News: New Cedar Point experiences announced

Overall, it doesn't matter to me which rides are open for Early Entry. Years ago, the park admitted guests in an hour early, and that was it. No rides opened until the official start time noted on the operating schedule, and lines would be forming just outside ride entrances.

To complicate the "back half for resort guests" idea, what about the guests at Express who have to park in the front? (Assuming the back lot stays closed for early entry.)

If they wanted to they could let people park in the back, but require a room key or something as a requirement to enter through the gate.

That would certainly be a simple enough solution. Now that I think about it, don't they have slips of paper or something for resort guests early entry? I think it used to be a business card sized piece of paper, but now it may be receipt sized heat transfer paper.

Or they could just be open from noon to 10 and forget about early entry altogether.

That would be pretty awful for parents of young kids.

RCMAC That sounds like a winner winner chicken dinner.

Dvo said:

Curious if perhaps the park might do something that would incentivize the resorts. They could allow resort guests only to use the resort gate, and have SV and Maverick available to them for Early Entry (in addition to the other rides). The front half rides would be for normal passholders.

I have searched the CP website, I can't find where to purchase the afore-mentioned "normal pass". I must not qualify, it keeps asking me to type in "ab".

I wonder if the increase in gas prices will have an impact on attendance come summer.

There's obviously still room for prices to increase further, but gas isn't particularly expensive right now, despite the irresponsible, histrionic reporting on the issue.

In summer 2008 gas peaked at $4.11, which would be equivalent to $5.43 today. Today's prices are around 30% lower compared to 2008 when adjusting for inflation. Summers 2011-2014 saw prices around $3.70, before prices went down about a buck for the next few years. If we took 2014 as the high water benchmark, that would be about $4.37 today. I don't recall the park hurting in those years.

Plus, part of what is driving higher gas prices is demand, so if there really are people who could have afforded to drive to CP at $3.75/gallon, but who cannot afford to at $4.75/gallon, it stands to reason that there are plenty of others who will take their place.

TL;DR: No.

No to mention the majority of the park's guests don't come from that far away. And because someone will argue about it, I suppose I would define "far away" as being within a 2-3 hour drive.

Budgeting is hard.

Yeah, from Metro Detroit, assuming a car gets 25 MPG, the total fuel cost for a round trip would increase at most $15 for every dollar increase per gallon. If anyone can afford to budget $X for a trip, but cannot afford $X + $15, they probably can't really afford $X in the first place.

On the other hand, there is a cumulative cost to keep in mind, since it's not just the trip that costs more due to higher gas prices, almost everything gets more expensive when gas prices go up, so I can see where very high gas prices could push some people from being able to take a vacation to having to do a "staycation" or whatever. But in that case, there will be other folks who were going to go on a grand, Griswold-esque cross country trip, who may look to do something closer to home, so on balance I don't see gas prices affecting CP.

Yep. It's all the other stuff that's accumulating in the background that I can see impacting people's plans. In fact, since CP is a "staycation" for so many, you could argue that it could actually end up boosting attendance. But your idea of it offsetting anyone not going is likely more correct.

We normally visit CP 4-5 times a year from Wisconsin, we are not planning any trips to CP this season except one in fall..... has nothing to do with gas prices or the overall inflation.

King's Island will be most of our trips this year and probably a Dollywood trip as well, Just because the offerings at KI are much more appealing to us this year. The only downside is not staying on-property which is a huge CP plus.

I don't know what y'all are talking about. My gas is still about 13 cents per kWh.

Yeah, I'll admit it's definitely made me go from "Hmm, I think I'll be good to keep my current car for another year or so" to "Okay let's look at the Ioniq and EV6 again".

I've also rediscovered why you never want to talk gas prices with someone from California or the NYC area.

Jeff said:

…about 13 cents per kWh.

That seems really high. How am I only paying 4.99 cents per kWh? I guess there is something good about Ohio. Although I “get” my electricity from NRG out of Texas.

That's at the high end, bits over 1,000 kWh in a month, and accounting for the utility fees. Mostly it's around 11 cents. If you account for the solar I have (but not the cost of the system) it's more like 4 cents. In Ohio, you're referring to the cost of the energy, which is separate from the transmission cost. It's actually great that Ohio separates the two, because it means you get to choose your provider at least for the generation.