Has cedar point become less nice and wholesome

Society in general has become less nice and wholesome. Cedar Point feeling less nice is just a reflection of that and that things sucked less when we were young and had less responsibility and our feet didn't hurt. In all fairness though our new dodgem cars are a total abomination so if we are going to judge the park on that then yes, it's gone seriously downhill. ;)

While on this topic, also consider the amount of work that has to happen at the park between midnight and 8AM. The later they stay open, the less time your favorite ride has to get turned over for the following day. I would imagine some of the reasons they went back to an earlier close, was to help with the amount of work needing to be accomplished. Especially if over the years they have reduced the 3rd shift staff.

I feel like with inflation and labor shortages and supply chain issues pretty much everything we encounter when we leave the house in the morning is likely to be "less nice" for the foreseeable future and we're just all going to have to decide which experiences are most important to us and do our best to make them as "nice" as possible under the circumstances. I noticed last time I was at the park the seat cover dispensers in every bathroom I used were gone. It's a little thing and we'll all manage but to me it's just evidence of trying to streamline and trim budgets wherever it can be done while having most people not notice it as much.

Paisley I think this is exactly right. Make the best of every situation you can and don't be a dick to people who are working as hard as they can

I’ve been saying it for a while now. When you leave the house prepare to be disappointed. And if things turn out to have a big helping of awesome sauce all over it then more’s the better. It’s too bad that’s turned into a pleasant and unexpected surprise, but alas, it has.
We lull ourselves into thinking things should be ok. For instance, the grocery store looks like it’s running at top level. But the other day I couldn’t find something simple like my jar of spaghetti sauce. I found the grocery man, who I talk to on the regular, and he said “Sorry sir, we’ve got about 40 skids back there waiting to be unloaded and stocked and it’s me and one other guy all night. And you can see I’m also working today… Can I go look for something for you?” Sure. And he eventually showed up with a little supply of jars. I was happy, he was happy he helped, and half a shelf got stocked.
There’s an application for how we handle our amusement park visits in this.

Amen to the last several posts here. Good thing we didn't see Mr. RCMAC on the latest "Karen Freakout" video. "Man throws tantrum at grocery store over un-stocked Newman's Own sauce!"

(just kidding around)

It’s never been a top scale park as far as being a nice park. The most outdated, dirty restrooms in the industry, outdated ugly buildings, little shade in the front of the park, little theming. Etc. It’s a place to go for a LOT of rides. The lake is the beautiful atmosphere, not the park itself.

Paisley:

Society in general has become less nice and wholesome.

This is demonstrably false. While we have a long way to go, when I first started going to the park as an adult, 25 years ago, gender pay equality was far worse, racial inequality was worse, gay marriage was not legal, and no one had even heard of the term "neuroatypical."

If you think otherwise, you're in the boat with these "Make America Great Again" idiots. Please. We've got problems, and a long way to go, but at no time were we closer to having a more equitable and just society.

Couldn't agree more Jeff.

The internet has alot to do with this phenomenon also. For example before the internet we got our information from news and freinds and family. Because our freinds and family tended to be people we agreed with (at least the friends) we keep getting information that we would accept because, for the most part, friends and family tend to spread good/positive news and tends to stay away from the negative. In some instances if someone would spread news you were not in agreement with it would break the friendship and turn off that source to you.

In the internet days information spreads much faster and broader. Sites like to keep us engaged for ad revenue so they try and keep us browsing by feeding us information we want to see. There is a subconcious human curiosity toward negative news so that is part of what is spread to us. It opens us up to information we normally wouldn't see from our friends and family.

Nascar started it's popularity because people wanted to see the wreks (not necessarily injuries). Since they have made races safer Nascar has seen a drop in popularity. Because our need for tech and social media we are less likely to seperate ourselves from the internet and therefore are presented with a more wide range of ideas that are outside of our normal group of friends/family. Of course the more people click on articles, the more popular they become so we tend to recieve more bad/negative news than in our past.

Once we see something we are led to believe it because "I saw it on the internet so it must be true" not realizing that usually people tend to leave negative comments about a person/place/thing rather than positive ones so the bias leans toward the negative (unpopular) opinions. Once we see that we tend to seek out backups to what we saw that others may deem controversial to play into our "confirmation bias". Also it feeds the human need to "know something other don't". It allows them to feel smarter or superior to others. It has truely exposed and exploited the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The internet is definitely a curse and at the same time a powerful tool. The key is to double check sources, keep an open mind about what you're being exposed to and realizing that when you're on line your circle of "friends" and therefore infulences to your thoughts are much more borad than you can ever imagine. There's just as much bad/good in the world, we just tend to be feed more of the bad thanks to algorighms being fueled by that most evil human aspect of all. GREED.

Of course that's just my 2 cents, I could be wrong.

^^Equitable and "nice" are not the same. Things are more equitable in many ways now but 25 years ago it was unusual to hear parents swearing at their toddlers in the grocery store or Walmart. I've reached a point that it doesn't surprise me anymore. My husband has worked EMS for many years. He sees people at their worst moments and worst behavior and that has generally been getting worse. He didn't get assaulted by the people he tries to help as often 20 years ago. Supply chains and labor are weird. It never used to take 4-5 separate stops at two separate store locations to finally get lucky and find an item you used to regularly grab whenever finally in stock. We are waiting on a part for my son's van. Thankfully not something that's a crucial need yet but still when you drive one of the most common vehicles you don't expect your mechanic to have to wait weeks for a simple part. With inflation there is corner cutting happening everywhere simply because it needs to be. This just makes life in general less "nice" in a bunch of little ways. Nothing to do with equity, equal pay, racism, just mundane details in our days that are less "nice" and more annoying.

Paisley:

...but 25 years ago it was unusual to hear parents swearing at their toddlers in the grocery store or Walmart.

We clearly grew up in different places.

^Was going to say the same thing.

Paisley:

It never used to take 4-5 separate stops at two separate store locations to finally get lucky and find an item you used to regularly grab

But in the same age, you can get almost anything imaginable from Amazon within a day or two, or even within an hour sometimes. I am ok with this as the amount of time I save now from not having to go to a store and walk around for an hour collecting my items has been great.

This is demonstrably false. While we have a long way to go, when I first started going to the park as an adult, 25 years ago, gender pay equality was far worse, racial inequality was worse, gay marriage was not legal, and no one had even heard of the term "neuroatypical."

If you think otherwise, you're in the boat with these "Make America Great Again" idiots. Please. We've got problems, and a long way to go, but at no time were we closer to having a more equitable and just society.

Oh so people that support Trump are idiots. I don't think that any of the issues you listed have anything to do with those that support Trump or Republicans and to bring politics into the discussion shows how shallow minded you are. You seem to like Disney, they seem to have some odd affiliations. I've been going to the park a lot longer than you and the operation has definitely lost some of the appeal over the years. Can't wait to be banned for an opinion like what most democrats do.

purduegrad85:

Oh so people that support Trump are idiots.

At this point? Yes, 100%. Violent white nationalist authoritarianism is bad, and people who can't recognize the threat posed by Trump-ism are, in my opinion, fundamentally ignorant at best, even if only in terms of historical precedent.

99er:
But in the same age, you can get almost anything imaginable from Amazon within a day or two...

Exactly. It wasn't all that long ago that if you didn't gas up your car and fill your fridge heading into a holiday, you were going to be SOL. At the crest of the 24-hour-everything wave just prior to the pandemic, you could probably find a McDonald's open on Christmas day, as if that's something society needed or should be proud of. The pandemic has in many ways sort of reset that craze, and for the better in my opinion. But for folks who have grown up with that as their reality, it's an adjustment.

Also, it wasn't that uncommon for a car part to have a long lead time many years ago. I'm getting old, I guess.

Why does this have to be political?

purduegrad85:

Oh so people that support Trump are idiots.

I mean, fascism and authoritarianism aren't exactly great for democracy. You can't say that you want to "suspend the Constitution" and expect people to be cool with that.

I don't think that any of the issues you listed have anything to do with those that support Trump or Republicans and to bring politics into the discussion shows how shallow minded you are.

Hahahaha? For real? I've been accused of having such an open mind that my brain might fall out, by Trumpies no less. So which is it?

All you need is eyes. You can see the MAGA people actively wanting to repress voting rights, discriminate against LGBTQ folks, ban books, put women in "their place."

Strangely enough I actually use things on a regular basis that are not realistic to buy and have shipped from amazon. I love amazon but they aren't exactly my go to for frozen or refrigerated food...

And I really don't understand how feeling that the world as a whole isn't exactly "nice and wholesome" or operating optimally at the moment and that this is likely to spill over into the amusement park experience has to be a political argument. That and like mentioned before, sore feet. When we were younger and our feet hurt less walking around the park we probably overlooked shortcomings more than we do now that we're older and grumpier.

Perception is a weird thing. I saw someone say today that unemployment is on the rise. Far from it, there hasn't been a negative job growth month since the start of the pandemic, and it exceeded the pre-covid number about a year ago. Unemployment is at a near record low.

Unemployment is on the rise, a whole 0.4% since March 2023 (3.4 to 3.8%), slight up tick....but to your point it is near a record low, the numbers I saw were 3.8% in September. It was 3.8% prior to Covid as well and dipped as low as 3.4% in January of this year. Lowest I saw was back in '07 at 4.5%. I think perception can is a weird thing, some people look at their local unemployment numbers rather than national numbers.

Some people selectively use whatever numbers support the narrative they're trying to push, often selectively omitting other data that conflicts with that narrative. Local unemployment data alone is meaningless in the context of national economic health. Same for month-to-month variations unless there's an overall medium- or long-term trend. So in my view anyone pointing out those narratives is trying to make a political point rather than an economic one.

Paisley:

And I really don't understand how feeling that the world as a whole isn't exactly "nice and wholesome" or operating optimally at the moment and that this is likely to spill over into the amusement park experience has to be a political argument.

It could be because much of the data one might use to measure the "niceness" of society trends in the same direction over several decades, while news and politicians have continued to focus on it as a major issue, which is often framed in a political way.

Look at violent crime, which has steadily trended downward over 30+ years, and yet in the most recent midterms a 61% majority of voters felt it was a "very important" issue. And there was a partisan and age skew among those responses, with 73% of Republican voters saying as much, with that view increasing to 77% among more Conservative Republican voters. And, not surprisingly and to tie it back to the discussion here, 74% of voters 65 and older tend to view violent crime as a major issue compared to 44% of voters under 30.

So, for me at least, whenever I hear some variation of "back in the good old days", I tend to view the complaints with skepticism and with that framing in mind.