New for 2015

Cedar Point already has three floorless coasters: Raptor, Gatekeeper and Wicked Twister. I don't see any floor under the riders feet.

Marek2011 said:
... and put parking somewhere on the mainland, and then train/bus people in from the mainland lots like Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

This seems to me to be most unlikely, for one reason: infrastructure.

The Walt Disney World Resort was designed, literally from the ground up, to support the necessary infrastructure for moving large groups of people by public transit -- buses, boats and monorails. Sandusky, Ohio, was not.

Consider just buses: in order to move any significant number of guests on and off the peninsula, Cedar Point would have to have a large fleet of buses, and the staff to drive and maintain them, all hired on a seasonal basis; the facilities to maintain such a fleet; expand the causeway to accommodate that number of buses in addition to the cars; convince Sandusky business and home owners to surrender property to expand Route 6 to accommodate that number of buses and cars...

...or the park can continue to have guests drive themselves to the peninsula, without a dime spent on expanded infrastructure.

cl94 said:
What's with this obsession over floorless coasters?

Well If you ever rode Dominator/Batman Knight Flight from Geauga Lake, you would know how much fun they are! Feels like your flying along the rails with nothing around your feet but air. I want one to come to CP, but everyone tells me to get out of Fantasy land most of the time.

I said "like Disney World" not "exactly like Disney World"

"Like" or "exactly" ... what's the difference? I don't think Sandusky can accommodate the sort of infrastructure your suggestion requires.

Well then how about this? Build the parking lot up, a parking deck. Then more room for the park to be expanded toward the parking lot. It's been said before that the park still has plenty of room to expand but if they ever wanted more room, there has to be some reasonable way to build out towards the causeway.

Sure, a parking deck could be possible.

I'm sufficiently cautious as to wonder what effect the tons of a parking deck plus the tons of cars on the parking deck would have on the sandy land of the peninsula.

That said, I think the park is decades away from having to consider such an option.

For sure, not in the near future at all, especially since you just invested in a new front gate for the park. It has always just been an idea in my head for the past couple years.

TTD 120mph said:
Let's keep those kinds of things a Six Flags exclusive. ;)

Wait till Cedar Flags ;P

AlexS said:
Raptor BACKWARDS? Thoughts?

I was also thinking that.

Therman said:
I was thinking lets say they take down mean streak this year and put up a new coaster. What would be the next ride for Cedar Point to remove in the future? My guess would have been Mantis since its losing its popularity but if they make it floor less I think it will be up for a while. Also the park doesn't have much room to expand unless they take beach space away.

I do not know if this is even possible or if they could do this but what if they expanded into Lake Erie by pouring sand into the waters of Lake Erie and expand the park my guess is that this will happen in 2019 for the parks 150th anniversary this is just a theory I do not even know if this is possible or not.

Raptor backwards? Sure. Six Flags has a B&M backwards Batman train that's touring the company.

Let's stick to one crazy, unrealistic idea at a time. Backwards Raptor and Lake Eerie coaster will have to wait a few more thread pages, I want to hear more about this parking garage. How many floors will it have? How much will parking prices have to increase in order to cover the cost? Is $30 too much to charge?

^I don't think we are actually thinking (that) in to this. I just made a fun "what if" question to something that would most likely never happen.:)

Noggin - don't forget the other important part of the comparison. Walt Disney World IS the local government.

True that.^

Check out my lengthy post on this page: http://pointbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/30869.aspx?page=36 in case you previously missed it, especially the 2nd to last paragraph.

If it IS a dark ride/coaster hybrid that's going to built, the park might not be in any hurry to announce it (I'm still going with Sept. 27 date from the Twitter exchange between Jason and Tony) after reading all of the backlash against Guardian type rides ala the "In the Dark" thread. Something to think about. Nothing to see here, now move along....

Chuck Wagon said:
Let's stick to one crazy, unrealistic idea at a time. Backwards Raptor and Lake Eerie coaster will have to wait a few more thread pages, I want to hear more about this parking garage. How many floors will it have? How much will parking prices have to increase in order to cover the cost? Is $30 too much to charge?

Disney World charges $17 with $99 tickets and they still make you take a bus or monorail. SF Great Adventure is $25 with $67 tickets. $25-30 would still be cheaper than most NFL stadiums. CP parking is currently $15, a steal compared to most other parks. Build a, say, 5-level garage on the west side of the parking lot and expand the park down the east side. Keep the gate where it is, but open up the southeast. Larger park would likely equal larger attendance, so they could probably get away with charging $20-25.

You all are forgetting one important factor - the aesthetics of said parking garage. With the beautiful landscape around CP as you drive onto the causeway, nobody in their right mind would build an obstruction such as a 5 story parking garage and risk ruining the view.

The park is large enough as it is anyway. I'm not sure making the park larger would justify the increased operating cost or lead to higher guest satisfaction. There is a limit to how much the average person wants to walk and CP is already huge as it is.