All Park Passport

Not to mention imo Prestige even having to add-on the park passport is such a massive value boost from the Platinum pass that it makes sense to cut out Platinum. Also there is a chance the Gold goes back to ERT without a mid tier pass. OR they could be phasing out ERT all together?

Yep, Gold is a holdover from the Paramount Parks season pass system, which was then brought over to CP's system. Also, it is important to note that the old Season Pass / Platinum Pass system at CP had a ton of issues, mainly since the Season Pass was incredibly basic, to the point that it did not include free parking. (For reference, even the base Summer Pass sold nowadays includes free parking.) Now, if you were buying multiple passes for a family and did not plan on going to Soak City, then that pass did make sense if you purchased one Platinum to get the parking and then Season Passes for the rest of the passes you purchased. However, for someone buying a single pass, it made practically no sense to purchase the Season Pass by itself. Gold really plugged a massive hole in the CP pass system when it was brought over from the former Paramount system.

I’m counting up roughly 1500 sleeping rooms between 4 resorts plus however many camp/cottage sites they have. Let’s say the hotels are all booked and 2-3 people from each of those show up for early entry. It can be a lot of guests to pack into a short time and none of them paid extra to have it. (Theoretically).
As a passholder I could suffer without early entry and the only advantage I could see is if the latest Big New Ride is included. But as a central Ohio resident who travels I absolutely need the park hopper option and will be shelling out extra for that. I’ll have to compare this year’s costs to next year’s.

Well they just officially posted. I think Gold Pass may be getting ERT back next year based on this wording?

Well that's disappointing. So apparently the only thing that distinguishes the Prestige from Gold is:

...preferred parking, a single-use fast lane with each visit, access to the VIP lounge, and so much more.

And with the Passport those benefits extend to Carowinds and KI.

I guess we'll see once pricing is released, but I can't help but feel like they're leaving money on the table by making Gold + Passport equivalent to Platinum, but at a lower price point. I guess they plan on making it up on volume, a la Six Flags.

Would be easier to go back to just gold and platinum but I suppose you can’t roll back the benefits of the prestige to simple old platinum anymore. Even thought it would be the same thing in all but name.

It does seem much simpler overall, I got a headache trying to decide on a 2023 pass.

my question is that since it extends to other parks, and only three or 4 CF parks carry the prestige, will those benefits still then be included at the parks not offering it?

After playing around with Accesso keywords again, I was able to dig up some 2024 pass details. Given that they haven't actually released the info yet, some of this information will probably change. Also, there's some typos, etc... This is likely just a rough draft.

I took a bunch of screenshots and didn't want to make this a huge post, so here's a link to an imgur album.

Some notable things and some of this may be filler info from 2023 and not accurate...

• Gold pass looks to remain the same. $99 pass / No Early Entry
• Meal Plan price for All Park Passport Addon is $149 vs $115.
• The Prestige Pass All Park Passport Addon is listed as $125 vs the $100 for gold.

Jordan_Vanichek:

And then in 2025, parking won't be included in the Gold pass, and you'll have to buy the "Parking Plus Prestige" add-on...

Which will bring us full circle to the early 2000s. But hopefully this time without that big sticker on the car.

I'm interested to know what this drink plan is.

Could it be the water bottle with the lanyard shown at the top? Some sort of uptier insulated container?

The plus plan includes “premium” drinks, think coffee, icee, etc.

Icee you say....

It says "PLUS PAP" which could mean "plus paper cups". The plan is more if you want to be able to use paper cups instead of refilling a souvenir bottle.

I don't remember exactly when it started, but there's been an annoying policy to ask if we want to buy a souvenir bottle every time the current cup drink plan is used. If CP feels like they're not selling enough bottles, I can see them making them mandatory and including the paper cups as an upcharge.

Hopefully that's just pessimism. Aaronosmer's premium drinks idea sounds much better.

Ugh the environmentalist in me says ‘yes’ but the I-don’t-want-to-carry-anything-ist says ‘no’.

Chuck Wagon:

It says "PLUS PAP" which could mean "plus paper cups".

The "2024 Drink Plan" is the cup option, which is the same price as the bottle.

I hate that I'm taking and throwing away a cup with every use, but given that a person has to pay for a locker, I never go with the refillable cup. I wish there were some collapsable option that could be stored in a pocket or something, but that's not going to happen.

Yeah, I hate thinking about the number of single use paper cups that get used each day with drink plan redemptions. I also am frustrated the park has removed recycling containers in the past few years.

My understanding is that the park's waste management contractor uses front-end separation so that there's no need to have separate recycling containers. That's how it allegedly was a few years ago; I presume that hasn't changed.

I still have a Dragster bottle here somewhere. It was the epitome of what happens when there is no communication between marketing, food services, and park operations. That qnza thing will NOT fit into any locker in the park AND there was no provision for storing it while riding or carrying it on board. And it didn't even have a handle. That bottle was probably the one thing that made so many of us absolutely hate carrying around a souvenir bottle.

If they had at least gone with something with a big handle on it, maybe work out a plan where you could drop the handle of the empty bottle over the end of the seat belt buckle.....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Idk if this has been mentioned but is live on Carowinds site

https://www.carowinds.com/b...k-passport