Photo Prices

This is for the peeps that have already been to the Point in the past week. Are photo prices still the same as last season ($8, if I recall right)?

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Tommy Penner - YoYoBaybeeMan
The Matrix: Reloaded and Cedar Point in the same week - Sensory Overload!

Every booth other than Dragster is 1 for $9.00 and 2 for $15.00. Dragster is 1 for $12.00 and 2 for $20.00. I've been saying that all day! :)

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Drag Races: 3
2002 - Raptor Photo
2003 - Millennium Photo

I thought I paid $9 for my Dragster pic on opening day. Maybe I'm wrong though, I really should pay more attention when I thrust $20 bills at people.

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-Chris Woodard
"If you're standing in an uncomfortable position, that means you are in the right position because you are riding Mantis!" - Mantis ride op doing spiels on closing day.

The prices at Dragster were raised around Opening Day.

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Drag Races: 3
2002 - Raptor Photo
2003 - Millennium Photo

At 5:20 PM on opening day I paid $12

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ONE freeway stamp a day... ONE

Do they accept credit cards or checks at the ride photos, or just cash? Just wondering as I will soon be working there! =) Thanks!!

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2003 ~ Magnum Ride Photo

$12 for one photo? Thats a lot.

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Gas for drive to Cedar Point: $25
Ticket to Cedar Point: $43
Drink while in line for ride: $3
Travel 420 feet in the air: Priceless

Every photo location accepts cash and I believe traveler's checks. As of right now, only Dragster accepts credit cards.

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Drag Races: 3
2002 - Raptor Photo
2003 - Millennium Photo

stringcheese said:
$12 for one photo? Thats a lot.

Actually, it's $12 for two photos. That's why it's $12 and not $9.

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The Point of Cedars
Pointing you in the right direction!
http://www.thepointofcedars.tk

It's only one print out photo, with the upper right corner having a super imposed image of your "photo finish". I thought at MF's booth I saw a sign that said cash only, but you probably know more than me because you work there.

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CP 2K3: 2

i got 2 for 20

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Cedar Point Rocks My Socks

I have a interesting marketing concept for ride photos. The majority of the cost of the ride photos is the cameras, and the computers that separate the pictures, and the photo machines. Very little of the cost actually involves the cost of the printing expense. I wonder if CP ever did any type of study where if they lowered the prices of the photos by 40 percent, they might increase sales by 50 percent, creating a larger overall profit. (all though the overall margin is lower). The same would also hold true by lowering the price of pop in the ride lines.

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Cedar Point can not and will not be responsible for any thing lost or dammaged.

While that may be true, there are many other variable's too. If sales increased could the system handle that many request? They would have to increase staffing to support the increase of sales. Even with that the level of guest satisfaction may go down because of increased wait times, defects, etc., because of the chaos (it's already crazy over there ).

$12 isn't bad when you compare it to the $18 or so you'll pay at Islands of Adventure or Disney World (thankfully IOA annual passholders get 20% off).

A question about the ride photos at CP. Can you come back and buy them later? Meaning, how long are they kept in the system before discarded? I'd hate to have to go rent a locker or head back to my hotel room or car because I wanted to buy a morning shot on TTD?

From the best of my knowledge, your pictures are kept on the system for a few minutes, then deleted. *DELETED!* ;)

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Tommy Penner - YoYoBaybeeMan
The Matrix: Reloaded and Cedar Point in the same week - Sensory Overload!

How about this photo idea. What if they had digital cameras and they let you email your photo from various eye candy areas of the park? For example, you could put a buck in a machine or something and have the camera snap a photo of you that you could send to folks with a creative "Look How I'm Spending My Vacation" banner or something.

Brandon, if I may, let me flesh out your idea into a full-blown business model.

See, you don't need to charge for that picture at all. As a matter of fact, it can even be a short video with voice. Disney has this at EPCOT with the IBM-sponsored D-Mail inside Innoventions. Cedar Point is prolific enough where it could land a sponsor (maybe not AOL, but an Earthlink or an MSN.com -- or a hardware maker like Intel or Cisco or Dell) that would absorb the costs of setting it all up for the sake of getting its name inside the park in front of millions of park guests over the summer.

So, sure, Cedar could charge a buck or three for a digital postcard (or you can do it yourself for free with the park Webcams, as long as you have someone hooked up to save your image) but wouldn't that cheapen the value of $12 for a TTD on-board photo? Maybe.

That's where you take that one step further. Let someone create a short e-mail video (or a digital photo) with a scenic backdrop, for free ideally, but then use that as the foundation for greater things. Have the video (small, not too bandwidth consuming) show up on a unique page set up on the Cedar Point site. Just like Tripod or Geocities, it would create a unique URL for each user.

But here's where it gets good. Those onboard photo kiosks all over the park? You will now have a new option, priced at 50-75% of an actual packaged photo, to have the photo added to your online "gallery" -- so the park makes out in many ways (you are tempted to buy more digital photos, the park saves on physical printing since the inventory is all virtual, and every patron has a Cedar Point "homepage" that they can turn their friends on to, driving traffic virally to the Cedar Point site to market the park and new promotions).

The parks these days are driven by per capita guest spending, but that growth has to come from cost-effective initiatives that help margins yet enhance the parkgoer experience too.

That's just an idea.

You guys all have some really cool ideas!!!

One problem I see with the virtual storage is the price CP would have to put up for all the hard drive space if they hosted the pics on their own website. I dunno, maybe they could either transfer them to a patron's personal web directory --- or create free accounts on one of those Tripod/Geocities type pages?!?!? But then they'd have to have some people that would maintain any of said vitrual options - and support it too!

Pro Bob

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WOULD YOU "GET TO THE PO!NT" ALREADY?!?!?!

I get enough of computers at work, just give me the printed picture!

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Florida may have Disneyworld and Key West,
but Ohio has Cedar Point and Put-In-Bay.
It's great to live in Ohio!

Bob, not only have servers and storage dropped in price substantially over the years, but who says that this would be Cedar's tab to foot?

Kodak is a Cedar Point sponsor. Have you seen Kodak ads lately? The company is trying hard to shake its image as a stodgy film company by pimping its digital camera services and photofinishing.

Don't you think that Kodak would be more than happy to be the official sponsor of a hip wrinkle in the Cedar Point gameplan? So every time that someone checks out a photo of a friend (or themself) Kodak has a chance to promote its new image?

It doesn't have to be on the CedarPoint.com site itself, though it would obviously link from there.

And Pete, I think the actual photo product will never go away. This is just a cheaper alternative for those who wouldn't have bought the picture anyway or a high-margin add-on for someone who wants both.