Park is closed. The beagle out front shoulda toldja.

Almost went yesterday but being from Cleveland and my brother who was going to meet me being from Columbus decided against it due to weather. I'm sure most guests there were either locals or school groups/companies that had trips booked months in advance. I'd put 1$ wager on 90% of people outside of an hour drive canceled their trip if they could.

After hearing reports of the ridiculously low attendance kinda bummed I didn't risk it! 3 hours with no lines sounds amazing.

But the park decided to close and gave free admission tickets good any day the rest of 2018. There is nothing more they can do. They made the right call for the business and compensated the guests in attendance accordingly.

Three hours with no lines would be amazing but the weather was absolutely miserable which would have taken much of the enjoyment out of that, at least for me.

I live about a 1 hour 50 minute drive from the park. I had plans on being on their yesterday, but didn't go because of the weather forecast. Actually, I was supposed to be in the area all weekend. Looks like fishing wasn't going to happen Saturday, coupled with the park being closed Friday eve, not opening til 1 with no early entry on Saturday and and a horrible weather forecast for Sunday. I decided to cancel the whole weekend.

Next weekend could be a nasty washout as well depending on Florence. Updated forecasts are getting very scary. Carowinds could be right in the path for sure, but the track once on land could washout the weekend for much of the Eastern US.

I pulled into the parking lot at 12:02 Sunday. It was a "driving drizzle", that is, lots of wind and a constant light rain whipping around. I was amazed that Wicked Twister was running in the distance. I parked in the first row because even though they had already been open for an hour, the front row was not yet full, when I say that what I mean is that ALL guest vehicles in the entire parking lot fit in the first row. I walked into an eerily empty park to find there was no Live-E schedule due to no venues being open. The only REAL coaster I saw running was Steel Vengeance. Nearly all of the food stands, beverage areas, and games were closed. Shops have not gotten their Haunt buttons yet.

I walked to the back of the park through Frontier Trail. It felt like there were at least 2 employees for every guest. The horses were tied up in E.J. 'Coon' Hammer's Blacksmith shop (who remembers THAT sign?) and the petting zoo animals were out enjoying the drizzly fresh air. It really wasn't even cold due to the warm lake waters, but it was definitely cool. I felt a bit disoriented when I reached the Fright Zone Skull Arch (yes, it will ALWAYS be that to me) because it is set up in a different location. The zone starts right outside of the petting zoo, not outside of the grist mill like in the past, so it is quite a bit shorter than previous seasons.

I finished walking back to the train station at about 2:05 after stopping to look around the Town Hall Museum for the 1,000th time, planning on taking the train back up front. At that point it was obvious something was up, because there were no attendants at the station. People were still riding (and loving!) Steel Vengeance, but everything else was strangely closed. I started walking towards Gemini when I heard some guests talking about the park closing at 2. These was literally NO announcement or attempt to notify the guests, I guess they thought we would figure it out when everyplace was closed.

With the only non-foot-based method of transportation to the front no longer available, I walked down the Gemini Midway to see the bones of Witches Wheel being picked by a couple of technicians in a CP van that was uncharacteristicly parked on the midway.

When I reached the front of the park there was a small mob of people waiting to get into guest services to fight for refunds or compensation or something. Honestly I figured that even though I had made a special trip there, spent gas, yada yada yada, I have a platinum pass and I knew the weather was rubbish before I left home, so I didn't think it was necessary to stand in line for Kinzel knows how long to be given a front of the line pass for MaxAir.

TL;DR version : I was there, along with a few hundred AT MOST of my closest strangers, in an empty park with no available entertainment options and at least 80% of the adult rides closed. It would have been madness to keep it open. Next time don't lie and tell us it was due to unprecedented rainfall when I have been there dozens of times for halloweekends that were 20 degrees colder with 3 times as much rain.

Kind of curious why you said “I was amazed that Wicked Twister was running in the distance”. Are you amazed that it was actually not down for mechanical reasons or because of the weather conditions? If you’re referring to the latter, Wicked Twister always operates in the rain unless it is a torrential downpour or storming. Even highwinds doesn’t affect the operations of that ride unless it’s a monsoon.

In fact it’s kinda cool to look up into the front spiral on Wicked Twister and see the rain pouring down. It looks like a funnel for whatever reason.

It's raining today. Is that why the park is closed? :-)

(note the smiley face.)

TwistedWicker77 said:
Kind of curious why you said “I was amazed that Wicked Twister was running in the distance”. Are you amazed that it was actually not down for mechanical reasons or because of the weather conditions? If you’re referring to the latter, Wicked Twister always operates in the rain unless it is a torrential downpour or storming. Even highwinds doesn’t affect the operations of that ride unless it’s a monsoon.

Well, I had been through over thirty minutes of really heavy rain on my way to the point so it surprised me to see anything actively moving. One I was there for a bit I could tell that the micro-climate of the peninsula had been more mild than my drive. No offense intended to your baby!

Bluestreaker said:
It's raining today. Is that why the park is closed? :-)

(note the smiley face.)

It's closed for a private event for the next few days ;-)

The park closed due to lack of attendance. That is a fact, it was cheaper to close the park down then keep it open.

There could be some patrons that love to ride coasters in the rain, marathoning rides and having a blast.

They need to be "Made Whole" don't you think.

Come on, everyone knew the weather forecast, 100% chance of rain all day long, left over hurricane rain. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Cedar Point was going to be a bust that day. Cedar Point should have known that and not even opened.

They had a super packed day the day before, take your winnings and run with it. No they decided to open, therefore they should have stayed open like they advertised. Operated rides that could have safely operated in the rain so the patrons that came could ride what was opened.

^That poor, poor dead horse, bless it’s lifeless body.

^^I heard Six Flags bought it to close it down, to drive attendance at Great America.

Just Coasting, just stfu, please? I'm sick and tired of reading your endless bashing of park management and their decisions. You are bitching about managment opening the park only to close down early (they had their reasons), thinking all those people should be compensated, yet no mention on the people who decided to go when they knew what the weather was calling for. You are a troll, and always will be a troll in everyone's eyes. Do us all a favor, and stop going to Cedar Point if they annoy you that much.

Gas money?!?!? Gtfoh!

I don't always agree with what Just Coasting says, but I also don't think we should run him out of town, so to speak, just because he's very blunt with his criticisms of the park.

That said, gas money compensation is basically unenforceable. It's one of those things that just can't really happen, in this industry or any industry. At least they did a refund... now if they didn't do THAT, that would've been an uproar. But they aren't even obligated to do a refund, look at the fine print. So they did go above and beyond what the customers agreed to when they bought the ticket.

I do really get annoyed when parks close due to low attendance using weather as the reason, and I hope this doesn't become a pattern like it has with some other parks (Great Adventure is particularly notorious, as I said earlier.)

Criticisms of the park, I have no problem with. But he doesn't criticize, he flat out whines like a kid who is told no in the check out lanes at the grocery store.

His complaints lack evidence and are purely conjecture. The rants are getting tiresome when they are based on emotions and assumptions. When the complaints are based on facts then and only then will people give them the attention they deserve.

Unless the complaining is just to draw attention to himself or to provoke a reaction. If that is the case, then that's just sad.

It's odd that Just Coasting's posts are eerily similar to deleted member The PointGuru.

5 Years ago

Well this is neither here not there but a good uplifting story about the weekend nonetheless. Our Scout Troop does a weekend campout on Kelly’s Island every other year in September but we couldn’t make it this time. The Troop went up Friday evening but ferry service shut down after one run Saturday morning becuase the waves were to high and didn’t operate at all on Sunday so the troop was stuck until this morning and didn’t get back to Cbus until 11 today. (Yeah! They missed a day of school!)

Now the Scouts are prepared for inclement weather but things get rather moist after camping in tents for two nights. The Mayor, being the apparently awesome guy he is, opened up the school gym and kitchen for the troop Sunday so they could dry out and have something dry to do, though they did get a service project clearing a tree for couple of hours while the rain broke. :)

There was also a wedding planned on the island Saturday and half the wedding party took the ferry Friday night with the bride and groom planning on coming over Saturday morning, well they missed the morning ferry so didn’t make it, leaving half the wedding party stranded. Oops. If I were them Vegas would be a much drier Plan B. :)

The islands are on my mind every time we visit. It’s always mentioned but never actioned. I hope the charter is available again next year from the park. Won’t pass up the opportunity again.

Rugrats2001 said:

These was literally NO announcement or attempt to notify the guests, I guess they thought we would figure it out when everyplace was closed.

That's NOT true, there was 2 announcements made over the park speakers that the park was closing at 2pm.

Cargo Shorts said:

.... guests traveling from even a couple of hours away will more closely question if it is worth the risk on days with questionable forecasts. Not only do they have to deal with the weather variable but the likelihood the park will close.

I’ve wondered this as well, even the effect beyond the guest that were there. It was on social media and local news outlets the park closed because of rain. Next week a average CP goer Joe looks at their weather app and sees a 60% chance of rain one day, and starts to question if they should go based on what they heard…(Even though it will likely only rain for a short duration, if at all!)

Thankfully don’t see this as a pattern as because this was a perfect storm of events. This was probably going to be the softest attendance day anyway, and certainly the lowest occupancy weekend at the hotels. Most here know the real reason was low attendance and cost to operate with zero revenue coming in. Had less to do with the rain itself as even light to moderate attended rainy days they will stay open, and even start opening up rides an hour before close if the rain stops (much to their credit!). The compensation seems fine, considering most people jet early on rainy days anyway. Just come back and enjoy CP during a dry day on them.

Finally, a long time ago I was there on a similar day when they closed early. Again it made perfect sense to close, but they gave out no compensation even for those who complained. (Here is one guys experience- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yZR0m0NcXeY )

Thankfully since then, it appears the make me whole department has gotten better at making people whole.