Today at the park

Saturday and 80 degrees. I’m sure the park is packed.

Probably will have to send people away.

This is a riveting topic, so let me chime in to say I looked at the webcams a few minutes ago and yes, it’s swarming there. I’m sure good weather and the day of the week contribute to the condition as they have for decades.

Have they ever actually "sent people away?" I know one time in 2019 they temporarily closed the causeway to allow some parking to open, but despite all the armchair experts on social media that swear they were there the day the lines were all five hours and they closed the gates and put up the moose, I don't think it has ever actually happened.

I did not see anything about the annual armageddon over Columbus Day weekend. Weather was pretty good so I would have guessed it was busy.

I don’t know what’s worse, having a trip planned on a jam packed day or on an absolute rainout like today.

Considering the park is closing in an hour I guess I'd opt for the busy day.

Is this the first time they've closed the park early for rain/wind? I can't remember the main park ever closing early for weather.

It’s the second time I’m aware of. It closed early the Sunday after Labor Day. I can’t remember the year. Was it a decade ago?

Edit: After thinking about it for a bit, maybe it was 2018?

Cedar Point has always stressed that the park is fun even if it rains. They have said we can enjoy the other attractions and not just the outside rides. Things like shows and glass blowing. So, what happened to that today? If this is the new normal, this could be another nail in the coffin.

Today was an unusual day. I understand why they closed the park because it was quite empty. However, the timing was interesting. This morning, the weather was terrible, but it was safe enough to open. Ironically, when they announced the closure, the weather immediately improved. In fact, when we were leaving at 3 p.m., the sun was peaking out.

I believe they calculated the staffing costs for the rides, haunts, and other attractions and decided it wasn’t financially viable. I understand their decision, but I’ve been to the park on equally or even worse days when every roller coaster was closed, and the park didn’t close early. I don’t know how these decisions are made, but it seems that in the past, the cost of operating when not profitable was simply part of the business’s ups and downs. I wonder if they continue to make these decisions, whether it would lead to a snowball effect where people assume the park will close on a bad day, resulting in even fewer visitors, thus even more likely to close.

I guess it just goes with the time of year, but it was wild to go from sweating in an overly crowded park on Saturday, to freezing in an empty park on Sunday. Both extremes in 24 hours. We still managed to make the best of it, but it was an interesting experience.

On closing day 2012, the remnants of hurricane Sandy were parked over Cleveland, resulting in 10-20ft. waves crashing all over the western basin of the lake. Driving in along the chausse, huge boulders littered the road that were pushed there from the beach; Raptor, ID and Gemini all valleyed that day. Park opened on time, stayed open for the scheduled day.

Closing day 2020 had snow squalls and winds that got to the point where a gale warning was issued (which is 40mph sustained). Park opened on time, stayed open for the scheduled day.

Such were the days before the park was owned by a gaggle of morons who can't be trusted to run a bath without both the fire department and the Coast Guard on standby.

I wouldn't read too much into Cedar Point closing for weather once, what twice in the last decade? I don't know exactly what the weather was like yesterday. I was there Sep 9, 2018, when they closed early for weather. There was a strong weather system in the area. High winds everywhere. North and West of the park, it was dry, but South and East of the park, it was very wet with heavy rains. Cedar Point was on the edge of the rain, with just some light rain. For early entry, Steel Vengeance was the only ride open. Its been a few years, but I recall some of the shortest waits I have ever seen for Steel Vengeance during that time. They got a few of the other rides open a bit later. I got up to Millennium Force to get a brief warning that the park was closing early due to weather.

I am a little skeptical of what I see on queue times, but if they were only able to get about half of the "big" rides open by 3PM, with stronger winds coming later in the day, and the park pretty dead, then I guess it isn't too terribly unreasonable to close early. If this becomes a trend, and happens more than a couple of times a decade, then yeah, its definitely not good.

Aaronosmer:

I understand why they closed the park because it was quite empty. However, the timing was interesting.

I don't understand it at all. But I digress; I "understand" it, but find it pretty ludicrous. If you have access to the internet you can see that after 2:00 (ish) the weather was going to be perfectly fine, and while it was bad conditions early on it was still not wildly terrible. We have certainly been to the park on much, much worse days many times. I would imagine that many locals planned on going later in the day, which seems to be the norm on Sundays anyway, especially on a weather day such as this past Sunday.

After the morning rain, it was a typical nice fall October day.

I ALMOST had my (college) class trip scheduled for this Sunday, but last minute changed it to two weeks ago. Had it been this Sunday (since no refunds with group tickets) I would have prepped them by telling them, "look....we will just shelter and wait it out until the rain clears and then we will have the most amazing day ever, because Cedar Point will be open and the park will be relatively dead because of the weather".

Now I know we would have been sent home when 70% of the day would have been perfectly fine for a great CP experience.

I might have staged a sit-in and became youtube famous, because there would have been zero-excuse to send us home with no chance of returning.

There are only so many Halloweekends days left. The fact that a "bottom-line" decision was made over a "best-day-ever" decision says all I need to know about the folks making decisions.

This certainly makes me question about future planning for group events where my institution is paying a pretty decent chuck of change in October.

It was a bummer. I had planned on going out after the Chiefs game in hopes of catching short lines. One of my best days ever at the park was on a wet Sunday afternoon. Pretty much every ride in operation was a walk-on. I rode Top Thrill 3 times in 30 minutes, and riders were marathoning Millennium Force.

I see Kings Island has added an extra weekend. I hope we get one too.

Kevinj, We played the wait it out in the hotel game. They announced the closure just as we were walking into the park around 1:15pm.

I guess we were okay with it since we were also there Saturday. Almost everyone I saw or talked with was a pass holder, which I thought was interesting. Given the cheap passes these days, I wonder what the normal mix of tickets vs gold passes are. If it was mostly pass holders, I imagine this makes the economics of being open even worse. I saw one person at the “made whole” department on my way out.

It definitely seemed like they threw “best day” out the window. When they announced the closure, a few scare actors already dressed up were roaming out in front of the ball room handing out things to kids and taking photos, this was maybe 5-10 minutes or so, then they were told to go clock out. It seemed the started cutting staff as soon as they announced the closure. The only food stand open on the way out was Hugo’s and French Quarter Confections, and rides that were open during the worst of the weather closed. Basically only the “major” coasters that could operate stayed open.

This is how “bad” the weather was on our way out.

It must have been sometime around 2005 to 2007 that a few college friends and I went to the park on a HW Saturday. The weather was forecast to be miserable, but it was an opportunity to hang out with close friends who hadn't been together in a while, so we packed and dressed accordingly and off we went.

The weather was so unfriendly - cold and windy, with rain and sleet - that I wore my snowboarding jacket and pants, winter hat, the whole nine yards. Obviously plenty of stuff wasn't open, but there was still enough to do and enough fun to be had, even if only for the sheer novelty of hanging out there during such insane weather, that we had a fantastic time.

That we all still fondly remember the trip to this day speaks to the value of the park staying open despite the weather.

I suppose we could debate all week and even the offseason about if they should close or not, but they’re a business and if they think (wrong or right) that it’s bad for business to stay open then they close. They decided that closing is good for them so ahome we shall go.

In 2023 there was a Halloweekend Saturday where the park closed at 10pm instead of midnight for weather. And this was weather that shut down everything in the park except a few flats and the shows. The morning was okay, better than forecast actually, but mid aftenoon the predicted horrible weather hit. Hours of an absolute downpour and wind that damaged some canopies and decorations in the park.

When it became apparent the weather was not going to improve the park did the "we will be closing at 10pm" announcement. They also still rant all the indoor haunts and shows. Given the weather and attendance, moving closing time to 10pm was 100% reasonable, just as announcing a 6pm or 7pm close this past Sunday would have been due to the low attendance and projected second round of rain and wind.

And that 2023 horrible weather day is also a fond, happy memory in my friend group. We remember it more than we would have a regular day.

Justifying closing early unless there is a tornado is not working. Even if most outside ride need to close, there are other things to do. Not like years before, but still some. And there are the eateries. Let's not forget that wonderful new one on the beach. And closing due to a low census is outrageous. When you buy a ticket there is an expectation which should not be rescinded. The guests should be the ones to decide if they want to leave early. Many guests can't come back again this season to use their ticket. Closing on a financial decision is wrong and a slap in the face to those guests in the park. It is part of running a business some days. I have been in movie theaters where there was only a handful of people there for that showing and they still ran the film. I once came with a family member to the boat that takes people to Kelley's Island and South Bass Island. We came from central Ohio for that. We got there only to be told the cruise was cancelled due to low ticket sales. That was crap. Some days you have to take one on the chin. Cedar Point is finding more and more ways to screw its guests. This may not be a big deal for pass holders who live close, but for those who can only come once it is a big deal.

Looking at the webcams today I am a bit surprised by how many people appear to be in the park on at 1:30 Friday afternoon. Especially since the buckets are not operating.