Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

F1rePhant0m said:

Dang, that's quite the ride from Dorney to CP for that kind of job. I wonder if they ever borrow employees from KI since it's significantly closer?

I know some KI employees were down at Carowinds.

Web Cam 1 right now. Look at the 2 insane lines at the Auntie Anne's Pretzel stand to the left of the new Snoopy stage). They're snaking across the midway! In all fairness, that smell sucks me in every time. LOL

Haha yea I see what you mean. And based on the parking lot and sparse midways, it's not particularly busy today.

I just got back from two days at Kings Island and I've got to say they had literally almost everything open (rides, games, foods, you name it) and the place seemed to be running more like I remember things being run at CP in the past. I know it's not apples to apples since CP is not right near a major metro area, but they do have a problem on their hands especially in the early/late season.

^^Was at the park today and while crowds were manageable and ride lines were for the most part tolerable at 15 mins or less for most rides I rode, but the staffing nightmare was most evident at the food and drink stands. I was in the park from 930-5 and only saw 1 Coke freestyle stand open (Frontiertown) and a handful of food stands. It made what should have been an easy day in the park kinda Halloweekend level frustrating cause we couldn't find an open drink stand from Gemini to Coasters Drive in. Only Panda was open from Coasters to Frontiertown on that side of the park. Nothing but the Yogurt stand was open by Gatekeeper. I was sending pics to some friends in a group chat and it turned almost comical. The food stands that were open had ridiculously long waits. We waited longer for a Blackjack Burger back in Frontiertown that any ride we rode today, waiting almost 30 mins.

There was a nice sign at the Coke Freestyle by Gatekeeper apologizing for being closed only to direct you to the closed Freestyle stand by Raptor.

I know staffing is tough but maybe they should try bringing in the volunteer fundraising groups for May now as well as end of season. It couldn't hurt. Even if they helped with working entrance at rides and some of the Coke refresh and Freestyle stands.

Almost wondering if the park should look at adjusting the hours for these May weekdays as well if they insist on being open. Maybe 12-8? Who knows.. there is no easy solution, I just hope it can get figured out.

If they could convince locals to work for a few hours a day instead of those 10-12 hour shifts, they might have more luck getting part-time staff. But you're still dealing with an extremely limited population to pull from.

With all the tech that went into FreeStyle machines would it have been that much of a stretch to make them fully automated?

I don’t understand why there isn’t a high-volume version of the Freestyle machine with double cartridges and built to be serviced from the back. In an amusement park setting, the Freestyle machines just can’t keep up with demand.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

We've had customers at the theater ask if we would get those. There's no way they would keep up with the volume we go through. Best scenario is we get 1 and have a dedicated line for it away from the normal lines. Those machines are way too slow for significant volume. The park compensates by having a lot of machines.

Cargo Shorts said:
With all the tech that went into FreeStyle machines would it have been that much of a stretch to make them fully automated?

Yeah... Kind of ironic that the POS for much of the food is now automated for the guest and we still have the park provide the labor to produce the food, but for the drink stands the guest now provides the labor but we must have park staff for the POS!

Jacobs Feild has a beer setup where you load money on a card, and then scan it at a tap and pour. Your card
Amount goes down by how many ounces that were poured. Only 1 employee needed to give the card and 8-10 taps that get pretty regular use.

Six Flags doesn't require all season drink bottles to be scanned either at full service or self service stands. I was at Great America on Sunday and had no problem getting drinks. Many food stands were closed, most likely due to the rain, earlier and it's pre-season still.

I was there yesterday as well. I enjoyed seeing all the school kids lining up for auntie anne's and chick fil-a. kept them out of our way on the rides.

I noticed Carowinds has this on their main page. I feel like if CP had something similar for May and October it could potentially go a long way

https://www.carowinds.com/play/scheduled-ride-closures

At most it offers them an excuse to give, and not a very good one.

The new signs on the closed stands are a good idea if they actually direct you to one that is open! We visited on Sunday and they literally were sending guests on a wild goose chase. I could not believe how difficult it was to find a stand that was open!

We walked past Dragon's Inn and it was closed. The closed sign there apologized that they missed you and directed you to another location in the main midway near the front of the park. When we walked past that stand, it was also closed and the sign directed you to Frontier Town!

If they are trying to assist the guests with these signs, they are doing a very poor job! It is not that difficult to have someone sit down, a figure out which stands are closed, which are open, and put the appropriate sign directing guests to a nearby stand that is open.

Speaking strictly in terms of staffing of rides, if they know a certain group of second or third tier rides won't be open until Memorial Day or won't be open past Labor Day, a tab on the website like the Carowinds tab would be nice just for trip planning and to have a heads up going into the day. People still won't necessarily be happy, but it won't be a surprise.

Little concerning issues are still this bad in late May. Colleges have been out for a few weeks already so most of those kids likely would have processed in already, and the majority of International folks from Europe won’t get here for a few weeks. Unless they have a glut of locals or some people from other cities processing in this weekend, I don't see a major change in levels for a week or so until our international friends save us.

Hotels in Sandusky seem to have high occupancy rates this weekend (Breakers is booked, most others have few rooms left at high rates) ,so there will likely be the biggest crowds of the year. Hopefully they can pull a rabbit out of a hat this weekend and get some decent staffing (and open up more than 2 drink stands!)

I'm just now getting back most of my college kids this weekend. After finals, a lot of them want some time off before jumping right in to start working for the summer.

The foreign workers can't come soon enough. Insane that I'm most excited about having drink stands open throughout the park, especially the freestyles. Feel bad for the guy who works at the front freestyle, just a non stop relentless line.

They could save on staffing by getting rid of the all-you-can-swill drink plans and go back to charging $4 for a Coke.

But think of all the extra revenue they make by selling the drink plans while keeping all the drink stands closed! Pure profit!