Conference Call Comments

Well the total capital investments of 2005 were $10 million. There never came out and stated what maXair actually cost. I think Delirium was about 2-3 million, but I'm not positive on that.

But I do agree whole-heartedly that the reasons for the decrease in attendance reach far beyond the economy. We've gone over the operational reasons, but I wasn't really aware of the food service. That may be because I've hardly ever received great service there, or that I only eat there like once a trip.

Why run two trains? Well, maybe than I would have conveniently ridden the train to Grist Mill Refreshments, instead of walking because I didn't want to wait the 15-20 min. for the train. Then maybe the annoyance of a closed food stand would not have been quite as great.

Running two trains and shortening the wait is good customer service.

It's the difference between "CP has done everything they can to show us a good time, making things as convenient and fun as possible, and making sure we get the most out of our day by making waits as short as they can" or "they are making me wait a long time for this train when they have a perfectly good train just sitting on the storage tracks. I guess once they have my money they don't care".

Why change a winning formula from that has worked beautifully in the past? Sometimes you have to spend more to make more.

Yes, let's not get too cocky with the whole "Best Park on the Planet" title. We are there because our bar used to be much higher than our competitions.

Generally I haven't received the best service at the food stands, but on Friday I really had some great service at Happy Friar. It was a nice change of pace from the normal service I have received at food stands.

About the trains... on Sunday they were running one train, which was fully filled each time(though everyone who was in line got to ride). Unless you are riding the train merely to ride the train, when they run one train it takes what seems like forever to complete a round-trip that walking is faster.

Its one thing to run one train when there are 2,000 people in the park, but when myself and the 2 people I were with have to share rows with other people to pack in the train, its annoying.

You know, the trains aren't exactly the speediest way to get around the park either. I can walk from the main station back to MS when the train pulls into the station and the train wouldn't even be past MF by the time I'm past MS. All that said I love the train because its nice and relaxing, but I don't like waiting in line for 15 mins. to ride it.

I see all these conflicts, but I do not see the park hurting as a whole yet. The park still blows me away and nothing going on will make me second guess my next trip.

Exactly,
Some things just need to be straightened out.

I'm surprised how far attendance is actually down this year, and it's getting to very low levels.

If they continue this 4% off from last year trend, that’s around 130,000 people off 3.2 million, which will put them in the 3.07 million range. Compared to seasons past, if they didn't have those extra halloweekends dates, it would be a struggle for them to break 3 million.

Compare that to when CP cleared 3 million in the 80's without even the extra 5-6 halloweekends. I'd venture to guess that average attendance isat least 50,0000 on any given halloweekend (and every year it seems they have a Saturday which the park scores 50,000+ by itself), so halloweekends pulls in 200,000-250,000 people with a conservative estimate.

They need some solid capital investments in the upcoming future, preferably not ones that break down more than the records they were meant to break. Also they need to resolve and admit the seat belt issue is hurting them a bit. Then add a few improvements to staffing, food availability, and guest service policy’s. Finally if they were a little more sensitive to consumer’s current spending power (. stop raising prices!), they might pull in some more people and get them to even spend more.

Like any company, when things go right they tend to pat themselves on the back. We always see, “attendance was up %5 because of solid capital investing”, etc etc. When thing go wrong though they always seem to pull the weather card, but this time they also pulled an “economy card.” Our economy is in a slow recovery and unemployment is high but stable I will admit. However, to me that’s saying “people can’t afford to go to our park,” so duh, keep prices in line what people can actually spend ;). *** Edited 8/9/2005 10:41:56 PM UTC by Joe E***

Also just maybe on the slower days, while I was at the park Power Tower was only running one side per color, and one of the employees there said that they don't even staff the 2 other towers until 11 a.m, even though the line was around 30-40 minutes.

Again, cutting capacity in half for a measly $29/hour. I seem to recall we did that quite a bit last year, and I'm sure some days the line got pretty long. I don't remember, though.

You know whats really disappointing is, as CP starts to go downhill with the things mentioned, SF is starting to improve. CP still wins, but for how long?

I just hate to see this happening to Cedar Point. Quite honestly, I would much rather give up a new attraction for next year in exchange for improved guest services and more employees. The park just seems more "complete" when there are employees staffing all possible food stands, rides, etc. If they could manage to get the Millennium Force line back to the speed it was, keep Top Thrill Dragster operating the way it is, and keep everything open until closing, I would enjoy myself much more. When the park hours are 10-10, I expect everything to be open for the full 12 hours.(disregarding water rides and a few other exceptions)
*** Edited 8/10/2005 4:10:29 AM UTC by TopThrill420120***

I wouldn't be surprised to hear this. Granted I have only been to the park 2 times so far this year. But things like this are some of the reasons I don't go as often anymore. When you go on Vacation or just get away for a little bit of time, you don't want lifes frustrations for that small period of time. You want it to be smooth, satisfying, and with good customer service. What is the number one way of advertising? Word of mouth. Instances like these don't seem to give good word of mouth for CP.

On my last trip I did notice that things were not running as smoothly as normal. My longest wait was for Mine Ride, which just isn't right. The service at the sit down restaurants were great, but I did notice numerous food stands closed, especially back in Frontiertown. I think it does say a lot when enthusiasts who love the park so much and may have overlooked a little slacking in the past are now really taking notice. I have a hard time believing that business is so bad that they have to cut crews that much.

Well If I may, I'd like to just state my point just as everyone else has when it comes to the CP&LE RR. We've always run 1 train durring the 8pm closing at the end of the year, but never this soon. The running of 1 train except on saturdays is budget oriented. Park op is over budget, that means everyone in the park pays the price.

Running one train hurts the guests and hurts the ride also. The engines sit in one place durring station stops longer as the platform loads as many as possible into the trains. And as a side note, the railroad has always been one of the top 3 rides in popularity in ride totals every year at somewhere around 2.5 million riders. Well thoes days are long over. Last year we started running one train in all of June, something we had never done before and paid for it. And this year is even worse. It kind of seems like a squeez feeling, like something is afoot w/ the future of the railroad. Take that for what it's worth, but thats the long haul. This topic is the current crap going on, and the whole train this is Budget, Budget, Budget.. All I can say is, email the park and complain if you don't like one train on, or stop into park op and ask to talk to a manager about it or file a complain or something.... It's gonna take complaining and action from an online crowd like this to actiucaly make an impact on a situation like this.

I was just wondering, how much of the drop in attendance might be due to avid fans not going as much. I thought it was just me not going so much, but it sounds as if I am not the only one.

randinator said:
Look at the CP & LE RR, I have only seen two trains running on one of the days I was there, and thats because it was a Saturday. I was there last Friday and they ran one train all day and the train was completly packed.

Both the Myron H. and the Judy K. ran daily from late June through last weekend. I think Monday was the first day since June that I have only seen Myron H. running, and they went back to two trains again today (Thursday).

My favorite drink in the park is electric lemonade. I was there for 3 days and got one electric lemonade. That is stupid.

^Umm.. Okay, that seems a little random. Mind explaining?

Anyways, it just doesn't seem like Cedar Point to be cutting costs by cutting corners here and there. Hopefully new management can see this and take note.