News: Labor challenges force Cedar Point to adjust operating calendar

How much do the dorm rooms cost to stay in for the employees?

According to the employee life portal, it depends on the dorm you're staying in.

• Commons dorms: $10/ day
• Pipe Creek: $12/day
• Bayside Campus: $13/day

I don't use the dorms due to living too close.

On my Facebook feed (which has a lot of people from Sandusky on it still) I am seeing a lot of people talking about leaving their current jobs (at the mall or other retail and restaurant style locations) to head over to Cedar Point. Even some people who have refused to go back to Cedar Point because in general the lower level work sucks.

Most of these people aren't even making $12 now so jumping to $20 is worth jumping ship. Cedar Point probably just killed the local jobs market for the summer, and once the summer is over who knows what will happen.

Cedar Point as a seasonal operation can justify the temporary higher wages because when they close for the winter they don't have to pay out that inflated fee, whereas something located in the local mall can't just cut the hourly pay rate of their staff when the tourists go away. They already pare down to the bare bones but I bet you will see lots more local places go out of business entirely for this.

I do wonder how it works with those who were already making higher than average wages at the park. Things like Ride Maintence, Tech Services, and Entertainment. Even there they weren't up to $20 an hour but were more than the $12-14 the Ride Ops and Sweeps were making. And of course does this mean those who are already working for the season (including full timers who don't make $20) are getting a pay bump or is this only for those who come on now.

Shades said:

And I feel bad for the seasonal mom & pop ice cream stands in the area. If I can get seasonal work for $20 why would I sell ice cream for $10?

I'm not sure there will be a huge impact with this, some yes but nothing substantial. Cedar Point has few positions for those under 18, unless they changed that this year, so the local shops in Sandusky will still have the local kids to hire. What Matt mentioned above makes sense but how many people working a full-time job at the Mall or similar would quit for a seasonal job? That is what any local kid is going to have to decide. After October there might not be a job to go back to if they jumped ship to work at Cedar Point.

It's been years since I have worked at the park but over the course of time I was there we had very few local teens working at the park. Most locals at that age would rather visit to play than to work their summers on the midway. It actually surprised me when I learned that but I bet that hasn't changed too much.

I didn’t realize CP didn’t hire kids under 18.

As far as I'm aware, departments like games hire as young as 14.

I was under the impression (from this forum) that 18 was the absolute hard cut off for any job at CP and 16 for KI. Discovered yesterday KI will go down to 14. It either changed this year or I was completely mistaken.

A few departments will hire between 14 and 18 but it's very few. Most can't be hired into any position that is safety related such as Rides but some Foods, Games, and Merch locations can have employees under the age of 18. Again it isn't a huge number but it can happen. Before they changed the name tags the color system used was green for anyone 16 and 17 and light green for anyone 14 and 15. It was rare to see those colors over the course of a day at the park but if you looked close you could find some of the younger crowd.

Going off of old data from when I worked at the park years ago, some departments like Entertainment and Lifeguarding could hire at 17 but typically didn't because of the hassle of working around the labor laws. But back then it wasn't hard to find labor when recruiting.

My 15 year old was hired for merch this year. He’s pretty stoked about getting a raise before working an actual shift. He’s done some his training sessions so far, but not slated to work until next weekend.

I would imagine the age requirements has been loosened where they can. When I took my son to process him in a few weeks ago, they were more than happy to take in another body that would show up. There was a hiring event going on but there wasn’t a huge line out the door. Granted, it was early in the day, I was hoping to see some success with the hiring event that was already advertising $15 hourly wage jobs back then.

A Great Lake to the north and cornfields to the south don't produce many employees. $3/gallon gas isn't going to encourage anyone to drive 1-2 hours for work.. After last year, they should have seen this coming and offered more a while ago. Maybe they wouldn't have needed to offer $20, but, now, they are super desperate.

Right now, they need to end super specials and free upgrades. People will still come and, after last year, they are very eager to spend whatever...including those stimulus and unemployment payments. The Michigan tickets make Cedar Point less expensive than going to Holiday World. The 1 day ticket includes parking and drinks. The 2 day adds access to the water park. That's too inexpensive.

^ I never really thought I would be one of these people, but I totally agree that Cedar Point doesn't charge enough anymore. If they have to charge more to both lower attendance, and allow them to pay employees more, that seems like a valid strategy to look into. I know lower attendance is sort of counter-intuitive, but there is absolutely no reason that Cedar Point should be cheaper than a place like Kennywood (it is, or is at least even with), and I'm a Pittsburgh local. I've had the same opinion about FL+ at times too. I'd much rather they cap it at a lower number and just bump up the price.

If the park is closed, does that mean Hotel Breakers is closed as well? Or will it and the camp ground still be open/accessible? We have reservations at the Breakers from June 1-6, coming for CoasterMania.

I bet if I go to Facebook, I can find at least one Gold Passholder using their cheap pass for year #3 now that is going to be complaining about the closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays and not getting what they paid for.

Most of us said the cheap gold passes were a bad idea at the time and that was before the pandemic. Imagine if everyone and their brother didn't have a pass right now and CP could actually recoup some of their increased labor costs by charging $60 or $70 for a daily pass - which by the way is still cheap compared to most other parks in the country. Instead they've got everyone coming in on passes that were bought two years ago and the only revenue is going to be upcharges.

Financial reports are not going to be pretty for the next year or two.

I'm curious as to how the extra labor cost may effect future projects. They are paying staff $20/hr, which is a 100% increase, but is their staffing shortage really 50% of normal?

Hank Taggart said:

If the park is closed, does that mean Hotel Breakers is closed as well? Or will it and the camp ground still be open/accessible? We have reservations at the Breakers from June 1-6, coming for CoasterMania.

The hotel is closed. My friend, who booked his room for the 1st and 2nd got the notice. We will be heading to Hersheypark and staying at Hershey Lodge and hitting HP on Wed. He'll only be spending the Thursday at CP but not staying...

CF is losing a ton of cash.

MDOmnis,

I fully agree with what you said about the gold pass. I guess the upside, financially speaking, is that the current gold pass situation is only affecting one amusement park and one water park. There are eleven other amusement parks, and four water parks that don't have to deal with the Gold Pass situation, but it is the flagship park that is having the worst of it. Not to mention that all the parks are dealing with staffing and other pandemic related issues.

Except that Kings Island also has a gold pass and just made a similar announcement regarding wage increases, $15 an hour to be exact. However, I have not seen any changes to their operating calendar….yet.

Plus Canada’s park is closed for the foreseeable future and that’s a big chunk of change as well.

Per Wikipedia, Kings Island Gold Passes have been around since 2001. Since it has been around so long, Kings Island shouldn't have any appreciable attendance change due to Gold Pass. Cedar Point introduced the Gold Pass in 2019. (In my opinion, the Gold Pass was significantly under priced). With the pandemic, Cedar Point is just now seeing the attendance impact due to the new pass.

But you aren’t factoring the pent up demand for the parks in addition to the increase in season pass sales this year alone evidenced in their most recent financial call. Kings Island has a lot of revenue to make up, certainly not as much as Cedar Point but it’s not a drop in the bucket either.

Kings Island is an interesting case study; with their long-running Gold Pass, it is my understanding that a large portion of visitors on a given day are season pass holders, and daily ticket visitors are less common there. For Cedar Point (at least prior to the Gold Pass), the opposite was true: daily ticket visitors were much more common than season pass holders. Granted, I think daily ticket visitors will remain a significant portion of visitors for CP, but the Gold Pass is now shifting the main revenue stream/strategy question from "How do we get people in the gate?" to "How do we keep season pass holders coming back, year after year?" This is quite a shift, but fortunately KI's experience offers precedence for how to handle this new situation.