Cedar Point App Update

Pete said:
Liked the free drink available from the app today.

I agree, although I got 3 notifications for it. And of course the first freestyle location I go to, near Raptor, didn't have the right size cup so I went to the one by GateKeeper.

There seemed to be a decent amount of people on Twitter complaining about the ride times not being correct. What do you expect the first day they have ever tried to have them updated? I wonder how they are managing that behind the scenes. Probably someone in the Park Ops office makes the updates as they get reported?

The wait times a took with a grain of salt. Walking past TTD, the app showed it closed, but was clearly open- with a 30 minute time posted.

I absolutely love storing my passes on my phone. (Apple user btw) And tying FunPix into it is genius. If this app is the direction the park continues to take tech-wise I can't wait to see what else they do with it!

I think the new app is good so far. I liked getting a free drink from it today. The wait times were within a few minutes of being correct. My Funpix isn't working, so I'm not sure how that will work. Looks like I'll be making a phone call tomorrow.

I was having some issues getting it to recognize that I was in the park. I had to change my location services to "Always" from "While using" in order to get it to work. I like the app and it has some good potential but there are some bugs to still be worked out. I'm sure they'll get them fixed. Had no issues with the wifi. Seemed to work well all day.

RideMan said:

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.

I'm fairly certain that isn't true. It won't fetch content every time. I also doubt the servers are overtaxed because the services are not likely computationally complex, and provisioning capacity in the cloud is crazy easy.

I had pretty good luck with the app and it's certainly a step in the right direction. Wish they'd include more detail for food places like menus and what meal plan options they have. Perhaps in time. Another feature we thought of was including time since you used the meal plan. I did not have my visit count update yet either although I don't really care. :) Wifi seems a bit sketchy at times and in certain areas. Not as good as Kings Island's yet, but hopefully they'll get it right. Received a free single scoop cone or dish of the Valravn ice cream on Saturday afternoon. That was delicious! Also got a free Flavoravn Fizz offer on Sunday that we did not used because we have an all season cup. Maybe they'll send me the free Valravn beer next. ;)

I think the season pass storage aspect is still a work in progress. Noticed yesterday that, of the 4 passes I have stored in mine, only mine and my son's pictures were showing up. Looked in my wife's phone, and only our daughter's showed. Tried deleting all 4 out of her phone and rescanning them. All the pictures came back but now my daughter's pass shows as a 2015 pass, but yet it shows her as having 1 visit in 2016.

Before I renewed my pass it said I had 7 visits in 2016.

LOL, that's good. For us, the 1 visit is correct, but I just found it funny that it shows her as having a 2016 visit on a 2015 pass. Doesn't matter because I know her pass is valid thanks to getting into the park Sunday. I don't see us not carrying our pass cards and relying solely on the phones to scan though.

Mine showed up with my photo as a 2016 pass, but still today didn't show any visits (I was there Friday night and Saturday morning). I just deleted the pass and re-added it, and now it says 2015 Platinum Pass with no picture, but shows I have one visit. Maybe Friday night didn't count for some reason.

It probably didn't since it wasn't an official operating day.

It counted for me. It says I have 3 visits this season.

Also, it allowed me to add it to my passbook without a problem.

edit: Holy cow - it now comes up in my passbook on my Apple Watch - and gives me the QR code - so it looks like I'll be using my wrist toy for something else cool this year.

Weird, I added them to passbook and all the pics show up. Oh well, it wouldn't be a new app without glitches. It's still a vast improvement over the old app.

I was there Sunday and didn't get the free drink notification. Is it a random thing?

^ Yep, it's random. Various coupons & offers are sent to select users who are in the park. It's a good reason to have it installed & active on each visit.

How do you spoof location on Android?

Download an app called "Fake GPS location". You may need to enable "Allow mock locations" in your Android Developer Options. If you don't have developer settings, click on "Build Number" in "About phone" a handful of times until they are activated.

Edit: Clarifying app name

Interesting. Apparently the app has updated. On Sunday, scanning the pass barcode took a very long time and adding it to the system store was not an option. Today I scanned my pass again into the Kings Island app and it was almost instant...and both apps allowed me to store the pass in the system store.

I also notice that the Cedar Point app credits my pass with 0 visits while the Kings Island app says I have 3. That kind of makes sense...it is a Kings Island pass for logistical reasons and I have been there twice this season, once to Cedar Point.

Finally, for some insight into the underlying data store, the Kings Island app, which is the data store where the data entry was done, shows my name as "David Althoff", while the Cedar Point app, relying on imported data, calls me "david althoff" instead.

I will leave that data for the computer science people in the group to pick apart. :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.