Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

I like the idea of the preview weekend being for pass holders as a practice for employees. As pass holders we know not to have big expectations for the first weekend and aren't really out anything if things don't go tot plan. I had fun Sunday but all it cost me was the gas to get there. If I had paid regular admission for 3 of us I would have been disappointed. I made a point of being nice to all the employees I came in contact with I'm sure it was a rough weekend for them. The cashier that waited on us at Snoopy Boutique had been shuffled around several times form one shop to another and it was still several hours before closing.

They obviously think the possible problems is worth the headaches it causes. I don't know any business manager that enjoys operating with untrained low levels of staff. But how much revenue are they "losing" by waiting a whole week to open?

How much money did the park make by opening Frontiertown to passholders including giving them all free food and drinks all night? Again, it was obviously worth their time to spend the money to let those people in.

If your looking at that shortsighted than yeah, the extra money made is worth it.

If you look at it long term what damage are you doing to your brand, before Cedar Point is seen as just like a six flags park?

Paisley said:
As pass holders we know not to have big expectations for the first weekend and aren't really out anything if things don't go tot plan.

Tell that to all the people on here who bitch about Opening Day year after year

Pointbuzz: Home to half of the biggest fans of the world's half-open amusement park.

Due to a graduation I attended in Alabama on Friday, I missed my first Cedar Point opening weekend in years. However, we did stop and spend 3 days at DollyWood. I was following some of CP's opening weekend struggles and just couldn't help compare that with what I experienced at DollyWood. Dollywood was fully staffed, all food, merchandise and rides were up and running. I get Im not comparing apples to apples as such. When I observe the demographics of the make-up of the staff at Dollywood, its night and day to what we see at Cedar Point. DollyWood has so many older people working even on the rides. Clearly Cedar Point targets college age kids and that creates issues early and late in the season. Is there an opportunity to target hiring an older population? Most of the CP employee recruiting I saw over the winter/spring targets only college age kids.

There shouldn't be an excuse that some people have that its opening weekend and its expected to be bad. This goes against Cedar Point's "Best Day" experience they promote. Most of us has season passes and go multiple times throughout the season. I feel bad for the people whose one visit for the season was opening weekend. Clearly, the park failed those people.

XS NightClub said:

If your looking at that shortsighted than yeah, the extra money made is worth it.

If you look at it long term what damage are you doing to your brand, before Cedar Point is seen as just like a six flags park?

I think this is touching on the bigger issue. This is starting to become a trend, from end of last season and into this one. Now it is just one weekend, another few couple weeks with things operating smoothly and this will be seen as just a bump in the road. But it is starting to become a problem spot.

There is always going to be pressure to open earlier. I would not be surprised if they created a Passholder Preview weekend for the end of April every year and kept Opening day as the first weekend in May. Those are some pretty big fixed assets not providing much for returns for 6 months of the year.

XS NightClub said:
If your looking at that shortsighted than yeah, the extra money made is worth it.

If you look at it long term what damage are you doing to your brand, before Cedar Point is seen as just like a six flags park?

By whom? Enthusiasts? Near as I can tell, Six Flags parks are still popular and busy, in spite of what enthusiasts think. (See: La Ronde)
I’m not denying that in the public eye damage occurs when paying customers are denied rides or food for whatever reason. Or when headlines scream “New Coaster Shut Down after Accident”. But the comparison to Six Flags in general is odd. People like to visit their regional theme park simply because it’s there. People in Chicago don’t pine for a CF park and most can’t tell you the difference anyway.

And Cedar Point with it’s maintenance and staffing issues may be the odd bird out there. Have we heard of similar, recurring problems with other CF parks or SF parks for that matter? Kings Island opened April 14, and Great Adventure opened March 30th. As far as I know the parks operated without anything but the standard, occasional glitches that one might find any day.

Not enough people live around Cedar Point who are willing to work at a seasonal job making those low wages. They are surrounded by water and farm fields. How many on here would drive an hour or more each way to make what they pay?

Bingo! There's plenty of year round, regular jobs that pay $10-$12 per hour in the area. Nobody in their right mind would quit or pass up on of those to come make $9 per hour for only five months out of the year.

Then what’s the point of The Point selling $18 hamburger meals if you can’t staff stand, If you had staff working them you would sell more.
Pay $18/hr to work food stands and they’d only have to sell 1 more meal every 30
Minutes to cover that persons extra payroll.

Well it is a bit more complicated than that becuase you have to pay the other 5 staff members working stand the $18 an hour as well. Hamburger robots is the answer. :D

I was being simplistic using numbers easy to round for the prior statement.
For the record, before I get attacked, I realize a burger meal isn’t $18 ( its closer to $17).

The point being CP can pay whatever wage they want for individual positions, the less desireable jobs with higher revenue generation get much higher wages and the easier jobs get lower wages. Individual Employees don’t have to make the same wage all the time either, their can be higher wages (bonus pay)during peak demand as well.

It’s a problem they can address, they just don’t want to blow up their wage scales.
(You know, Best Day! and all)

As I've said before, I'd be willing to bet they're losing money by trying to save it. It seems as if the folks that make those kind of decision just aren't getting out in the park to see it; they're only basing it on the numbers on paper. One lap around the park during lunch time on opening weekend and they would have been able to see the money they were missing out on by not having more places open.

^I can attest to that. Our group went on quite the walk trying to find an open ice cream stand. For the record, we never found one.

I think part of the issue on Opening Day was that all of the food stands in Frontiertown were opened and staffed. Had the focus of the year not been on Frontiertown, in theory, there is a chance it may have been a bit more spread out. Then when Steel Vengeance wound up being down for the count a majority of the day, they likely did not have as many folks in Frontiertown as expected as everyone spread out over the rest of the park - making the food service closures in the rest of the park all the more noticeable.

Well, maybe if they're short on money, they should set up a banana stand.

There's always money in the banana stand.

I’ve lived in Sandusky and I can report that most locals don’t care for Cedar Point. They don’t want to go there and they don’t want to work there. And kids who need jobs would much rather work at the McDonalds just outside the park than work inside. Plus, as we all know, seasonal activity picks up all over town in the summer. So grunt work at the Cracker Barrel at the mall is better than the same (or worse) work at the Point. I imagine the workforce is spread very thin in a rather smallish metro area.

I think Cedar Point, over the decades, has unwittingly painted itself into a corner. During the 50’s and before, many (all?) rides and concessions were operated by lessees. Permanent attractions, like coasters, were run by older men who maybe worked for the park, but it was “their “ ride. They did everything from maintenance to cleaning and painting, to operating and their wives sold the tickets. And they were there from year to year. Everyone else was local, or concessionaires who traveled to stay in a camper or a cottage somewhere for the summer. The awful Breakers was run by local, older women and maybe their husbands did the upkeep. It was that kind of place, and a lot of amusement parks were the same.
The 60’s Cedar Point renaissance ushered in a whole new way of thinking. George and Emil had the bright idea to eliminate the seedy, carnival atmosphere the park had taken on and to hire fresh-faced, well scrubbed college students and put them up in old hotels on the peninsula. It worked well. Kids wanted those jobs, and the season was from Memorial Day to Labor Day so everyone was available.

After that the park grew and grew. Now we see attendance at 3+ million during a much longer season. Add in a butt-load of rides, food and retail outlets, then throw in resort hotels and you’ve got a problem. It’s not a problem for us, we love to visit and we all agree that growth there (or anywhere) is a good thing and essential for the business. But it’s a real problem for a business that for so many years was reluctant to let an old model go.

I can’t blame college students for not wanting those jobs now. The work is long and the pay and accommodations suck. (Why would you agree to stay in a Cedar Point dorm when the college room or apartment you just left was oh, so much nicer?) Students are no longer taking summer jobs for book money or their drinking fund. They are more career oriented in their search, looking for internships that will help them to get a foot in the door in an already crowded marketplace. And that’s if they are in the mood to work at all.

I don’t have a solution, just lamentations. And not to knock the kids that make CP their summertime home and do outstanding work. I love the young men and women who post here and are very excited to start working at a place they’ve always loved. But as awesome as that is, there’s a far greater percentage who can’t hang with a job that makes them show up and work 60/week for a rotten wage.
There’s got to be a way out of this mess but I can’t think of one.

I'm curious how many suggestions/criticisms in this thread are being made by people who operate a business that relies on low wage seasonal help. Payroll is the single most variable and controllable expense. Suggestions here have pointed in the direction of increasing payroll by 50%-100% in order to adequately operate the park.

I guarantee park operations does not WANT to keep food stands and rides closed, but you either annoy the people by having poor operations at more stands/rides or annoy people by having fewer options available. You must choose one.

How sad. I also don't think people outside of Ohio/Michigan/PA know that they have employee housing too. Speaking of which, needs updated before actually advertising the living situation.