2011 Point Perks

tcgolfer said:
^ What I'm trying to point out is that we work a lot harder than some guests might think. Not only are we going on light sleep sometimes, but I can guarantee you that we are working our butts off to try and get the ride open on time.

No one is questioning your work ethic. The gripe is with the park itself, for not taking the necessary steps to meet their advertised obligations. They have two basic options - staff as necessary to get MF open on time, or stop advertising it as being open for early entry.

Though I suspect most of us would rather deal with the annoyance of late-opening early entry on MF as opposed to none at all. :)

djDaemon said:

tcgolfer said:
^ What I'm trying to point out is that we work a lot harder than some guests might think. Not only are we going on light sleep sometimes, but I can guarantee you that we are working our butts off to try and get the ride open on time.

No one is questioning your work ethic. The gripe is with the park itself, for not taking the necessary steps to meet their advertised obligations. They have two basic options - staff as necessary to get MF open on time, or stop advertising it as being open for early entry.

Though I suspect most of us would rather deal with the annoyance of late-opening early entry on MF as opposed to none at all. :)

Ok. Well I can deal with that. You seem to understand where I'm coming from. The problem is that other comments in this thread, not made by you, make it seem as though it is somehow the ride hosts on MF who make the ride open late "everytime" they go to try and ride it.

We visited the park at the beginning of August last year for a mulitple day stay, i always started at Maverick then headed over to MF. Everyday MF's line just opened and the line stretched across the RR tracks almost to wildcat. So i put that around 9:15 or so. I don't remember getting this ride open for ERT a problem in past years.

djDaemon said:
When it comes to value, I feel that both the gate and pass pricing is too low (for the Platinum Pass, anyway). If I go to any of CF's parks a combined 3 times, I've already made my money back, so to speak. Everything beyond that is (free) gravy, and complaining about the way the (free) gravy tastes just doesn't sit well with me (regardless of how said gravy tasted in years past).

Too low?

Not to get off topic too much, but cp has one of the most expensive season pass(besides Disney) out there. Not too mention that they have the worst food, service, theaming, resorts, and to a recent extent...shows.

The one thing(Imo) they have going for them, are a great collection of coasters.

If you look at a park's "overall" experiance, cedarfair parks come in last place. Not sure how many of you follow cedarpoint on facebook, but did you see the recent question they asked about what park was a better "budget park"? 3/4 of the people said Disney. There were many reasons given. One thing that sticks out in my head, was someone said it cost them $14 for 2 slices of pizza and a soda.

It takes 4 visit's to get your moneys worth with a platinum pass.

Universal, it only takes 2 visits to get your moneys worth. Six flags, it only takes 1-2 visits to get your moneys worth. Busch parks, it only takes 2 visits.

Universal pass...

http://www.universalorlando.com/Tickets/Annual_Passholders/annualpass.aspx?ComponentId=13510&SourcePageId=7805#11

Busch pass....

http://www.buschgardens.com/Bgw/Purchase/Passes.aspx

Six flags pass....

https://www.sixflags.com/overGeorgia/tickets/seasonpass.aspx

Not sure where you are getting that a cedarfair passes are under priced.

Six Flags passes are ridiculously undervalued, but gate pricing is something those parks have had wrong for years. Plus this year Six Flags is only giving you parking at your home park, while CF gives you parking at all parks.

Universal gives you two parks for the same price as a CF Platinum pass that gives you 12 parks and a few water parks.

For $10 less than the Platinum pass, Bush gives you one amusement park and one water park. You have to buy the $300 two year pass if you want access to all their parks.

A Holiday World season pass gets you one park for $110. That's $4 more than a regular CP pass.

Considering the perks and how many parks you get into, I'd say the CF Platinum pass is probably under priced (which makes the SF passes ridiculously under priced) or at least not over priced. I'm sure nobody would mind them being cheaper (wouldn't it be great if they were free!?) but in terms of value, I think they're within the ballpark.

crazy horse said:It takes 4 visit's to get your moneys worth with a platinum pass.

CF Platinum Pass = $165
CP one-day visit = $57 ($47 admission + $10 parking)

$57 x 3 = $171
$171 - $165 = $6

If I use my PP to go to CP 3 times in one season, I've saved $6. That's a pretty good value, even if you ignore that the same pass gets you into 11 other parks, in addition to the accompanying water parks. And on top of that, they throw some pretty good deals your way (BOGO especially).

I'm not interested in discussing which parks offer a better overall experience, as that's pretty much dictated by one's opinion. That said, I fail to see how CF's Platinum Pass isn't a stellar value, even if you find the Platinum Pass Perks underwhelming.

I never added the parking at the other parks, because it is also included with there passes. The one exception is that with the six flags season pass, parking is only included at the park you buy the pass from now. Not all of them.

Ralph......How many of those 12 parks are you realistically going to visit? 3-4? So the number of parks, no matter the chain really does not matter. To me it's more about the quality of my time spent in a park....not the number of parks I can get into. I would take a day at busch gardens, Disney, universal, and even a few six flags parks before I chose a cedar fair park. I guess it just depends on your taste.

I will be getting a platinum pass, six flags, and probaly a Disney pass as well this year. I have no problem shelling out the cash for the passes, but with all the bad experiences we have encountered at cedar fair parks the past few years(see previous post), it's getting harder to justify spending $500 for the 3 of us.

I love my pass. It gets used....A lot! I am half way between CP and Dorney so Dorney gets hit up once a year.

CP = 4 hrs
Dorney = 4 hrs
Wonderland = 5 hrs

^^ I think that's exactly the thing though. If you didn't think you were getting some value in the pass, then why buy it? As long as pass sales stay consistent or increase, they have no reason to believe they're not offering the proper value. If pass sales decline, then I imagine they'd have to take a look at that.

I've been a long time view of the forum and have spent many years at the Point as a kid but I think I'm going to make my first post now...

This is @tcgolfer. Though you may have pride for your work, I'll tell you one thing you have yet to realize. There is only one group of people that CFLP wants to please right now and that's the shareholders of FUN. So when you have customers complaining about rides not being open at 9:01 AM because of testing and what not, in my eyes it's a service failure. Yes, weather and maintinance are an issue and we all can understand that but don't use the excuse, "we work hard". Unless you want our park owned by some hedgefund that doesn't even care about the park, you can make a suggestion to management on how to make the process smoother for opening. Taking initative is always a good way to impress management.

When it comes at value on a season pass I will agree it's a good deal. All I do is buy one platinum for myself (Free Parking) and a season pass for my girlfriend and we're set for the year.

I completely disagree with everything posted above. But hey, to each his own I guess

FlyBoyKappa said:
There is only one group of people that CFLP wants to please right now and that's the shareholders of FUN.

Perhaps things have changed in recent years, but I seem to remember CP didn't really make any friends when they changed their dividend policy a few years back. I'm not sure this is really their top priority.

FlyBoyKappa said:

This is @tcgolfer. Though you may have pride for your work, I'll tell you one thing you have yet to realize. There is only one group of people that CFLP wants to please right now and that's the shareholders of FUN. So when you have customers complaining about rides not being open at 9:01 AM because of testing and what not, in my eyes it's a service failure. Yes, weather and maintinance are an issue and we all can understand that but don't use the excuse, "we work hard". Unless you want our park owned by some hedgefund that doesn't even care about the park, you can make a suggestion to management on how to make the process smoother for opening. Taking initative is always a good way to impress management.

So, you're basically saying that even though we're working our butts off everyday in order to do our jobs as best as possible and get our rides open on time that's not good enough? Especially when weather and/or maintenance get in the way we're doing our best to make sure the ride is ready to go once we get the all clear. Cedar Point is made up of some of the hardest working employees I know.

tcgolfer said:
So, you're basically saying that even though we're working our butts off everyday in order to do our jobs as best as possible and get our rides open on time that's not good enough?

Basically, yeah.

I and almost every one of my fellow employees work our behinds off on a pretty regular basis. If/when we miss a delivery date, do you think our customers are satisfied with "but we worked really hard, guys" as an excuse (or alternately "it's not our fault - our suppliers dropped the ball!")? Absolutely, positively not. Your situation isn't much different.

No one is suggesting you don't work hard, or that you're not at the mercy of the weather and other such obstacles. But I think one can legitimately be understanding and sympathetic of your challenges, while simultaneously being critical of the lack of positive results.

djDaemon said:

tcgolfer said:
So, you're basically saying that even though we're working our butts off everyday in order to do our jobs as best as possible and get our rides open on time that's not good enough?

Basically, yeah.

I and almost every one of my fellow employees work our behinds off on a pretty regular basis. If/when we miss a delivery date, do you think our customers are satisfied with "but we worked really hard, guys" as an excuse (or alternately "it's not our fault - our suppliers dropped the ball!")? Absolutely, positively not. Your situation isn't much different.

No one is suggesting you don't work hard, or that you're not at the mercy of the weather and other such obstacles. But I think one can legitimately be understanding and sympathetic of your challenges, while simultaneously being critical of the lack of positive results.

Thank you for finally putting it into a well thought out response. I fully understand where you're coming from. It just sucks because 99% of the time when the ride is not ready on time it is out of the ride hosts hands. So, to be on here and see everyone blaming us, I felt the need to stand up for my fellow ride hosts.

I'm with most of the other posters in saying if MF can't open at 9:00 a.m. as advertised for PP pass holders, then what is the point in saying it's going to be. I mean Raptor is running pretty much on time every morning that I have been there.

And, this wah-wah rant that we work so hard, and have a lack of sleep cause we have to open the ride the next morning is getting old. Most of us work all day long, deal with family at night, and maybe have a close relative to take care of to top it off. And, then we are up at the butt-crack of dawn to do it all over again the next day. So, my god stop it with the wah-wah attitude.

And, I couldn't forget how terrible that weather must be out at the point every night. I was at CP over 25 times last year and MF never opened earlier than 9:25 a.m., and the mornings were beautiful. I have nothing against any of the crew of MF the past few years, but if MF can't run at 9:00am in the morning, then CP needs to open something else early, so the MF crew can get their rest and avoid the microclimate of bad weather at MF.

I have a general PointPerks question. We all have Platinum Passes - So are we entitled to the "Platinum Perks" at all CF parks? The reason I ask is that we'll be traveling to Virginia this summer, and making a stop at King's Dominion. On their site, under the "Platinum Pass" benefits, one item says:

"Bring-A-Friend Discounts. Save $25.00 off Regular General Admission every Day (one guest per pass). Available for purchase at the park only."

So with three of us, would we be able to get ourselves in and also extend the $25 discount to three family members traveling with us who do not have CP passes?

In a word, yes.

You can each use your own platnium pass to purchase 1 KD ticket at the gate at the discount price, giving you admission with your passes for 3 and discounted admission for your 3 friends.

tcgolfer said:

FlyBoyKappa said:

This is @tcgolfer. Though you may have pride for your work, I'll tell you one thing you have yet to realize. There is only one group of people that CFLP wants to please right now and that's the shareholders of FUN. So when you have customers complaining about rides not being open at 9:01 AM because of testing and what not, in my eyes it's a service failure. Yes, weather and maintinance are an issue and we all can understand that but don't use the excuse, "we work hard". Unless you want our park owned by some hedgefund that doesn't even care about the park, you can make a suggestion to management on how to make the process smoother for opening. Taking initative is always a good way to impress management.

So, you're basically saying that even though we're working our butts off everyday in order to do our jobs as best as possible and get our rides open on time that's not good enough? Especially when weather and/or maintenance get in the way we're doing our best to make sure the ride is ready to go once we get the all clear. Cedar Point is made up of some of the hardest working employees I know.

And people wonder why CP employees seem ticked & stressed constantly....Ugh they just don't get what we go through every day during the season...People seem to have some sense of entitlement when it comes to the way things HAVE to be with the park. We just do what we're told, hands down, that's it. It's not like we cause the ride to not open or whatever. We're just doing our job & doing it right because this is our source of income for the summer.

Mr. Cedar Point said:
If this is true from my friend that the SKYHAWK and the Super Himalaya will be leaving the Park. My Friend says the SKYHAWK breaks down to much, and I don't know what is the wrong with the Super Himalaya. I just hope the "SKYHAWK" doesn't go away.

Also, I am working Corkscrew/Super Himalaya this season, it's not going away, at least for this season