Cedar Point traffic nightmare!!

I'm just going to say that according to the webcams, the traffic was cleared about an hour after you made the original post.

That is all.

Edit: no it's not. I've been stuck there for as many as 3 hours because of the fatal accident last year. Want to know what me and my friends did? We did a ton of Chinese fire drills, takes to people in neighboring cars, talked to marina entrence people, security guards and such. We turned it into a good time. You've gotta learn to make the best out of situations.

Now that is all.

Do any of the webcams point in the direction of the water park lot to see if traffic was stuck in the lot?

RMCMS rubbernecking?

Once in a while you can see the back lot but not normally. I always assume that the back lot has the potential for trouble so if I really need to get out of the park when it's time to go I park in the front. If that means moving the car after we're done with the water that's what I do.

Parking at the very back of a 364 acre peninsula with a mile long causeway and expecting Early Exit is just ridiculous. Ironically, most who do, do it for Early Entry.

Oh, trust me, I read every word of your rant-filled post trying to make sense of it. (I'm also wondering what the hell anyone here is supposed to do about it?)

I just find it hard to believe that it took two hours to empty the Breakers parking lot while traffic along the road moved freely and everyone in the Shores parking lot was made to wait for them all to pass. Even if there was 500 cars back there, surely not every single hotel guest was trying to leave Cedar Point at the same time.
So there must've been another backup somewhere along that two-lane Perimeter Road that caused a delay for everyone. Everyone. And common sense tells me that it involved two crosswalks and two or three other parking lots on the way, with the last one holding thousands of cars. What you might be refusing to visualize is everyone there, not just you, was trying to get to the only road in and out of the park, which is 4 lanes at best. And what was going on there weather-wise? A storm and heavy rain? Gosh, that's the time when everyone sharpens up their driving skills, right?

I've never worked traffic at the park but I know some that have. I believe there's a pecking order when emptying the parking lots in order to insure the fastest and safest way. (Especially on those occasions when everyone is trying to leave at once.) Front lot first, which we all know can be a cluster even on a good day. As anyone can imagine, it must take a long time. Then the auxiliary lots from front to back. Shores parking is almost as far back as one can go, and it's ridiculous to think that it should take any priority over lots that are closer, or that merging onto a nice wide road is even a possibility. You saw traffic moving along because others ahead of you were going. Then it was your turn.

Don't confuse me with blind defenders. But I will take up for employees anywhere who are faced with asses charging up to them with raised voices while they're just trying to do their job as prescribed. Outdoors. In bad weather. I don't know how they keep from punching people.

We should all be like the Griswolds, who take the last parking space in the back of the lot near the exit so they can be the first ones out.

The webcam did not point to the lot, but it did point to Millennium Force and peremiter road. There was a car that passed every 30 seconds or so.

Goes to amusement park to unwind and enjoy time away from the normal ebb and flow of life

Ragequits at backed up traffic from a destination amusement park with only two ways in / out.

MAC summed it up perfectly.

This topic is starting to come up each year.

My Advice: Don't park at CP Shores Parking lot. Ever. Seriously Don't.

I learned this 4th of July weekend 5 years ago. The family and I watched the fireworks and got a nice close parking spot by Ripcord so that we had a short walk to Cedar Point Beach...

When we got to our car after the park closed (an hour and a half after fireworks ended), there were cars everywhere, all with their engines off. Little did we know, what we were going into.

To put this in perspective, we sat in the parking lot and had the DVD player going so that the kids could watch movies to keep ourselves occupied. We watched all of Toy Story 1 and most of Toy Story 2 before we moved. All told, it took us 4 hours to get to the causeway from where we were parked. When we passed by the main lot, it was empty. So what gives? Why did it take so long?

There are bottlenecks, upon bottlenecks to go from the CP Shores lot out to the main lot alone. All the traffic management in the world isn't going to fix it. The problem is capacity. You have a single lane of traffic that is allowed to leave that parking lot, that goes to the main lot that has a bunch of people leaving simultaneously.

Hopefully this is a valuable lesson learned.

Perimeter Rd should be blocked off from the main lot traffic leaving all the way to the causeway if the traffic is backed up like this.

We went back in, ate dinner, rode a few rides, and then walked back out a little before 9. Traffic had completely cleared at that point.

^^ They have already dedicated a lane for Perimeter Rd to the causeway I don't see how blocking the front parking lot off to Perimeter Rd would change anything other than the very few people who turn from the Perimeter Rd. into the main lot to go past the main entrance and out the chausee. So few people do this that there's no way it could possibly be a major contribution to this problem. Not allowing left hand turns from the main lot to Perimeter Rd. maybe but blocking it completely would really serve no purpose.

TGIFridays or Surf Lounge really help manage those pesky parking lot waits. It's really a management conspiracy to get you to spend even more money.

https://imgur.com/gallery/fVqfs

Put things into perspective- it's a 13 minute 4.5 mile drive without any traffic whatsoever. What a Nightmare.

I guess I've just never been in a hurry to leave.

When virtually everyone leaves at the same time for whatever reason (rain, closing), I can't see how anyone would expect a smooth exit -- even if you had a truck load of "technically traffic trained" workers. I personally think they do the best that they can, and while they may not have it down to a science, consider the volume they're working with. I don't know . . . maybe next time don't be one of those running out the gate when it starts to rain.

To a point, parking at Cedar Point is HIGHLY flawed. No, it doesn't mean you can scream and cry about it, but looking at Kings Island it seems like Cedar Point could learn a few things. First, installing a self scan booth or two would help incoming traffic a lot. Secondly, why not just shut down the shores lot and use it only for water park guests? Perimeter road isn't getting any wider and certainly CP created a huge cluster-f with adding preferred parking back there (which, by the way, half of the main lot workers don't even know exists) so certainly there are ways they can improve. However the self entitled rant is not going to get anything solved.

I do agree that KI has a nice set up, but I don't think it's because of self scan booths (hell half the time I have to play with the thing for 30 seconds to get it to scan my ancient pass) or anything of the sort. KI was built within the past 50 years with high car traffic volume in mind. CP has evolved more organically since 1870 when most people arrived by boat. Also, who's to say the people leaving weren't CP Shores guests? If the lot is full and everyone goes to leave at the same time because of a storm, it's going to be an issue whether they walked to their car from Shores or from the park.

Some of the best easy exit parking spots at CP are in the bayside lot (South Basin) up as close to Pet Check as possible. There's usually way less of a fight to get out of there than there is in the main lot. And you're up front so you don't have to wait in line to get around from the back parking lot.

I've had one or two very bad experiences with CP traffic (the morning of the water main break a few years back comes to mind), but for driving in and out of there hundreds of times, I've had pretty good luck.

mgou58 said:
Secondly, why not just shut down the shores lot and use it only for water park guests? ... However the self entitled rant is not going to get anything solved.

To the best that they can they have been shutting down the parking lot to guests for the waterpark only (they actually started this last July) , I just left staying at lighthouse point for eight days and every day they have been blocking the lot until just before Shore's opens and blocking the lot to lighthouse point and Sandcastle as well. You must've missed the over-entitled enthusiast rant thread complaining about this (it's really quite a spectacle watching the enthusiasts getting turned around at all three points to have to park back at the front.)

MDOmnis nailed it, if I am not staying on point, that is the best parking and you don't have to try and get a left turn out of the main lot or fight hotel, RV, shores, Marina, famous Dave's and main lot guests leaving.

https://imgur.com/gallery/I5B8J
An actual CP Traffic Nightmare

RCMAC said:

Anger management.

Goosfraba