Cedar Point App Update

I see on my iPhone that the official Cedar Point app has been updated, placing the look more in line with the Cedar Fair website (you'll know what I mean if you see it). One thing that caught my eye is that the app will tell you ride wait times but only if you are in the park. This is similar to what Disney does and am curious how precise it will be. Overall, I think the app looks great. Kudos to the CP team.

It's not that hard to spoof location, at least if you're on Android. Now, what I did notice is that the "Season Pass" benefits listed after I put my season pass in are for Carowinds, not CP.

Does Disney geo-fence the app and wait times? I live so close that it probably doesn't matter.

The app is nice but he wait times need some work, at least when it comes to Valravn. The app shows a 20 min. wait right now when the actual wait time is 1 hr 15 min. Also, the WiFi is having issues. Signal is very strong but I can't get an IP address, perhaps because of the number of people in the park. I'm sure they will fix the issues

Disney does not geo-fence; I can see them in Baltimore. HersheyPark's app is the only other one I have found that gives wait times when not in the park.

My mistake. I guess for some reason I remember their app not showing park specific stuff (like wait times, locations of characters, etc.) until I was on Disney property. This was several years ago, so perhaps I have an excuse for not remember but thanks for clearing it up. :)

Where do the ride wait times show up in the app. I realize I'm not in the park and are a couple hours away so I can't see them but is there a heading on the front page that shows up when you're in the park? Or are they listed on the park map in the app when your at CP?

codeGR said:

It's not that hard to spoof location, at least if you're on Android. Now, what I did notice is that the "Season Pass" benefits listed after I put my season pass in are for Carowinds, not CP.

I spoofed my location, and the times do show up. It was listing 25 minutes for Millennium Force. Since I'm not there, not sure of the accuracy.

I entered my Platinum and my daughter's regular pass into the app. Both list benefits for Carowinds- and my daughters shows as a "Cedar Point Silver Season Pass".

Maybe testing out a new tier of pass?

Pete said:

Also, the WiFi is having issues. Signal is very strong but I can't get an IP address, perhaps because of the number of people in the park. I'm sure they will fix the issues

The WiFi was having some issues last night as well. It was working fine for a while, then lost IP address then started working again. Cant blame it on too many people in the park last night.

Burky said:

Where do the ride wait times show up in the app. I realize I'm not in the park and are a couple hours away so I can't see them but is there a heading on the front page that shows up when you're in the park? Or are they listed on the park map in the app when your at CP?

The park uses your location to determine whether you are in the park. If you are in the park, the ride time shows up when you tap a ride on the map.

So, in other words, if I keep my location OFF to conserve battery the app won't give me wait time information?

Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. If you set your location settings to "Allow location access - Never" the app assumes that you are not in the park. I would recommend setting it to "While Using the App" so that it will only be using your location while the app is open on your phone.

The bottom line is that you can still do just as much as the old app by turning your location off - if you want to take advantage of the new features, it just might be worth loosing the 2% of your battery to get ride wait times.

The Kings Island app also had random offers and deals for people that were "detected" to be in the park. I know they had coupons for things like 50% off a funnel cake and such. I would expect the same to happen over time with the Cedar Point app.

The folks that are doing the CF apps are the same that did the SEAS apps. They're pretty good at what they do.

They are? Well, the CP app has some serious issues. Oops, my train is here...

--Dave Althoff, Jr

App was a huge disappointment for me today. On iOS the all isn't recognizing that I was in the park. I had location services on. Tried on CP wifi and with LTE. No difference. Says I'm not in the park.

I got funpix to work briefly in the app but after changing my password it won't let me access funpix or update my password.

App has potential but is still buggy.

Ahem. Sorry about that, the in park wifi is decent, but posting while riding Magnum is still a Bad Idea™.

Anyway, the app is hamstrung by its total dependency on a network connection. One of its features is the ability to store your season passes so you can use your mobile device for entry. But you can't transfer that barcode to the iOS Wallet, and if you haven't network connection (as at the resort gate) the app won't even launch.

It also appears that almost none of the app content is cached on device, so once the app launches you get to stare at a blue circle for a while as it downloads all of its content *yet again* from what appears to be an overtaxed web server.

Finally, I don't know what it does in the background, but several times today I have had to kill the app because it was overheating my iPod and sucking my battery dry even though it was in the background.

Oh, and in park wifi geolocation does not work at all. It works great at Kings Island, though, so all you IPhone and Droid users please turn on your wifi and enable location services while you are at the park so that Apple and Google can get the coordinates for the park access points, okay? The geolocation thing will fix itself in time, once all the APs get logged.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The Android app, while needing a network connection as Dave mentioned, seems to not have battery issues. Had the app running most of the day and it used 11% battery. Not bad considering it is constantly updating ride times, location and notifications. Liked the free drink available from the app today.

My phone warned me that the CP app was still accessing my location in the background, so I switched Location Services to "while using the app." I figured if I'm not using it right this second, there's no need for it to know my location, and it would be just one more thing to drain my battery at the park.

Well, the app didn't seem to like that, and I had to switch back to "always" in order for it to work. I'm not sure why.

I will say though, the wifi seemed pretty speedy and reliable Friday night, but maybe that's because most people didn't know about it yet.

On Android(Nexus 6), I had the app running all day, wifi on. Used very little battery- and I used my phone pretty heavily. My daughter's iPhone 6 wouldn't recognize her in the park. I was amazed at how well the wifi actually worked.