New Pre-K Pass

Just as our youngest turns 6, this arrives. Still, if you have a tiny person in your house between the ages of 3-5, it's hard to beat free. Farewell, junior platinum passes!

https://www.cedarpoint.com/tickets-passes/pre-k-pass?keyword=2018prek

That is awesome. And it makes me glad we decided to skip this year, considering I found it monetarily heartbreaking to pay for my then-3 year old's pass in 2016.

Here's another little important factoid...

As long as your child is 5 years of age on the date you activate the pass, you are eligible.

Our daughter turns 6 September 29th. That said, if we register her and get it activated at the park before she turns 6, she is good to go for all of 2018, even though she will be 6 that entire year. Not valid at other parks, but still...worth a drive up to Sandusky and a bonus day at CP for us.

With all the Vengeance hype, this seemed to fly completely under the radar.

Ours turns 6 on September 8th, 2018, so assuming the dates hold for next year, we'll be able to "sneak in" an extra year as well.

Will they let you activate a 2018 pass this year? I was thinking that you would have to activate it next year.

No, you can activate it this year, and that child gets access to the park for the remainder of 2017.

Registration and activation started at the park yesterday; it also says this deal is available for a limited time only, so I would get on this sooner than later.

Note:

The Pre-K Pass includes admission to Dinosaur’s Alive, Cedar Point Shores as well as admittance to Early Entry to both Cedar Point (one hour early prior to park opening) and Cedar Point Shores (1/2 hour prior to water park opening).

In other words, it is a free platinum pass for tiny humans.

Very cool.

I didn't scroll down far enough in the FAQs. Wow - that is a great deal.

That seems like a big shift to let everyone 5 and under in for free. I agree with you DJ - I always hated paying for a junior pass when our kids were only 3 years old. I wonder why they went the free route rather than just lowering the price of the Junior pass. Seems like a lower priced pass would have made people happy and the park would still have gotten some money for it.

Well, this does change the value proposition, so maybe that's their angle?

For us, we took this year off since we had other stuff going on - new baby, new house, etc. So we looked at things to trim in our budget, and 3 Platinum Passes (and the associated trips) seemed like an obvious choice. Removing the cost of the Junior Platinum Pass might not have been enough to sway us back into buying them for ourselves, but I would imagine that would be the difference maker for some folks. And this will make us look pretty hard at a trip this year as well.

And we certainly spend more in the park each year than the $130 (or whatever it is) the Junior pass costs. So maybe that's their angle.

Plus, this pulls people into the "pass holder ecosystem", which I imagine has a certain amount of "stickiness".

Is it available at other Cedar Fair Parks?

The Pre-K pass is only valid at Cedar Point and Cedar Point Shores. Not all Cedar Fair parks have a Pre-K pass. For a free Pre-K pass you must register and activate a Pre-K pass at each specific, eligible park. One pass will not work for all Cedar Fair parks.

Being that I'll undoubtedly go to Kings Island at least once and likely Michigan's Adventure (and maybe even Kings Dominion), I'm not sure if this is really going to help me even with a three year old. I suppose if all those parks had it and i could get to all of them before June 29th, it might work, but I didn't see that KI or MIA got the Pre-K pass. I can't really complain since I was figuring I'd have to get her a platinum pass anyway, but the excitement of saving some money yesterday has been smacked down with a dose of reality.

This is extremely great for me. My daughter will just turn 3 in May, so would have been paying for a junior pass for her. We are dock at CP marina so my wife and I get two passes through there.

It is a shame that KI doesn't have the same Pre-K pass. I grew up right next to KI, literally my High School is visible from the park, and getting down to my parents within the time frame would have been easy enough.

Regionally, Dorney, Kings Dominion, and Carowinds all offer a pre-k pass. That said, you need to individually register and activate a pre-k pass at each park.

So how does the park know how old your child is?

You have to provide proof of age when activating at the park.

Cut off a limb and count the rings.

Are we looking for finger rings or toe rings?

This is a great offer for my family. We are going for Halloweekends and a weekend next May. It will be worth it for us to stop and get a PreK pass for my 4 yr old. He's only 39inches so not riding the big rides yet.
My mom found her old reciepts from last year and it looks like the Jr/Sr price went up $20 on the Platinum Pass- $162 right now.

This is really interesting. Season passes are the bread and butter of Kings Island, so I can't see how they wouldn't lose money if they implemented this. Cedar Point on the other hand would appear to have more to gain from trying to attract families with small children to get passes.

There used to be a "Jr/Sr" Platinum Pass which caused some bad press at Kings Island a few years ago. A family was asked to pay the difference on a regular Platinum Pass for one of their kids after they were "observed" to have passed the 48" height mark mid-season. It did not go well for the park...and those passes went away the next year I think.

Then by all rights, the year I crossed into seniordom, I should have marched in there and demanded a refund equal to the reduction for the balance of the year.
Damn, too late now.

I'd imagine some market research let them figure out how much money they were losing by charging 5 and unders, with the rest of the family not going at all or as often and losing out on that income.

That's said, the park has been doing an excellent job at providing out of park activities for the little ones at the hotels, pools and beach. so it appears this will strengthen those points with families to appeal with small children