2016 Platinum Passholder Benefits

I was looking at the benefits and noticed a couple of interesting things.

First: Early Entry rides:

Cadillac Cars, Cedar Downs, Dodgem, GateKeeper, Kiddy Kingdom, Midway Carrousel, Millennium Force, Ocean Motion, SkyHawk, Tiki Twirl and Valravn.

Second: Challenge Park discounts. Note: there is no Go-karts. And as somebody pointed out, Go-karts have been removed from the Challenge Park page. Maybe this is further confirmation?

So no more Maverick and Raptor? I get that they essentially trade Raptor for Valravn, and I'm perfectly content with that. But the absence of another marquee ERT ride in place of Maverick is disappointing. And why bother with SkyHawk if nothing else back there is open?

Regarding Challenge Park, more interesting than the absence of go-karts is the continued inclusion of Challenge Golf.

This is really strange. I agree about Skyhawk, why bother if there's no other reason to go back there at that time? They should just replace it with MaxAir. It would be interesting to see what is going to become of the Go-Karts.

Disappointed that Maverick is not included. Because of the long line for that ride, early entry had a lot of value.

Dang, Maverick isn't on there any more? I would do millennium once, then maverick up to five times in a row before the park opens. That's unfortunate.

Almost all my Maverick rides this year were early entry. I think I only got on twice during normal hours this year.

Very disappointed also. Maverick is my favorite ride and most of my rides on it were early entry also..

^^^ I'm with the early entry Maverick crowd... Really hope they reconsider... That line gets long and nasty real fast...

Maverick not being included reduces the value of the ERT benefit significantly. Even on a light day the interval is such that you wait for an extended period of time, so dropping that in addition to two other coasters makes the benefit far less useful. Then again, they couldn't seem to get this year's ERT rides operational in time for anybody to actually ride them, so maybe it comes out in the wash.

Just watch them add up all the individual rides in kiddy kingdom and market that they have 20+ rides open for early entry.

Maverick being taken off of the early entry list is somewhat understandable. After the issues Maverick had this past season, that extra hour can be very beneficial to the crew and maintenance. But I completely understand the frustration, because I too used to ride Maverick first thing in the morning for early entry.

I'm definitely more interested in the food perks. So long as those remain, I will be more likely to purchase food inside the park.

And no mention of hotel discounts either.

They already had not had any discounts at lighthouse point the last couple of years, but it appears nothing at all now.

If it wasn't for soak city Admission, platinum pass has really lousy benefits this year.

If you go under the Places to Stay tab, then go down to Hotel Specials, it looks like there will be a Hotel discount, but the details have not been finalized.

That's good to hear, thanks for the heads up:)

Was the 10% food discount offered at locations outside of the park (Famous Daves, Bay Harbor, Quaker Steak) in 2015?

Yes it was.

They should add Magnum to ERT and see how it goes. It could relieve the Valravn crowd a bit. Also, Magnum is high capacity and relatively reliable - not to mention a great ride!

I am VERY grateful for the Kiddy Kingdom option. Now my kids can take part in early entry as Planet Snoopy had a height requirement that my children couldn't meet on their own :( Now their platinum pass will be worth it ;)

I think they should at least put Magnum in early entry. Many of the resort guests will be entering through the gate back there so there should at least be something open in that section of the park. All other gates have something open near them. You got plenty of rides open near the front, Valravn is right by the marina gate, you got Gatekeeper, Dodgems, etc. near the Windseeker gate but nothing near the Magnum gate. I think they should at least swap Skyhawk for Magnum.

It makes me scratch my head of what is to become of Challenge park in 2016. Especially since it's not on the challenge park part of Cedar Point. I did notice in the second to last weekend that I visited, all the go-carts were parked under the one of the bridges. Maybe they plan to reduce the tracks down to one. You have two levels for the go-carts which is rookie and pro. As far as Maverick goes, I think that works well. I remember a couple times going back there for ERT and it was down. That made both me and Thabto a little upset at times this season.