disco2000

When you don't race The Racer on a random Tuesday lol

Nah they have been doing this a long time lol. Who remembers the time duration of meal plans changing during the off-season lol. Who remembers food options changing for the worse mid season until uproar lol.

Exactly. And the same chatter is going on in other park forums. Parking is ripe to make it an add on additional fee. Do three year olds need free parking lol. Or anyone under 16? Maybe they do not sell parking pass to those under 16? This would force parents to buy a pass for themselves and maybe actually spend time with their brats lol.

Like what they should have done for our giga LOL

One shall not see a parade before its time (unless of course you are in the park during a dry run lol)

And there are over 85 comments on the FB page now, most of them questions....

And yet the amount of questions here and on Facebook make you question the education some have got lol. I agree it seems simple but comprehension seems to be a lost art lol. Spend 30 minutes looking at questions and comments and there is a concern for our society lol. But even then there are still concerns about the terms and conditions changing.

What you are missing is benefits vary across parks for the same pass. One example - gold gets you ERT at KI but a gold pass doesn't at CP. They have a caveat to contact park for your eligible benefits. Look how well that worked out for Prestige. Are they going to make gold benefits consistent across the parks? Basically folks are saying based on their experiences using the existing pass system that had been around for many years that there is lots of confusion with the existing program, so this will have as much or more. Based on what was seen so far, a lot of questions haven't been addressed and the concern is they will make them up as they go long after people bought passes. Just like they did Prestige. So what if they say gold is just like it is now and someone from KI with gold and Passport go to CP. Will they add Passport to ERT or will they leave that to Prestige to encourage sales of those? We don't have those answers. With change comes confusion and maybe it will simplify things down the road, but next year will be a hot mess. Wait until we see the questions on FB lol. They are comical and stupid now, so this will just add to it lol. If they wanted to simplify things then just have one pass and everything else is an add on. But someone will find exception to that too lol.

But next year Gold will get you parking at Cedar Point if you have the passport pass...or would the gold still scan at the toll regardless of the passport? Not only will it be complicated for the guest, but we have seen the nightmare issues some have had with the pass now - works all season and then one day not at all. There will be lots of visits to guest services. What we will see short-term is that CF will sneak quite a few sales of Prestige next year for people that don't know better and assume that is now the platinum. And then many of them will be ticked off they were scammed and not renew the following year. It will be interesting. Many people I know have said they are not getting passes next year, and I believe them. Let's see how many do the same.

16 years at one employer is longer than some of the members here have been alive LOL.

They have been doing it with drinks for years with zero enforcement and consequences - either old cups and come thru exit (the exit only and enter front for drinks signage is totally being ignored) or get water cup and fill with soda. This is just the next progression. Who needs season pass add-ons. A whole host of people simply steal and line jump. Sadly people defend these actions on social media - "the syrup is pennies per thousand gallons" "the food is marked up anyway", etc. That isn't the point. Stealing is stealing. And they wonder why revenue is down...

I am sure the communication will be comparable to the Prestige Pass rollout . Send a presser to the media and then CP blogs changing the terms and conditions after said purchase lol.

But what about everyone that currently has a platinum - they will have to get either gold or Prestige for next year. At least for next year, this change will potentially result in more passes being issued. If they were interested in not having to issue new cards frequently they would simply have one pass and everything else is add-ons. That way if someone was gold one year and went to prestige the next and back to gold the following, it would all be same pass instead of 3 in this scenario (new one each year for changing pass type). And with the issues we have seen from some of those that visit other parks, it is apparent their system is a pieced together held by band-aids solution that someone with a platinum pass and add-one has issues using said pass at other parks. Heck I have friends that used their pass and add-ons most of the season and then one day their meal plan is invalid and they paid in full and were not on payment plan. Others that have gone to other parks with platinum and was denied entry until a phone call was made to KI guest services to confirm they had a pass. Sadly I see this change completely overwhelming their existing system and cause more troubles. Unless they are changing software lol (but unlikely).

Knowing that a large amount of the general population does not take the time to read LOL (look at the daily posts to the passholder FB page asking "can we bring in water bottles", "are there fireworks tonight", "what are the park hours today", "can we bring in outside food", "can we take towels into Soak City", "I am confused I have a gold pass and want to add a meal plan, but there are 3 to choose from", etc.) this will potentially create a problem. How many are going to see Platinum is gone and simply purchase a Prestige instead when all they needed to do was buy gold and the passport? Thus potentially making the preferred lot full and bottlenecks in FL queues? How many are going to think the park is pushing Prestige and has heard about the horrible bait and switch so they don't buy a pass? How many are going to purchase a Prestige thinking that is the new platinum and then travel to another park and not be able to get in? How many liked the new summer pass they offered and now it is gone? Why didn't they simply have gold and platinum and make Prestige an add-on? Seems like that would have caused the least amount of confusion. Once you devalue the Prestige even more (is that even possible), then the incentive to purchase is gone. I think that is why the Season Long Fast Lane hasn't sold out. Maybe long term this will simplify the pass process moving forward and have consistent pass offerings across the chain, but it will certainly introduce growing pains and confusion for next year. But on the surface, it appears the passes will be cheaper than this year, so will meal plan and add-ons increase, or is their model for next year to sell passes cheaper and make it up on quantity?

The title is inaccurate. It should be Platinum Pass

They listened to all the complaints of Prestige holders saying they will downgrade to Platinum in 2024 so they eliminated platinum lol

And someone will show up at the border with this new passport and be denied entry because they don't have a real passport

But isn't a gold+passport the new platinum and platinum holders get ERT at CP this year... So now anyone with CP as their home park will now have to upgrade from current platinum to Prestige to get ERT....and anyone with a platinum pass with say KI as their home park would have to upgrade next year to Prestige+passport in order to get the same benefit they have this year at CP...or stay at the resorts LOL

Only $25 more to gain access to the VIP lounge and cooler water at other parks with VIP lounge, where do I sign up LOL Wonder how early entry will be at CP next year - anyone with a gold or just Prestige and Passport passes? Don't worry, the messaging will change between when you buy it and next season LOL

If true that means the entire parking lot becomes preferred parking LOL. If true that means the VIP lounge is a little undersized. If true that means longer lines in Fast Lane. Or they simply remove amenities. So does that mean they are getting rid of the summer pass and other weird pass options other parks offered? Or who knows. EDIT: oh wait you can buy a gold and the passport, so that changes some things.

And that is the thing. If someone buys this thinking it is truly a free pass to get a refund if they don't go and then have to provide doctor notes and mechanic bills and act of God weather events in order to get a refund, people will badmouth KI, not the third party.

Wonder if they will change closing early due to "weather" to what it is "low staffing" as apparently low staffing won't qualify as a refund but weather would

Don't forget about the Bring a Friend Free promotion they did as a last ditch effort to try to bump up Q2 results. Well based on this tweet, KI is fully staffed with a waitlist, so the cuts are not due to staffing issues: Let's do some quick math - remember that in the annual report, they noted that "In 2022, we sold a record 3.2 million season passes and generated more than $450 million in revenues from our suite of season-pass products, including all-season dining and all-season beverage....Operating costs and expenses for 2022 totaled $1.29 billion" So lets assume that each of the 3.2 million passes were all $100, that is $320,000,000 + $450,000,000 in pass add-ons = $770,000,000. So that leaves $520,000,000 that needs to be made up in resort revenue, single day entry, food and drink purchases outside of the season pass add-ons, and merch. Now we know that isn't the case due to Platinum and Prestige Pass prices, so the total revenue from pass sales alone is somewhere between $320,000,000 and $640,000,000 if everyone bought a platinum pass at $200. So that means it is somewhere between $200,000,000 to $520,000,000 that they need to make up in resort revenue, single day entry, company outings, food and drink purchases outside of the season pass add-ons, and merch. As a perspective, last year they made $213,000,000 in out of park revenue, so that further brings down how much they need to generate from the other sources. And this doesn't take into account all of the season passess and add-ons sold this year, so that would bring that number down more. Granted that is still a chunk of change LOL. So if as a chain they are really that far behind on non-season pass related revenue, then maybe it is showing that they cannot sustain the season pass model of operation without significant changes in the model (increase prices to close that gap or decrease prices to sell more passes to decrease that gap). How many of these record number of season passes sold would have instead been a single day entry that would have spent more as a single day guest than they did with their pass? If they are not careful, all these cuts will decrease the number of people purchasing passes for the following year. While it is true that some thought went into which ones to cut to minimize the appearance of cuts and impacts to the guests, those cuts do impact guests and will cause some to not renew - but what is that number and it is less than the savings by the cuts? Even with all the cuts, we will see some discussion here and other social media, but to the majority of the guests, it really won't be an impact. Here will be the typical guest: Shows up to Racer and only one train running - "dang buddy I guess we can't race" and they ride the single train op and have fun and continue about their day not thinking twice about it. Shows up at WindSeeker and not open in morning - "oh I guess they had trouble this morning". Shows up at WindSeeker at 9:05pm - "I guess they have to shut it early for fireworks and drones." Shows up to Planet Snoopy and sees X ride down -"thats okay mommy" and darts off to an operating ride. So end of year the board will be sitting around and be like "look at all the hours we cut and didn't get much pushback" and that is how we see reduced hours next year. Mon-Thurs 8 or 9pm closes with no fireworks those nights is probably on the table. Other parks have gone down that path. Now one could argue maybe that is why revenue is down.... And that is why the Board and CEO get paid the big bucks to play the what-if games.

WindSeeker has been opening at 11am and closing at 9pm as well.

As someone here used to say "they already have your money"...