2023 Early Entry

MDOmnis:

They have all sorts of weird excuses and rules that often keep things from operating the way they should these days.

The input from those pesky lawyers & insurance folks has had an effect.

That's an entirely unqualified claim. We don't really know the reasons.

I think it's kind of silly to suggest that the park was never obligated to actually open rides for Early Entry. That's especially so when they were advertising Early Entry, as Kevin mentions, as a value-added perk of upgrading to a more expensive pass. And in fact these more expensive passes were promoted while they were offering a much more robust lineup of Early Entry rides last season. It's only reasonable that someone shopping for a pass last August would use that selection of rides to inform what to expect from this perk.

Of course, that doesn't mean the park is obligated to provide the same lineup every year. But if we ignore the carryover rides from 2022, they've essentially traded Iron Dragon, Magnum, MaXair, Millennium Force, and Valravn for... Wild Mouse and Calypso. If this is the extent of the 2023 Early Entry lineup, my goodness...

Had we opted for Platinum, I would be "asking" for a refund of the difference and rolling back to Gold. Early Entry has always been vital for our family, as that allowed Mom and Dad to quickly snag one or two marquee rides before we spent the rest of the day doing more family-centric stuff.

jimmyburke:

Having random rides and park entrance points open requires a lot of logistics, easier to concentrate on the one area early. Also, you hear stories from employees speaking of long long work days and the conditions. This gives them an extra hour of rest in the morning.

This is a fair point, but Raptor is right there, and Valravn and ID aren't exactly on the other side of the park. If the goal is reduce the scope of area they open for Early Entry, including one or more of these wouldn't have been a large logistical leap. And it would make a significant difference in the value proposition, for our family at least.

While it may not be required to have told guests before passes went on sale, last year, that the early entry offerings were going to be decreased so drastically, it would have been the decent thing to do. This is a very crappy "bait and switch" move.

Even if you are trying to really limit the area of the park you have open for guest movement between 9-10am, you could have a stopping point just past the entrance to Kiddy Kingdom and still have Gatekeeper, Wild Mouse, Raptor, Blue Streak and even Valravn open coaster wise (as long as you had another stopping point at the Valravn entrance). If you allowed guests to complete that small circle you could add the antique cars, plus all of the newly relocated flats.

"This is a very crappy "bait and switch" move."

We purchased a Prestige+ pass last year. For the cost of this pass we received early entry, Valraven/Gatekeeper/Millenium Force/Maverick plus others, Single use FastLane+, and the promise of Preferred Parking, VIP, and separate entrance in 2023. I would think (hope) that the offering would be at least the same as when the pass was originally purchased. That it is not devalues the pass somewhat.

YMMV

I have already re-newed my platinum pass for this year, as I alternate between both CP & KI throughout the summer, fall, and first part of winter the Winterfest trip to KI.

Anyway, with the company and the parks expecting to hire as many workers as they have been advertising, what the h*ll is up with all of the cutting/scaling back. If the company & parks are able to hire that many people, the staffing level would definitely be back to where it was pre-pandemic, so why in the heck can you not operate their parks the way they’re designed to operate?

Yes it takes a lot of work to get the Steel Coasters up & running in the morning, but why can’t we actually have a decent ride line-up for early entry this year? Yes the Boardwalk Area is new, but cramming everyone into 1 specific area this day & age never ends well.

Also, BRING BACK Wild Frontier Nights, & Cedar Point Nights. And on Opening Weekend, close the park at TEN instead of EIGHT.

Opening Day hasn't had a 10pm close in a while now. I'm all for shorter park hours in the pre-Memorial Day time period if it means the hours they are open offer a better experience. Then again, it's been several years since May at Cedar Point has equaled a good experience.

Cartwright; you’re definitely entitled to your opinion, but being one who likes the rides, I am a fan of longer park hours to have more time for night rides.

And I wish my dog would s**t nickels, but that doesn’t seem about to happen either.

Comparing your dog's monetary bowel movements to the park staying open later seems odd. I mean, one can definitely happen. It has in the past. And the other could happen but you'd have to feed your dog nickels.

When To Start Worrying

Catering to the night-riding enthusiast at the expense of early-arriving family is a poor business strategy.

And Brandon, that prompted me to this. All of these theories & supposed reasons that have been floated out there for this decision of EE, mine included, may have some merit and I will add another wild opinion. The Resort guests & many families likely have been really disappointed with the quality of their visit as to what they spent monetarily. Many, many guests give feedback either per a survey or on-line reviews or whatever. This whole change of operations may be linked to customer satisfaction issues for those customers that tend to increase Park revenues.

I think there is a tendency for some people on this site to overstate the number of people who have a bad time or are disappointed with their visits to Cedar Point. And in large part I think that is because there is a tendency for some people here to think everyone visits the park the same way such people do (same expectations, goals, definition of good/disappointing visit, etc). Same reason why the park sometimes makes business decisions that some people here do not like.

The pursuit of wealth and material gain is a futile and ultimately unfulfilling endeavor, especially if it involves spending one's time sifting through dog excrement for a few coins....

Instead, I'd rather focus on experiences that bring genuine happiness and meaning to my life, such as riding roller coasters at night ;)

jimmyburke:

Resort guests & many families likely have been really disappointed with the quality of their visit as to what they spent monetarily.

It doesn't appear the park is having a tough time filling the resorts, at least anecdotally based on our experience of checking for availability at Breakers and LHP. But in any case, I guess I don't follow your logic as to how the reduction of the Early Entry lineup would make sense as a response to resort and family guests being disappointed. Can you elaborate?

One thing I've wondered, and if it's been discussed already I apologize, is if this Early Entry lineup is what's available before college gets out and the park can fill out their staff. If the park is struggling to staff, with maintenance especially, it would make sense to open that area of the park for EE right at the onset of the season, and expand the lineup later in June or whatever.

But why would the park announce this initial atrocious early entry lineup, knowing fully well that the internets would have a field day, only to announce more for later in the season? If that was the plan all along, I’d expect them to be transparent and just tell us that the lineup would expand later on in the season. I suspect that this is it, unless backlash gets to be so great that more is added.

I can't elaborate, in fact I can't follow my own illogical logic at times.