OMG 10/12/2013

Maybe it's the first time people had to sit in the parking lot until 3 am still trying to leave. At any rate, fixing the flow of traffic is a good thing for any time of the year.

bholcomb said:
haha yeah that was 2006. It was fricken cold and nasty that year. Doesn't look to rain this year on closing weekend at least. We'll see. Just cold (at least what I'd call cold)

I hope the cottage has heat, and can actually get warm. That was 7 years ago, so I don't remember the temperature in there. I guess I'll bring extra blankets just in case.

thedevariouseffect said:
This has been this way for many a year, not just this year, dunno why people chose this year to flip out

Maybe it's because social media has gotten really popular and now you can make your complaints more public than just pissing and moaning to people you talk to. There are over a billion Facebook accounts now and many on Twitter. Now with CP on Facebook, people can write their complaints on their page instead of emailing, which many people are too lazy to do.

And there are also forums such as this one to write complaints on.

^^ New causeway cost? BLS says average hourly construction wages + benefits are about 19 times as much now ($34.75) as in 1957 ($1.82). Back then there was no EPA, no Clean Water Act, no wildlife conservation regulations, and steel rebar was a cheap raw material.

Today, laying down a 4-lane highway on rural, flat land costs $8 million per mile. Add in the costs of fill material, environmental impact studies, permits, easements, land purchase... easily could be $20+ million to duplicate that causeway.

3snoH un=l said:
I saw someone say on that news article that after being stuck in the parking lot, when they finally got on the causeway, there was "no one on it" after being in the parking lot for hours. Why wasn't anyone moving before the causeway?

People are acting as if this is a new experience. I've been to plenty of sporting events or concerts where we waited a long time to exit the parking area and then found clear road. It's called a bottle-neck, and considering CP's geography, very difficult to fix.

Even in a bottle neck there is movement albeit slow. They need to figure out how to formulate the traffic patterns in order for cars to move into and through the bottle neck.

I've been pretty quick to dismiss this as people being whiny and having unreasonable expectations. I didn't see any evidence that the park handled it any differently than they normally do. But now I see people saying they had the right most lane of the causeway closed so that the people parked along the side of the causeway could get to their cars at the end of the night. In my mind that changes things a bit and puts a bit of blame on the park.

I'm not saying they did the wrong thing by allowing a space for people to walk because had they let people fend for themselves in traffic and a person or two got run over, then it would be an even bigger PR mess. But if they don't have a way to allow people to safely walk to those spots along the side of the causeway without creating a huge traffic bottleneck, then they should think long and hard about actually letting people park there. I haven't really looked into the logistics of doing this, but perhaps they could build a sidewalk or something so people can walk to that spot without being in traffic. My guess is the causeway would have to be physically widened at least between the toll booths and the spots where cars were parked.

Alternatively, CP owns a ton of land around the end of the Causeway. There's the EVC lot across from Commons, Fridays/Castaway, the maintenance building, Breakers Express and the big field next to it, etc. They ought to consider just chartering a couple buses and running a shuttle from those locations when parking on peninsula reaches capacity. Or perhaps they could just offer a shuttle from their own hotels (Castaway and Breakers Express) on Saturdays and that probably frees up a few hundred more spaces on the peninsula.

There are probably five or six different things they could do on the cheap that would help avoid situations like Saturday. I don't think we're going to see a monorail or ferry boats any time soon.

Is there a reason the employee buss can't go through a different toll lane?

Yes, the far left lane hooks directly to permmiter road. If it went through another lane they would then have to merge to turn left, thus creating more traffic problems.

I thought of that, but I think opening up the main toll booth lane to exiting guests would solve more problems than employee buses would create. The traffic directors could just stop traffic in both lanes for twelve seconds to let the bus turn towards Perimeter Rd.

I see it written again, this time supposedly from a past employee and current passholder, that they had fraternity and sorority volunteers, that weren't trained but being used to support the staff. He says he's never before seen such "unorganization" ever.

Does anyone know anything about these fraternity and sorority volunteers manning the traffic?

3snoH un=l, I heard the same thing from a full-time employee. But it is the first time I've know CP to use volunteers for traffic duty.

The volunteers are awful. I'm sure it's all for a good cause, but sometimes getting a pretzel and a soda can take unreasonably long because they have no clue how to work the position.

On an unrelated note, I am amazed that this thread now has 152 posts. Wow. Guys, this happens every single year on this date when the weather is good.

I swear I remember these exact conversations from last year, but can't find them anywhere. I'm not sure if it was discussed here, but am pretty sure there were similar complaints on Cedar Points Facebook page. I did try and go back and I could not find anything. I specifically remember hearing the 3am time and that they wouldn't let the Soak City lot out until the front of the park was completely clear.

You might be thinking of two years ago. Last year, the weather sucked on Columbus Day Weekend with downpours almost the entire 3 days.

You are right it was two years ago, I just went back and found the post I was thinking of. Somehow I lost a year. I just glanced at the Facebook post, but it was all the same arguments and basically the same conversation.

Yeah, it was two years ago. Last year sucked. I never go that weekend, but I do watch the webcams.

This year we did KI on Columbus weekend. Saturday was super busy, but not the record level crowd I saw back in 2011. Sunday was great, except there was a 5k at the park that brought a lot of extra people, but still, most rides were near walk-on.

Not that anyone really cares, but my .02:

-There are people who literally do nothing but work on traffic flow w/ parking lots and garages. They exist. This isn't 1965 anymore in that sense, and Cedar Point doesn't have an excuse aside from "we don't want to spend the money." Which brings me to...

-Are there actually people on a fan forum cheering this because it might somehow positively affect their stock pricing? That's...something.

-There's such a thing as bad publicity. I worked at a park that had an employee death *and* a significant ride breakdown back to back; attendance plummeted, but we sure were in the news a lot! If there wasn't such a thing as bad publicity, Cedar Point wouldn't give half a crap about rider safety, and neither would any other amusement park, as the potential windfall of income that would be derived from a negligent death would likely be larger than the cost of settling a lawsuit.

At what point does this type of thing turn off enough people that the attendance drops just because people have the perception that CP is crazy crowded all the time? I have spoken to a lot of people that won't return to CP because they were there on a busy Saturday, even with me telling them that most days are not like this. I even have a co-worker that is hesitant to go to CP just because he heard about how crowded it is all the time. I know this is only an anecdotal observation on my part but I have always wondered.

Let them think it's crowded and not return, less people in front of me in line...I'm ok with this