Cedar Point Crowds? (it's not what you think)

I am not asking what the crowds will be like on...

But From the Trip Reports and Live Park Cams it seems like CP is not very crowded this year. It sounds like there are loads of walk ons and short waits. Is this true or am I crazy?

Walk ons and short waits on the old coasters. 2 hour waits on the two big ones, and Raptor apprently in the morning. There are more than enough rides to go around.

Bill, if you mean is the park as heavily populated as say a Magic Kingdom or and Islands of adventure, then I would say definitely no. Those places seem to much more "packed in". CP has more room to spread out it seems, so even on a busy day, it doesn't seem so crowded.

I wonder if Bill is raising a collective attendance question. Have recent events caused a dip in attendance figures.

I haven’t noticed myself if the web cams seem to show less people than at other times. What does everyone else think? Has anyone noticed crowds larger, smaller, or same; as last year? Seem to be less people, more people; due to recent media exposure? *** Edited 7/23/2004 2:16:20 AM UTC by Wahtash***

I've also noticed that the wait times are much less than with pervious years. However, I'm not sure if its the fact that there are less people coming to the park, or that there are just so many rides there that the crowds are just divided up. I'm starting to think its the later though, 16 coasters and 60 other rides the crowds are bound to spread out. This year, I have been able to ride every single coaster at the Park (except Jr. Gemini and Woodstock Express) every single time I have gone, which has been 5. I'm usually done with everything around 5 and I leave around 5:30, pervious years if I wanted to ride all the coasters it would have taken me much longer.

From the few times I’ve been there, attendance feels like it’s about on level with the 2001 season. I was there last Sunday, and the cars in the main lot were not parked past the 33rd row , which to me always meant the park was pretty empty, for it being the mid-season at least. Also, according to the June attendance report, all combined CF parks excluding Geauga Lake were down 3% in attendance. We don’t know how much Cedar point was down or up specifically, but considering it has the greatest impact on that number I would say it wasn’t too good.

I’ve always felt that what drives attendance is mainly weather, the economy, guest perception from their last visit, and new attractions. The first two factors have been stable or a bit better than last year, but a broken Dragster last year and nothing new this year may be keeping some people home.

Granted, the busiest weeks are still ahead though, as right before the kids go back to school seems to be when the park gets extremely crowded and they bring in the most, so I’d bet they are not too worried.

A lot of the attendance loss had to do with the bad weather this year, as stated at the Cedar Fair website. *** Edited 7/23/2004 2:57:45 AM UTC by Topthrill420***