New For 2017: Cedar Point Shores Water Park

I just "lost" or got unscheduled from my position again so work isn't a problem LOL

malem said:
Better to slide at 60° than wait 45 minutes on a slide tower at 80°.

Only for polar bears.

^Polar Bears?....that's our mascot, Klondike. One of the reasons we do a Polar Plunge every winter :)

GO BEARS!!

11:20 and 58 degrees--right now I'm staying dry. The polar bears can enjoy it.

Woah, wait. $4.95 per hour for a waterpark? How did that work?

Cargo Shorts said:

Woah, wait. $4.95 per hour for a waterpark? How did that work?

I saw an older CP Brochure (probably this one) and wondered the same thing. Did they time stamp it or something?

Maybe there were wristbands of different colors so they could tell how long ago you paid and not let you back in line when your color expired. The little arcade by us does something like this you can pay for the day or by the hour and the owner can tell by the color of your wristband as he walks around whether or not you still belong there.

There were sessions and yes, colored wristbands told them if you belonged or not. Nothing could stop you from laying in a chair all day, though, and after a season or two there was an all day option as well.

Valleyfair was the first park to have a waterpark and they started that way as well.

I was pretty impressed with the revamp. I am interested to see if they keep the focus on CPS not only this summer but in the future as well. I loved the wave pool movies last year and the new entertainment ideas could be a nice addition. I am not sure why they had to close the newer (i.e. convenient) entrance though...

The grand opening was frustrating to some extent. They had us wait in not one but three lines before we were permitted to explore. ( First a line into the parking lot, then a line to get through security and to the turnstiles, then yet another line to the midway, where they handed out tote bags and towels.)

This is what I mean about CP making a major production out of everything. It's almost like they enjoy shepherding large throngs of people around like livestock. But hey, at least we got free merch.

I don't think that the waterpark is going to see the brunt of it, but CP is either going to have to rethink their metal detector strategy or deal with gate crashers this summer. All they do is create another bottleneck the park really does not need.

When I arrived at 11am there was no line at the entrance to speak of, just inside the park to get the free towel. Understandable, how else would they distribute them? Missed out on getting one by about 10 people ahead of me. Oh well.

Overall impression is that this is a beautiful update, very much in the Lake Erie lifestyle architecture like Hotel Breakers. Spent most of the afternoon at Schooners, a lot of the regulars from Bubbles showed up in the afternoon. Very nice bar, when they get the bands going I think the place will have a nice party vibe. I heard they are bringing outside musicians in to perform in addition to CP live E. Good move as some variety is good and it makes less like a "show" and more like a party. I had the beef brisket sandwich at Crystal Rock and it was very good.

Only a few criticisms. The old Bubbles is pretty much the same except they took out the hot tub. Why? I was expecting more of a revamp at Bubbles, I would have expanded the bar to a longer, maybe "S" shaped affair with more room for guests and bartenders both. The new restrooms next to the wave pool are welcome but they are only two one at a time family restrooms. Bad move, they should be regular high capacity restrooms. Serving two bars and the cabanas by the wave pool, what they have is not nearly enough.

Overall, the revamp is very successful at bringing more resort feel to the park. It will probably entice me to spend a little more time at Shores and a little less at Put-In-Bay. Anyone who knows me knows that is a big deal.

^Keep up with these constructive critiques and you'll put John Taffer out of work.

I was one of the polar bears yesterday, and I can confirm that the waterpark was heated and surprisingly tolerable, even at 60°. From my experience, it feels as though the entire park is now finally heated (even the previously frigid raft ride), though I didn't go in the splash fort to confirm if it is now heated. (Considering the huge amounts of water used there, I'm doubting that it's heated.) However, the park is heated to varying degrees, with the new drop slide tower feeling like warm bathwater, and the rest of the park feeling quite a bit cooler, but not too cold. It's definitely quite an improvement over previous water temperatures, and as a result I really wish the waterpark would now stay open past Labor Day, though I doubt that would create a good return on investment.

In regards to the soundtrack, they're playing beachy/summery songs, with mostly pre-90s songs and some reggae songs in the mix. I don't pay much attention to background music, but the three songs I noticed were "Vacation" by the Go-Go's, "Wipeout" by the Surfaris, and "Jamming" by Bob Marley and the Wailers. I think the soundtrack is a great fit for the park, and it's a whole lot better than the strange DJ dance-remixed stuff they've been playing in Cedar Point this season.

Aside from the water play areas all the pools and rivers were heated when it was Soak City. Only back then different leadership had other ideas as to how heated the water should be, even though the heat was on in the early and late parts of the season. This included the resort pools as well.

I went for a couple hours on Preview Day. COLD! COLD! COLD! Some things are heated and others aren't. But the park looks fantastic! Hardly recognized the place walking in. And the park was a ghostown (For obvious reasons). Everything was a walk on, and there couldn't have been any more than 50 guests when I was there. The drop slides are fun and fast. The tube slides are very fun too and more family friendly. I love how you can use double tubes on those ones. But overall, CPS was a great addition.

RCMAC said:

There were sessions and yes, colored wristbands told them if you belonged or not. Nothing could stop you from laying in a chair all day, though, and after a season or two there was an all day option as well.

Valleyfair was the first park to have a waterpark and they started that way as well.

Exactly. If I remember correctly the first couple of years they used hard plastic colored wrist bands that had a one-time-use plastic button to snap the ends together. Later I think they switched to colored paper-ish bands similar to the Bubbles over-21 wrist band. All of the slides had clocks on them and throughout the day someone would talk over speakers saying something like, "At 2 o'clock the red wrist bands will expire. If you are wearing a red wrist band please begin to collect your belongings." As RCMAC said, I don't remember anyone going around and enforcing the time limits though.

Here's one final time lapse I made, starting in December and ending on CP Shores' opening weekend:

Note that the webcam has an annoying tendency to move around quite a bit, particularly near the end.

I haven't been to CP Shores yet, but I noticed in a few tour videos, there were no tubes at the wave pool anymore (or possibly yet?).

There are still tubes available at the wave pool; went in on Friday's preview day with a tube, and the waves were surprisingly forceful.

Good to hear! I must have missed them in the video. They aren't allowed in MI Adventure's wave pool anymore (except rented ones) so I hoped they weren't going that direction, since I don't really like being in the wave pool without a tube.

I checked out CP Shores for the passholder preview and I was very impressed. It's bright, clean, and has a great atmosphere in addition to a diverse collection of things to do. I wrote up a detailed trip report and created a gallery with a bunch of pictures on my amusement park blog. Here's the link to the report if you want to check it out and read/see more about this great new waterpark!

http://thrillsawait.weebly.com/trip-reports/cp-shores-brew-bbq-and-...-point-526