Gold Pass - Justification

Count me in as a P.O.'ed long- time season passholder who spends a lot of money in the park ( not bragging, just hope someone from the park reads this). I have been a season passholder since 1994 and a platinum passholder since it's inception. After what we saw last weekend, combined with the usual chronic understaffing, we cancelled our reservations at the Breakers are staying home with our $500.00 ( minus the $50.00cancellation fee, of course) or so that we would have left in the park.

MaverickLaunch said:

So perhaps the problem is not too many gold passes or not enough toll booths and parking, but just that there's not been enough rain!

It is entirely possible that two trends are contributing to the crowds - increasingly-better October weather as average temperatures inch up, and increasing popularity of fall/Halloween events.

Which makes a $99 2020 pass that's also good for the rest of this season all the more baffling. Why lower the gate price when people were all-too-happy to pay the previous, higher price?

In the end Cedar Point delivered a sub par product over the last 2 months and people went away and turned away upset.

They did? Didn't look like they did.

I'm not "turning away", but did certainly take notice of the sub-par product and will find something else to do and keep my money. I really like what they've done with the resort area and beach, but other than that, I'm not impressed with current management. I expect better.

Both takes - that people left unhappy and that they left happy - can't really be substantiated until we see some long term results.

Cargo Shorts said:

However to make this work they will need FL+ food and drink lines as well, IMO and that could be complex.

That wouldn't just be complex = it would be an absolute nightmare!

The traffic back ups are a tricky thing to judge because turning the corner at Thirsty Pony if the road is backed up it is reasonable to think there may be an accident ahead. There is still enough space between you and the park for that to be a reasonable assumption. There have also been times when I've sat in a creeping line all the way from just past Cedar Point Rd. going down Cleveland Rd. thinking "Oh crap this isn't good" only to find when I turn the corner at Thirsty Pony everything opens up and everyone is now travelling at 35mph and there was no back up from that point on. I've been in a back up actually on Rt. 2 back to the bridge before Rye Beach Rd. on a Friday evening thought that didn't bode well but then once we got on Cleveland Rd. things were OK and the park was busy but not horrible and we had a good night. It's so hard to judge traffic from just the spot you happen to be at. Last Saturday my son pulled up a traffic app on his tablet and the major roads heading into the park were all outlined in red so we just never left home because I had a bad feeling about the day right from the start but had I been at the end of a 3 hour drive not positive I would have been so quick to turn around and give up.

Reading the first post - CCMR actually doesn't have the block setup to run 4 or 5 anymore - old POVs show block brakes on some straight sections which are now just dead track, but it can still run 3 even though the third train has been gone a while.

Someone mentioned the increasing popularity of HalloWeekends (or Halloween events in general) being a contributor. I’m sure it is. Which is why I’ve wondered for several years why Cedar Point would offer all those extras to passholders during the busy HalloWeekends season, and not offer them during the not-so-busy early season. Makes more sense to me to offer the bring-a-friend ticket when the park isn’t already slammed.

djDaemon said:

Both takes - that people left unhappy and that they left happy - can't really be substantiated until we see some long term results.

How dare you say something so logical? We live in a media drive, knee-jerk reaction society! If you had a tuna sandwich for lunch, or you stubbed your toe, or if you can't ride your favorite roller coaster because the place is too busy the ONLY thing you can do is take it to social media! We don't have the time to wait for results to be substantiated.

^^Of course if they offer the bring a friend freebie to be used earlier in the season that improves the chance of people actually using it. This is going to be one of those years we probably don't manage to use ours. We've barely gotten to the park ourselves no less coordinate our schedules with other people.

Paisley- I’ve never used the bring-a-friend benefit. But that’s more because I don’t have any friends than anything else.

I think the few times we've managed to use it was to bring my mom and my brother who are both very limited on what they can ride if at all and will not know until that day if they are well enough to go walking around the park.

They should reserve Halloweekends for free Bring-a-Frenemy days. Where you spend the day talking about how short the lines for coasters were back on a Tuesday in June with your “other” friends.

Pro-Tip: Make your frenemy drive and you will pay for parking.

The short term spike is from the excitement of the new Gold Pass, amazing fall weather and lots of bring a friend free coupons. I stood in line at the ticket window today to redeem my bring a friend and I would say 3 out of 4 people in front of me did the same.

Long term we wont know the effects of the gold pass until CF reports results out to shareholders at the end of 2020. Then we will see if there is was overall increase in visits or decrease. If attendance grows lets say 10% chain wide and per guest spending goes $3 a guest then it was a huge success.

So judging it short term based on the weekends that have been traditionally the busiest the last 5-10 years is a bit premature. Let's wait till 2020 results are presented.

If attendance goes up 10% chain wide, then I'd say CP's is going to be up by quite a bit more than that. The other parks have had a gold pass already prior to this year. I don't think you'll see an increase that big. I do think we'll likely see the per cap spending number decline since people are going to be paying less on average for admission. I guess their hope is people will spend more once in the park, but I'm not sure how realistic that hope is considering the platinum pass was supposedly out of reach for so many of these new gold pass customers. It will be an interesting year next year for sure. One thought I had was that they'd have to build a bangin' ride for 2021 in order to bring back all of the people they've alienated with this gold pass. Hopefully the excitement wears off and next year is not as packed out as this fall has been. It may take until third quarter of next year or even 2021 before financial results show the impact of their decision here. Even then, it might be hard to draw conclusions because they don't break anything out by park.

MDOmnis said:

If attendance goes up 10% chain wide, then I'd say CP's is going to be up by quite a bit more than that. The other parks have had a gold pass already prior to this year. I don't think you'll see an increase that big. I do think we'll likely see the per cap spending number decline since people are going to be paying less on average for admission. I guess their hope is people will spend more once in the park, but I'm not sure how realistic that hope is considering the platinum pass was supposedly out of reach for so many of these new gold pass customers. It will be an interesting year next year for sure. One thought I had was that they'd have to build a bangin' ride for 2021 in order to bring back all of the people they've alienated with this gold pass. Hopefully the excitement wears off and next year is not as packed out as this fall has been. It may take until third quarter of next year or even 2021 before financial results show the impact of their decision here. Even then, it might be hard to draw conclusions because they don't break anything out by park.

2020 Gold Pass are all deferred revenue. CF let then in free for 2019 and they paid nothing for parking. So any revenue CF gets from them is only if they bought food or merchandise in 2019 People only buying for cheap passes are less likely to spend. Admission per caps will be down and I'd bet in park spend per cap.

FYI, Cedar Point extended the 99 Gold Pass they Jan 5th while raising platinum to 202. So, even more of these under priced gold passes will be bought thru the Holidays. Next year is likely going to be **** show. There is absolutely no chance I renew my platinum, all park dining, drink pass and all season all park FL+ if the park is a zoo as I expect. If I wanted to wait 1hr to get a meal and deal with a plethora of cheap riff raff I would go to Six Flags more.

MDOmnis said:

If attendance goes up 10% chain wide, then I'd say CP's is going to be up by quite a bit more than that. The other parks have had a gold pass already prior to this year. I don't think you'll see an increase that big.

I was just throwing out numbers as an example. It's a shame CF doesn't release park by park numbers. It would be interesting to see exactly how the Gold Pass effects the 2020 attendance just at CP. All I was trying to say is while the park looks and feels like a s**t show now, that's typically how Halloweekends is. We won't know for sure how things turn out until 2020 and maybe even 2021 financials are released.

CED23 said:
Next year is likely going to be **** show. There is absolutely no chance I renew my platinum, all park dining, drink pass and all season all park FL+ if the park is a zoo as I expect. If I wanted to wait 1hr to get a meal and deal with a plethora of cheap riff raff I would go to Six Flags more.

Halloweekends have been a ****show for the last decade. Assuming that the entire 2020 season will be anything like the last several weekends is being a bit alarmist.