Season Pass Preview Night and Dining Plan

Saying the the park should get a pass for not being ready for opening day because they never are is rather ridiculous; if they are unable to properly ready the park by a certain date then the operating calendar needs to be adjusted or additional staff hired.

The last two days were far more then ride crews having not yet hit their stride; they have nothing to do with a ride not being functional. There shouldn't be 'bugs' to work out, that's the whole point of testing a system before opening it to the public. Not working at peak efficiency is one thing; not working at all is another entirely.

I wasn't there, but man from what I'm reading, I'd be really disappointed too, especially if I bought fast passes early because of crowds and then a lot of rides were down and not due to weather.

I don't think all of the negativity is deserved. Outside of Wicked Twister and Mean Streak not being ready, it seemed like a typical opening day to me.

That is a ridiculously obtuse viewpoint. This was in no way a normal operating day.

Who said the park should get a pass? As a platinum passholder, I was invited to an event that is stated as a preview night, and the park was nice to show off what they have done during the off season. Beautiful work might I add.

In terms of ride units not having their required run time done before opening, I 100% agree especially considering the weather has basically been an early start to summer. But, some rides didn't run for a reason, whether it be maintenance or certification reasons.

However, some of the other things that are being reported should not come as a surprise to anybody here. Especially staffing. Now what percentage of college students work at CP for the summer? My last final was Friday afternoon, as well as many others I'm sure.

I made an unplanned trip up today with my brother and his in-laws. My brother recently had surgery and couldn't ride so he asked me to tag along for company. Being a pass holder I figured worst case we would hang out, use a couple meal plan credits and leave. Which is essentially what happened.

Food service draws my biggest complaint here. Again, because my brother couldn't ride we weren't in any kind of rush but we waited almost an hour for hot dogs on a stick at Corral, and his in-laws waited over an hour and a half at Pinks. Same issues at both stands, employees with a general lack of interest, no sense of urgency and severally understaffed/poorly trained. On a normal day where I would have been riding I wouldn't have tolerated it.

Ride wise, I only got on Raptor as a small thunderstorm rolled in and shut everything down and we decided to leave, no real complaints here.

This is my third CF opening day this season. I attended Carowinds, King's Dominion's and now Points. Safe to say I don't plan on attending any opening days any time soon after none of them went well.

Hopefully things will be better when I am there Monday.

Wow..lots of angry people here today!

I attended my fifth opening day this afternoon. Got to the park approx 1:30.

Walked in the front, everything was running. Wicked Twister didn't even have it's cars on the track, which was extremely disappointing to see how maintenance prioritizes their tasks.

Maverick - 3 periods of downtime in a matter of 110 minutes. One was puke (I'm hoping), other two were mechanical. Posted wait time was 45 minutes. Needless to say, I was pissed.

Gemini - One train. WTF. Why...?

TTD - seemed to be running fine.

Rougarou - numerous periods of downtime. Don't know why this was such an issue. LOTS of stacking.

Magnum - ran fine. Practically had my neck ripped off on the safeties. I was the third "set" train in a row.

Millennium Force - Wow. This guy was in disarray. Numerous downtime, and maintenance didn't even put the steel covers over the magnets in the brake run. Just laying in the infield. The third train - NOWHERE to be found. Isn't even on site from what I can see. Come on, really?

Park seemed extremely unprepared. The weather wasn't that bad this winter. Shouldn't have this many slow downs.

When did Finals end at OSU, Michigan, Bowling Green, etc? It looks like CP tried opening the same week that Finals ended. If so--and I don't know that it is--that is an obvious mistake.

If WT didn't even have the train on the track and other coasters had trains not on the track--again, just relying on what people posted--the park should have opened on 5/15, using the "extra" week to get trains on the track, and employees some experience & training. Not having MF even inspected--if that is the case--is simply inexcuseable

I concede that "down for mechanical" is going to be rampant on Opening Day.

MF was indeed missing the Yellow train today. We did get to ride it once and I was wondering why the line was moving so slowly, only 2 trains running and sometimes the 2nd train was in unload for over a minute before the 1st train started up the lift.

Yes, but...

Cedar Fair is a for-profit business. It may be that an extra week of training and tech didn't work on the spreadsheet.

There may be any number of reasons MF wasn't inspected, not all of which are under the park's control.

TwistedWicker77 asked, "Now what percentage of college students work at CP for the summer? I would say sometimes it is less than half, especially on a Friday after payday or on Sundays after a Saturday night out. Or are you asking what percent of their seasonal employees are college students? I'd like to know the answer to that one myself.

im gonna venture a guess and say that I think you knew what I was talking about. Nice try though :)

I understand your point Noggin, but. . .

I suspect the spreadsheet would show max profit by opening the park and not have ANY rides open :) At some point you have to be concerned about how the quality of the product affects the bottom line.

Yes, the yellow train was nowhere to be found. It is sick how much two train operation on Millennium Force makes the line crawl. I was wondering the entire time in line why the hell it was running so slow, until I got up top and train #3 was nowhere to be found. Unless maintenance has a crazy night planned tonight, they have a lot to do.

I think MF is so slow just because of the lack of a MCBR.

I do not think MF issues had to do with state inspections at all, the crew was optimistic towards the start of preview night that it would run. Overheard it was mechanical with sensors on the lift which would explain the situation much better than any type of state inspection issue would. However that is still speculation based upon heresay so...

When we arrived on Friday afternoon we did notice several white Dodge Cars parked by the Mean Streak lift hill, all of which had the red state of Ohio plates. That would go along with what we overheard about Mean Streak not having approval yet.

One of the things that they teach you in orientation is to make every day from the first to the last, and every day in between, exactly the same, because the reality for many people is that it's the only day they'll visit the entire year. I think that's a solid philosophy. I have to say that I'm surprised to hear about missing trains and such. That's not typical at all. I imagine there are a lot of people working overtime right now.

I agree with a lot of people here that opening day was kind of a "flop", if what you were going for was to ride some of our favorites that we've been waiting for ALL WINTER. Yes, I get that things will happen, new ride crews, etc etc, BUT I expected that for PREVIEW NIGHT, not for OPENING DAY. This is my third year attending opening day at CP and I was really disappointed at all the down time on the rides. YES, I understand about concessions, I give those people a pass, even though I had to wait TWENTY MINUTES for a chicken burrito at Los Gatos, and by the time I got it, the burrito was COLD. So I made them remake it. IDK, someone else here posted that they won't be attending CP opening days anymore, and I might just do the same going forward..HOWEVER, it WAS nice getting to be at the park and breathing in the atmosphere!!!

There WILL be other OPPORTUNITIES to ride SOME OF your favorites ALL summer LONG.

Opening day is done and over with. Yes, a lot are disappointed, but there's only room to improve here on out.

I don't understand some people giving Cedar Fair/Cedar Point a free pass on how horrible operations were on preview night and opening day. I was there, and I was appalled at how unprepared the park was. Even random people in line said the same thing. The company needs to strive for absolute excellence on every operating day all year-even opening day. I hate drawing parallels to Disney since the climate does not require everything to sit dormant for 6 months every year, but this kind of thing would have never happened there. Someone who was at Cedar Point yesterday who isn't a platinum or season pass holder would have a hard time calling the place the "best amusement park in the world"

Don't get me wrong, a bad day or a bad experience won't prevent me from going back all summer. I'm not that type. However, I had 3 pretty lousy trips so far this season and all 3 happen to be on opening days(Carowinds, Kings Dominion and Cedar Point). My trip to Kings Island was pretty fantastic, and I believe that was their second operating weekend. The lesson I learned from this season. I've waited 5 months I can wait another week and let some of these bugs be ironed out.