Parking pass windshield policy!

arms_down said:
Six Flags is the same way!!! Different sticker for each park. I had 3 yes 3 from sixflags and my CP sticker.. I didnt get pulled over I have no complaints. Its the system and you have to follow it!!!!!!

For 2007, Six Flags is offering parking on the pass.

Here's the kicker, though. It runs around $45 for season parking, and it's good CHAIN WIDE. Which means that if you purchase a season pass with parking at SF Great America, you could go to SF Great Adventure, St. Louis, America etc.. and use your parking pass to park without paying a dime.

That sure would be nice.

Mark--

If you look only at the Cedar Point pass holders, perhaps this isn't such a big deal. It's a bigger deal than it was before they offered the season pass parking option, because of Geauga Lake.

One of the huge changes this year, though, is the Kings Island situation. Kings Island has been trying to eradicate parking stickers for the past ten years or so, and a very large percentage of their season pass holders are actually parking pass holders because the "free" parking pass has been an early-renewal perk for a number of years now...and until this year, if you got the "free" parking at Kings Island you *couldn't* get a decal. If you wanted the window sticker, you had to pay for it. So at Kings Island, parking passes are actually more common than they are at Cedar Point.

The reason Cedar Point should care about this is because of the not-so-insignificant number of people who have traditionally had season passes for both parks. The pricing is such that the issue isn't having to buy multiple parking passes...my Kings Island Maxx Pass combined with Kings Island parking and Cedar Point parking was cheap enough that even if I had also bought the Geauga Lake parking, I'd still have spent less this year than I spent last year on Kings Island with parking and CP/GL with two-park parking combined.

This isn't about the money or about the non-transferrability of parking passes. This is about ugly, illegal window decals and Cedar Fair's continued failure to adopt even basic information technology into its operation. That, and their customary, "we're right and we don't care how many customers we piss off in the process" attitude. That's the side of Cedar Point that I have always hated.....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Although the parking decal change is not the entire reason I'm not getting a season pass for next season, it IS the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I didn't buy a parking decal before they put them onto the season pass, for the same reason I won't buy one now. I can't see paying $50 for a decal when a portion of my trips could be in a different family car or with friends. Not to mention I've already got a campus parking sticker on the front windshield and it sounds like adding a CP decal will put me over the "legal space limit".

Actually, it feels to me like CP doesn't want to lose out on parking for those people who don't have season passes but have a season pass/parking holder in the car with them. Maybe they consider that a fraudulent use of the pass?

Regardless, I've simply decided to cut my trips to two next season and save money all around. I can purchase discounted tickets through my credit union and even with parking will spend just about what it would cost to get the discounted season pass.

I'm sure losing three season passes with the Joe Cool upgrade and the average spent in the park at $50-80 per trip is just a drop in the bucket to them.

Rideman,

Though I don't agree that this is a case of "we're right and we don't care how many customers we piss off in the process", I certainly see the validity of some of your points.

Being a one-park Michigan man (CP, not MA) I hadn't really thought of the multi-park issues. Though this does add to the number of people potentially inconvenienced by this decision, I still think it's a less-than-catastrophic move for the company.

Inconvenient for some of the enthusiasts? Agreeably.
Tolerable for most of us? Probably.

I too wish that the parks could make decisions that made everyone 100% happy, but thats just not the case. I'm confident that CP and CF know what they're doing.

the stickers are really not that hard to take off your car...this past year, i had to switch cars five times and had to get a new parking pass each time...just use a razor and go slowly and the whole sticker peels right off...and make sure your defrost is on for a while to warm up the windshield...it heats the glue and your sticker will come off alot easier...and then use something like goo-gone to get rid of the residue left on the window...

and yes...when ever you make a decision, there are always the people who hate it and there are the people who love it...and then there are those people in the middle who don't really care but LOVE to whine!

Does anyone know if this law applies to Michigan? We have to have a sticker (paid for) to park in the student lots at my school. Thus only during the summer would I be able to have the pass, meaning I'd have to pay for the beginning and end of the season...

OldCPer said:

Actually, it feels to me like CP doesn't want to lose out on parking for those people who don't have season passes but have a season pass/parking holder in the car with them. Maybe they consider that a fraudulent use of the pass?

I remember reading somewhere in their promotional material about the "convenience" of having your parking pass on your card, and the ability to use it while traveling as a passenger in someone else's car was listed as one of the perks. So I don't think that's the fraud they're talking about since the openly advertised it.

What's really crazy, and I never would have thought of this, but I noticed while scanning passes that lots of families actually had their parking pass issued on one of their kids' season passes. I suspect maybe families do that so babysitters/grandparents/friends can take the kids to the park and have the parking covered? It sure surprised me the first time I saw a 7 year old with a parking pass. :)

What am I to do? In West Virginia the only sticker allowed on the windshield is the state issued inspection sticker. Any other stickers of any kind are illegal and will get you a fine.

Going off of the posts that have mentioned not going next season very often, if at all, and using the rough approximation of how much my mom and I spent this season (conservative number would be $750 with passes, parking, joe cool, etc...) as a conservative base, I upped that to $1,000 for a family of two that is slightly less conservative than my mother and I.

Now, if you say that the two families mentioned by TTD is sinking spent approx. $3,500 each season, which is pretty reasonable for a family that has season passes and goes often, they've already lost $7,000 bucks. Throw in the three or four others (including me and my mom) who will be spending dramatically less next year due to a decrease in attendance at $1,000 per, they've already lost $10,000+; as a conservative number.

Let's say that there are 200 families that share the sentiments of the two families that TTD is sinking mentioned, and that they averaged dropping $3,500 into CP's pocket. That would come out to just shy of 3/4 of a million bucks. I'm willing to bet that there are more than 200 families of like mind though, so that number could easily be over $1 million lost...all because of the parking situation.

That's just the way I see it though, and my opinion probably doesn't count too much here.

e x i t english said:

arms_down said:
Six Flags is the same way!!! Different sticker for each park. I had 3 yes 3 from sixflags and my CP sticker.. I didnt get pulled over I have no complaints. Its the system and you have to follow it!!!!!!

For 2007, Six Flags is offering parking on the pass.

Here's the kicker, though. It runs around $45 for season parking, and it's good CHAIN WIDE. Which means that if you purchase a season pass with parking at SF Great America, you could go to SF Great Adventure, St. Louis, America etc.. and use your parking pass to park without paying a dime.

That sure would be nice.

Seems like the two chains kinda flipped sides...

over $1 million lost...all because of the parking situation

Yeah, but they'll probably stop most of the 10 people who abused the passes last year.

Caosterluvinmomma said:
What am I to do? In West Virginia the only sticker allowed on the windshield is the state issued inspection sticker. Any other stickers of any kind are illegal and will get you a fine.

You should email this question to CP and see what kind of answer you get. It still seems to me that this sticker thing was a poorly thought out plan. Hopefully if enough people complain/point out the illegality of it they'll change their minds. I mean, they dumped a perfectly good program like Freeway because people complained about it, so why not change a really stupid idea because people complained about it?

RideMan said:
"we're right and we don't care how many customers we piss off in the process" attitude

Is that anything like the "we're enthusiasts and therefore we know how to run an amusement park" attitude? :)

^ Ha! I like that :)

I understand you point Walt (and also that it was posted as a bit of a joke). But, what do you think is worse; losing locals who were regulars that padded the income by a few thousand every season now not spending anywhere near that amount of money now that they aren't getting all of those passes (parking included) and spending all that money in the park, and who will most likely spread their distaste amongst several other families who dropped quite a hefty amount in the park each season, possibly causing this bad press to spread, which in the end could cost them quite a bit? Or, would it be worse to lose some money by offering the parking options that they did last season with a slightly improved infrastructure/method for regulating it; therefore keeping the regulars happy and giving them good reason to tell their friends in the area who may not go as much because of not knowing about the great parking pass options, which could in the end result in more in-park spending?

From what I know (which admitedly isn't all that much), I would take the second option, because negative news tends to spread faster and farther than good news, which could result in a decent negative impact by the end of the season. By keeping the structure from last year you keep the regulars happy and get a decent amount of good word-of-mouth "advertising." And I'm going to guess that the happy people who just thought they saved a bunch by getting season and parking pass could drop $100+ in one day inside the park. The cheapest hat that I've seen in the park stores was $12, so buy one and you've just paid for parking plus $2. Buy a shirt, which is $20, you just paid for parking plus $10. In-park spending adds up very quickly, and it has been proved that (in general) the happier the customer, the more he/she is willing to spend. Compulsive spending is common amongst people who feel good, and aren't really too focused.

I'm not claiming that I know how to run their operations and such, I'm just stating things from my vantage point, which could very easily be wrong.

Is C.P. really going to lose that much money by leaving the parking decal on our season passes? I'm confused!!!!!!

Count me in with the group who are not getting a Season's Pass this year. I have gone to CP every year since I was born (1980) from Central Michigan. Been a Season Pass holder since 96'. Driving 4 hours from MI, I will not drive just one car and put that many miles and wear and tear on one car. We used to split cars we would take. My wife, my two daughters and I will still come to CP ONCE next year, but that's it. The ONLY reason I am still going for one day is to keep my family tradition going. Cedar Point has left a sour taste in my mouth, alot has changed at the Amazement Park: RIDE OFF.

I requested we have a Cedar Fair wide parking pass, guess it didn't work out for this year..

BlueStreak64 said:
But, what do you think is worse; losing locals who were regulars that padded the income by a few thousand every season now not spending anywhere near that amount of money now that they aren't getting all of those passes (parking included) and spending all that money in the park, and who will most likely spread their distaste amongst several other families who dropped quite a hefty amount in the park each season, possibly causing this bad press to spread, which in the end could cost them quite a bit?

Run-on sentence of the year award goes to.............. ;)

Driving 4 hours from MI, I will not drive just one car and put that many miles and wear and tear on one car.

Are cars not made to be driven? Four hours on the highway are easy miles for a car. Drive a car for 4 hours in NYC and then we'll talk.

In the end, I think Cedar Fair will do just fine and people will get over it. Half the people who have posted in this thread say they are really angry and the other half say they care, but it will not change their trip habits. In the end, it will come back to that for everyone. They'll put up a fuss now, but will carry on with previous trends. 2007 is looking to be the year that I get my first season pass. I won't buy a parking pass because I usually go with a group and split it up between 4 people. Cedar Fair is trying new things out. Maybe for 2008 they will look at the results from 2006 and 2007 and change things even more.