News: Cedar Fair preparing for another pandemic-focused season in 2021

Not sure about Disneyland as that park has such a *huge* population of locals, with a pass program that might actually be bigger than Kings Island's...I suspect that they will be bringing back some kind of pass program once they are (a) open, and (b) at full capacity, and (c) able to deal with some of the pent-up demand that is going to swamp that place for a while. But those kinds of crowds won't last forever, and people paying full price for their tickets tend to be more demanding than passholders about getting full value for the visit. Which means without season passes, Disneyland's ticket prices are probably too high for the kind of crowd they expect.

(Passholders tend to make a lot of demands, but they will buy their passes even if the park hasn't updated anything in a few years. They'll complain a lot, but they spend their money. Day ticket holders, on the other hand, are more willing to "wait for next year".)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

"Wait for next year". Sounds like Cleveland sports fans for the last half century.....

Cleveland has nothing on Detroit. The last time the Lions won anything, I was one year old... and I'll be sixty-five in March.

At least you guys have a playoff win in the last 31 years, unlike my Bengals.

Hey now - I can remember the last 2 times that my Bengals were in the Super Bowl. Granted they lost both times, but how many Brown's fans can say they remember the last time the Browns were in the Super Bowl? Zero

And I can remember the last time the Reds won the World Series. Not many Indians fans cans say that.

Reds and Indians are an interesting comparisson. The Reds won the World Series in 1990 (I went to game 2 -- was also at the last Bengals playoff win) but have not really done anything since. Been in playoffs 4 times (once a wildcard game (lost) and lost wildcard series in 2020) but have won only 1 playoff series since winning that World Series. In that span they have won 5 playoff games and finished 25+ games out more times (8x) and double digit games out (19x) than times winning their division (4x).

Indians won their division 10 times (including 5 times in a row in the 90s, finished second the next year by 5 games and won division year after that) in that span. Appeared in 3 World Series (losing 2 of them in 7 games). Won 8 playoff series (more than the Reds have won playoff games) and something like 45 playoff games. Finished 25+ games out twice. And double digit games back 13x.

So since 1990, Reds: 1 World Series win, Indians 0. But in terms of winning baseball and meaningful baseball games (including those in the fall), its the Indians and its not even close. Who would you rather be a fan of? If you are a little older like me, you can also remember the Reds 4 World Series appearances and 2 WS wins in the 1970s. Indians in that span were not planning much meaningful baseball.

Easier answer would be the Atlanta Braves who have had both a lot of meaningful baseball and series wins like the Indians and also won a World Series (against the Indians).

Easiest answer would be Yankees (5 WS wins) or Red Sox (4 WS wins) during that time. But who wants to be a fan of either team? :)

In response to mgou58‘s question about testing on page 6; I work in custodial at an Ohio Athletic Conference School; (Muskingum University), and our athletes and non-athlete students, before they came back from Christmas Break last weekend, all had to take a test before they were allowed back on campus, and they did the one where you spit in the tube.

And I am no doctor, but I am also a part-time chaplain in a hospital and yes rapid tests can “sometimes” not be accurate.

On December 26, 2020, I said:
I'm just going to pop in here and update the numbers I have been following with a few statistics on the progression of the SARS-CoV2 epidemic in Ohio, same data source I have been citing all along, all the usual caveats, etc. Note also that the data I am using has been adjusted so that each case is pegged to the onset of symptoms or if that isn't known, to the testing date, which differs from the reporting date potentially by two weeks or more. Why today? I'm getting to that...

Based on today's data (12/26/2020), and using a 7-day trailing average daily case count, Ohio's 7-day average daily case count peaked on 12/04 at 9,968 infections per day. Today's 7-day case average is 3,748 but because of reporting delays that number can't be trusted. The latest number we can trust is probably 12/12 when the daily average was 8,657. Our peak date both for new cases (13,253) and hospitalizations (435) was November 30. Numbers are falling, but they are falling slowly.

Today is March 15, 2021...79 days later. Using the same data source as back in December, Ohio's 7-day average daily case count peaked on 12/04 at 10,213 infections per day. Yesterday's 7-day case average was 1,056 and the reliability of these numbers is getting better as the rates drop, but 14 days ago the average was 1,601. Our peak date for both cases (13,443) and hospitalizations (480) was November 30. Numbers have fallen rapidly through the months of January and February, but in March the daily case data is beginning to trace an asymptotic curve at a much higher level than I would have liked.

Of greater interest to this discussion are the total infection numbers. 664,668 total cases represents approximately 6.0424% of the State population. If my WAG of a 70% undercount is even close that means just today the total infection count in Ohio just crossed 2.2 million...now 20% of the State population. Using the same calculation we were at 10% on November 13. 10% in the first 316 days, the next 10% in 43 days. That the infection rate is falling is nice, but doesn't change the fact that we are *rapidly* infecting lots of hosts. Not as fast as a month ago, but still a whole lot faster than we were in August. That we hit 20% is why I bring it up today. I'll bring it up again when we hit another nice round number.

As you might have guessed when you saw that I brought back this thread, we *finally* hit another nice round number. We are up to 990,340 total cases or 9.0031% of the State population. My WAG for total infections is up to 3.3 million cases, just today 30% of the State population. That's 10% in 316 days, the next 10% in 43 days, the third 10% in another 79 days.

Vaccination right now is catching up. In the last 12 days, Ohio started vaccinations on 50,000 people as 60,000 people were infected by the virus. But if the trends keep up as they are, vaccinations will be outpacing infections shortly if the supply can keep up. Depending on how fast the infections fall and how fast the vaccines get delivered, we could see that immune host count past 40% in the next month. I've seen estimates that the epidemic is likely to burn out at about 60%-70%.

Today, vaccination starts have reached 20.45% of the population, nearly 2.4 million people. Of those, 1.4 million are already fully vaccinated...that's 11.95% of the population. Obviously there will be some overlap between those previously infected and those now vaccinated, but that still puts the number of potentially immune hosts in the State of Ohio at somewhere between 2.4 million (20.45% assuming full overlap) and 5.7 million (48.57%). Even better, the vaccination rate has ramped up significantly, peaking so far at 78,000 last Thursday.

I'm annoyed that the curve is flattening so early and at such a large number. But it is still descending a bit. But then, it still isn't May yet!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan, you should be happy that the numbers are going down. That means that less people are getting infected; which in turn means that less people are in the hospital on ventilators, and less people are dying. I hope that we can have a somewhat normal summer too, but we need to get people vaccinated.

Plus flattening the curve is good, because that means that we will be closer to hopefully getting rid of this darn virus.

I think at some point we can continue to analyze stats or, in the case of Ohio today, all citizens become eligible for the vaccine as of March 29. Which will be a big help to Cedar Point in terms of operating normally. Will everyone be vaccinated by May 14? Probably not. Will the case count matter as much by then? Also probably not.

We are approaching the point where sitting here and looking at statistics won’t matter because those of us who choose to get vaccinated will do so and hopefully will be having a normal summer anyways.

I for one can’t wait to sign up. It’s time to get past the dark days of 2020 and back to some resemblance of “normal”.

Jake10 said:
RideMan, you should be happy that the numbers are going down. That means that less people are getting infected; which in turn means that less people are in the hospital on ventilators, and less people are dying. I hope that we can have a somewhat normal summer too, but we need to get people vaccinated.

I'm happy the numbers are going down. I am not happy at the rate they are going down.

...Plus flattening the curve is good, because that means that we will be closer to hopefully getting rid of this darn virus.

No, flattening this curve is a BAD thing. We're on the down-slope, and the curve has been dropping sharply (I'm talking Gemini first drop steep) in January and February. Now the curve is flattening out...and I have known all along that it would, I fully expect this thing to go asymptotic. But I would prefer to see that when the numbers are an order of magnitude or two smaller.

We've gone from seeing day-over-day reductions of 100+ cases to a pretty steady 1,100 cases/day in the last week or so.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

New blog with Early Entry info for 2021

A few interesting takeaways... Gold pass holders get limited attractions. Not sure if that was the same as last year or not. But Magnum has been added for Platinum and resort guests. Biggest thing is that Steel Vengeance only opens for early entry on weekends.

And only certain gates can be used as well.

Really sad to see the early line closures made permanent. It's a money saving move, and devalues the guest experience, particularly for fast lane holders. Last season, Valravn closed 90 minutes before park close on 3 of our 4 visits and the other major coasters 60 minutes before. If the access passes are gone i have to assume it'll be 60 minutes at minimum for the big 4 each day, likely 90 to 120 on busy days for SV and Maverick. That cancels the ability to get a night ride on ANY major coaster for fast lane users.

For the standby line guest, this also makes it a choice of maybe one night ride, if you hit the line at the right time and don't show up too late. The last hour of operation each day will basically allow you to jump in a flat ride queue or maybe 1-4 coaster lines. I hate this move, it changes a tradition the park has had for my entire life. The wording and placement in the blog post makes it sound like its here to stay.

Re: line closings. Was it obvious when they were going to close the line? Or was it something where you basically discovered after-the-fact and by observing behavior each night?

Last year, the only thing that helped us was approaching each line. The app was not helpful. We personally saw them close Valravn at 630 on our first visit of the year a few minutes after we joined the line. The next day we tried to get into Raptor's line at 715pm and the ride host at the entrance said they closed the line at 7. We then walked down past Valravn and I asked the host there when the line had closed, he also said 7. (These were on our first visit, Wednesday and Thursday August 5 and 6).

On our 3rd visit, I asked the Valravn host what time they usually closed the line, she said 630 or 7. We wanted to try and figure out of end of day rides. Our final visit was Saturday, October 2. All major coaster lines that day were closing at 7 or 730, per the one ride host on Magnum. We entered the fastlane line right at 7 and he closed it behind us.

By 730 the app showed all major coasters closed, as with the access passes and covid procedures in place, rides like Magnum, Rougarou, Gemini and Corkscrew had 30-60 minute waits all day. This season, if access passes are gone and full train ops return, i expect those lesser coasters to have shorter waits. But the big 4, and Maverick/SV in particular - they'll have to close those lines at 8 or 830 on 10pm close days to get all guests on by 10. If you buy a $150 fast lane plus on a Friday or Saturday (assuming the end up selling them) and find it unusable for the last 90 minutes of the day for anything but the likes of Rougarou or Gemini, it's pretty lousy. And for standby line guests, it also makes it even harder than it already is to ride all the big attractions in one day or even two, factoring in weather and downtime. For all season fast lane users like myself and my wife, this change pretty much ends night rides at the park, unless we decide to jump in a standby line close to the cutoff time, assuming you can figure out what time that is on that specific day.

I should note also that, other than Beast and Orion on fireworks nights, KI was NOT closing lines early last season on any of our 3 visits.

The money they save by not paying staff to have to run rides like Steel Vengeance until 1am after the park closes and clears is significant and adds up over a season. Until we are officially back to better times it's a way to help save in payroll and maintenance costs. It's not ideal, but it's enough labor savings to make a difference when times are still uncertain.

Cartwright, you hit the nail on the head. But I do personally hope this policy is only, as you say, "until we are officially back to better times," and not permanent for future years. If the latter, it is a significant change from many, many seasons of policy.

This policy change could also be the basis for the reason why they haven’t made any final decisions on Fast Lane also.

Cartwright said:

The money they save by not paying staff to have to run rides like Steel Vengeance until 1am after the park closes and clears is significant and adds up over a season. Until we are officially back to better times it's a way to help save in payroll and maintenance costs. It's not ideal, but it's enough labor savings to make a difference when times are still uncertain.

A little different perspective on this too, the blog says something along the lines of "to help attractions open on time the next day". By getting employees out of work earlier, they're allowing greater chances to get an appropriate amount of sleep. I remember closing at Maverick after a passholder ride night in 2017, working from 7:30am-1:30am (park closed at 10pm), while still needing to walk all the way back to my car, drive to housing, then finally get to bed, only to be back at work ready to go at 9am the next day. Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods that day due to lack of sleep. If employees oversleep and don't make it on time for their shifts, makes it harder for rides to open on time.