Bad night at the Breakers

My wife and I are watching as I type 2 employees cleaning the west side pool chairs with dirty towels from the used pool towel bid, which is gross.

This after 5 hours of sleep because there are apparently only 3 hotel employees after midnight which I was told after my 3rd phone call at 2am to get people out of the pool. Wow, I guess 300 dollars a night doesn't get you that much anymore.

I've been staying at Breakers every year since 2015's renovation. This past year was the absolute worst. 2015 felt like Disney, 2019 was Motel 6 quality service at best. Room was dirty upon arrival (leftover soap from previous occupants), it took until 6 pm the following day for the beds to be made, employees were smoking in the main Breakers parking lot near waterpark, many employees didn't seem like they wanted to be there.

In my opinion, 2019 was the first noticeable difference of Ouimet's transition. I think he lives in California now (wish him the best) but I don't think he has such a presence in the overall leadership of the property like in 2015. Breakers certainly was his vision and legacy.

We are at Breakers until Thursday, we are late night people staying up until around 4am (Work schedule at home), we were outside the hotel meeting and talking to people by the pools and fire pits. Since the park closed at 8:00 it was quite busy. The pools were empty and closed by 11:00 pm as scheduled. The fire pits were active until about 3am.
I’m not a CP Apologist and understand the staffing problems could be solved very easily by paying more. The hotel is packed, especially for a Sunday Monday before Labor Day. I actually expected the staffing to be much worse than it is, but the hotel is quite clean (Not $365/night clean, more like comfort inn clean). About half of the employees are some of the least friendly, if not outright rude I’ve ever met. Those employees simply don’t want to be here.

Tilt-a-Whirl said:

I've been staying at Breakers every year since 2015's renovation. This past year was the absolute worst. 2015 felt like Disney, 2019 was Motel 6 quality service at best.

Our similarly-anecdotal experience has been more or less the opposite of this, just for some perspective. Of course, we avoid the busy season like the plague, so YMMV.

XS NightClub said:

I’m not a CP Apologist and understand the staffing problems could be solved very easily by paying more.

It's not quite that simple. I mean, yeah, if they were paying $70k/season there'd be no issue attracting employees, but then your $365 room would cost triple that, and Breakers would be a ghost town with well-paid employees standing around doing nothing. They're limited to paying according to the resort revenue, which is limited by what the market will bear.

And while the market could bear a bit more considering how busy the resort seems this year, they're not going to be able to increase prices sufficiently to attract employees in a limited region while unemployment is so low.

The good news is that unemployment is unlikely to remain this low for very long, so we're probably witnessing the worst case scenario as far as staffing goes.

Higher unemployment rates, as the country and region experienced over the last decade, has not had a positive effect on park staffing in the past.

Regarding the employees, we noticed a shift in some attitudes during our trip this year as well, which was ironic because the whole time we were at Canada's Wonderland before we headed towards Sandusky, we were talking to ourselves about how much friendlier and upbeat the CP people were. We watched (along with many other patrons milling about one night at the Sand Bar) an employee/bartender from the Surf Lounge come storming out of Breakers towards the Sand Bar yelling the whole time. She just went off on the 3 workers in the Sand Bar out of nowhere, calling them assholes in front of many guests, and probably a few children. I think it was over ice? I don't know. But it was one of the most unprofessional, unpleasant interactions I've seen at an amusement park, and we were kind of shocked to see that type of thing at Breakers, to be sure.

XS NightClub said:

Higher unemployment rates, as the country and region experienced over the last decade, has not had a positive effect on park staffing in the past.

Assuming you meant "over the previous decade"...

There have been annual discussions about inadequate staffing for the last several years. That suggests a correlation between decreasing unemployment and ability to staff. Obviously there are other factors, but it's a known issue across most sectors that low unemployment means it's hard to find workers.

And water is wet.

Well, yeah. But you just inferred it was dry.

I thought dry water was the kind that doesn't have alcohol in it?

(This post sponsored by White Claw Hard Seltzer)

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Ohio's "spirits".

That’s why we bring our Wisconsin spirits with.
I am jealous you have a bar in your Kroger’’s.
Probably a bad idea for Wisconsin grocery stores though.

Tilt-a-Whirl said:

"...2015 felt like Disney, 2019 was Motel 6 quality service at best...2019 was the first noticeable difference of Ouimet's transition..."

We made similar comments to ourselves during our stay in late June (which happened to be my 30th consecutive year with a multi-night stay at the Breakers). The conditions were downright deplorable before 2015 and we had just about given up, but we were won over after the renovations. With that said, there was an alarming lack of attention to detail this year that we had become accustomed to over the past several years, especially as related to staff interactions with guests and general maintenance/cleanliness.

One example: We were looking over the room for any possible dropped/lost items before checking out. This is when we discovered the exposed electrical outlet behind the mattress (where your head rests). I simply can't comprehend how this can be an acceptable maintenance or housekeeping standard, and I highly doubt that a guest stole the outlet cover. What a horrible place for a power outlet to be in the wall anyway, however I'm sure there are far safer ways plugs to use than this.

Speaking of Breakers, I'm enjoying the Surf Lounge now for the first time sipping a Long Island Iced Tea. I really like this place. Can't believe I never tried it before.

I am 26 hours removed from my rant, and want to be fair because we love CP.

We stayed 3 nights this time ( 8-24-19 through 8-27-19) and the first 2 nights were great! We get lakeside rooms so we can hear the waves crash all night, and fully expect that the pool will be loud until 11.15 PM or so.

Saturday and Sunday night were great. Monday night/Tuesday morning there were people in the pool until 12.15AM, and then again at 2 AM, with little kids! It is disturbing to hear the front desk say "well, there are only 3 of us here right now". In a multi hundred room hotel? No security? That is disturbing.

Just a thought - maybe shut the pool lights and hot tub off at 11:00 PM? It may attract less people that way.

We'll stay at Breakers again, but lakeside may be off the table.

We used to do lakeside, but opt for park view in the new wing. I live in Florida and can see a beach anytime I want- but the world’s greatest amusement park? Now that’s a view!

Tilt-a-Whirl said:

We used to do lakeside, but opt for park view in the new wing. I live in Florida and can see a beach anytime I want- but the world’s greatest amusement park? Now that’s a view!

My kids like that view as well. Seems like they might win in 2020!

The Breakers used to have a security staff of 5 to 6 people at night. They were always "busting" people in the pools after hours. In any event, one of the three, on duty, could have called CP police. I hope you notified both hotel and park management of this.