Cedar Point will have ERT in 21

[IndyGuy4KI]

With ERT at CP, I hope this is a good indicator for KI as well.

https://www.cedarpoint.com/blog/2021-early-entry-info

 

Quote

 

The rides list*

All who qualify for the Early Entry perk will have access to:

• Ocean Motion
• Midway Carousel
• GateKeeper
• Kiddy Kingdom (11 rides)
• Cadillac Cars
• Cedar Downs Racing Derby
• Dodgem
• Valravn
• Raptor
• Millennium Force
• Maverick
• Skyhawk
• Magnum XL-200
• Steel Vengeance (Saturdays & Sundays ONLY)

During Golden Entry, Cedar Point Gold Passholders will have access to these rides:

• Ocean Motion
• Midway Carousel
• GateKeeper
• Kiddy Kingdom (11 rides)
• Cadillac Cars
• Cedar Downs Racing Derby
• Dodgem
• Valravn
• Raptor

 

•  

[coaster sally]

guess you will get in with the other million passholders and wait in line for access passes.  Hopefully not.

[JimParker85]

And early line closures, used on non access pass rides last season, is now back in full for 2021. I said my piece about it on pointbuzz, but it just sucks. Another shot to in park experience. I hope KI does not join in. 

[CoastersRZ]

I don`t like the closing of the ride lines before park close.  It screams "being cheap to save on labor".  Like you said hopefully this doesn`t happen at KI.  Doesn`t Holiday World do this, and have signs out front warning guests about this policy?

Lets hope the early ride time at KI returns as well. I missed that last year.

[Tr0y]

43 minutes ago, JimParker85 said:

And early line closures, used on non access pass rides last season, is now back in full for 2021. I said my piece about it on pointbuzz, but it just sucks. Another shot to in park experience. I hope KI does not join in. 

I too, hope not! The only coaster that I have noticed that will operate way past closing due to a long line for the most part has to be The Beast during haunt. Nothing beats a 1:30am ride on The Beast in an eerily quiet park.

[SnakePlissken]

A few points I would like to make. First anybody who went to Winter Chill out knew early pass holder ride time was returning this summer for Cedar Point.

Second I do not like this "rides may close early" policy. The excuse given seems flimsy due to in the past the park has had the same 9am start and been open later than 10pm many nights.

I also hate how pass holders can not use Magnum entrance for early entry like in the past. It means you have to pay extra to be on rides in the back of the park first. Meaning buy a night at Hotel Breakers and that is way out of my budget. I used to park up front near GateKeeper, walk down the boardwalk and wait at Magnum gate for 9am entry to get to Steel Vengeance faster.

Fourth I do not see the 2020 access passes mentioned in the link given so I'm wondering where some are getting that information?

[coaster sally]

7 hours ago, SnakePlissken said:

A few points I would like to make. First anybody who went to Winter Chill out knew early pass holder ride time was returning this summer for Cedar Point.

Second I do not like this "rides may close early" policy. The excuse given seems flimsy due to in the past the park has had the same 9am start and been open later than 10pm many nights.

I also hate how pass holders can not use Magnum entrance for early entry like in the past. It means you have to pay extra to be on rides in the back of the park first. Meaning buy a night at Hotel Breakers and that is way out of my budget. I used to park up front near GateKeeper, walk down the boardwalk and wait at Magnum gate for 9am entry to get to Steel Vengeance faster.

Fourth I do not see the 2020 access passes mentioned in the link given so I'm wondering where some are getting that information?

Wait an hour and use your asflp?

[SnakePlissken]

3 hours ago, coaster sally said:

Wait an hour and use your asflp?

Well good point there. I still prefer using Magnum gate and parking in Water park lot when I can.

[jsus]

11 hours ago, SnakePlissken said:

I also hate how pass holders can not use Magnum entrance for early entry like in the past.

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.

[coaster sally]

35 minutes ago, jsus said:

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.

That wouldn't be convenient now would it?

[Shawn Meyer]

It's good to know that they're looking out for the employees this coming season. I mean that as in, they might close the line sooner so they don't have to work as long to get us guests out. I used to work retail so I understand how frustrating it can be to get everyone out.

[SnakePlissken]

3 hours ago, Shawn Meyer said:

It's good to know that they're looking out for the employees this coming season. I mean that as in, they might close the line sooner so they don't have to work as long to get us guests out. I used to work retail so I understand how frustrating it can be to get everyone out.

I work retail and if you close at 10pm you do not shut everything down and lock the doors right at 10pm. You pay some staff to stay 30-60 minutes past.  I've been to mom and pop chinese restaurants that attempt to do this very thing and push people eating out the door right at the time posted on the door. Its why all restaurants need to post 2 close times on the door. One for kitchen close and one for dining room close. Besides some people like different shifts for different reasons. I'm sure some staff would not mind being paid an extra hour or 2. In the past Cedar Point used to have lots of 9am starts and stayed open till midnight on many weekends. There has been nights where the Steel Vengeance queue did not clear out until 1:30am and still at least in 2018 the ride was still running for early entry.

[robintodd]

9 hours ago, SnakePlissken said:

I work retail and if you close at 10pm you do not shut everything down and lock the doors right at 10pm. You pay some staff to stay 30-60 minutes past.  I've been to mom and pop chinese restaurants that attempt to do this very thing and push people eating out the door right at the time posted on the door. Its why all restaurants need to post 2 close times on the door. One for kitchen close and one for dining room close. Besides some people like different shifts for different reasons. I'm sure some staff would not mind being paid an extra hour or 2. In the past Cedar Point used to have lots of 9am starts and stayed open till midnight on many weekends. There has been nights where the Steel Vengeance queue did not clear out until 1:30am and still at least in 2018 the ride was still running for early entry.

Once the last rider is off of Diamondback they don't just turn off the lights.  They have to run everything through a cycle and get the trains off the track (run the cycle, move the transfer track, etc.).  This takes time.  It also takes time to do daily maintenance checks on the coasters and there are only so many people trained to do the inspections and with so many coasters and only so many hours in a night the move by CP makes sense.

Also, am I the only one that remembers the pre-Cedar Fair times at KI?  They ALWAYS shut down the lines before park close to try and anticipate not needing to have cycles run after park close.  It was one of the reasons Beast Night Rides became even more popular.  Sometimes the line for The Beast would be twice as long at the end of the night so people would be in line before the cut it off before the park close.  To my memory the park did this up until Cedar Fair took them over.

[CoastersRZ]

I don`t recall KI ever cutting the ride lines (with some rare exceptions for special events) before the park`s closing time.

[robintodd]

5 minutes ago, CoastersRZ said:

I don`t recall KI ever cutting the ride lines (with some rare exceptions for special events) before the park`s closing time.

They did.  I know several employees that worked there over the years plus I've been going there since it opened.  It mostly impacted The Beast because of it's popularity.  

Maybe Don can confirm

[DonHelbig]

2 hours ago, robintodd said:

They did.  I know several employees that worked there over the years plus I've been going there since it opened.  It mostly impacted The Beast because of it's popularity.  

Maybe Don can confirm

From the park's opening in 1972 into the 1990's, the ride crews would cut the line on every attraction so the last rides would occur within a few minutes of the park closing time. There were many days where if you wanted to get a night ride on The Beast you had to be in the queue 45-90 minutes before the park closed, depending on what day of the week and time of year it was. At The Racer during the years I was riding it almost daily from 1981-1990, the line would get cut 20-30 minutes before the park closed, sometimes up to 45 minutes on a Saturday. I never felt like I was getting cheated. If the park operating calendar said the park closed at 10 p.m., it was understood by guests that meant rides stopped running at 10 p.m. That's  the way it was. 

[SnakePlissken]

1 hour ago, DonHelbig said:

From the park's opening in 1972 into the 1990's, the ride crews would cut the line on every attraction so the last rides would occur within a few minutes of the park closing time. There were many days where if you wanted to get a night ride on The Beast you had to be in the queue 45-90 minutes before the park closed, depending on what day of the week and time of year it was. At The Racer during the years I was riding it almost daily from 1981-1990, the line would get cut 20-30 minutes before the park closed, sometimes up to 45 minutes on a Saturday. I never felt like I was getting cheated. If the park operating calendar said the park closed at 10 p.m., it was understood by guests that meant rides stopped running at 10 p.m. That's  the way it was. 

Thank you for your response. I hope you do not feel like this is the way it should be.  I drove to Holiday World at the end of August for Holiwood Nights. The Saturday was a 10-6pm for the general public. If I set aside the fact I drove there for an event and for the sake of this point pretend I did not. I would be driving almost 5 hours to get there. Lines for 3 of the 4 coasters were almost 2 hours long. The park shut the line down to the Voyage shortly after 4pm and the rest of the popular rides shortly after that one by one in order to clear the line by park close. I feel like if a park is closing a line down almost 2 hours before close then that 4pm should be stated as close and maybe not 6. Also if I had not drove for the event and only drove down for the posted 10-6pm day and only got 3-4 rides in due to extreme lines and shutting them down early,I would not have been very happy at all. Probably would not give them a second chance and go back.

I'm glad up until now this has not been Cedar Fair's policy and I hope it does not change at King's Island. I love my night rides. I work 3rd shift and like the fact that I can get some sleep, drive 2 hours and get there by 4pm and still have a few hours of fun and not have to consider and factor in ride closures at park close.

[coaster sally]

1 hour ago, DonHelbig said:

From the park's opening in 1972 into the 1990's, the ride crews would cut the line on every attraction so the last rides would occur within a few minutes of the park closing time. There were many days where if you wanted to get a night ride on The Beast you had to be in the queue 45-90 minutes before the park closed, depending on what day of the week and time of year it was. At The Racer during the years I was riding it almost daily from 1981-1990, the line would get cut 20-30 minutes before the park closed, sometimes up to 45 minutes on a Saturday. I never felt like I was getting cheated. If the park operating calendar said the park closed at 10 p.m., it was understood by guests that meant rides stopped running at 10 p.m. That's  the way it was. 

The way it is now is that people expect to be able to jump in line a minute before park close.

[JimParker85]

On busy days at CP they'll need to close the Maverick and SV lines 90-120 minutes early to get all guests on by 8pm or 10pm (the two closing times this season). Imagine the park brings back daily fastlane ($150 on many Friday/Saturdays, $850 for all season) and then you find the lines to the top 2 attractions in the park closed for the final 2 hours of park operation. It's a noticeable drop in the value of the fastlane pass. Likely 30-60 minutes early for other major coasters. 

For standby line guests, you'll need to correctly time your last ride of the night so that you enter the desired line early enough and dont get caught walking up to the line a few minutes after they close it, then scrambling to walk to another attraction that's not closed. This was us last season on 3 or our 4 CP visits, as the app was not really set up to be this specific on early line closure. I'm sure many guests did not see this new procedure in action last season or read until the end of one specific blog post, so it will come as an unpleasant surprise to those unaware.

I understand that it saves money and allows( on 10pm closure nights) to get the employees more rest before the 8am/9am open the next day, but it's also unquestionably a reduction in value... and a significant one on busy days. 

[disco2000]

Yep, there were many days The Beast line would be cut off well before park close and every queue was open and line was out past Larosa's when an employee would stand at the end of the line informing guests the line was closed...

One has to wonder if Fast Lanes will be cut off when the regular line does or will that be open until it's line is "full" which at CP for some rides could be quite early...

[JimParker85]

FastLane lines did also close when the standby line closed last season. Valravn had the longest standby lines in 2020 since the big 4 were on access passes. Of course very few people had FL in 2020, at CP it was just all season and those that had bought single day ones before they stopped selling them in March. We were very fortunate/privileged to have all season. Without it, it was very difficult to ride a lot of the major attractions last year, particularly once the park got busy in early August. 

[robintodd]

22 hours ago, DonHelbig said:

From the park's opening in 1972 into the 1990's, the ride crews would cut the line on every attraction so the last rides would occur within a few minutes of the park closing time. There were many days where if you wanted to get a night ride on The Beast you had to be in the queue 45-90 minutes before the park closed, depending on what day of the week and time of year it was. At The Racer during the years I was riding it almost daily from 1981-1990, the line would get cut 20-30 minutes before the park closed, sometimes up to 45 minutes on a Saturday. I never felt like I was getting cheated. If the park operating calendar said the park closed at 10 p.m., it was understood by guests that meant rides stopped running at 10 p.m. That's  the way it was. 

Thanks for the clarification Don.  Glad to see my Alzheimer's isn't setting in yet

[IBEW_Sparky]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:26 PM, SnakePlissken said:

I work retail and if you close at 10pm you do not shut everything down and lock the doors right at 10pm. You pay some staff to stay 30-60 minutes past.  I've been to mom and pop chinese restaurants that attempt to do this very thing and push people eating out the door right at the time posted on the door. Its why all restaurants need to post 2 close times on the door. One for kitchen close and one for dining room close. Besides some people like different shifts for different reasons. I'm sure some staff would not mind being paid an extra hour or 2. In the past Cedar Point used to have lots of 9am starts and stayed open till midnight on many weekends. There has been nights where the Steel Vengeance queue did not clear out until 1:30am and still at least in 2018 the ride was still running for early entry.

Exactly this!!!  When I was Director of Detail at a Ford/Chrysler dealership, I had one of my employees come up to me and ask "Do you think you can talk to the sales desks at Ford and Chrysler, and see if they can talk to customers who get deals done after 630 (we closed at 7) if they can come pick their vehicle up in the morning so us closers dont have to stay late".  I just looked at him like "You did not just seriously ask me that?"  I gave him the facts... and this is how it should be anywhere in the Country that charges a client a fee for a service or item... I said "Look, if you go into Best Buy at 850pm and start looking and asking about an $8,000 flat screen 8k TV, do you think for a second that salesperson you are talking to is going to kick you out at 9?  H ell no, they are going to talk to you until midnight if they have to in order to make that sale, and the same goes in spades for that $75k F250 Platinum ole Bubba is looking at".  Closing time is 8/9/10 pm (should be midnight from July 1-August 30) therefore the closing time for any and all services... including ride access... should be closing time, MAAAYYYBE 30 minutes prior like bars do with last call.  It also relates to my employees who would come to me about their pay rate (which was disgustingly too low).  I did everything in my power in a losing battle against ownership to change that, and my employees knew it, but the bottom line that they agreed with was they willingly and voluntarily took the position with said low pay, much like any employee willingly and voluntarily takes a position knowing its hours and possible late off times going into it.

[coaster sally]

14 minutes ago, IBEW_Sparky said:

Exactly this!!!  When I was Director of Detail at a Ford/Chrysler dealership, I had one of my employees come up to me and ask "Do you think you can talk to the sales desks at Ford and Chrysler, and see if they can talk to customers who get deals done after 630 (we closed at 7) if they can come pick their vehicle up in the morning so us closers dont have to stay late".  I just looked at him like "You did not just seriously ask me that?"  I gave him the facts... and this is how it should be anywhere in the Country that charges a client a fee for a service or item... I said "Look, if you go into Best Buy at 850pm and start looking and asking about an $8,000 flat screen 8k TV, do you think for a second that salesperson you are talking to is going to kick you out at 9?  H ell no, they are going to talk to you until midnight if they have to in order to make that sale, and the same goes in spades for that $75k F250 Platinum ole Bubba is looking at".  Closing time is 8/9/10 pm (should be midnight from July 1-August 30) therefore the closing time for any and all services... including ride access... should be closing time, MAAAYYYBE 30 minutes prior like bars do with last call.  It also relates to my employees who would come to me about their pay rate (which was disgustingly too low).  I did everything in my power in a losing battle against ownership to change that, and my employees knew it, but the bottom line that they agreed with was they willingly and voluntarily took the position with said low pay, much like any employee willingly and voluntarily takes a position knowing its hours and possible late off times going into it.

best buy sales people do not work on commission.

[IndyGuy4KI]

12 minutes ago, coaster sally said:

best buy sales people do not work on commission.

I am not sure where that is relevant for @IBEW_Sparky point. 

Having the lines close early will be having the park setting up temporary queue lines at guest services at close with complaints. 

I see where this sounds good on paper, but I don't see where this will go over well at all with guests.

Edit: This reminds me when they changed the meal plan at Panda Express to one entree item from two. How long did that last? Like two weeks before it was changed back.

[coaster sally]

3 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

I am not sure where that is relevant for @IBEW_Sparky point. 

Having the lines close early will be having the park setting up temporary queue lines at guest services at close with complaints. 

I see where this sounds good on paper, but I don't see where this will go over with guests. 

Edit: This reminds me when they changed the meal plan at Panda Express to one entree item from two. How long did that last? Like two weeks before it was changed back.

I said that because if your not working on commission then you don't want to stay late for a big sale.  

I am sure the ride hosts would like to close the line down early, but after so many years of being able to jump in line at the end of the night it's a tough sale as far as customer relations.

[IndyGuy4KI]

2 minutes ago, coaster sally said:

I said that because if your not working on commission then you don't want to stay late for a big sale.

But if you get to be on the clock for another hour, that is more money in your pocket. The majority of KI employees are there to pay for college or have money while at college. I think they want to extra 30 min to hour of time on that paycheck. 

[IBEW_Sparky]

11 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

I am not sure where that is relevant for @IBEW_Sparky point. 

Having the lines close early will be having the park setting up temporary queue lines at guest services at close with complaints. 

I see where this sounds good on paper, but I don't see where this will go over well at all with guests.

Edit: This reminds me when they changed the meal plan at Panda Express to one entree item from two. How long did that last? Like two weeks before it was changed back.

I still clearly remember the day in 16 at CP when we found that out at Panda together, and I also clearly remember us rolling right out of the restaurant.

[IndyGuy4KI]

Just now, IBEW_Sparky said:

I still clearly remember the day in 16 at CP when we found that out at Panda together, and I also clearly remember us rolling right out of the restaurant.

Yep, exactly. It did not work at KI at all when they tried it. 

[CoastersRZ]

Yep.  Remember when CBS took control of Paramount Parks in 2006?  Remember how they tried the process of not starting to scan people`s tickets/passes until 10am?  Essentially they kept International Street closed and didn`t open it an hour early.  There were no rope drops on I Street at the beginning of the year. It was a disaster.  

Speaking from experience having worked at a seasonal amusement park for nearly two decades, closing time was just that.  When we closed the rides down.  At Coney, the only exception was the Paddle boats.  We cut that ride line before closing time due to the fact that people would be out on the lake for about thirty minutes.  It would start getting dark if we let the last boat depart at the posted closing time.  It was assumed that it would take another fifteen minutes or so to cycle off the ride, pick up trash, and do closing paper work for the day.  You got to stay on the clock for that.  And then in the off chance (it happened quite a bit on River Runner) that someone had a protein spill on the last cycle, then you had to clean that up on top of the normal closing stuff.  As a rides manager, I couldn`t leave until all the rides employees were back.  Some nights it was an hour or more after the closing time.  That was just part of the job.

Cutting the ride lines before closing time just looks bad and like a cheap way to try and save on labor costs.  In my opinion, it is not in the spirit of trying to give guests "The Best Day Ever."