Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

Someone pick a good charity - then have this forum as the group for gathering signees. I'd volunteer for the columbus day weekend regardless of the weather. Atleast we can be a small part of the solution and have the park's back and raise some coin for a good cause.

Would even consider carpooling others from the SE Michigan area that would need a lift.

^While the charity thing is a nice idea, the experience for guests will still be way below subpar, especially at food stands since these stands will always be staffed by inexperienced trainees.

I was there Friday the 13th. Line to get into the parking lot was huge. Bumper to bumper/stop and go 1.5 miles from the parking lot entrance. Added probably 45 minutes to trip to park. Ride lines were pretty good all night (MF was just over an hour, Valravn a little under an hour and other major coasters were 15-20 minutes). I saw food trucks scattered around the park. Didn't stop for one but the lines didn't seem long at all. I would have thought that would help with food issues. Was that not the case on Friday night? Were those trucks not there on Saturday and Sunday?

Unfortunately, while I would loved to have used the food trucks since some of the things they offer sound pretty darned good, they are not included in the food or drink deals CP sells. the food and drink add-on ran me about $175 so, I can't justify spending even more money there than I already have.

You can give them the benefit of the doubt if you want, but I am not. You can't charge the prices they do and deliver such disappointing results. I understand the challenge of staffing in the fall, but there is a simple solution, cap attendance. If you can't handle the influx of people fine, but cut it off then. The conditions were borderline unsafe on Saturday. I saw numerous people tripping over people on the Frontier Trail. I also witnessed two different groups passing around a joint Saturday night...there certainly wasn't anything security could do, there were hardly any of them there.

We did yesterday, sunday, and it was a nice day overall except two things. Weather, which i liked but it closed rides, and the open rides only running one train. Im not a park expert so for me one train on magnum seems like it could be two trains easily, even with short staffing. A station wait was 35 minutes. We enjoyed the park though with fewer people.

One employee, somewhere, told us they had over 71,000 people saturday, I almost pooped myself. I would never go on a saturday.

The only solution I could see is closing down the toll booth and turning people away when the lot is full, which makes some sense, because it doesnt seem they can find enough employees. Even fully staffed could they manage that sort of night?

With the nightmares of traffic backups getting on-point on busy days, and then of everyone leaving at the same time, just imagine how much of a mess it could be to clear the park out and chase away day customers while also trying to get the night customers in.

In addition, employee shuttles and volunteer groups are stuck in those traffic backups. If they had employees available to call in, they wouldn't have been able to make it in a reasonable time. I was half-wondering if this was part of the problem with food stands Saturday morning. I left after the Ride Warriors event as well, and so thankful I did.

With staffing levels at issue and backups on the causeway, I question the park's storm ready stance and ability to handle any real emergencies of a nature that might require resources from off-point, like additional fire trucks or ambulances.

My thinking leans towards Bull's statement. I have been going back and forth all weekend on it being close to unsafe, and what is the legal standard for negligence in such a situation had anything happened. Management had to have a general idea of what staffing levels they had, and how much food/beverage was in stock and they were capable of serving. Continuing to let people in the gate to take their money past a certain point starts to sound like Fyre Festival and not a legitimate business.

When the park is as crowded as it was last Saturday, additional staff would do very little to make it a pleasant experience. The extremely high attendance made it annoying and claustrophobic just to walk down the midway. All the queues for the rides were filled and spilling out on the midway. Maverick's Fast Lane was a 45 minute wait, the regular line must have been a two hour or more wait. The app said Corkscrew was a 45 minute wait and Gemini was an hour wait. Magnum's entire queue was filled, it was like a time machine going back to 1989. Having every window on every food stand open would have done very little to make for a better guest experience The extra capacity that the food trucks created more than made up for whatever CP food stands were closed but lines were long both at the food trucks and the CP food stands. Most of the complaints people wrote about on Facebook revolved around how few rides they got, even with Fast Lane. It would certainly be nice if they had the staff to open every food stand but a day like last Saturday would be miserable regardless.

Hypothetical:

You have interviewed and hired staff. Business is below normal. Staff doesn’t get the hours they desire, so the leave. Busy weekend comes, who works?

I’m only asking because we run into issues with staffing during the “off season” (aka school days) when suddenly employees are not available and we don’t have the applicants to replace the people who are leaving.

I don’t know the specific issues CP has with staffing, but I’m aware of how much trouble I have finding staff to manage 2000 guests on a busy day.

Is wages a solution? Possibly. Make the “bonus” weekends a bonus for the employees as well and you may alleviate some of those issues. But I don’t think that’s the only solution to find staff at this time of year.

In regards to staffing one thing that may have helped would be improved ride staffing.

Ride prides, etc. are great to facilitate a short staffed park, but at the same time, it's inefficient still; you just drag on a little slower. I mean for someone that has operated the ride all season and knows the quicks, best practices, etc. will be a much more valuable asset compared to a ride pride working just that day and learning everything that day.

However, not all rides even get prides, so those rides will fall to a lower staffing level. For example, with max staffing, Corkscrew can have 2 load, 2 unload, controls, crowd control, and fast lane just at that location. That gives two sitting "rest-ish" areas, and then a smaller clear cycle for each ride op. This also allows for much easier rotations. However, in the time of short staffing, the fast lane & extra op on load (even unload too potentially) can be omitted. This equates to slower dispatch times, more employee workload, and a decrease in overall performance. This would be one area that being short staffed could be mitigated to improve the guest experience.

With the weather, I'm sure this would have been marginally improved, but it would have been an improvement regardless. I wish we could have better staffing at the parks and I really hope the park can think of ways to improve here. If they can improve the guest experience in ways I never thought were possible or areas I never even regarded as needing improved, they should be able to do this here. The innovation shouldn't just stop with cap ex projects, it should encompass the whole companies workflow.

djDaemon said:

If so, they are flatly incompetent at projections. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to crack the "nice weather = massive crowds" code.

I personally prefer the expertise of a brain scientist, but that's just me...

Pete said:

When the park is as crowded as it was last Saturday, additional staff would do very little to make it a pleasant experience.

True, but in my experience even moderately-busy Saturdays (as opposed to what seems to have been their busiest Saturday ever this weekend) produce absurdly-long lines for food. It's been happening with increased frequency over the last 5 or 6 years in my experience.

Sure, staffing can only do so much when the park is "at capacity". But there are plenty of other times when they're not that busy and eating is a miserable experience.

We went the first weekened of HW and things were fine although I will say the lack of open drink stations was a source of frustration.

We go back next weekend and now I'm worried what it'll be like especially with the forecast. Almost all our visits over the last 10 years as passholders have been in Sept/Oct so I know what to expect, but the even-worse-than-before staffing issues have me concerned.

We had planned to get passes again for next year after taking this year off but now I'm not so sure.

This is 100% a problem that can be solved by higher wages. It's Econ 101. If the park were paying $100/hr for staff there would be lines down the causeway with people wanting to apply. Obviously I'm not suggesting that, only pointing out that there's a wage level (or bonus structure) that would achieve full staff levels every weekend. Whether or not it would break the bank is another question. I for one would be willing to pay more for passes or gate prices in order to have a more enjoyable experience.

Regarding the overcrowding and traffic; I was out and about Saturday morning around 11:30 or so and the traffic on route 2 west getting off at Rye Beach Road in Huron was insane! The normal 70+ MPH traffic flow was maybe half that approaching the ramp itself where dozens of cars were attempting to merge and exit. From a distance behind, we saw a white delivery truck swerve off the left side of the highway into the grass median and then back onto the highway (I couldn't see what exactly caused the maneuver -- whether it was him not paying attention or someone interacting with the exit traffic making an ill advised lane switch). Then the idiot driving the van drove another quarter mile or so and pulled off and stopped on the left side of the highway, with his right side tires still about 2-3 feet INSIDE the left lane of traffic. He got out to check the right side of his vehicle -- apparently for sideswipe damage or whatever might have happened. In turn, he came very close to causing additional chain event issues by basically parking while still ON the highway.

Not necessarily Cedar Point's problem to fix, but I wonder whether ODOT will take notice and add an additional exit lane there. I'd heard (either in this forum or in the local newspaper) that they will be doing a study of Cleveland Road/route 6 and increased traffic patterns due to the Sports Force park and the impending indoor sports facilities coming soon. Even though it would only be necessary a couple Saturdays out of the year, it's probably time to expand that exit access.

Let’s look at it this way.
So the park “knows” Saturday the 14th may be the very busiest in history. What do they do about it? Maybe they’re content to take a customer satisfaction hit when 99% of the season scored high. They also count the whopping amount of gate sales for that day and count it as a win. Sometimes a guest satisfaction rating of less than 100% is satisfactory when there’s volume to make up for it.

Let’s talk about food. Maybe Food Services doesn’t want a lot of product taking up space at the end of the season. Food service employees are trained to specific tasks, and there are safety concerns, so it’s hard to throw just anybody in to work on a temp basis. Maybe in their mind’s eye it’s better to close most locations and piss people off that way than to open them all with bad food and worse service. Or let’s say they are fully stocked and staffed and it rains all weekend. It’s a tough call and I wouldn’t want to be the one to make it.

The crux of my thoughts, and it’s not an argument for or against, is that it was just one day out of many, many. Businesses look at results differently than fans do.

I was there Saturday on a solo trip. I’m no amateur, I knew better, but it was about the only day left in the season for me to go. I got there very early, to avoid traffic, and left late. I thought I knew what to expect. My only expectation was that I’d renew my pass, get my steps in, ride what I could (or not), get some lunch, and see the park after dark.
Well, the joke was on me. I was actually shocked at the amount of people that showed up. Because I’m a savvy park-goer, I hadn’t experienced a crowd like that in years. Decades, maybe.
There I stood with a Meal Deal and a Drink Deal and used none of it. I found the lines for the outlets that were open to be dismaying and slightly humorous at the same time. But I’d be go-to-hell if I was gonna get in one. And that was to spite myself, really, as I spent the entire day without food or drink.

So what did I do? I got my pass and my steps in. (And how, four or five complete laps of the park wading through the crowds...) I wanted to leave and come back but I dared not- reports were the traffic was backed up through town all day. I hit some flats in the morning, hung around the hotel a little, walked along the water and got some sun, and waited for dark. That last tour of the grounds had me flabbergasted. The lines for the haunts and rides were inconceivable. And the traffic out of there was horrendous. In the way home I finally stopped in Marion Oh at the Steak n Shake because I was starved. That took some more time, but I pulled up to my house at 3am, pretty much exhausted from a big day of nothing.

I reckon I’ll know to never do that again. And I also reckon the park, in spite of complaints, views the attendance as a win. It just may not be worth it for them to try to “fix” it. It’s grown to where no matter what they do there’s bound to be a day or two like that, and I bet they’re ok with it.

Something cheap and easy to do on the park's part would be to start aiming a webcam at the parking lot and causeway when the park starts reaching capacity. Show people that bother to look ahead what is in store for them and I bet lots of passholders will just choose not to go on those days. It won't empty the park but I'm sure it would ease things a bit. I used to make the stay or go decision based on that info back when it was regularly available. For the people who made reservations ahead of time for the weekend I feel bad you got screwed. For the average person who just went woohoo it's gonna be gorgeous and almost 80 on Saturday let's go to CP for HalloWeekends well they probably should have thought that through a little better...I was already thinking back around Tuesday when I saw the forecast that Saturday was going to be a mess. I wouldn't have guessed Friday so much but Saturday there was no way you could have convinced me to make that trip unless like RCMAC it was literally my last chance to set foot in the park for the season. I had a gut feeling.

^^ This.

The park is offering the best guest experience they have, frankly, ever. If this happens when the stars align on the perfect Halloweekends Saturday, there really isn't that much they can do.

The park actually kind of did this on Saturday, with one webcam pointed at MF's queue. At 11:30am that thing was almost full.

The problem with staffing the place "fully" for every October Saturday is that (usually) there is one wash out weekend weather wise. It's honestly better for the park to have the situation they had Saturday once in a while than having the place over staffed and over supplied only for two or three of the weekends to have awful weather and attendance paying labor and supply costs that essentially are wasted. Also, keep in mind things like scheduling and ordering are done well in advance of weather. I used to help schedule at Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival. We would occasionally have a Saturday where we got New Years Eve style crowds when the stars aligned and our in-park projections would be 10-30k higher than projected. Nothing we could do about it but make it work the best we could. Other F&W Saturdays with bad weather would find us 10k under projections with tons of labor we would need to shed. It's just the way the industry works.

The entire state of Ohio could have been working there this Saturday, it wouldn't have changed many of the in-park conditions. When that many people show up, it just sort of is what it is.

I never know what to believe when it comes to these rumored numbers. If there really were 71,000 people in the park, I have to say they got past the point of needing to cut it off. I was there once when there were rumored to be 53,000 people and it wasn't really fun. I'd say they ought to cut it off at 55,000-60,000 or so for safety reasons. At that number, you literally have every queue full and it's shoulder to shoulder in many spots on the midway. I can't imagine 71,000. How did they all get parked? Were there tons of buses?

Amidst the nightmare, I still have to hand it to the park in some areas. I was also there on Sunday (upcoming trip report I know you're all just dying to read...) with my students for Face your Fear VIII.

It's close to 6:30, and we've done all our work for the day, and a group of my students wanted to go ride Millennium. Mind you, by now it had turned into a pretty glorious evening at the park. The winds had died down significantly, and what did I spy with my little eye? Valravn testing. Many of my students had never been on it, so I told them now is the time.

Along the way, one student commented. "It's not going to open. Why would they try to get this ride open when the park is only open for one 90 more minutes?" With a smile I urged him along for the ride.

Sure enough, not too long after 7:00, Valravn opened up, and we all got to enjoy a nighttime ride on Valravn as our last ride of the day. Perfect ending to a wonderful day at the park.

Why would they try to get this ride open when the park is only open for 90 more minutes? Because despite how you may personally feel, they do care. I would also wager that a much more nuanced discussion than what you will find on Facebook about the consumer horror show that took place on Saturday has been and is being had. It's an issue, no doubt.

"It's pretty cool they would work to get this thing open when the park's about to close". - Student

It sure is.

RCMAC said:

Maybe they’re content to take a customer satisfaction hit when 99% of the season scored high.

I think that's being generous. Yes, by all accounts the park was historically-busy Saturday, so only so much can be done about that. But it seems that, far more often than not, the park is caught with their pants down on any Saturday with decent weather in October.

If a substantial portion of their revenue comes from October, they should staff accordingly.