7/4/14 - Stars & Stripes Celebration with a Hotel Reservation Fiasco

My girlfriend and I were fortunate to have a night to ourselves (no kids) for the first time in months, so we decided to splurge on an overnight stay at Hotel Breakers for the 4th of July. We've been annual Platinum Pass holders for several years now and visiting Cedar Point on Independence Day has become a yearly tradition for us. Since usually have three kids with us, we were REALLY looking forward this trip -- being able to relax, reconnect with each other and do things at our own pace, without having to worry about driving home after the park closes. We were excited to stay at Hotel Breakers too, since we'd be right along the beach and boardwalk where the fireworks were set to go off.

Unfortunately, as we were busy packing for our trip the night prior, we ran into some complications with our hotel reservation. We noticed an email saying it had been cancelled! After all the excitement and build up for our trip, this is not what we wanted to deal with, especially my girlfriend who suffers from high anxiety as it is. I immediately called park reservations to clear things up. I explained that the woman who took our reservation and credit card info the week prior told us the funds would be withdrawn from our card on July 2nd at 9:00pm. I was told that this is not Cedar Point's policy, and since the funds did not come out like we were told would happen, our room was given to someone else. Here's the real kicker... since it was now 7pm on the night before one of the busiest operating days of the entire summer, there were no more rooms available on any of the Cedar Point properties!

Deep breaths...

Since there was nothing more that the reservations clerk could do for me, I asked to speak to a Supervisor. Supervisor Alyssa (sp?) confirmed that there were no rooms available, but that she would keep an eye out and call us back if something opened up. FANTASTIC. So now, as we are packing our suitcase and getting ready to leave at 7:30am the next morning, we had to HOPE that a room opened up? I explained that our preference was to say on-site -- at Hotel Breakers, Sandcastle Suites or Lighthouse Point. The supervisor recommended we visit CP online and refresh the hotel reservations page often to see if something came available. I spent a good hour doing this (repeatedly, I might add) with no luck. We did get call back from Alyssa informing us that a Horizon Suite opened up at Hotel Breakers, and that she would book this $529 room at a discount of $399 (including tax). While this was a ridiculously nice offer, we couldn't justify spending more money for a room when we were splurging enough as it was paying $258 (including tax) for the standard room we originally booked. We politely declined. By this point, Supervisor Alyssa had to leave for the night, but she said Supervisor Tina would take care of us moving forward. Another 30 minutes went by before we received another call saying a room was available -- the same type of room that we originally booked at Hotel Breakers. They gave us a 10% discount for our troubles, which amounted to 2+ hours of being stuck on my phone and laptop while trying to pack and putting off our dinner plans for the night. The 10% was better than nothing, I suppose.

As an aside, I'd like to extend special thanks to Hotel Reservations Supervisors Alyssa and Tina for being patient with us (we were panicking and upset) and for ultimately resolving the issue.

The morning of the 4th, we pulled into the Soak City lot around 8:40am and got in line at the resorts gate for ERT. We didn't rush, taking a nice stroll through Frontiertown before riding Millenium Force x2. The line formed at the ramp the first time through, but the MF crew appeared to be lagging a bit despite running three trains. I was surprised that we still ended up waiting 20 minutes despite getting in line right at the ramp. We debated riding a second time before I convinced my girlfriend that it would be the shortest wait for the ride for the remainder of the day. Another 20 minute wait was well worth a trip on the greatest steel coaster in the world.

At this point, it was starting to get warmer outside and my gf and I debated what to do next. We were both getting hungry, so we ventured towards the front of the park to eat for the first time at Chickie & Pete's. Since it was only 11am, we were seated immediately and put in an order of Crabfries and Lisa's Blonde Lobster Pie (an award-winning thin crust white pizza topped with baby lobster). The Crabfries with cheese sauce were fantastic, even if the seasoning was a tad salty. If you're not a big salt person, I recommend ordering the Crabfries without the seasoning. Still worth the price and PLENTY for sharing. Unfortunately, I do NOT recommend Lisa's Blonde Lobster Pie. It looks great on the menu and sounds delicious, but for $24.00, I prefer something far less salty. Coming from a person who salts everything, this pizza wasn't even edible. I thought about sending it back, but I was starting to get full from the Crabfries and was FREEZING from sitting directly under an air vent.

Our next stop was Challenge Park for a round of mini golf. We saw a duck swimming with five adorable babies in the pond. After that, we stopped by Hotel Breakers to see if our room was ready. It wasn't, but they offered to text us when it was available. With time to kill before our original check-in time of 4pm, we went back to the car and changed into our swimsuits. Bubbles' Swim Up Bar (21+) was calling our name at Soak City and we spent a few hours there soaking up the rays while watching the 2pm aerial show. By the time we were ready to leave around 3pm, we got the text that our room was ready. We were stationed on the third floor of the old Breakers wing with a room that smelled pretty foul upon entering. Fortunately, the beach and lake view were a plus. We determined that we'd be able to watch the fireworks from our room, but still weren't sure where we'd ultimately watch them from.

TGI Friday's was up next for dinner around 4pm. We planned on going early to beat the rush, which was a clutch decision since the place was packed around 7pm. We were seated immediately on the patio and we both ordered the same thing -- a tall Blue Moon draft with Sizzling Chicken & Cheese. The food and beer was excellent, but the sun had escaped the patio by this point and we were a tad cold throughout our meal.

After dinner, we went back to Bubbles' Swim Up Bar for more adult beverages. I had been wanting to ride the water slides at Soak City all afternoon, but the lines had been too long. The temperature cooled in the evening hours, however, and I noticed Dragster H2O was a walk-on. One trip was all I needed for my water slide fix. I lost, by the way. After Soak City, we went back into the park and took a relaxing ride on the CP&LE Railroad. We debated riding some coasters, with Mean Streak and Gemini as possible destinations due to smaller wait times, but we passed and decided we'd get our riding done the next morning during ERT.

To cap off the night, we caught the first-half of Luminosity before the kids called to check-in. Then it was time for fireworks, which we decided to watch from the comfort of our hotel room. Beautiful display, as always. When the fireworks ended, we thought about going back into the park, but oddly enough, we were both pretty spent after spending most of the day relaxing and not riding very much. We even set an alarm for 10:30am the next morning -- 30 minutes before checkout -- because we were so tired. To our surprise, we woke up at 7:30am! We had an excellent breakfast at Perkins that included a veggies & cheese omelet, hashbrowns, pancakes and coffee. We even had time to pack everything up and check out before ERT! Crazy how that worked out...

On Saturday morning (7/5), we enjoyed ERT on Raptor, GateKeeper and Millenium Force before the park opened to the public. It was probably 10 degrees warmer than Friday's high temp, so we decided to hit some water rides before leaving for the afternoon. We rented a locker near Shoot the Rapids just before 11am, but they closed the ride at opening. We opted for Thunder Canyon instead and took three consecutive trips on the ride (without having to exit) before we got fully drenched. Shoot the Rapids was open by the time we got back to our locker so that's how we ended our trip. This was our first ride on Shoot the Rapids since the incident last summer, and I must admit, our ascent up both hills made for some pretty intense moments. While climbing up the hill, we kept reminding ourselves that CP wouldn't let people on the ride if it wasn't safe.

Overall, our time inside park was well spent... one of our better trips to CP. My only complaints were the hotel reservation disaster, the smelly room and the awful pizza at Chickie & Pete's. Otherwise, my girlfriend and I had a blast, like we always do when we go to Cedar Point! Can't wait for our next trip.

Great TR, and glad you had a great time in the park & a good hotel experience albeit some difficulty.

Goes to show the park will go to any length to give you a great vacation, which is an awesome trait not every company in the industry strives to follow. Good on them and glad it all worked out.

How good was the air show from Bubbles, would maybe do that in the future, sounds good to sit down with a drink and whatnot in a pool and watch everything happen up above

Thanks for reading, thedevariouseffect! I'm glad it worked out for us too.

The air show was awesome from Bubbles! Flew right overhead several times.