, who constantly complain about the value they receive while continuing to hand over their money, exhausting. And beyond that, there is such a thing as constructive criticism, but calling every reduction in value or whatever a "bait and switch" is patently ridiculous. Furthermore, even if these were legitimate "bait and switch" actions the parks were doing, it's kind of difficult to take the complaints seriously from people who willingly engage in what appears to be an abusive relationship.

Since you insist on continuing to be an unoriginal troll, I have no interest in continuing to engage. Carry on with your baseless "bait and switch" histrionics.

I guess the fundamental difference is that I don't feel entitled to anything beyond what's spelled out in the purchase agreement, regardless of what I may have received in the context of previous purchases. And when purchasing a season pass, which explicitly states that it provides access to the park(s) during their public operating calendar, and there is no mention that these passes provide access to special events outside of the public operating calendar. Therefore, I expect to receive only what is spelled out and do not feel entitled to more. If I receive more, then great, but I don't enter into the purchase feeling entitled to more. You, and others, obviously feel quite entitled, as evidenced by the adorably-literal interpretation of what "benefits" means. I guess it's just a different life philosophy, but not going through life feeling and acting entitled has served me well so far. But, again, it's not the disappointment I take issue with. It's calling this stuff a "bait and switch" that I find so completely entitled to the point of utter delusion.

Regarding the Schlitterbahn claim, if that made any sense at all, why wouldn't they allow, say, Knott's pass holders from being able to attend? You seem very hung up on equating "benefits" to mean literally anything, when I take it at face value to mean what they say - that these passes provide access to the parks during their public operating hours and during those visits provide additional benefits. And I take it to mean that because that is precisely what they spell out in the description and purchase terms.

No, I didn't mean to imply they've changed anything, because they haven't! So poor/nonsensical wording on my part in what was an attempt to point out that if you purchased a season pass in October, there was zero indication that these passes provide access to special events outside the public operating season. And that hasn't changed. Special events have never and are not now advertised on the storefront or season pass pages as a benefit of purchasing a season pass. I don't dispute that. I just contend that, first of all, this is primarily the fault of the purchaser, and second, that this is not remotely a "bait and switch", since, for the billionth time, these events were never advertised as a benefit to purchasing a season pass. Anyone believing so was making an assumption. And sure, that assumption was (somewhat naively) based on previous practice, but I just don't understand why someone would make that assumption and then blame the company when their assumption was incorrect. I am not following what you're arguing here. What screenshot shows that Schlitterbahn Platinum Pass holders can attend these special events? EDIT - I see it now. Finally, that you're repeatedly relying on ad hominem "LOL yur a Cedar Fair lawyer LOLOLOL" nonsense speaks to how flaccid your argument is, in my view.

And it still is, because both provide access to the parks during the public operating season. Nothing has changed at all relative to what the purchase agreement was back in September, October, November, December, January, February, and almost all of March. Nothing. So considering they are not removing any advertised benefit, how on Earth could anyone in their right mind consider this a "bait and switch"? In order for it to be a "bait and switch" move, there has to be bait, right? And the so-called "bait", in this case, was never announced as a benefit to purchasing a season pass, and still isn't listed as a benefit on the storefront. That some people assumed their pass provided something that was never advertised is their fault, not the parks'.

The Voyage is not a good example, considering how surgically it was built in the woods back there. They basically only removed enough trees for the track and access roads, just like The Beast when it was built. Thunderbird opened things up a little more, but still not that much. The Beast has also had quite a lot more time for things to grow back in than The Voyage has so far. The Voyage, with how much forest was preserved, and how they utilized the terrain, is a lot more like The Beast than it is different. Except The Voyage is a better coaster by pretty much every conceivable metric, which should be the case given how much newer it is. But yes, it is almost certainly cheaper to raze the entire plot when building something, since there's less need for specialized equipment, etc., for working in tight or inaccessible spaces. But there are ways to do it right. When CP removed WWL, whose plot was a veritable forest after more than two decades, they razed the entire plot. While shocking and sad to see at the time, this was the right move, since the coaster's layout, which is excellent, could be designed without the additional restrictions posed by existing landscape. But they did right by planting quite a lot of new trees back there. Hopefully they do the same for this project at KI, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm sorry, who are you referring to with this? And why is a throwaway phrase I used to describe whiny enthusiasts being used as that person's moniker?

Based on recent practices, I would bet they simply found it easier to just clear cut everything rather than endure the time/cost of having to work around existing trees. It's a disappointing trend.

I just don't understand how someone would interpret that description to mean anything other than what is says, which is that you're buying a season pass which grants access to the park(s) during their public operating season(s). A season pass gets you unlimited access to the park during the public operating season, and in addition to that, upgrading to a Platinum Pass grants additional benefits the pass holder can enjoy during the public operating season. Expecting anything different than what is clearly spelled out in the product description seems foolish, regardless of what the product terms were historically. I can't imagine any first-time pass purchaser reading the purchase description and taking that to mean it also provides access to special or private events. And any long-time passholders would surely be aware of the "unethical bait and switch" tactics the company is so famous for, and would accordingly never make such a silly assumption, right? No, instead it's: YOU ARE AN UNETHICAL COMPANY!!! PLEASE TAKE MY HARD-EARNED MONEY RIGHT NOW!!! Yes, because it quite literally says "Kings Island passholders"! Why on Earth would anyone in their right mind think "Kings Island passholders" also includes "Carowinds passholders" or "Toledo Zoo passholders", when it clearly and explicitly states the event is for "Kings Island" passholders? Now, maybe the event will include other CF passholders, but it would be pretty foolish to assume that would be the case based on the description of the event. Yes, and that was clearly stated in the CP Blog: It states, very clearly, that the event is open to Platinum Passholders, without any further park-specific qualification. But more to the point, there was no indication at the time of purchasing a 2018 pass that the pass would grant access to offseason special events, which, unless I'm missing something, is exactly the case with the TT2 preview. I've been buying season passes for a long time prior to the last few years. And I never, not once, assumed the pass I purchased entitled me to anything beyond what was explicitly stated in the purchase terms. Other people obviously feel more entitled, but I don't see why that's the vendor's fault.

Oh NOES!!11!!!111! My All Park Passport doesn't get me into this event?!?@!?@!?!?!?! Typical CF bait and switch!!11!!!1!

Anyone calling this a "bait and switch" is just fundamentally detached from reality, so of course the same usual suspects around here are calling this a "bait and switch". This is an event happening before the park opens for the season. Anyone who expected their KI-purchased pass to get them access to Cedar Point before Cedar Point opened for the season is engaging in willful self-delusion. But, you know, some folks are always playing the victim, so no surprise that the same usual suspects are playing that role here. It looks exhausting, but to each their own.

OK, maybe it's just uniquely a southern Ohio thing where people are commonly both very stupid and simultaneously wealthy enough to afford large quantities of alcohol at captive audience prices? As I said, I'm making a generalization, which was in part a joke, and was not an absolute, blanket statement of fact. That you can point to anecdotal exceptions is great and all, but not a compelling counter argument to the point I was making, which is that making alcohol available at the old Subway location isn't likely to have any measurable impact on the quantity of "fights and misbehavior" exists at amusement parks.

If that's the case, the booze was priced too low.