Cedar Point 2012

Kevinj said:
Both are getting the core experience; the baseball game, and the rides...same game, same rides...one just comes with some perks, while the other does not.

And how is offering a "VIP experience" at a ball game any more moral than offering a "VIP experience" at an amusement park?

Both are getting the core experience: the amusement park. One just comes with some perks, while the other does not.

But that does not mean they should.

Actually, it does. CF has a responsibility to make money. Period. Offering a VIP experience is no different than charging $XX amount for admission. CP could raiser their gate price to $200 if they felt it was in their best interests.

Put simply, you're not in a position to say what CF should or should not do.

I don't think I'm in a position to say what CF should or should not do, but I am certainly welcome to voice an opinion on what they do. That's all we're doing here.

Isn't this about Kings Island? Are we certain CP (along with the other CF parks) will even use these?
Besides, those who use these fast passes may be the ones who save up for that big family vacation (CP, nice hotel, Soak City, Challenge Park, etc...), while others may come more often for different reasons.
But that being said, I, myself would probably never use one of those passes.

Hmm.

After reading through the discussion on the CB website, I find myself sounding like a whiner. There were some really valid, well-articulated points about the system. I'm still not convinced how much I like it, but perhaps it's not the cauldron of evil.

Put simply, I think I was wrong on this one.

Damn.

I wouldn't say that you are necessarily wrong. On CB the "pay to cut" scheme has been discussed and debated in great detail over the course of years. You just have not had a chance to have your opinion changed about it like some of the folks on CB:)

Cedar Point's lines are not actually that long compared to other parks. Other than Mantis and wicked twister, just about every CP roller coaster has high capacity.

I wouldn't mind if Cedar Point added these passes, but they do not necessarily need them. 1 1/2 seems to be the average wait time more the Millenium Force (from what I've seen when I am at the park) and that is not that long of a wait time for one of the parks most popular rides.

If CP were to get the passes, in my opinion, there are only four rides that would make sense to put the passes in. Maverick, Millenium, Dragster, and Raptor.

SSL488 said:
The parks goal is to make money. With a "pay to cut pass" it WILL earn the park money because there are people out there who would spend the extra money.

Yes and no.
Yes, some people will spend $$$ on the pass, increasing park revenue without significantly increasing costs. Hence, more money.

No, some people will be faced with two choices: pay more for upgraded service or pay the same for longer waits in line. If either of these choices change the cost-benefit ratio from acceptable to unacceptable, those people will cease coming to the park. Hence, less money.

Does Group #1 outweigh Group #2?

djDaemon said:
And how is offering a "VIP experience" at a ball game any more moral than offering a "VIP experience" at an amusement park?

Both are getting the core experience: the amusement park. One just comes with some perks, while the other does not.

Depends. Does offering a "VIP Experience" affect the quality of product the non-VIPers receive? If a "Pay to Cut" increases line waits for others than it decreases the quality of product for non-VIPers without lowering their expense.

The real question: Does FastPass, Freeway, whatever, increase, decrease or not change waiting times for those who don't buy it? If it increases waiting times, that is a cut in product quality without a compensating cut in price.

^I never really thought of it that way.

At Cedar Point, i really don't see the wait times an issue, with the exception of Saturdays in the summer and Halloweekend Saturdays. CP should just keep the VIP the way it is, it will be a major issue if the same thing comes to CP that is being tried out at KI.

Just the looks and comments made already, with using a parent swap is nuts, i can only imagine the extent of what would happen with this constant stream of people skipping the line and pissing off the people in the station that already waited an hour+ to ride.

I don't think that the child swap has anything to due with this.

SO, everyone, what kind of new attraction will we find at Cedar Point in 2012?

djDaemon said:

And how is offering a "VIP experience" at a ball game any more moral than offering a "VIP experience" at an amusement park?

To borrow a little bit of the idea I touched on yesterday on CB: The difference isn't that it creates haves and have-nots. When someone buys the luxury suite at the baseball game, it doesn't impact the way the people out in the bleachers see the game. They don't have a "VIP only inning" where they lower a curtain over the bleachers so only the luxury box people can watch.

To translate it to the parks, the people who aren't paying for the VIP experience are quite literally standing around not riding while the people who paid more are "cutting" to ride over and over again, therefore impacting/degrading the experience for the person who paid less. Although I should note that example really only applies to systems like Six Flags' Gold/Platinum Flash Pass or the one KI just started doing. It does not apply the same way to a true virtual queuing system, which would be something like parent swap or the disability pass under CP's current system.

As it applies to CP, with capacity being the beast that it is, I'm not sure I see a true need for having a VQ or fast pass system outside of a few days per year.

Captain Hawkeye said:
Does offering a "VIP Experience" affect the quality of product the non-VIPers receive?

Given that these systems aren't exactly new, and that attendance has seemed to not suffer in parks where it's been implemented, I'd say that the VIP or "pay to cut" systems don't degrade the amusement park experience significantly for non-"cutters". Besides, you'd have to lose more than one non-"cutter's" business for each paying "cutter", given that the service costs more than the actual admission price (assuming it would cost $50 at CP).

As was pointed out above, for years people have been predicting an attendance drop at parks where they offer this service, and it has yet to happen.

Ralph Wiggum said:
When someone buys the luxury suite at the baseball game, it doesn't impact the way the people out in the bleachers see the game.

That's a fair point. However, the question is whether or not the negative impact outweighs the positive impact, strictly from a monetary perspective. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case, given that these systems keep popping up.

As it applies to CP, with capacity being the beast that it is, I'm not sure I see a true need for having a VQ or fast pass system outside of a few days per year.

I don't know about that. Even when the park isn't terribly busy, I could see myself paying for FOL access, provided the service was priced right, obviously. Aside from the obvious benefit during a HW Saturday, there have been times when I've encountered long-ish waits at the park when it's "supposed" to be dead. And the more I visit a park, the less time I'm willing to spend in line. I mean, when you've ridden Maverick 7 times in an hour, it's tough to stand in that queue for even 45 minutes.

What I'm wondering is how many people are going to buy this. I mean, if you're waiting in line for Maverick without the fastpass, how many people will be cutting you? If it is only like 10, than that's no big deal. If it is like 100, that can get really annoying, really fast.

All I can say is when I use the single rider line on the maveric I get bad looks and rumbleing from the other people in line. Letting in more people in a bypass line wouldn't far so well with the other people who have been in line for an hour.

Again, that's what people have been saying for years, 1note. So far the net financial impact for parks seems to be positive, indicating that it's not upsetting very many people.

SSL488 said:
I don't think that the child swap has anything to due with this.

I was only comparing the looks and comments that are made when using the parent swap and thats with only 2 people max. Imagine a crap load of people storming the ride at once to skip the line, that could get ugly!

When have you ever seen a "crap load" of people utilizing such a system in that way?

If im not mistaken Kings island has put it saying there is a limit per day meaning I would think 50 or 100 tickets period a day for it.

johnny1note said:
All I can say is when I use the single rider line on the maveric I get bad looks and rumbleing from the other people in line. Letting in more people in a bypass line wouldn't far so well with the other people who have been in line for an hour.

the thing is, those people could have used the single rider line. They chose not to. And if people don't want to spend a little extra money, it is there fault that they would be standing in the regular line. They had a choice to buy a "fastpass" but they dint want to, so they shouldn't complain about other people who did spend the extra money.