2012 Improvements, Additions, and Changes. Leaks and Announcements

Just a heads up... Kings Island just announced a loyalty program for season pass holders. I'll be shocked if this is Kings Island exclusive:

Greg Scheid via Twitter: "KI will be offering a loyalty plan to our season pass holders! Details will follow, but the more you visit/spend the more you receive."

By the way, this is exactly the kind of thing I was pushing for tirelessly over the years...about spurring in-park season pass holder spending by offering better promotions / incentives for the season pass holders exclusively. I got attacked every which way that the season pass itself was a big enough promotion, but no one seemed to get what I was saying. Anyway, I'll chalk this up as another missed opportunity addressed. Loving this new Ouimet era!

I was wondering if anyone has heard if they're actually going to run the Gemini trains on Cedar Creek Mine Ride. I remember seeing the picture with the blue train on CCMR and was reminded of it while looking at Screamscape today. Wondered if it might have been brought up anywhere, particularly the off-season tour.

Ffej said:
By the way, this is exactly the kind of thing I was pushing for tirelessly over the years...about spurring in-park season pass holder spending by offering better promotions / incentives for the season pass holders exclusively. I got attacked every which way that the season pass itself was a big enough promotion, but no one seemed to get what I saying. Anyway, I'll chalk this up as another obvious missed opportunity addressed. Loving this new Ouimet era!

This is exactly the kind of thing CF employees were pushing for tirelessly over the years...

vwhoward said:
I was wondering if anyone has heard if they're actually going to run the Gemini trains on Cedar Creek Mine Ride. I remember seeing the picture with the blue train on CCMR and was reminded of it while looking at Screamscape today. Wondered if it might have been brought up anywhere, particularly the off-season tour.

It was brought up *after* the presentations at the PointBuzz off-season tour, and the answer was essentially an admission that they've considered it, but that no decision had yet been made.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Sounds like the same answer as a certain beast that's been standing guard over the action next to the deck, for quite some time now. :)

If they are gonna keep track of passholder spending in park I wonder how that will be collected. Because passes are only bar codes, so you couldn't swipe it like a credit card at a register.

Thanks, Dave. I kind of hope they do. I think those trains would afford a more comfortable ride.

pointperson said:
If they are gonna keep track of passholder spending in park I wonder how that will be collected. Because passes are only bar codes, so you couldn't swipe it like a credit card at a register.

They could always change the pass to be like a credit card.

^That would require everyone who renewed to get a new pass.

I'm sure there is a way management could use the barcode to collect loyalty information.

All the registers have (or can have) barcode readers on them. Any time you buy anything in a gift shop, or at the ticket booth, or at a sit down restaurant then they can just scan the barcode then. I am not sure if the walk-up food locations have barcode readers already but it's pretty trivial to install them. Or they just won't offer perks at those locations.

Aside from the expense (those bar code scanners aren't cheap) there's no reason not to collect the info through bar codes. Heck, most of the shopping reward cards, like at Kroger, use bar codes. The park has already been scanning the passes for things like the Challenge Park discounts ever since they upgraded their admissions system a few years ago.

Bar code scanners are silly cheap, actually, particularly when purchased in quantity.

I actually did a research project on Point of Sales technology a few years ago in college and while the initial system and monitor is fairly expensive, adding more monitors wasn't much more especially when you got larger quantities. Now this was sorta expensive for a small restaurant or bar but wouldn't cost that much for a huge business like Cedar Point. I'm sure bar code scanners are probably even cheaper in cost.

So which is it - "silly cheap" or "aren't cheap"?

Doing a quick google search, scanners are a couple hundred. Even if you need 100 of them, you're still only talking about a $20-30,000 investment for Cedar Point.

Then silly cheap it is.

Also the fact that scanning a pass will probably add another 10 minutes to wait for your cheeseburger. :)

JuggaLotus said:
Doing a quick google search, scanners are a couple hundred. Even if you need 100 of them, you're still only talking about a $20-30,000 investment for Cedar Point.

My Googles are better than your Googles.

Even if that wasn't the case, $30k is not a lot of money in any universe the size of Cedar Point.

So bulk purchase for system wide aka Cedar Fair and your going to get the base unit price down even cheaper than buying for just CP.

Yep I have seen them as low as $40 when buying thousands of units. And of course most of the shops at CP already have barcode readers.

Apparently my company is doing it wrong then, as ours are much more than those prices. Of course, that realization doesn't surprise me...

Edit: I'll add that even though $20-30,000 isn't a whole lot in the scheme of the park's budget, that sounds like a lot of money to spend on a program for season passholders, who are already going to come to the park regardless.