Platinum Pass ERT

Alright Platinum Pass members! I want your opinion on something. I thought of an idea after last nights Maverick ride night and want to see what you all think of this idea for a modification to ERT.

First off, ERT is awesome, love it, love it, love it. Can't get enough of it! Cedar Point doing this for us is the best and a shout out to the crews who work over to let us do this!!

Last night just my luck my second ride on Maverick during ERT the ride shut down! Second time on ERT this has happened to me, maybe I'm the bad luck charm... :)

So here's a thought for next year. Maybe they could in lieu of ERT let Platinum Pass members use Fast Pass for a particular ride on a certain day. Example, yesterday, let Platinum members use Fast Pass on Maverick ONLY for the day or even maybe from 5pm till close. This way if the ride shuts down for mechanical reasons we don't lose out on ERT time (granted they extended our ERT time last night, but it still made for a long, long night!), plus the crew does not have to stay over just for us. Only one ride on specific days like ERT is, if not for the whole day just for evening hours even.

I'm not complaining at all, ERT was still epic as always last night, just thinking of ways to possibly make it better. But, on the flip side, it is cool to have the ride entirely to ourselves after the park closes...that is awesome no doubt. Cool to walk out of the park late and no one but us still there....

Thoughts?

No complaints here either, but I think ERT should start after ride closes to GP. As far as letting Platinum Pass holders use it as a Fast Pass on ERT night, I don't think that will ever happen.

ERT does start after it closes to the GP...it did last night...and has every time I've been there.

ok you are right - I was there Friday for ERT for MF and they closed the ride at 10:45 to GP and passholder could ride from 11-12. I see now that they only do that on certain Fridays - July 11th and July 25th.

Just out of curiosity, what were the wait times like before it went down?

they were about 15 min.

Pretty sure ride ops don't "work over", they're scheduled to work through the ERT.

noggin said:
Pretty sure ride ops don't "work over", they're scheduled to work through the ERT.

I know their scheduled to work the ERT but this is past normal hours and if it were me I would think it would suck! Unless I was money hungry then I would not care.

In lieu of leaving at close they are scheduled to stay an extra hour then beyond to do what they do after the ride closes.

That's what I meant.

They're scheduled to work until midnight, or whenever the ERT ends. It's not past "normal" hours for them, it's the hours they're scheduled to work.

When at the park this past Saturday, they weren't limiting Raptor's queue to Platinum pass holders and resort guests during morning ERT. This, obviously resulted in a 40-minute wait when we got into line at 9:50. We had the same issue last year (or it could have been the year before last) with Gatekeeper.

Morning ERT is a significant factor in us getting season passes every year, so we were pretty disappointed in both cases. If the park is going to advertise ERT as a benefit to the Platinum Pass, they should probably deliver what they advertise.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, or were we just unlucky to experience an anomaly twice in our last 2 attempts at front-of-the-park ERT rides?

Raptor is before the checkpoint, so really anyone who got through the gates could get in.

Thabto said:

Raptor is before the checkpoint, so really anyone who got through the gates could get in.

In previous years, a security person checked for platinum passes before you were allowed in the Raptor que during pre open ERT.

What about resort guests?
I was worried how I was going to get back into the rest of the park since I was a resort guest and didn't have my wallet with me. But it was after 10 when we finished riding Raptor. My kids were with my husband in Kiddie Land and what if I wanted to go back through?

If you're a resort guest you can show them your ticket if you purchased through the hotel. If you bought your tickets separately, then you would have requested an early entry card at the front desk and you can show that at the checkpoint.

Yeah, I would have expected to see someone checking for the necessary credentials, but the person at the queue entry was just happily greeting everyone as they strolled by.

If that's how they're going to do it, fine, but they shouldn't be advertising Raptor (and GK) ERT as a Platinum Pass perk. We would have gotten another lap on Maverick or MF had we known.

They should move the checkpoint further back before Raptor's entrance or only let platinum and resort guests through the gates before 10.

And I just remembered last weekend was a bring-a-friend weekend, so those with BAF tickets could use early entry as well.

The blockade used to be the right (North) half of the midway down to Johnny Rockets, with only ERT folks being able to go down the left hand side (i.e. Raptor), or past Johnny Rockets. Are you saying that has changed?

Correct. They now allow guests all the way down to about where Raptor's loop is, on both sides of the midway. They were checking credentials for folks that wanted to get deeper into the park, FWIW.

Thabto said:

And I just remembered last weekend was a bring-a-friend weekend, so those with BAF tickets could use early entry as well.

In both our GK and Raptor experiences, there was literally no credential check whatsoever. Just a huge stream of people heading into line. In fact, they had to open additional queue switchbacks during morning ERT, which I don't think I've ever seen, certainly not in May.

I noticed the same thing (minus the line) on our two Sunday trips this year. I assumed they were letting anyone ride early since there was no line on either of those days. If there is no line, like our situation, then I am not going to get excited about it. But if there is a 40 minute line then I agree DJ, that is no good.

Yeah, I noticed on the Live Video Cam (Camera 2) this morning that the blockade had moved back to the fry place.