There is a significant difference here.
On May 13 (May 7)(May 6), Cedar Point will open for the season. With the park, they are expecting to open their new roller coaster, Millennium Force. In honor of that, they have auctioned off the seats on the first set of public trains on the 13th.
On April 8, Kings Island staged a huge preview event for the enthusiast community in conjunction with their dry-run day, when they were to give first rides on Son Of Beast. On April 9, Kings Island scheduled an even more huge preview event for season pass holders. On April 15, the park opened for the season, with contest winners who were to be the first riders on Son of Beast. On April 25, Kings Island scheduled a press event for Son of Beast. On April 28, they finally got the ride open, held the press event, got rave reviews...then on the 29th, something went wrong and the ride closed again.
The point to all of this is that much of the griping about the problems with Son of Beast is not so much because the ride hasn't been running on time, but because people made special trips and went out of their way to attend scheduled special events surrounding the opening of the new ride...an opening which has been delayed and delayed and delayed. Literally thousands of people, unfortunately, had to be disappointed after making special arrangements to get to the park to ride the new ride. By comparison, the only special event I know of related to Millennium Force is the first rides auction...so for all but those 108 riders, if the ride doesn't run on opening day, it's no different than if it breaks down on any other day. People will be disappointed, but they should know better than to expect a park to be 100% fully functional on Opening Day.
For Cedar Point to suffer a (I hate to use the word, but it fits) fiasco as Kings Island has suffered, Millennium Force would have to be down mechanical on, say, June 2. THAT would be a comparable disaster to the worst bits of the Sonny delay.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.