Gold Pass - Justification

Fury - yes. But the rest of Carowinds crews were slow as molasses.

Sorry your experience sucked, but when I was there in April, I thought ops were good. Copperhead Strike was moving so fast I would have thought they were rude if I didn't appreciate how they were trying to move trains out.

Only slow ops were Nighthawk (Vekoma Flyer), Vortex (stand up),and whatever the Wild Mouse is called. Ricochet? Anyway, those ops will always be slow even if you have an Olympic bobsled team as crew.

What if you have a Jamaican bobsled team?

Feel the rhythm, Feel the rhyme!

Did 2 days at Carowinds in August 2018 and again in 2019... Fury is the fastest crew in the chain no question. We also had solid ops at Intimidator both years and VERY quick ops on Copperhead Strike this year. AfterBurn was on 1 train both trips but had no line and we got re-rides every time as long as there were open seats which I loved!

ALL of their other coasters had kind of sad slow ops. The mine train and NightHawk were so slow it was pretty ridiculous. NightHawk had the slowest moving line I've ever waited in for a 2 train ops coaster.

noggin said:

I can't help but think there's a lot of armchair accounting going on about the Gold Pass. Not to sound like a corporate shill, but Cedar Fair has a legion of accountants and analysts at their disposal.

The pricing on the Gold Pass was made on the basis of the numbers and analysis. I'll wait until next year to see if it is, in fact, a "***show".

Perhaps the powers that be decided to go with volume over 'appropriate' pricing. It's been done before in many other businesses; they make up on volume what they're losing, on higher priced products. Cedar Fair might be pricing the Gold Pass to reach parts of the market.

It's worth remembering, I think, that Cedar Point, unlike Knott's, Dorney, Carowinds, Kings Island, Kings Dominion etc., is not located close to a major market. Even Michigan's Adventure is close to Muskegon and closer to Grand Rapids than Cedar Point is to Cleveland, Detroit, or Toledo.

For once I agree. CP knows what they're doing. The GP has been beta-tested at other parks. Heck, I bot one for the GF in '18 to CFKI.

For me, the GP is a great deal. I am glad that CF opened up the park to the masses, the crowds will die out when they get tired of 12 dollar fries and 10 dollar beer.

As I always go at off peak times, the crowds are not an issue.

Got an offer for Fast Lane Plus add-on for $70 apiece for the 2020 season. Good deal I would reckon. But my husband said forget it, they've already oversold.

We're in for a hard year in lines probably and I doubt we will have the patience to wait that long in line and will be looking for other sources of entertainment besides coasters on our trips. I would imagine the Fast Lane at this rate is also watered down by sales and might end up equating to an otherwise typical line with the regular line being undoable.

SALE DONE:

Gold Pass $129

Platinum pass $220

Fun Pix $65 from $52

Gold Season FL $775 from $749

Other parks also increased priced .ie...Carowinds Gold $113, KI Gold $118, KD Gold $124, Dorney Gold $127

The damage has already been done.

And it's still too cheap.

The old non-gold season pass is still available for those that want to save $14. 🤔

djDaemon said:

And it's still too cheap.

Yes, it's still a bargain considering Knotts is $125 without parking & the prices of places like Dorney, KD, etc...

$129 should be without parking for CP & that's still a deal

I'm still of a mindset of wait and see for how the Gold Pass works out this season. Yes, $99 was a hell of a deal but that doesn't mean people will go as much as we think they will. There are still school and work schedules people need to work around plus CP is not exactly situated by any huge population centers, even compared to KI and Cincinnati.

I lived in Florida for 4 years and got a season pass to BGT with the Florida resident special. The special was buy a one day admission and come back all year. So in essence a season pass for about $60-70 at the time. I found 2-3 week days to go though out the year and the park was never packed. And Tampa is a much larger city, has a much larger population base, and is a much more popular tourist destination than Sandusky.

Will peak summer Saturdays be crazy if the weather is nice? Sure, but they always are. Will Halloweekends be a clusterf**k? Yep, but they have been the past few seasons. I do not think we will see as many "closed for capacity" nightmares as people fear and I don't think the day to day numbers will increase to a point of it being intolerable.

Besides, we have no idea what the financial or political climate will be. We have no idea what the weather will be, or things like gas prices that could all negatively impact attendance. It's just too early to constantly be screaming the sky is falling about the Gold Pass when we have no previous measurables to compare it to.

But we have had some real life experience of how the cheap pass affects attendance at the end of the year when they offered it. Now is that going to continue into every day next year, most likely not.
Our concern with this is the overall inefficiencies in park operations of the last several years if not longer. The park definitely has the ability to handle more capacity, but if it continues with inefficiencies as they have, even a mediocre attendance increase could result in snowballing queues and service times.

EDIT: Say Cheap Pass 3 times in a row fast.

I still think the verdict is still out whether if the Gold Pass will have a huge impact on overall attendance. We've heard park officials say several times the Gold Pass had a very small percentage impact on attendance last fall. The weather was perfect almost every weekend.

You mean as they where heavily promoting and pushing a new chap pass, park officials also discounted the affect that pass had on overcrowding?

The park has been slammed in the past on great weather HalloWeends long before the introduction of the Gold Pass. I have never seen such a string of beautiful fall weekends like we had last year. The park would have been slammed regardless of a Gold Pass or not.

^Wouldn't opening and closing day also be slammed as well? People there are really wanting their first rollercoaster fix of the season or the last of it for the year.

What about the people that said screw this and turned around and went home. There were plenty. As stated just a little while ago, its about the inefficiencies. Correct that and make it a smoother guest experience.

Long lines to park = Trash

Long food lines = Trash

Long drink lines = Trash

And we haven't even gotten to the rides yet.

Correct the inefficiencies and it will come together just fine, if Cedar Point doesn't, watch out.

https://pointbuzz.com/Forums/Topic/2020-cedar-point-boat-show

Before the introduction of Cheap Pass, I don't recall the Boat Show needing to be relocated due to overcrowding.