jsus

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No need to get there early, unless you're especially concerned. It shouldn't be a problem. If the park expected a problem, reservations would be required for the main park as well. Park reservations last year were initially to both limit the total number of guests in the park, and the number of guests gathered at the gate waiting to get in. They weren't sure if normal patterns of guests showing up throughout the day would hold, and didn't want a mass gathering at the gate with people packed in tight. From analyzing guest patterns last year (when people arrive, how long they stay, etc.), they've concluded that they have enough capacity and guests will stagger their arrivals and departures in a way that makes reservations unnecessary. Operational capacity should be greatly increased because they're not blocking off half the rows on most roller coastesr, for instance. More riders per hour, more hours in the operating day, more guests the park can handle, less need for reservations.

That poster is confused often, but rarely offers (understandable) explanations. Your friendly attempt to clear up any "confusion" now has them "sad". *sigh*

Do you have a source that they're back to doing that? As last season progressed, one could have multiple reservations for Cedar Point at a time. I see nothing about a limit of active reservations in the email they sent out today about reservations opening up next Monday.

I got that but wanted to share another price comparison between the two resorts. To your point, for a random Thursday in July, CP LHP is $124.00 with no resort fee, while KI CC is $118.99 including $9.99 resort fee.

For the cottages, same summer night I checked, Cedar Point charges about twice as much.. A bit under $400 for 2 nights at KICC, vs. $800.80 for 2 nights at CP's Lighthouse Point (cheapest unit at each). * Don't forget the $9.99/night resort fee! Also, passholders should not forget to use Promotional code PASS for 10% off with a Kings Island Season Pass or a Cedar Fair Platinum Pass! * Lighthouse Point's smallest unit sleeps 6, vs. Camp Cedar's only sleeps 4. Hard to get a good comparison since Camp Cedar then jumps to 8. As always, be sure to comparison shop the different lodging options you're interested in at the occupancy level your party requires.

No worries, it just reads more as fact than opinion. Fact is, most new coasters from Cedar Fair in recent years have been great rides. Valravn, not so much, but it's just a big gimmick to me. Seriously though, where's that LSM-launched flyer?

Everything is an option, why would it not be? Have you insight from the park stating that Firehawk was removed because guests did not enjoy the flying aspect of the ride? My understanding is the ride was removed due to issues unique to it being a Vekoma Flying Dutchman, in terms of operations and maintenance. A B&M flying coaster complete with dual loading stations with B&M operations and maintenance, operated by a skilled Cedar Fair crew, would theoretically be a much more efficient and beloved ride than Firehawk ever could've been. It would've been cool to even have a B&M flying coaster replace Firehawk in place. Who is this "we" and why does "we" "need" that? The park needs to put in the capex that best appeals to the masses. A B&M flying coaster would provide a unique experience to other rides in the park, even Banshee. Much more unique than Diamondback to Orion. Even more unique if they found a way to work in an LSM (or other) launch.. That's not to say CF will stick with B&M for the next major coaster install, but there's no real reason not to. They put out a good product, and offer rides different enough from the existing lineup.

Cedar Fair also tried to switch All Season Dining from two meals at any time with a minimum wait time of 4 hours, to only giving you two short windows around 12n and 6p. This was a change announced not only after passes had been sold for the year, but early in the year after passholders had been using it with the 4hr interval at Knott's. Fortunately, they caved, but it was disappointing that they tried to pull that over on us.

The practical reason for this is, as in 2020, the health screening tent is only at the Main Gate. The Magnum Gate requires you to be pre-screened at the front desk at Hotel Breakers or the office at Lighthouse Point or (I presume) the Marina. The idea being you go to the front desk, get screened, and head straight to the metal detectors at the Magnum Gate. The new Magnum Gate doesn't really have room to set up even a small scale screening tent with a queue of people - everyone would be waiting on the other side of the road. It's still a bit frustrating they're keeping it that way in 2021, despite planning to open Cedar Point Shores (the waterpark). So if you park in the waterpark lot for convenience to the waterpark, you have to go all the way up front to enter the main park.

Do you have a source on this?

It is unfortunate indeed that they did not complete these facility improvement projects during the shutdowns/slowdowns last year. They did state that economic reasons factored into freezing these projects. They needed to cut spending as much as possible to ensure the company could weather the pandemic storm. Archived source (page has since been taken down on the official site): http://web.archive.org/web/20210118125630/https://www.sawmillcreekresort.com/update Interestingly enough, Sawmill Creek's website seems to state that the Lodge was indeed renovated last year, yet a banner on the home page indicates it will remain closed in 2020. Source: https://www.sawmillcreekresort.com/explore/lodge Source: https://www.sawmillcreekresort.com/ In typical Cedar Fair fashion, that notice is accompanied by a "LEARN MORE" button that links to a /update page, which just redirects back to the homepage. They're also only now beginning renovations on Bayside Apartments, two of the associate housing buildings. One will not open this year, while the other will have a delayed opening due to this. Source: https://life.cedarpoint.com/StarRezPortalX/83A55C5C/10/128/My_Housing-Building___Room_Prof?HadEmptyContext=True They're also demolishing some of the older dorms on the Commons Campus. Source: https://www.facebook.com/cpalumniassoc/posts/3979757122046015

Yikes, but not surprising. HR departments (not just Cedar Fair) often don't keep job descriptions up-to-date with new technologies. It's also not unheard of to see a programmer job posting that "requires" someone with more years experience in a programming language than it's been out for. My favorite part of this job description: "Must have good communicaion skills". Clearly that's something the author of this job description needs to work on. Those don't run on Windows, or any desktop operating system. The Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) run dedicated software for that purpose. The IT department also likely has no knowledge of those systems, just the general office (desktop/laptop, printer, server, etc.) and POS (cash register) systems. Maintenance has controls technicians to maintain the ride computers. I'm gonna go with nope on that. Either it's a joke or a troll. Vista was released in 2007, the year Firehawk reopened at KI as Firehawk, having been relocated from Geauga Lake. Not only does the ride not run on Windows, but I doubt Cedar Fair ever used any Vista-based systems (it was very rare in business environments, since it sucked). It's also common in business not to switch to a new version right away, and for industrial systems like a ride control system, they generally aren't updated to new operating systems, ever. They're typically disconnected from the internet so there's little concern of new security threats (except for things like Stuxnet..). And if it works, you leave it alone.

So long as you have your phone on you, it's often easier than digging through a wallet. On an iPhone or Apple Watch, for instance, just double tap the power button, select a card, and hold it up to the reader. It's especially quicker than waiting on a chip card to process.

Actually, no. Your link is for a pilot program to accept contactless payments. When contactless payments are accepted, that should include tap-to-pay cards as well as all major mobile payment platforms (Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Fitbit Pay, etc.). Samsung has its own feature that doesn't rely on the same technology as everyone else. Older Samsung smartwatch models and (flagship) Galaxy smartphones through S20 (it is not included on US-spec S21 units) feature something called MST, or Magnetic Secure Transmission. Essentially what MST does is that it emulates the magnetic stripe on the back of a credit card, from the smartphone/smartwatch. This allows it work with many card terminals that do not otherwise support mobile/contactless payments, without any support needed from the card terminal. It basically just shows up as a card-present transaction and the merchant is not supposed to be any the wiser. MST was developed at a time when NFC (see below) was not nearly as widespread as it is today. At this point, Samsung has evidently decided it is no longer necessary, thus they are cutting the hardware and support costs by eliminating it from new devices. That said, Walmart, which does not accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, tap-to-pay cards, etc., in its eternal Walmart-ness, and desire to have me shopping elsewhere, has worked with its vendors to find a way to block Samsung Pay MST transactions. They're not supposed to know the difference but they've found a way, giving a "card not accepted" error. Adding to this absurdity, Meijer has accepted mobile payments/tap-to-pay not just in-store but at their pumps for the better part of a decade. Costco's co-branded Citi Visa card even supports contactless payment + membership authentication at their pumps.. But I digress.. Source: Wikipedia, Samsung Tap-to-pay cards use Radio Frequency Identification while Apple Pay, Fitbit Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay (by default) use NFC, or near field communication. These use radio waves to authenticate with the card terminal for payment. This does require both hardware and software support from the vendor. That said, with the transition to chip cards, card readers needed to be replaced anyway, many of which support contactless payments. Despite this hardware support, many merchants have intentionally chosen to disable support for contactless payments. Source: Wikipedia The reason why retailers have taken this anti-consumer, anti-convenience stance, as stated above, is that mobile payments using NFC and MST are effectively anonymized, so the retailer cannot track all transactions made with the card to build a profile. The apparently would rather have that data than reduce friction, making it easier to take your money at the time, thinking it'll get them more business in the long run. Many of the merchants who intentionally disabled support for NFC mobile payments formed something called Merchant Customer Exchange to develop a product called CurrentC. This would've been an app on your phone that pulled up a QR code for the cashier to scan (seriously). Companies like Target, Lowe's, and CVS refused to accept Apple Pay et al because they wanted to use this system to build customer profiles. Shockingly, it didn't work. Source: Wikipedia

Yeah, not exactly what I would call small.. "Dollywood consistently entertains more than two million visitors annually" (source) "Lisa Rau, spokeswoman for Silver Dollar City, said attendance in 2019 was 2.22 million." (source)

Yep. Starts mid-May instead of June from way back in 2019. Also starts 2 hours earlier. This year: "Weekends May 14-16 and May 21-23, Daily May 28 – June 13" "The festivities begin at 2 p.m. so don’t miss a minute of finger-lickin’, foot stompin’ fun. " Source: https://www.cedarpoint.com/events/frontier-festival 2019: "The festival will run daily from 4 to 10 p.m. June 7 through 30 in Cedar Point’s Frontier Town section" Source: https://www.toledoblade.com/business/development/2019/02/22/frontier-festival-event-cedar-point-old-west-sandusky/stories/20190222105

Yep, they've changed it already.. 3 days ago vs. today.

It's entirely reasonable to not live stream initial ride testing because showing guests that things don't go perfectly (train makes it all the way back to the station) the first time, doesn't do anyone any favors. Even if enthusiasts wouldn't mind. What doesn't make sense is KI taking theirs down (intentionally or through system issues), but neither getting them back online by now or just openly stating that they do not have live webcams at this time, and they'll let us know in the future if that changes. As I see it, KI has no live webcams until they announce otherwise; they're not just down, they're gone.

It's really poorly designed, both aesthetically and functionally.. The aesthetics of the overall site are bad - vast white voids without even a dark mode. The calendar in particular is poorly designed and built. I'd rather use a static PDF than this "interactive" calendar. They need to revert to the old design, IMO, as I don't see any benefit from the new design. In month view, yes, you have to hover over/click each date to view hours. There's a clock icon that's supposed to tell you they're open if it's blue, otherwise closed if it's gray? But it doesn't show you all the hours? Why? And there are star icons for each event on the calendar, but you have to look below to find what that even means? It's neat they tried to integrate the event calendar with the hours calendar, but this is bad design.. You also can't drag/swipe to get to the next month, unlike.. In week view, it does give you daily hours. But week view doesn't show the full week. It shows no more than 6 days starting with the current day of week, and you have to figure out yourself to drag the days across. When you use the arrows to jump by week, it jumps to the current day in the next week. When you get to the end of the month, it doesn't continue seamlessly - e.g. it'll show Sunday, Feb 28, and then... nothing. Dragging/swiping doesn't pull up March 1 and on. You have to use the week arrows; if you drag/swipe past the end of the month, you get blank days. Am I confused or did CP's calendar list 11a opens when it first went live? Currently KI still lists 11a opens through the summer season.

Mason City Schools with their student immunization requirements (not yet including COVID-19, obviously) says hello.. Schools can require immunization, and employers can as well. It's not a HIPAA concern. http://www.masonohioschools.com/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=14076116 Nope. By the time seasonals start work, mayyybbbeeee they'll be eligible to receive the vaccine. The company would realistically need to secure the tens of thousands of doses needed across all parks if it wanted to ensure employees had access, which I wouldn't expect to be possible before summer. There's a reason the company only "strongly encourages" employees to get vaccinated.

Sweet, shorter waits for the rest of us.

From the sounds of it, Gilroy Gardens isn't exactly a huge profit source for its ownership. It's also rather low attendance at ~450k/yr (source). Paramount (now Cedar Fair) was brought in to manage it, likely due to ownership of nearby California's Great America (~45 min, at least without infamous CA traffic), once the original owners realized how difficult it was to (profitably) run the park. Should the park be closed or Cedar Fair no longer hold the management contract, I don't imagine it would be a terribly significant loss to the company. Now, if the city and its development partners were to build the larger site up into a competitor to California's Great America, which Cedar Fair is already trying to grow (in size and revenue/profit), that could be an issue. I couldn't begin to speculate on the ability of the Bay Area to host two mid+ size parks.

Definitely. I wasn't implying anything in particular (e.g. not holding either event), just that they need to have a better understanding of what's feasible, how willing guests are to come out this season, how profitable this season will be, etc. I imagine we'll see both Haunt and WInterfest in some form, the details of which the park still needs to work out.

AKA they're taking another wait-and-see approach based on how the pandemic, vaccinations, and summer season go, before finalizing anything for Haunt and Winterfest.