Coming in 2018: An expanded beach boardwalk

I've thought about it. I can't agree. Building a second park would't cut all lines in half; people would navigate to the rides they want to ride, regardless of which park it might be in.

The expence of adding another park replacing the parking lot would exceed the profit from doing so.

Regarding monorail, etc. The City of Ft Lauderdale is awash in some controversy about a light rail project (The Wave...streetcar). The system as designed right now is a mere 2.8 miles but cost projections released this week have it soaring to over $270 million. If Disney feels like there is not an ROI for extending it's own monorail I'm not sure why anyone would expect a regional operator like Cedar Point to do something similar.

I have a feeling that in the next 5 years or so they will redesign the Toll Plaza.

In my vision this will be moved to the little island that is along the causeway, and add a few more booths to handle the rush that seems more common. I'm thinking it will be much like the updated gate for KI, which they probably used to work out some of the potential issues before deploying it at the mothership. For selfish reasons I would love for there to be a gate that was just for the marina/campers/resort guests, and was actually enforced as such. I know the one to the left is designated as such, but it's really a gate for everyone. How this specific gate would be done I don't know, but I can dream.

Also, if they redesign the current road they could gain a fair amount of additional parking.

Chief Wahoo said:

Regarding monorail, etc. The City of Ft Lauderdale is awash in some controversy about a light rail project (The Wave...streetcar). The system as designed right now is a mere 2.8 miles but cost projections released this week have it soaring to over $270 million.

To be fair it is a government project and they are working in a dense urban environment. Original budget was set at $195 million, so if they stay at $270 million they're doing pretty good by government standards.

But, realistically a monorail system would be a lot of wasted money. As much of a nightmare as it would be, a parking garage on the peninsula would provide the same extra capacity or more for a lot less money.

Putting in a new lot or parking garage next to Express Hotel and offering a bus to and from the park would probably be the most cost efficient project. You have the existing roadway. You don't have to deal with the nightmare of a parking garage on the point. Lay down some asphalt and buy a handful of new buses. Charge $10 for the parking in the regular season, $12 on holidays and Halloweekends.

I can think of very few things that’d be less pleasant than being stuck on a bus in an hour and a half wait on the causeway with a bunch of over anxious enthusiasts, angry parents, crying kids, etc...

Then being charged to get on the nightmare bus from hell, would be make it even worse. And how do you get from $10 per car park to $10 per person for bus fare? You should apply for A job with CF right now.

Well you technically wouldn't have a long wait on the causeway because there wouldn't be any traffic.

Can the causeway be widened in any way? I feel that is a necessity for those busy days. Perhaps add an employee lane/toll booth somehow so they aren't stranded in the traffic too.

XS NightClub said:

I can think of very few things that’d be less pleasant than being stuck on a bus in an hour and a half wait on the causeway with a bunch of over anxious enthusiasts, angry parents, crying kids, etc...

Then being charged to get on the nightmare bus from hell, would be make it even worse. And how do you get from $10 per car park to $10 per person for bus fare? You should apply for A job with CF right now.

Why would it take an hour and a half?

And where on earth are you getting $10 to park and $10 to ride per person? "Charge $10 for parking" Nothing about a bus ride. I thought it was obvious that the bus ride would be free.

TwistedWicker77 said:

Can the causeway be widened in any way? I feel that is a necessity for those busy days. Perhaps add an employee lane/toll booth somehow so they aren't stranded in the traffic too.

Of course it can if they want to spend the money. Lanes are about 10 feet wide. The shoulders on each side are almost 6 feet wide. So, they do have space for one additional lane as is, but would eliminate a paved shoulder on a lot of the causeway. If they wanted to add two additional lanes and keep paved shoulders they would need to add 10 feet of width on each side to portions of the causeway as well as the bridges. There is about 7-8 feet of gravel between the edge of the paved shoulder and where the rocks are piled up a little then slope down towards the water. Not sure what the requirement is for that width past the shoulder, but it's possible they could get away with adding less than 10ft to each side by using some of that width or use some of that width and add guardrail or concrete barrier.

Widening of the causeway probably wouldn't be as difficult as widening the two bridges to allow additional lanes.

I think they could add more toll lanes if they adjust the plaza so that you have two lanes between each of the booths.

99er said:

Widening of the causeway probably wouldn't be as difficult as widening the two bridges to allow additional lanes.

ODOT, ODNR, EPA, whatever government agencies that would be involved, would probably give them more of a hassle over dumping more rock and soil into Lake Erie than building two new bridges. Also, it's a bit more intensive creating earth that's suitable for roadways where there is 10-20ft of water currently than compared to a normal roadway.

codeGR said:

I think they could add more toll lanes if they adjust the plaza so that you have two lanes between each of the booths.

There's plenty of room around the "toll" plaza that they could accommodate a few more lanes and add to the length of the lanes to help with capacity in both terms of cars moved and providing more space.

Another way they could increase capacity of the lots would be to use diagonal parking spaces. It would yield roughly 8% more capacity.

I wonder if sacrificing some of the overflow spaces to accommodate more toll lanes would be worth it? They’d lose the last 2-3 rows.

I must say I am shocked that eyesore Cedars is still going to be in tact again next season. I saw those dorms going much sooner than Sandcastle and the All Wheels Extreme Stadium...

Good point CPboy77. And actually, Sandcastle would have made for nice replacement "dorms", if only for a season or two. Which makes it seem more reasonable something significant is planned for that property sooner rather than later.

The cedars definately need to go. They look terrible and what associate would want to stay there? I park right in front of them and I agree, they are a total eyesore. I thought replacement housing would have been built on the mainland by now so the cedars could be torn down.

The Cedars doesn’t affect the guest experience the way Sandcastle and the stadium do. In other words, dorms outside the park gates don’t have the same impact as an unsightly venue or a ramshackle hotel.
Just because we see the Cedars site as prime for some kind of expansion doesn’t mean it’s going to be the park’s priority when considering how to refresh and improve the existing park.

Agreed. It also helps to ride certain coasters first in that first hour (9 - 10 A.M.). Since they added Valravn, I have ridden Valravn, Millennium, and Maverick first. After that, I test my luck on getting a ride on Dragster. It's pretty easy to ride every other coaster from there. Yet, I'm sure that'll be harder to do with Steel Vengeance. Still fun!

?^

Although it seems to need repairing, I really like the way cedars looks. It's one of the last remaining structures on the peninsula that looks older than 1981 and isn't painted a tone of beige or high-contrast carnival color

RCMAC said:

The Cedars doesn’t affect the guest experience the way Sandcastle and the stadium do. In other words, dorms outside the park gates don’t have the same impact as an unsightly venue or a ramshackle hotel.
Just because we see the Cedars site as prime for some kind of expansion doesn’t mean it’s going to be the park’s priority when considering how to refresh and improve the existing park.

But expansion isn't why it was expected that Cedars was going away. It was reported that when Ouimet toured Cedars, he was... not exactly impressed by the dorm. So the thought was that replacing Cedars would be a priority.

Perhaps the hotel expansion and renovation project cost more than anticipated, and they need to complete that first before they can afford to turn their attention to Cedars.