News: Cedar Point again will require reservations to visit

Reservations will be implemented to maintain the reduced in-park capacity during the fall season.

https://pointbuzz.com/News/Story/3321

Why did they require reservations, then dump it, then require it again? In my opinion they should have kept the reservation system throughout the whole season. Also, on a kind of unrelated note, I hope they keep the access pass system next year.

Crowd levels were very low just a few weeks after opening so there was no need for reservations as they weren't getting anywhere close to capacity. After the park went to weekends only, crowd levels got higher and they were probably getting close to hitting capacity. I haven't been to the park in a while, but I've heard it's been packed.

^^^ Yep. Webcam views of the parking lot at the beginning showed cars only parked as far as the security camera tower, surprisingly light. Towards the end up to Labor day, parking lot showed many many cars (surprisingly too many as you would think under a limited capacity endeavor). Looked like a regular CP pre-covid day.

^^^I would like the access pass system to go away next year (with a lot of things). For people planning to be at the park all day it may not be such an issue but for those who go for an evening it's an issue. I usually haven't been getting to the park until after the second round has been passed out.

Our 3 visits this year came mid-week during the final 2 weeks of daily ops in early August. All 3 days, the park was busy. It had just started picking up before our first visit, according to a pair of ride ops we had a long conversation with on the Dragster platform during a long breakdown. On all 3 days, we observed about a half full main lot...

With a half full lot, the park was VERY busy given the current attraction availability and necessary ride ops. 90 minutes for Raptor, Valravn. 60 minutes for Magnum, Corkscrew, Blue Streak even. 45 for Rougarou, GateKeeper. I can't imagine a nearly full lot, as has been reported the last 2 weeks.

The VERY early line closures (75 minutes before park close for Valravn on our final visit) and existence of access passes really changes the experience. If not 2021, I really hope both of those changes are gone by 2022. We enjoyed our days, but it was clearly not the park we were used to. The masks were fine, no issue for us. Im so happy they opened and are now getting larger crowds, trying to keep up hope that next year can be a bit more normal.

When this pandemic is history, I assume Cedar Point will return to business as usual. I can't count the number of times I've done mini-marathons on TTD in the evenings right up until park closing. I understand why current policies are in place. But there is a reason why Cedar Point is the company's flagship park. If the park closes at midnight, and you want to get in line at 11:55 p.m., you can. If you want to ride Millennium Force all day, you can. This is the Cedar Point I miss. And I hope this is the Cedar Point that will be back.

The park was very busy when I was there on Sunday, I got 5 total rides in 6 hours at the park, as well as two lines left without riding for various reasons. Personally, I'm glad that reservations are back, so the park can more easily provide a better experience

I guess it depends if the reservation system is enough of a deterrent to keep people from coming. The capacity of the park is the same with or without reservations right?

^Very much incorrect. The reservation system's sole purpose is to limit the guest capacity in the park. I believe in the beginning of the season, if 100% of reservations were used, it was around 15,000 guests. But they weren't getting anywhere near that. From the sound of it, the last few weekends have been WELL above that number.

Saturday Oct.9 (Columbus Day weekend) was 52,000 attendance, Saturday Oct.8 (Columbus Day weekend) was 59,200 attendance. Back then, 40,000 was considered by CP to be a good day. Those about 40,000 days the parking lot still showed some room for more cars (not talking about the overflow parking area by the bay). Some of this year's parking lot views showed almost similar high attendance, so I'd be guessing at 30,000 to 35,000 this year for the last few weekends.

Dvo said:

^Very much incorrect. The reservation system's sole purpose is to limit the guest capacity in the park. I believe in the beginning of the season, if 100% of reservations were used, it was around 15,000 guests. But they weren't getting anywhere near that. From the sound of it, the last few weekends have been WELL above that number.

What am I missing? If they have a capacity limit of 15K why were they allowed to exceed that during the recent non-reservation weekends? Shouldn't the limit be the limit whether there is a reservation system or not?

If the capacity limit WAS 15,000 I don't think it was a 'government mandate', Just a CP limit to see if it would/could work. If it was CP set and things were going better than expected, there's no reason that CP couldn't up the limit as the season unfolded.

To add to that. The government limit was actually well above what the park initially allowed for from the documentation I read. As Dennis said they lowball that number to see how things went and then ramped up towards their state limit as demand and staff allowed. I actually would be willing to bet that they're bringing back the reservation limit due to staffing capacity issues more than they are state regulations since I believe even on the high end of Shades estimates they were understate limits still.

Dennis, I think 30,000 to 35,000 is much, much too high of an estimate for last weekend. We all have our ways of estimating and I know I am likely wrong also. I have been there each day and agree that it "seems" crowded. Wait times for rides are skewed due to seating & sanitizing. Certain areas that would absorb crowds are not presently open such as Adventure Island and various rides, eateries, venues. The parking lot isn't nearly as full as one may think as it has only been several rows south of the middle tower and many scattered spots available in nearer rows. Numerous visitors in the past have parked at CP Shores lot which these past weeks has been nearly empty, the camp area seems sparse, there are almost zero tour and school busses where in the past there were many by GateKeeper side. So, jammed as it seemed and is in some midways, I will go with 20,000 tops. I agree with Twisted Circuits that staffing has been the primary issue this season, just observe all the black shirt higher-ups and others multi-tasking.

I was there the last 3 weekends and I'd have to disagree. Labor Day weekend Sunday the lot was very full. I was surprised when I pulled in as it was it the most full I'd seen all year. There had to be at least 30-35K. The week after it wasn't as bad so I would agree probably 20-25K. Last weekend was busier than the prior though so 25-30K wouldn't have surprised me. Although I admit to not seeing the parking lot (weekend Breakers stay).

I'm glad they're going back to the reservation system. And my goodness they should implement virtual queue on the app for the access passes. It didn't affect me because I have all season FL but I've seriously felt sorry for all these people lining up an hour before the access pass time (afternoon) and waiting for an access pass just to come back later and wait 60-90 minutes in the queue to ride.

Yes, Scott, I agree Labor Day Sunday was the most crowded I saw the lot, but still so many areas of parking areas that go unused this season, including the new areas such as near the fake Evergreen tree.

So with guesstimate ranges of 20,000 -35,000, whatever it may have been, kudos to CP to have been able to do that in the age/year of covid-19.

Amen, Dennis!

Yes I agree with that. I truly felt sorry for them late July when they stopped requiring reservations due to low attendance.