Cedar Point at Christmas

Stayed at camper village this year closing weekend. Noticed that the shower house didn't have heat. Plenty of hot water but wasn't heated. None of the restrooms in the park really had much heat. The buildings that had heat the doors where open. Maybe the arcade but that's it. I don't think you'll ever see CP open after Halloween.

Look at winterfest @ KI

They closed down...it just doesn't work here..

They tried a Christmas Event in 1997 or so. Nobody showed up and, frankly, it was bad for employee morale. The Full Time Staff works 6 days a week (minimum) from April through October. They cannot take any vacation during that time. The last thing they want to do is have to gear back up again for a few weeks at Christmas time when they should rightfully be spending time with their families.

I spent four winters on the CP Peninsula and don't miss it at all. It was all I could do to muster up the will to get from the parking lot to my office on many days. It wasn't unusual for us to be told to leave early if a storm was brewing, lest we get stuck on the peninsula because the Causeway would be impassable.

Let this rest once and for all.

Any sort of Christmas event would require some sort of special holiday overlays for the run, and Cedar Point just doesn't put a big emphasis on theming as it is - so I doubt that on it's own, it would be exciting enough to get many to attend.

That said, if they improve the Breakers hotel enough in the next two years to give it the right assets (that would also make it into a winter getaway destination as well), they could create something that would open up (at least part of) the park to a year round operation.

If they had better convention facilities, some really good upscale food offerings, and spa like services for guests, the experience at Hotel Hershey could be somewhat replicated, and fill a void for that sort of offering in the region.

See the two posts above yours please

Just cool your jets everyone and enjoy the off season with something other than CP...There are many other things out there :D

I honestly think Cedar Point missed the boat on the year round convention business. It seems like Kalahari has a pretty strong hold on that now and I don't know how much of the market share CP could really regain.

As was pointed out on the previous page from another thread on this subject, it appeared to be a market problem rather than a weather problem. There is just no other draws to Sandusky during the winter. Maybe if there was something like a casino in Sandusky, that could change. Many people would not drive over an hour just to go to the park when it's running on a limited basis. Personally, if they had a few good flat rides running, good holiday shows, and nice light displays, I would go. But I wouldn't go for what Christmas in the Park was.

They don't have college kids to staff it like they do over the summer, they're at school. To get internationals to staff just a few short weeks would be a nightmare. There isn't a huge population of locals, that city dies big time during the winter.

Weather, staffing, lack of interest, and overall, just bad idea mean this will not happen.

Join ACE or GOCC, sometimes CP has an off season tour for the Holiday party when the party is held in Sandusky.

I think a casino in Sandusky could help the city going during CP's off season. The biggest flaw with Sandusky is there is nothing to do there during the winter. I wouldn't expect Sandusky to be a thriving year-round destination, but just give it a little boost if a casino were to open there. I'm pretty sure that Disney and other year-round parks attendances drop drastically once September rolls around. Knott's is only open 10-6 during the fall and winter seasons.

We just got back from Disney World last night and I can assure you their attendance has not dropped. It was just as crazy busy this past week as it was in July when we went. We finally got to see the Osborne Lights at Hollywood Studios and it was absolutely amazing. I would love to see a Christmas event at Cedar Point but unfortunately I don't ever see it happening.

Another point about Disney is it attracts a worldwide audience where CP and other coaster parks are mostly just a regional audience. I would think though that their attendance would be lower during the fall and winter since that's not peak vacation time. I'm sure they do see spikes though during the holidays and in the spring when schools are typically on spring break.

Thabto said:
I think a casino in Sandusky could help the city going during CP's off season.

Doubtful. A huge chunk of CP's market is Metro Detroit, and we have our own casinos. And Windsor.

Cleveland, another big draw for CP, has a casino as well. As does Toledo.

Diva, if you were at Disney this past weekend part of those crowds could be attributed to the Epcot Wine and Dine Half Marathon. 14,000 runners plus their families is certainly a great way to fill hotel beds during non peak times of the year. Between those races and the various sports tournaments that happen at Wide World of Sports Disney has certainly figured out a way to keep busy year 'round.

I heard Disney was packed on Saturday while at Universal we were walking on to rides all day and Potter was only a 20 minute wait.

I can't comment on attraction wait times but the first Christmas event night at Magic Kingdom was sold out a couple days beforehand.

The Toledo gaming scene has put a MAJOR dent in the revenues seen at the three Detroit Casinos. Just like how the Detroit casinos really impacted the Windsor casinos.

Point being, for something like a casino, people would rather visit one locally vs. travel. The majority of the people who would visit a potential Sandusky casino are the people who can afford it least, namely, the good folks sitting on their porch swings all day when one drives through town to get to CP.

The casino alone wouldn't do much, it would just give visitors more to do in Sandusky. Right now the only things to do near Sandusky are CP, Indoor Waterparks and Lake Erie Islands and two of those are only seasonal.

Back in the day, Kinzel wanted a casino in Sandusky operated by Cedar Point. That would have probably helped the bottom line quite a bit.

There's plenty more to do near Sandusky than Cedar Point, indoor waterparks and Lake Erie islands: marinas, campgrounds, state parks, national historic sites, golf courses, shopping, to name a few. Different people enjoy doing different things on vacations.

The thing with casinos that aren't in Las Vegas, and to a lesser degree, Atlantic City, is that their customer base is mostly local; a casino in Sandusky would draw most of its customers from the local area. Someone from Detroit visiting Cedar Point would likely have little interest in going to a casino, since they would have, what, four casinos in or near Detroit to visit.