FreeWay not returning?

Coming from the point of view as guest only, I have noticed the changes, and so have many of my friends (remember I'm in my 50's) who have been going to CP for years.

The most notable change has been with employee/guest interaction. Whereas before we had live spiels and employees who interacted with guests in a friendly manner, we now are faced with employees who aren't allowed to interact. There are still those rare employees who interact, whether they are supposed to or not, but I assume they also have supervisors who are less worried about it than, say, the supervisor who wrote up the employee for high fiving a guest.

I know several people, my husband included, who simply do not go anymore specifically because they can't ride MF...undeniably one of the best coasters in the park. The higher entrance fee didn't help, but hopefully now that they've dropped the junior and senior rates that will change. But how many people are aware the cost has dropped?

One of my long time friends stopped making her yearly trek with her grandchildren because it was simply too expensive. Prices for food and drink have risen along with everything else. Add in the cost of gas and the construction that turns what used to be a 2 hour drive into sometimes a 3 hour drive, and it's not worth it. (I've told her the junior pass was reduced and she will likely go again this summer).

As for Freeway, I hardly ever used it. I'd get my first rides on TTD and/or MF with my Joe Cool entrance and the other rides would generally clear out during various times of the day. If not, I didn't ride. No problem since I had a season pass. But for those who don't have that option, freeway was a godsend.

When it comes to the auto-speiling, I guess it doesn't bother me as much anymore since that seems to be the new norm amongst all amusement parks anymore. What I feel they should do, to keep the interaction with the guests and morale up for the employees, is allow enough time before the speil begins to at least ask riders how their ride was. People anymore are getting off of coasters, in particular Magnum as far as I've seen, looking more like they've just gotten back from having a colonoscopy than riding a thrilling roller coaster.

Jeff said:
You know, Universal ditched their queue management as well, and no one seemed to care.

Jeff, when I was down at IOA back in March they had a "skip the line" system going on. It was an additional price I guess, or only for Florida residents, or something like that, but anyways me and the wife decided against it...on the other hand Disney's was great and we used FastPass often while we were down there.

I bet when it first started down at Disney, FastPass was ridiculed and jeered by guests left and right. Something like that needs to take a few seasons before it becomes common knowledge. I think CP should have taken the bumps and bruises to keep something that will eventually be a crowd pleasing addition in another season or two.

Right, Universal Express is for money or something you get as a resort guest, but it's not available to the general public the way Freeway was.

I think I used Freeway once a couple of years ago. (Please don't slap me here) But when you stay at Lighthouse Point for a day or 3 you don't need it. With the early resort entrance and the fact that you are living OnPoint for 3 days, ...well, ya know.

MrScott (nominated Mayor of Lighthouse Point) :)

^If the Mayor gets a free cabin then I nominate myself. :)

I used Freeway every visit, but I can go without it. The system wasn't the best. It was either wait in line for the Freeway stamp for 45 minutes or wait in the real line for 90. That's not what those systems were designed for.

I too have been anything but impressed by Falfas. I had always heard that he wasn't that well liked when he was at Knott's, and now I understand why. Although, he does have a fan club.... http://jffc.kweb.us/ ;)

Walt Disney World's "Fast Pass" seemed to work very well several years ago. I guess CP just never really bought into the system.

MrScott

By the way, I have NEVER received a free ANYTHING from Cedar Point. What I post is what I feel, not "payola". They like my money as much as yours.

MrScott

I got free club soda last season. I asked for water and got soda water. It was awesome. ;)

While I agree with the concept of the FreeWay being elminated, I can see both sides of the arguement...Just call me Switzerland. LOL.

While we have been going for several years to Cedar Point. I can only remember using the FreeWay pass only twice. Once was for the Magnum and the Other was for the Raptor for the final ride of the weekend. (we left on a Sat. Night). I still think that if you really want to ride a certain ride you will ride it no matter the wait...and the fact that an old saying keeps going through my mind...The Early Bird gets the worm....So Ride the MF first thing in the morning if that is the ride you want to ride.

As for the Economics and the Management of Cedar Point. I am not going to critize(sp) them. I believe that one of the factors they used to lower the General Admission Prices was increasing Gas Prices...Make it worth 3.00 a gallon to go.

Don

MDOmnis said:
I hope Mr. Hildebrandt can turn things around as well and from meeting him, he seems like a geniunely nice guy and he seems to care about the success of the park. He does not strike me as a budget cutting nazi or anything like that. If anything, I want to believe he sees a lot of what is wrong with CP lately and is trying to fix it.

I hope so Matt, but what I wonder about is that Keller, Hildebrandt and Falfas are all old school Cedar Point. They were around when Cedar Point operations were at their best, and Mr. Falfas was actually director of operations. So, I'm sure he played a big part in the excellent operations!

That's why I don't understand how things got so screwed up. I never worked at the Point, but I've been a guest since the early 60's. The difference is obvious to me, as I'm sure it is to other long time guests.

It really seems like the seasonal employees aren't getting the direction they need. How management is able to tolerate performances like, let's say, the Corkscrew crew, is beyond me. All summer long two trains were consistently stacked outside the station. Why bother even running three trains? It was a joke, especially when I've seen the ride operate three trains in the 80's, where there were just a few seconds of delay in getting the train in the station with almost no stacking.

A bright spot for me last year was the service at the sit down restaurants, Famous Dave's and Friday's on the Beach especially. But the park operations were just plain bad. I hope Mr. H. can bring CP back to what it was, this year should tell the story of that.

New seatbelts, shorter seatbelts, new loose article policies, and frequently changing operational guidelines were at least 90% to blame. The crews do their best under the conditions that they're placed in.

When I worked there in 03, I attended a courtesy corps “seminar” and the area 1 foods manager (forget his name) who was very passionate about the park gave a speech about the history of the cedar point workforce and how it related to guest service. While everyone else was pretty much fell asleep I found it rather interesting, especially since a manager was admitting that they had some lapses.

According to him, Through the 70’s and early 80’s all of CP’s employees were pretty much handpicked students from universities. It was considered a privilege to be chosen as it was considered the best place to work for a summer job, and you had to have the best grades and records to work. Therefore, A huge amount of pride came from just being and employee. Combine that pride with a top notch work force at you got the best guest service imaginable. He considered this the best era of Cedar point Service.

Through the late 80’s this began to decay gradually with the times. CP became a less desirable place to work, and as a result standards for choosing applicants were not as high . He said the reason for this was management got complacent over this time period. They assumed that the string of good labor would continue, regardless of what management did and cared about their employees.

In the early 90’s they hit rock bottom. He said that rides was really the only department still attracting good employees, and hence that was the only area offering great service which really kept the park afloat. He told one story of a food manger who couldn’t fire an employee who was walking down the midway smoking in uniform with his shirt tucked out and hat on backwards simply because they could not fill the positions. Nobody wanted to work in foods, take out the trash or clean the bathrooms.

It was around mid 90’s when they deiced to change. You saw promotion from within of home grown leaders who understood and were spirited about the Cedar Point Culture. While I didn’t have much contact with management outside my area, I know that my Manager, Jenn Andree (who I believe posted here at one time?), and above her Bill Spehn were very spirited and passionate about their jobs and making the park the best it could be. I remember Andree even mentioning that Holiday World (which I honestly think I was the only person in the whole department who had been there :)) was the standard of excellence for cleanliness, and that we should aim for them! That’s how intone they were for being the best. This type spirit really transferred down through the ranks, as we were 11th or so in Cleanliness in 02 but it 03 we moved down 5 or 6 spots:)

While this was not motioned by him, I believe this was about also the time that the new dorms were built and wages were raised fair quickly. While the international employees had been working there for a while, I think we really saw an influx of them in the mid 90’s who worked the jobs that nobody wanted and worked hard at them. All This really attracted more applicants and they were able to get a better choice of workers.

Right now it seems though they have stalled again in attracting and retaining the best employees.. As many have mentioned, the base wage hasn’t gone up in forever. Hours are heavily cut at the beginning of the year, which give horrible pay for the first few months then unbearable working hours in August.. The addition of 1500 a few years ago helped bolster the living situation, but the on point dorms aren’t getting any younger and the off point apartments are still stuck in the 60’s. Perhaps most important, we saw the moving of some great managers to GL, like Jenn and Bill who I mentioned above.

When I worked I saw some people working there who really didn’t care about the job, they were just there for a cheap place to live and some dough. Now I’m not saying that everyone that works there now and during rough times are poor employees with no spirit. There are many that hold that CP virtue in tact. In fact it was those who work there now with this spirit I applaud for sticking it out.

I really think and hope Hildebrandt will get that spirit back with the breed of the new younger mangers to replace the ones that left. Add this with improved employee treatment and they are right back on track. There no reason for the so called #1 park to not try and go after and have the #1 employees. As they say, the balance sheet might look good right now, but figures alone don’t tell the future. I really think having the best possible employees possible will sustain the best service, and hence attendance and growth in the long run. *** Edited 4/11/2006 6:17:17 AM UTC by Joe E***

Very Nice Post Joe. I thought about this last night and how the Park is in need of some old fashioned Motavation for some of the employess. My thought was, Why not let the new Employees become stock holders? Give them the option of when they are hired in to become owners of the park. That way if the park is sucessful they in turn become sucessful. I know it may be difficult with the seasonal jobs but I am sure they could find a way.

Good posts by Matt, CPBound and Joe.

I worked at the park back in the mid-80's. I'm not quite sure it was a "golden age" for employee service but compared to the last few years it does seem that way. I've been a season pass owner every year since, and it's obvious that the place has changed. Part of it is the different world of safety requirements that exist today (including those seatbelt issues), but that's not the whole thing. Joe's point about the makeup of the seasonal staff is right on... it used to be a very tough thing to get a seasonal job at CP; today not not so much (with one exception, mentioned later). Believe me, they did look at grades as part of their placement... but they also valued recommendations/referrals from prior season staff (at least highly-regarded staff) fairly high as well.

That was when Falfas was director of park operations, and he pretty much ran the place with an iron fist. You certainly didn't want to be called to his office... but I don't have a way to compare that with the current writeups and such that some people emphasize.

I also know John Hildebrandt (he was my area manager when I was an employee) and I met with him a couple of years ago when he was still CP director of marketing. I really think he has lots of potential to make CP a great place to work and visit, but he does have his work cut out for him. Contrast my experience working on the Giant Wheel (I was assistant bluetag on the ride), where on a day where we would be closed due to high winds there would be three staff cleaning (the ride, the planters, etc) and another staffer was stationed at the entrance just to tell people that the ride was closed. I also have vivid memories of standing there in the pouring rain with my only responsibility being to tell people that we were closed... now they have one person "driving" the wheel and one, maybe two people at the entrance of the ride. It used to be that we had one person for each gondola that was loading... so on a busy day there would be six gondola loaders, one person welcoming and sorting folks to the load platforms, and one person driving in the booth.

That kind of contrast has to be noticed by park guests, and I think it's underestimating them (or "the general public" or whatever you want to call them) that they don't notice trends like that. Sure, teenagers don't notice that stuff, but families do. It really stands out where you see one person working at flats like Troika. It takes forever to get that ride loaded and unloaded nowadays.

Hildebrandt was also impressed with the European workers, saying they were the best of the best from those universities, and that they were very hard workers and eager to polish their english. It was obvious he liked their motivation or getting a job in the states... and he did infer that for a lot of US college students, working at CP wasn't the brass ring it used to be.

So speaking from the perspective of someone who was there when CP had an abundance of staff, it would be nice to see the pendulum swing back in the direction of more staff=happier guests. When I spoke with Hildebrandt a couple of years ago he did emphasize that there were now five cornerstones of service (the new one was "integrity"... not sure when that was added) and he seemed genuinely excited about it... so I have to think that he's in the right frame of mind... just depends on how much of his ear the bean-counters have.

John

CP was trying to become part of the new amusement park trend of the "fast pass" ala Disney, etc.

I worked for both Disney "and" CP,...and with any program such as this..there are BOUND to be issues regardless of employees, etc. I was not familiar with Cedar Point's pass policy, but sure that the blame could be placed on many aspects.

A co-worker just returned from a 10 day trip to Orlando and her opinion (and I agree) was that even though both Disney and Universal had the Fast-Pass system...both had kinks that needed to be worked out. However, she was FURIOUS with the Disney system because it was limited to specific rides at specific times of day and rules/regulations were a tad inconvenient. Not to mention that some guests just plain didn't follow or fully understand the rules and then would get mad at others in line, employees, etc. She said she witnessed confrontations at three rides and in one situation, it had the possibility of becoming violent.

Between the two,...she said Universal's was much simpler and basic. So who knows? Maybe Cedar Point can re-evaluate the system and study other parks in the coming year and see what the trend is leaning towards. We can only hope for the best!!

Let's observe the obvious here...

The best way to minimize wait times for everybody is to keep the lines moving, something Cedar Point has been expert at for years (2005 season on Millennium Force, Corkscrew and Gemini notwithstanding...and before you flame me, yes, I am well aware of mechanical reasons for all of those...). That's the only way to reduce the waiting time: put more people on the rides. Cedar Point knows this. Cedar Point also knows that the light times on most of their rides are well known among the regulars, and it wouldn't take much for non-regulars to find out as well. The system didn't really improve the waiting time for anybody, and was little more than a gimmick.

The reason FreeWay existed in the first place (and in fact, the reason it was called FREEway) was because Six Flags had FastLane in place at Geauga Lake. Geauga Lake didn't get the crowds to justify it, but the system was there. When Cedar Fair took over Geauga Lake, FastLane went away, and along with it, the primary justification for having FreeWay.

Now Cedar Point can get back to the business of running rides at peak capacity instead of re-arranging the people in the queue.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.