CP Shores

Did anyone go this year? How is it? Busy?

This seems like a completely random topic but came across the picture below on Reddit and it got me thinking a few things. IF CP doesn't have the time or money to care for it really, has trouble staffing and a climate not always conducive to a water park what's the point.

I have no clue about the financials. For all I know it does fine but with corporate looking for every possible way to cut some costs is CP Shores days numbered?

Honestly, my visits to CP Shores over the last few years have been pretty pathetic. They pretty much never have the whole place open, some of the slides are in bad shape, they don't have enough rafts on the family slide, the list goes on.

I am afraid the reason for this is probably that everyone and their brother is getting in on a season pass and barely anyone is paying for a ticket. Surely, there would be a lot more complaining if people were paying for a daily ticket. Sadly, the same is probably happening to the main park although to a lesser degree.

Ive only been once since they took down the Speed Slides, and that was when it first became CP Shores.

Soak City was a must do for me every visit when they had the speed slides. I'd ride them over and over again, trying to get as much air over the drops as possible.

I'd take a break on the other slides when my back got too red and sore from landing hard after getting air.

And I really liked chilling in the jacuzzi.

It used to be beautiful and scenic, before they cut down all those tall trees, and before they painted the original slides those tacky colors.

Now it really has no appeal to me, and I personally dont like those new slides that are really narrow and fully enclosed. I know they are popular everywhere nowadays, but I prefer a wide open slide where I can enjoy the fresh air, breeze, sun, and the view, instead of a steamy claustrophobic tube.

Add some more large traditional slides, and something along the lines of the speed slides, and put another nice big hot jacuzzi in there, and ill be back, despite my major chagrin over the deforestation.

I love waterparks like Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon, and even Volcano Bay, despite VB not having too many slides that arent enclosed tubes, because of the scenery, and Blizzard has a lot of really fun slides.

But in my personal opinion, they ruined Soak City for me.

We went once during our 5-day trip.

It was abysmal.

This was mid-July, and my first reaction was a little shock that the new slides were still not open. But then they never opened, so I guess I should not have been surprised.

The drop slides (they're new, right?) were mostly problematic, causing long delays. I wish I was exaggerating, but the employees were quite literally pounding on the buttons and pushing them randomly as one slide's pod would open/close sporadically, sometimes dropping the rider and sometimes not.

The picture posted above is funny because that's what those (older) slides looked like; lots of odd vegetation and random mess all over the place.

On top of that it was simply way too crowded. One could argue this isn't the park's fault, but it's beyond obvious that the waterpark cannot handle high-capacity days. Both lazy rivers had 30 minute waits just to get a tube (no thanks).

We ended up leaving and just taking our girls to the lake that day mid-way through the day.

On the plus side, the workers that were there were doing their best. Everyone seemed to be hustling in an impossible situation.

Bottom line; it an outdated waterpark with a new paintjob. It looks good (it was clean, aside from the vegetation literally growing in the waterslides), the food options are actually decent, but it just can't handle the capacity it's given.

And how does America's roller coast not have a water-coaster at it's waterpark?

Kevinj:

the new slides were still not open. But then they never opened

Wait, what? I guess I've been blissfully unaware of this. That's shamefully bad.

We haven't been in the water park for a few years now, but our visits the first few years following the rebranding were not excellent, so it's disappointing to hear that era might have been the high water mark. During our visits, things were mostly operating, but throughout the park it felt like everything - bathrooms/changing rooms, eateries, attractions - was at or over capacity, despite crowds that didn't seem particularly huge.

To Matt's point above, if they were determined to give away the ride park gate for virtually nothing, so be it, but including the water park at that absurd price point is boneheaded. It's not a massive, high capacity water park, so it should be limited to resort guests and higher tier passes. As it is now, it offers virtually no value as a perk of staying on property.

Kevinj:

Both lazy rivers had 30 minute waits just to get a tube (no thanks).

Wow that's no good. I never made it into the waterpark this year. But most of my visits in the past have been just to relax in one of the lazy rivers.

The new slide complex never opened and there were a good number of days where that entire side of the waterpark never opened.

If it weren't for the Cuban sandwich on the meal plan in Crystal Rock Cafe I never would have even scanned into Shores this year. And the year I went the most was the year they had the BBQ brisket that was far better than the Backbeatque brisket. None of my CP Shores entries are water attraction related. And I love waterparks.

I guess this all goes to my larger point too. If seemingly the majority of the crowd are probably not even paying much if anything for admission to the park then why does it exist? I appreciate that the food is good I guess!

I'm not entirely sure how much can be extrapolated from the operations of Splash Works at Canada's Wonderland, but we were there on what was admittedly both a very good waterpark day weather-wise and also probably one of the last big weekends before school started back up, and it was excruciatingly crowded, probably the worst I've ever personally seen at a water park.

We were there for about three hours before figuratively and literally throwing in the towel, and managed to stay completely dry aside from walking past the tippy splash bucket. The lines for the slides and lazy river tubes were just that long and barely moving, and it definitely wasn't helped by the wave pool being closed for most of the time we were there (which admittedly sounded like it was for body fluid reasons, as later on it opened back up and immediately filled with people).

Of course a few caveats are that this was obviously Toronto and not Sandusky, and I'm fairly certain CP Shores is still bigger overall, but it still seems to be essentially the same root problem of the overly cheap season passes making things a bit too accessible in a way that crowd control (among other things) hasn't bothered to keep up with.

That sounds like a very similar experience.

I wish I was exaggerating with the line for the lazy rivers. Just...

Just to back to those drop towers, what a disappointment they have been. They're really fun, but since their first year I have never been at CP Shores when all 4 are operating. It's usually two. The aforementioned day we were there three were open, but operations were ridiculously bad (not the fault of the employees). When my two girls and I finally got on, they smashed the buttons and only I dropped, leaving my two girls up at the platform waiting. 5 minutes later down they came. With 4 functional slides that line should move relatively quickly, but instead it's torture.

djDaemon:

Wait, what? I guess I've been blissfully unaware of this. That's shamefully bad.

It really is. And the worst part is that having an extra 3 slides open (including the one in the middle along with the two new ones) would make such a big difference.

I start getting some bad images when I think about what is lurking in the water in a filled to capacity waterpark. Also had the issue on the drop slide around 2019 (my only waterpark visit in over 30 years of CP visits) it creates unnecessary anxiety waiting for the drop to open.

I think it’s indicative of the state of Cedar Point Shores that I am pretty sure there are more changing rooms in the old Frontiertown Frontier Lift station (rest rooms opposite the Skyhawk and Mine Ride exits, for you young people) than there are in all of Cedar Point Shores. I understand, Soak City was built without changing facilities because of it’s hourly admission scheme so it made sense to be “waterpark ready” before entering…but they’ve eliminated the outside changing facilities, too!

The one time this season I did go in there was a total bust because the park just can’t handle the crowd. That problem is made worse by their adoption of Six Flags asinine policy of closing down their wave pools for 20-30 minutes of every hour, as they have done since they had a wave pool fatality at Adventure World in 1996 (at least that’s when they started doing it at Wyandot Lake).

Water parks need places for people to collect. Closing down the only wave pool, the highest capacity attraction in the venue, eliminates that kind of place.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

I wasn't aware that closing the wave pool in blocks like that was a Six Flags policy, that may very well be what I experienced at Wonderland instead of it being body fluid-related. That's... probably up there with CP's excessively squeamish rain policy in the sense of "I get it, but..."

Aside from that, I also didn't realize that Soak City was deliberately built without changing rooms, but the prior model of separate admission makes sense for why you'd assume it was people coming over after changing at the hotel(s) or changing before hitting up the in-park water rides. I've never had the opportunity to go to any of the big Orlando waterparks so I've got no point of reference for what a proper modernized bathhouse would be like, but honestly the one at CP could use a full replacement either way.

While I'm still making comparisons to Wonderland, the bathhouse there *did* have maybe five changing stalls on the men's side along with the usual open-air benches, and at that sheer level of crowdedness the lines just for the stalls were pretty much across the length of the room. The worst was kids just shamelessly ignoring the lines and dashing into stalls the second the doors opened, and I'll just say I got more annoyed dealing with that (and the rental lockers) than any of the lines we waited in on the ride side.

I agree with the thought that Soak City was designed with resort guests in mind, mainly to help extend stays. Originally, the main entrance was just steps from Breakers, and after the expansion, they added another entrance near Camper Village. The whole setup made sense for hotel guests. Ride & slide packages were the best value and encouraged that extra night.

Waterpark access wasn’t cheap back then. Tickets were high, and Soak City passes were originally pricey add ons before getting folded into the Platinum Pass tier. In today’s dollars, you were easily looking at $250–$300 for season access. Even with a protected gate it still got packed on hot days but that was more of an exception than the rule.

Fast forward to now, with cheap Gold Passes flooding the system, and any remotely nice day turns the Shores into chaos. The infrastructure, staffing, and ride capacity simply can’t support 20,000+ people showing up at once. The Shores rebrand was lipstick on a pig, and in fact, they removed the one large changing area. What it really needs is a true overhaul. Big bathhouses like Hershey, multiple wave pools, and high-capacity slides like Holiday World. The lazy rivers are nice in theory, but they rarely have the staff to run both.

That said, at $99 a pass, most people probably aren’t complaining. My hope is that with the park charging extra for Haunt this year, it signals they’re starting to recognize there’s real value in their product again. If people are willing to pay $60 for a few weekends of relatively low cost to create and operate haunts, they might also be willing to pay more for a quality waterpark experience over the full summer.

Regarding high-capacity things at water parks, is there a practical reason that none of the big waterparks seem to have, for lack of a better way of putting it, a regular-ass pool? I'm thinking more on the scale of the pools at like, the Grand Cypress or the other big Orlando resorts, just a big reasonably landscaped pool as a good neutral area that wouldn't have the complexity, extra regulations, or start/stop of a wave pool.

I do wonder if it has to do with lifeguards, as I'm sure there's some specific rule on how much of an area they're supposed to be able to cover, and if that's the rate-limiting step for things like opening the second lazy river for instance, then that doesn't really help much.

I love the ridiculous dichotomy in this situation when it comes to the liability avoidance. Like the shallow, controlled, crystal clear body of water needs 50 pairs of eyes on it for ‘safety’, yet a literal stones throw away the ginormous lake with waves, rip currents & motorized vehicles is considered perfectly fine with nobody paying attention.

Don't tell the folks in charge of CP Shores or Lake Erie will be the first natural body of water to require Ellis & Associates certification.

For many years they used Ellis lifeguards on the beach. I think that ended around 2017?