Change in CP operating calendar?

My understanding is that the Saturday night and Sunday morning passholder ERT sessions are available to all of the friends of passholders. All non-passholder friends will have to be with a passholder at the entrance to each ride so the passholder can vouch for them. I'm not sure if friends can enjoy early entry on Saturday, but on Sunday they will already be in the park for early entry because they will be able to enter at 10:00 a.m. for passholder ERT on Millennium Force. Who knows how this will play out. If the ERT sessions are "packed," I can't imagine that passholders overall will be too happy. I was planning to go, but the weather forecast and this new twist on allowing friends to ride made me change my mind. I will be eagerly awaiting trip reports on the ERT sessions.

Just for the record, nobody was at Cedar Point today, Friday, Sept 9th, as expected. It was even more extreme than previous years though. A single row of cars in the parking lot. Raptor, Millenium, Magnum, Top Thrill, Maverick...you name it...complete walk-ons. Cedar Point was allowing re-rides on most rides, which was nice...I almost had a front seat re-ride on Maverick, but someone came and I had to move back a row. Weather was sunny, 72, and perfect the entire time.

Unbelievably awesome experience, but Cedar Point, why are you doing this to yourself, year after year? Let people know your park is open and schedule events with more than 3 days of notice.

I was a little disappointed that Cedar Point closed so many rides though. Sure, there were hardly any people in the park, but they didn't advertise that about half the rides would be open (or did I miss that?). All the majors were in full force with no wait though, so it was all good. And a couple minors like Wild Cat & Iron Dragon were open. The Wild Cat ride op picked me off the midway, "Sir in the red shirt...please come ride Wild Cat." I laughed and caved in; no one was riding and they looked bored.

Alot of funny ride ops today too..."Welcome back Magnum riders...which of you 3 had the best ride?!!?"

With the PP early entry, we had a total of five hours yesterday. And the Millennium Force gate was open the whole time! I also heard that the ops on Dragster were asking riders to re-board from the exit to fill the trains!

I haven't seen the park that dead since the Millennium Mania event that was scheduled two days after Sept. 11, 2001.

Roz

So after the awesome wait times last night, how are they today? I wanted to go, but had prior commitments. I'm looking forward to going next weekend hopefully.

We got to Dragster about 5:30 yesterday. At that point, they were begging people to ride again as they were exiting the trains. They were still doing that at about 6:15 when I left the ride. Later in the night, people who wanted to re-ride just lined up at the exit and waiting to be called to fill empty seats. I walked all the way around a few times and got on trains about the same time as they people waiting at the exit so it was just saving the walk. I waited at the exit the last couple of times I rode. I thought I was done for the nite exiting about 10:05 but they called for another 8 riders so I went again.

Everything was a walk up the entire evening/night. Re-rides varied from ride to ride and ride op to ride op. Got some on Raptor. Couldn't get one on Maverick or Blue Streak (had to walk all the way around to the entrance). Was able to exit a MF train while another was loading in the station, walk into the station and get back on the train I just exited pretty much all night long.

Weather was perfect (both in terms of actual weather and forecast in that they were saying there was a good chance of rain and it was cloudy and gray all morning and afternoon). Lines (or lack thereof) was amazing. Talked to a lot of people who said this is the only weekend they come to the park.

The park was not crowded today either. I got in the park at 10:30. I went on Millenium twice, maverick twice, dragster twice, windseeker once, maxair once, raptor once, wildcat once, and iron dragon once. I was out of the park by 1:30.

I hope it's not too busy next Saturday, we have a trip planned for that day. I know the park won't be dead, but it would be nice if the lines were 1/2 hour or less. Hey a guy can dream right:)

Thats one hell of a dream! ;)

As suspected, it was free rein at the park today.

I regret not going this weekend. How depressing. This is a definite trip for me next year the weekend following Labor Day. Unless, of course, the park is rented out. Or I can't get the time off work. Or the new guy sees the attendance figures--especially for Friday night--and makes drastic changes to the 2012 operating calendar. I can't imagine that Cedar Point made any money Friday night given the trip reports I've read.

Yeah, if I was Cedar Point, I would have advertised this weekend as a CUSTOMER Appreciation HALLOWEEKEND Preview Event. Opened up only the new mazes for 2011 (They need to extend Halloweekends, as they're becoming too popular).

I think that would have gotten many more people there. But more importantly, they just needed to advertise that they were open for much longer than 3 days before the weekend.

I'm not complaining about this weekend though...it was incredible. But, there were so few people there that I actually felt bad for CP at times. The games and stands were staffed for no reason on Friday.

Weather was a big factor as well. All week long, it was cool and rainy. And the forecast for Saturday called for 50% chance of rain and it was cloudy on Friday afternoon. I suspect that some folks who might otherwise have gone decided against it based on the weather.

And with the Michigan schools starting school last week and Ohio schools being in full swing with Friday night football, I think that put further downward pressure on crowds.

They can anticipate the issue with respect to schools/football but not much they can do about the weather.

Going for sure to this next year. Sounds awesome.

The wife and I went to CP this weekend and couldn't have been a better farewell trip for the season. Everything was walk on, even Saturday was great. We rode whatever we wanted until we got sick. Lines had no baring on what we did.

Thanks to the bike competition, it took us forever to get to the park due to traffic and the cops directing it. Missed most of the ERT but the funny thing is that the lines were much smaller throughout the rest of the day than they were for ERT. So small all Sunday that they didn't make us walk around, we just got off the ride and went right through the gate to get back on. Rode MF til we got dizzy and moved on.

I lost count on my rides this weekend. TTD and MF about a dozen each. We even had a Raptor train all to ourselves early Sunday morning - just my wife and I in the front seat, I can't believe it but it felt kind of lonely up there by ourselves!

Awesome weekend. The only bad thing was that I wasted 8 bucks trying to get a stupid dog on that ladder balancing game. I hate to fail! So disappointed about that, but oh well.

The weather Sunday was sunny and warm all day.

For the most part I agree with you Jason, but one of our Windseeker rides was chilly when the sun went behind a dark cloud. I imagine that ride is going to be a rather cold one come October.

Friday: The longest wait I saw for rides was a one train wait (excluding front), and keep in mind they were running a Friday night Halloweekends line up with some not open, so the park was that dead. There was supposed to be 40% chance of showers halfway through, but the weather was perfect for me. Years ago I remember this day busier with TTD having at least a few train wait.

Sunday: After missing out last year, I requested off work in advance. The parking lot looked busy, but a lot was due to Rev3 because the park was still dead (not like Friday though). There was a 50% chance of scattered storms from 2 to close, but nothing ever came. The low 70s felt warm/hot to me. Some employees looked miserable and were cranky through out the day, and toward the last few hours they were getting worse as well as lazy and mean.

Yeah I think next year I just need to plan on going to Ohio the weekend after Labor Day. The weather is almost always nice and the lines are nonexistent.

My non-enthusiast friends and family are always asking me when is the best time to go to the park. I tell them to go the weekend after Labor day and they never listen to me. Then when I tell them how light the crowds were, they are disappointed they missed it. The cycle then repeats year after year. :-)

I know when I'm going next year :)