Cedar Point now requiring special limited passes to ride Top Thrills

It's hard for me to believe they are making money even against just the incremental costs of being open. It must be driven by the resort side, because if they had the park closed, I imagine that incremental resort revenue would dry up in a hurry.

Is that just now occurring to you?
I’ve said for years that all enthusiasts everywhere should stop complaining about busy conditions and quit compulsing about queue length, and no one seems to listen. Why, for the last several years, even May isn’t a safe bet. And the crying over things like Halloweekend Friday make a me laugh. Sorry if folks caught on. You know who’s not sorry? The parks.
A good rule of business is “Busy is Good”. Now parks everywhere, due to a dreadful pandemic, are getting hit squarely in the nuts by a variety of circumstances. This summer is an interesting study in enthusiast/ customer behavior. At first it was “When will they open? This sucks” Then when it was finally determined it was “Oh no! Reduced attendance? It’ll be so busy! This sucks!”! Then it was “Masks??!?! That sucks”. Then assigned times for the big rides, and you name it- it was all in an effort to keep businesses open and so many were loudly unhappy.
I went through Pennsylvania last week and visited (or drove by) a couple of parks that absolutely will not make it if things don’t improve. Then what will everyone have to say about attendance?
Just the other day I asked some older (my age) friends if they had ever seen or ever thought they’d see anything like this come around. Ever. And the resounding answer was no. It’s horrible and it’s frightening what’s become of our world and especially our country. Let’s try to keep in mind the precarious nature of just about everything and especially the outdoor amusement industry. We may find ourselves with a hobby that someone decides just can’t exist any more. Or at least not as we took for granted.

RC I totally agree with your points but as I've mentioned in other threads, I don't think the complaints were so much about increased attendance but rather the park's inability to handle the increased attendance. They want to pack the place, great! Of course that's the goal. But if your operations can't handle the increased attendance it shouldn't be done as guest experience totally suffers.

For whatever reason. It’s complaints and it’s always about bodies.
See my note about the precariousness of the outdoor amusement industry.

I did see it, and as I said I agree. I've been to the park 3 times already and while it's certainly nice to be there with no crowds/lines etc, it is disheartening. I was just telling my wife yesterday that I truly feel bad for them. You can tell they really put a lot into the reopening safely and obviously expected more people to show up.

Back to my comment about bodies. I guess I shouldn't speak for everyone because your right, a lot of the body complaints are just complaints. However, I agree with opinions about bodies in the park when the complaints are genuinely centered around the park being "oversold." If they can handle 70K then by all means, admit 70K. But don't admit 70K if you can only handle 50K.

Why do you think attendance is so low? Is it because people are afraid to get the disease? Is it because they don't want to deal with the social distancing guidelines and masks? Is there anything that they could be doing differently to improve attendance?

All of those combined plus alot of people still out of work and the extra $600 from unemployment ended so some people just have to cut things like going to amusement parks out of their budget. Going to a park can easily cost you $100+ per person when you factor in things like food and drinks if you're not a passholder.

I'd say Brian hit the nail on the head. There's a lot variables at play and all of them hurt the park. You've got different groups with economic (unemployed can't afford it) , health (scared of the getting COVID-19) , and political (no one's telling me to wear a mask) reasons for not going.

Keep in mind that by opening, they restarted payments on the season pass plans. That's probably not an insignificant amount of money coming in, even if people aren't coming to the park.

Yeah, but I don't think that's money they want to count on keeping yet. Depending on what happens in 2021 they may have to offer refunds if it's still not close enough to the experience people paid for at the end of 2019.

That would be something if they extended passes again as an option instead of having to refund. Definitely not wishing for that or anything but the way things are going it's not out of the realm of possibility.

There is probably a massive amount of money in limbo at this point not just for Cedar Fair but for so many people who bought things that have been rescheduled or postponed indefinitely instead of outright cancelled. I've got $800 in passes that are kind of sort of usable maybe and $500 floating around out there I paid for a school Washington DC trip in April rescheduled for November which seemed OK at the time but under current circumstances no way do I want my high school kid anywhere near DC in November and I think there's a good chance that will get "rescheduled" and my money will be hanging around somewhere out there in the financial void assuming the company doesn't go out of business by then. Glad My friend and I didn't jump at those concert tickets right when they went on sale that would have been more money I might or might not see again. Fortunately I'm in a better position to absorb that financially right now than many others are.

Your DC trip will likely get canceled. I felt so bad for my son. His 7th grade Chicago trip that was supposed to happen this past June got canceled and his 8th grade DC trip that was supposed to happen this October was canceled too. They actually blamed the DC cancellation more on "potential civil unrest" then COVID-19.

My concerns for the trip are all about the potential civil unrest. We've already discussed it with him and told him November is a no go even if they don't cancel it's just not a good idea. No matter what they do with it I've already assumed I'm eating the $500 and if we happen to get it back or an actual trip under decent circumstances at some point before he graduates it will just be a pleasant surprise. I feel bad for him his brother got to go to California last year competing at the national level with some other students from his school but the younger one hasn't gotten to travel like that. He was really looking forward to the museums. He was also supposed to work at the county fair and that is 90% likely a no go at this point because as of this week it's Jr. Fair only.

Attendence could be low because of tourism is basically being discouraged. We live in NY and our governor put a rule in place that basically makes it impossible to leave the state.

Attendance is low because of this global pandemic. People as a whole are just not ready to visit an amusement park while cases are exploding.

Well there are people who don't choose to live in fear and are willing to take necessary precautions to visit their favorite place. I am one of them, and now we're not even allowed to come visit unless we're willing to take an unpaid 14 days quarantine upon our return. If our Governor removes Ohio from NY's travel ban list, we will for sure be coming. Mask and all

If you're not one to live in fear, then don't fear the quarantine you are asked to take. It's only fear that is stopping you from crossing that state line :)

How is that quarantine even enforced? It seems like it would be difficult to enforce.

Right! I can understand their ability to enforce it if you're flying. But if you're driving how would they know?