Cedar Point's 2011 ride will target thrill seekers

ok.

I see Lance is on board with the 64 seat, 300 ft idea...wonder if he read that from RaceRinger or if he has the same "source".

"2011 - Stratosoar / Thrill Ride - Semi-Confirmed - (8/6/10) The latest rumors about StratoSoar is that the Star Flyer style ride will hold 64 riders at once and stand 300 feet tall. I’ve also heard that the new ride could replace Ocean Motion, the park’s swing ship, located right next to the beach." - Screamscape

Or that he just reads PointBuzz and throws out ideas as he reads them here.

JuggaLotus said:

SuperSonicGoalie said:
Moving it is an interesting thought given they still have some land for expansion off the penninsula according to their last 10k.

I don't believe that land is available for construction. Rather it is restored wetlands that have been purchased and restored to off-set the removal of wetlands on the peninsula in order to build new rides. I've heard varying ratios thrown around, but there was something that for every acre they fill in on the peninsula, they restore 5 or 10 acres on the mainland.

I am only quoting the 10k in saying that the land off the penninsula is available for expansion. That document gives the total land use for each park in the chain and the total remaining land for expansion at each park. Either way, I think most agree that IF Cedar Point needed/wanted to expand, all things remaining equal (i.e. no rides removed), they would need to find a way to move parking.

Expanding into the lake is deffinitely an option. Remeber the causeway is not a natural geographic feature. However, this would be immesnely expensive and would need to be justified from a cost/benefit perspective vs. moving parking.

In my opinion, there is still plenty of space at Cedar Point right now. They are running out of room for coasters, but are by no means out of room now, and as far as thrill rides and other rides go they have plenty of space given minor adjustments and assuming that some may need to be inside the footprint of some of the roller coasters.

Increasing the size of the park, with the goal of adding attractions, would essentially require the company to be more profitable than it already is, so that they could afford the additional maintenance staff needed for such an expansion. They can't stretch the length of the operating season much more than than they already have, so that means they'd have to get more money out of the guests they already get.

The causeway was also built before the EPA was formed. And even without the causeway, the Chausee still exists naturally.

I disagree with them moving parking as well. I'm sure its been looked at, and I'm sure every time the cost/benefit of replacing a ride way overshadows the cost/benefit of moving parking (thus shuttling people in/out) by a large margin.

There are a lot of other factors as well. For instance, resort parking? Do you make the guests staying at your hotel on the back of the peninsula park 2 miles away on the mainland?

Not to mention I don't want to wait forever in the shuttle bus line just so I can get to my car and spend 4 hours driving home, I'd rather get moving right away.

^I totally agree. The only way that a park can effectively park patrons "off-site" is to use the Disney system, whereby patrons travel on bus, or the more popular monorail to the destination. Both systems, but especially the monorail, are extremely effective for harboring guests.

But then again we also have to take into consideration the fact that Disney's revenue is much larger than that of Cedar Fair, as well as the fact that their parks are all open year round.

Granted, it is almost entirley impossible from a cost perspective, for Cedar Point to ever get something like this, which is the exact reason why it will almost undoubtably never happen. I just wanted to show that it is not impossible for it to happen, but only impractical.

The thing with Disney is that the people waiting for the busses are just going back to their resort. They aren't waiting 45 minutes for a bus just so they can get to their car and drive 2.5 hours home.

Obviously Magic Kingdom is an exception to that as the parking area is detached, but there are multiple ways to get to that lot after the park closes (monorail, boat or walk).

Absolutely correct. I was just trying to provide an example about how it can be done. Personally, I don't beleive its possible at Cedar Point, not only because of cost, but just how far away it would have to be. I doubt there'd be many brave souls willing to walk the 2 miles back to the parking lot after a long day of walking at the park, so the monorails, and the boats (it could be possible) would be packed.

But back to the SC issue. Is there any room for a large, outdoor CapEx at Castaway Bay? If so, I can definetly see the fesability of relocating slides to CB, and then possibly adding some type of mass transportation for resort guests to go to CB. I know this has been discussed, but not reasonably. Is there even any room for this?

Not to change the subject on the argument about disney's transportation and yes it would suck to have wait for a tram or a bus to take you to your car. My real question is how does a starflyer have anything to do with cedar point's history?? and if they do put one in how would that help attendance assuming that roller coasters draw more attendance than thrill rides especially at cedar point.

RideWarrior18 said:
Is there any room for a large, outdoor CapEx at Castaway Bay?

Not really. Soak City is about the size of the entire CB resort, and there does not appear to be any significant room for expansion there.

But really, that's beside the point. Moving SC off the peninsula removes a lot of incentive for staying at CP's expensive resorts, which is SC's reason for existence in the first place.

I'd wager you'd see additional outdoor water park stuff added to CB before you'd see a wholesale move of SC to that area.

Okay so I just read through the trademark thingy and if I read correctly, it would appear that Cedar Fair is using the trademark name for many things like keychains and shirts and hats and cups and whatever. If this is indeed the trademark for CP, I would have to say that this ride would be amazing because think about it...how many MaXair hats are there? Or how many Skyhawk whatevers are there? Those are both great rides but don't really have much of that.

Mike - See here for the historical connection.

RideWarrior - don't forget there's also that issue of no non-vehicular traffic on the causeway. So walking would be out. I don't see how a ferry would really work either as that would mean finding some open water front on the mainland to build a dock, not to mention getting passengers from the dock to their cars as there certainly isn't enough room right on the water front to put in a 60+ acre parking lot.

Minime15834 said:
...how many MaXair hats are there? Or how many Skyhawk whatevers are there? Those are both great rides but don't really have much of that.

Just because they file for the trademark doesn't mean they're going to use it for all that stuff. It just means they're making sure no one else can.

Brandon - I went over to Bing Maps and I see what you mean, though I do believe that Castaway Bay should be in line for a small outdoor improvement, seeing at they are no longer a major competitor of Kalahari.

John - There are many obstacles that are in the way of this kind of project, which is most likely why it may never happen. I totally agree with you on that.

Which brings us back to the possibility of a parking structure! Maybe? Possibly? Hopefully? Oh, whats the point.

I'm just going to throw out there that I don't think any of these wonderful ideas are going to happen anytime soon. Maybe we should tell Q Investments that we want one PBer on the CF board to supervise all CapEx!

Vince - Bing Maps is exactly how I came to that conclusion, actually. :)

I agree that CB could benefit from adding more stuff, though given Kinzel's comments, I'm not sure CF is interested in CB being anything more than a stop-loss measure from the resort perspective. That is, CB exists to give families with their heart set on an indoor water park an option to stay on CF property.

I think it's strange that Kinzel is all about outdoing the competition when it comes to coasters, but seems to be leaving some serious money on the table by not being a true competitor to Kalahari. Of course, the finances may not be impressive enough to warrant his ego's concern.

:)

Totally agree. I'd love to see Kinzel and his ponies put the same effort into coasters as they do with things like CB, SC, and the resort properties. Coasters are wonderful, and they are the one thing that makes CP special, but they could really set themselves apart from the competition if they used some of that excess energy into those kind of projects. I'd actually prefer for them to spend less money on a new coaster (I hear woodies are cheap now-a-days) and put some of that extra money (presuming they are currently working on a $20-25 million cap) toward CB, SC, and the resorts.

They have a great thing going when it comes to all of these added amentities, however it looks like they just see them for what they are, not what they could be. Though, to be fair to CF, Six Flags, their main competitor, is far worse off in this persepective than CF will ever be.

They have long since lost the war with Kalahari, especially after the expansion (which is awesome, for those of you who haven't experienced it.) Just to finish off with an example, we all know that CP is really Cedar Point Amusment Park and Resort, but since when have we ever seen a resort like atomosphere at CP?

RideWarrior18 said:
...they could really set themselves apart from the competition if they used some of that excess energy into those kind of projects.

That's my feeling as well with regard to CP, in that there are many areas in dire need of improvement.

...especially after the expansion (which is awesome, for those of you who haven't experienced it.)...

I'd not experienced it pre-expansion, but I can say that we were impressed with the resort. Which leads to your next point - that CP could get a lot more money out of me if there were something to do aside from mini-golf once the main park closes. The Wife & I spent over $40 in one "short" sitting at Kalahari's nicer bar one night, having ordered 2 rounds. It was expensive (and the drinks were big), but we enjoyed ourselves, and did not regret the outlay. That money could've ended up in Kinzel's hands, if he weren't so narrow-focused.

Yeah, and I think the drop in revenue and attendance last quarter reflect that.

... oh wait ;)

Eventually I think cedar point will have to make parking garges so that they could expand the main midaway into the curent parking lot and also make parking garges for the curent parking lot so soak city could expand.

Kyle2154 said:
Yeah, and I think the drop in revenue and attendance last quarter reflect that.

... oh wait ;)

You mean the company wide numbers that don't break down by park and could very well be masking under performance by the flagship?