News: 2007 Season Passes on sale September 22

Walt, I can understand that at your house this isn't a problem. That doesn't mean that it's not a big problem for a lot of other people. Looking at some of the posts here, I would say that it is.

I'm in a family and have parking on my pass. My wife doesn't go to Cedarpoint. (Yes, I still love her anyway) Sometimes she needs the "big" car because of what she's doing at home. Sometimes I need the "big" car because of the numbers going to CP. Bottem line is from May 5 till October 30, we cant always go in the same car. I respect that you can, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can.

I think it's been on the passes for about 6 years. Before that, there were days when we either couldn't go or would have to pay additional for parking because there was another need for the car with the decal. Who wants to miss a day at the point? Who wants to pay to park when they bought parking pass?

Bottem line is that even though you go in the same car every time, there really are some of us who can't.

What it really means is the fact I may skip a Cedar Point trip or two when otherwise I may have gone. It's easier to talk people into going when you offer to help pay for gas and pick up the parking tab. Generally the people I would try to talk into it would be ones that would pay gate admission as well (Co-workers, friends, etc)

Precisely, Ben... And they may miss out on a good number of trips from me because of it too.

I'm curious why more parks don't take the idea of rolling the cost of parking into the admission and season pass prices. We've all seen parks like Holiday World do it and we know they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but people practically worship them for it.

Besides the percieved value and goodwill it would probably create, doing this would allow a park like CP to ax probably a dozen seasonal toll positions and probably some sort of supervisor or manager position as well. Since they seem to be real fond of axing people lately, this ought to be right up their alley! :)

I think the prices for season passes are very fair - perhaps even lower than I was expecting to see - at least for the CP version. But it seems like CF is going to manage to have a number of people up in arms about their policies with parking, etc. They seem to have a knack for pissing people off when they make acquisitions.

On top of cutting positions, they wouldn't have such a traffic issue in the morning either. They could let traffic flow a bit more freely.

Honestly I'm a very big advocate for axing tolls. I realize its a big money grab, but the price can be made up for elsewhere. As it stands now, they will not be getting money from me for Joe Cool. I will either purchase my pass before November 15 and get it for free, or more than likely since I am poor, it will be after 11/15 and not included on my pass.

I honestly don't see how anyone could abuse the parking pass thing if it resides right on the season pass. Granted, I've never had a CP season pass or a parking pass, so I'm not sure what they look like or how hard it would be to duplicate on your own.

Just as a casual observer on this issue, why couldn't they use technology to solve their problem? If its an abuse thing, that's easily solved with scanners. (Disney does this now with biometrics.)

I'm thinking they could embed the parking option into the pass itself. Granted, they'd have to install scanners at the toll plazas, but that's not really a big issue since they don't have that many toll booths anyways. If there's a family buying passes, embed the parking on ALL the passes, but only allow ONE to be used per day. So, in Walt's case, him and his wife would both have parking embedded on their pass. If Walt goes to the park in the morning, they scan his pass, and their parking is used for that day. If his wife comes up later, she has to pay because her pass will scan as being used already.

While they're at it, they should upgrade to magnetic strips instead of barcodes. You can put WAY more information into the strip and its harder to duplicate than a barcode.

I don't see why chain-wide parking can't be an option either.

What really gets my goat (if i had one) is that PKI and PKD season pass holders can renew their passes before Oct. 29th and get FREE parking for 2007. CF doesn't mind changing policies for CP and GL parking so why would they keep a Paramount tradition around at their new parks.

I see it as them not wanting to piss off the new parks right away so we'll stick it to our regulars that have been with us for years.

Actually, a barcode can contain just as much information as you want, because none of the actual data is included in the barcode. Even with a magnetic stripe, you're better off including only the identifying information on the stripe, and keeping everything else in the database.

Anyway, Matt has the real answer for what they SHOULD do. At Geauga Lake, they ought to roll the parking into the admission fee, then make the Geauga Lake parking lot all into "free" parking, and charge a small fee ($5, perhaps) in the much nicer Wildwater Kingdom lot. Then advertise the heck out of having free parking available at Geauga Lake, and take advantage of the good-will of the adjacent shopping centers not having to tow so many Geauga Lake customers' cars away. Geauga Lake could use the boost. The other park that really ought to switch over to "free" parking is Kings Island, where I think a significant proportion of the customers are season pass holders who already get "free" parking anyway. Why deal with administrating the parking lot when you could just collect that money at the ticket booth and make everybody believe that they didn't have to pay for parking?

But it's probably too early to worry about Kings Island. Geauga Lake ought to experiment with a "free" parking area; I think they might find that it does them some good, especially since they have decided to go head to head with Kennywood.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree, although I don't mind the trek into the park at KW, it's the one back out after you've walked all day. Unfortunately the day we were there this year the chair lift wasn't in operation.

I didn't want to say anything about the people parking outside of GL's parking lot, but I, for one, wouldn't be above it next year if they don't change the policy before then.

I think it sucks big time that they don't have the option to have it on your pass. I'm one of those who takes a different car depending whether I'm camping over or whether I'm just going for the day.

While this decision may not affect some (such as Walt), it quite plainly is going to affect others. Why make it harder for the customer?

And it sucks big time that you have to buy a separate parking pass for GL. It seems to me that the CF management have completely lost the plot on this one.

bholcomb said:
What it really means is the fact I may skip a Cedar Point trip or two when otherwise I may have gone. It's easier to talk people into going when you offer to help pay for gas and pick up the parking tab. Generally the people I would try to talk into it would be ones that would pay gate admission as well (Co-workers, friends, etc)

Oh beautiful, I can't say it any better myself...

"Hey! You wanna go to Cedar Point tonight?? I will pay for parking."

MDOmnis said:
I'm curious why more parks don't take the idea of rolling the cost of parking into the admission and season pass prices. We've all seen parks like Holiday World do it and we know they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but people practically worship them for it.

Right, Holiday World rolls the free soda and parking into admission, and it's quite apparent in business sense. Gate there is $37 which for such a small park would be expensive, but throw in free parking and pop and you never hear anybody complaining about the prices.

At CP, if you average 3 people per car that would be $3 on to admission to keep per cap the same. So Imagine next year you advertise FREE PARKING, while raising the gate to $43. I have a feeling nobody’s even going to pay attention to the gate increase while you're advertising FREE PARKING.

They had a great opportunity last year, imagine if they lowered the gate to just $43 and offered free parking.

I guess I'm still lost at why King's Dominion can offer the same pass for a better price. $89.95 vs $125...times 2 people = a $70 value! Parking pass at Cedar Point would be paid for, plus a little gas money left over. CP often offers a reduced rate in the fall...wonder if they will do so this year? If not, might have to make a trip to PKD for closing weekend in Nov, for one last coaster fix...and get a season pass at the same time =)

I'm still trying to figure out what everyone did before Joe Cool existed. We either have a lot of young people here or people who forgot the way it always worked before. Some of you sound like you will simply be unable to go to Cedar Point next year.

Bottom line is that the season and parking passes are both tremendous deals. At only $50 a shot, I'd say that many would benefit from getting one for each car and still ending up ahead. If you're going with friends and you can't take your car, everyone pays $2 or $3. But that's so unreasonable that it would cause you to skip a trip? I see the firestorm growing over this issue, but I'm just not seeing why.

You also can only leave once and come back when you pay for parking each day. Thats annoying in itself. I hate being limited, and I hate being ripped off of something I rightfully paid for.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not up in arms, and I will still buy a pass, I just can't see myself investing in the Joe Cool this year.

And yes, I did in fact skip a trip to MiA this summer that I would have otherwise gone on. My mom (yeah I know - ha ha) would have probably wanted to go, but the parking pass was on my truck, and I had bald tires and no money to replace them all summer. So it was either drive her car and pay for parking or not go at all. I bet you can guess which one won out.

They lost a gate admission, and who knows what else I would have bought in the park that day (Probably at least a locker).

Yeah, I hate being screwed with parking. It's a scam.
*** Edited 9/10/2006 12:36:47 PM UTC by bholcomb***

Walt said:
If you're going with friends and you can't take your car, everyone pays $2 or $3.

No thats not correct. Before I would simply handle the parking expense only. Now I will have to handle some of the parking and help pitch in for gas.

Cedar Point is 65 miles from Toledo, thats 130 round trip. Give the benefit of the doubt and say the vehicle gets 25 mpg (which mine and some others don't). Thats 5 gallons of gas getting there and back. 5 gallons x $3 at the pump is fifteen bucks plus parking is 24. Take four people and split the money and its 6 bucks a person.

So you canceled your trip to MiA because you didn't want to pay $7?

That was a good part of it. Suddenly a little over $20 + gas becomes $30 + gas.

Being on a mega budget really stinks.

The point is, I still don't understand the reasoning behind going back to sticker only. It certainly annoys me that the park is taking a step back. I just don't want to pay for parking, and then pay for it again because I decided to drive a different vehicle. *** Edited 9/10/2006 1:19:38 PM UTC by bholcomb***

That's the big issue with a parking sticker: When you've bought a parking pass, you've already paid for your parking, and it is unreasonable to be expected to pay for it again. It would be like buying a season pass, then getting to the gate and being asked to buy an admission ticket.

The other thing that is happening is the change in the availability of parking passes. I live in Columbus, which means that I go to Kings Island and Cedar Point with roughly equal frequency. I imagine for someone living in Northern Ohio there might be a similar situation between Cedar Point and Geauga Lake. By demanding parking stickers, the company has made it impractical if not impossible to have a parking pass good at both Cedar Point and Geauga Lake (Cedar Point's parking sticker is traditionally about 4" square, and there is not space for two of them in the 'safe' area at the bottom of the windshield). By living in Columbus where my "other" park is Kings Island I can at least (apparently) still get my parking on my season pass for that park.

You have to understand, this isn't about the money, it's about convenience. I've certainly not been to Geauga Lake enough this season to justify the cost of the 2-park parking pass I bought. But I sure felt better about going to Geauga Lake knowing that I didn't have to come up with the cash for parking when I got there.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That analogy isn't correct. You're paying to park a vehicle, not a person.