Canada's Wonderland season tickets

It is posted on the website. This is the way I read it. $99 for gold pass. Gold pass is good for all Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks. No all park passport needed. I wonder if this means early entry next year will only be for resort guests.

All parks season fast lane is $999. Like this year it is only good for Cedar Fair legacy parks.

According to CW's website regarding All Season Fast Lane:

*Only valid at Canada's Wonderland in 2025, valid at all Six Flags parks starting January 2026.

Another thing I noticed is that there is a note saying that you have to activate your pass at Canada's Wonderland. Not sure if that was always the case or not.

If they didn't require activation in Canada, they would effectively be selling the all park, gold pass across all the parks. Anyone could buy that pass and never set foot in the Canada park.

It definitely said Cedar Fair legacy parks for the fast lane yesterday. Must have been a holdover from this year and it got corrected. I still see in the terms a mention of the all parks passport.

There are people that buy their passes through Canada's Wonderland that have never set foot in the park. They save money through the dollar exchange rate.

The "requires activation" thing is something they are going to have to figure out, especially now with the amount of parks they have, it's not unlikely you won't necessarily know which park you are going to end up at first in a given year. I suppose that doesn't affect most people, but I think there's still a substantial portion of people for whom this will cause an issue. It seems to me like they had this problem solved before - the Platinum Pass. Just make it cost the same at all the parks. I guess now there would be some confusion about whether "Prestige" or "Platinum" is a higher tier, but I think a nomenclature problem is easier to figure out than dealing with a bunch of annoyed guests.

I would be surprised if they implement the activation rule at any park other than CW.

But even if they do end up implementing the rule chain-wide, I'd bet the number of people affected by it is vanishingly small.

I would imagine the "must be activated at Canada's Wonderland" is a way to close the loophole where a non-trivial number of passholders would purchase through Canada's Wonderland and save quite a bit with the conversion rate.

If they implement that chainwide, there will be a lot of Cedar Point passholders unable to make an annual early spring pilgrimage to Carowinds, Kings Island or Kings Dominion. I can't imagine they'd do that, but I could be wrong.

I do think $99 for all park access to the full Cedar Flags portfolio is sinfully underpriced and will lead to overcrowded parks that aren't going to be operating close to 100%.

djDaemon:

I would be surprised if they implement the activation rule at any park other than CW.

I’m wondering if this new activation rule is a way for them to roll it out selectively—maybe only at certain parks. For example, they might not include Cedar Point in the all-parks deal or charge extra for it. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. Honestly, it could be a pretty smart move to gradually raise season pass prices at the legacy Six Flags parks while offering an incentive most people probably won’t even end up using.

This pricing is insanely stupid and feels like a desperate attempt to hit attendance numbers for the remainder of this year since it has probably not been a great year so far. Are they really going to do this across the chain or only in Canada? Even $99 for a single large park (like CW, CP, KI, etc) season pass is too low and they are giving away the whole chain for essentially nothing. Just for context, this is basically half what a pass cost in the early 2000's. They have two decades of capital investments and inflation to justify some increases. To me, it makes sense to offer an all park product for maybe in the neighborhood of $250 (still probably well under pacing inflation of the past several years). But they could then vary the prices of the single park passes so that Michigan's Adventure, Great Escape or smaller legacy Six Flags parks might only be $79, but larger and better parks like CP or KI would be $149 or something for the single park pass.

This company truly seems lost. They keep tinkering with their offerings and strategies before ever giving anything a chance to settle in and work (remember Amusement Dark, making CP more upscale, seasonal entertainment and festivals, etc?) and in most cases, they seem to be ignoring basic economic realities with their strategies.

If I were a betting man, I'd say bankruptcy for the company in 2027 or 2028. I don't think the large parks are in danger of ceasing to exist because someone will come along and buy them, but I'd say there's a chance some of the smaller ones fall off the map.

Zimmerman, Fisher, and Bassoul simply don't know what they're doing and unfortunately governance seems to be out the window with a board full of yes men.

$99 for all parks is just insane. What was the Platinum Pass in the 2010’s? Like $180?

What was the equivalent of the Platinum Pass with legacy Six Flags?

If I recall, the CF Platinum Pass usually ran me about $300 with all-season dining included. The Six Flags all-park pass with all-season dining was typically about $180 at the same time. So I think without the dining plan it was probably about this price point for legacy Six Flags parks.

Seems like they should be looking to create regions for passes because certain areas of the country/groups of parks likely would support/justify having a higher price than other areas of the country/parks. The vast, vast majority of passholders are not looking to go beyond a small handful of parks so 40+ park pass doesn't have any practical meaning. And for those looking for the 40+ park passes, they could add a $100 or $200 premium to highest cost regional park pass.

Having an entire portfolio of parks pass means you cannot have different pricing without requiring activation at a particular park. Or implement some method such that people can't buy 40+ park pass at the cheapest park for such pass.

That's why the activation at your home park makes no sense if they do plan to expand it past the Canada's Wonderland loophole. It's all the same price anyway.

It makes more sense to me that they do not intend to expand it past CW. I am not expecting them to offer $99 all chain passes to everyone. In the end, expect its really a way to increase CW pass sales because for all but a very small number of people, there won't effectively be a difference between a 40+ park gold pass and a CW gold pass (they are just going to visit CW with it but there may be marketing power to some in 40+ park access).

From what I have read, US visitors to Canada have declined in 2025. Something of an official trade war going on. CF/CW may just be trying to take steps to help with that situation.

^seems to not be just Wonderland. Cedar Point site was data mined after CW sale went live and you were briefly able to see the 2026 Gold Pass for the Point and it appears to also be $99 and access to all parks.

We will see when the Cedar Point 2026 passes are available. Ultimately though I agree with Cartwright that it doesn't make sense to require home park activation if you are offering the $99/40+ parks pass across the entire platform. Which is why I said it makes sense to me that requiring CW activation for the CW pass indicates that they do not plan to offer the $99/40+ parks pass everywhere. But sometimes contrary decisions are made. We shall see.

Incompetent decisions are made often when it's Zimmerman, FIsher and Bassoul making them.

So it definitely is not just CW. Number of Six Flags pages have been scraped now as well. There are parks websites showing gold passes that include all parks for as low as $55-60.

$60 barely covers parking and a fountain drink at some SIX parks. That is asinine if that's what they're charging for a season pass.