Understaffing at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels...

In the 70s, I got the attendance numbers as part of my job. Busiest day back then was the third Saturday in August. Peak back then was 60,000. Park was packed and it was difficult to move through the park. I can’t imagine 70,000.

Pete said:

Taking Halloweekends away from passholders is a horrible idea that would probably cause countless complaints, CP would be shooting itself in the foot if it did that. They would do better by increasing the single day ticket price for Halloweekends by about $20 - $30 dollars if they feel they need a smaller crowd during that time of year. Or have dynamic pricing, charge significantly more for a Saturday ticket and keep the Friday and Sunday ticket price the same.

Agree! I would be very upset if they took HW away from passholders. But what was the ratio of passholders to single day tickets? If the number of passholders was low, that wouldn't do any good anyway. I have the feeling ticket holders far exceeded the number of passholders by a significant margin. They should raise the ticket price for Saturday's and cut back on special promotions that would sell more tickets. If they are selling a high number of tickets, then that would suggest the price is too low and they are leaving money on the table.

I'll get to see for myself this weekend. Be pulling the camper up the causeway around 3 on friday. Leaving on Sunday before traffic becomes a problem. Not to worried about how much I get to ride on Saturday. I understand what I'm getting into. That's why you won't see me in the park on Saturday waiting on someone to make me a sandwich. Can I get a napkin with that?

The problem is more that so many people don't do the research and understand what their getting into. Then they want to complain about their horrible experience that they created. It's no different than going on a day with rain in the forecast or high winds all day. You can't be refunded for choosing to go. How would they even go about deciding who they can decline service to in these times.

Seems like they don't have a problem getting guests now. Just go earlier in the season.

redsfan said:
The problem is more that so many people don't do the research and understand what their getting into. Then they want to complain about their horrible experience that they created.

This is the epitome of CP Apologist mentality, blame it on the guest. You didn’t research the right day to go, where to park, how to ride Rougaroo, where to enter the park, when the useless app ride wait times are accurate. Are you joking, these people pay full price for ‘resort’ lodging (resort in semi-quotes for a reason), they drive 1-8 hours to get to a park that actively advertises unlimited rides with your pass, the park sells parking for cars after there are no parking spots, they also sell FL passes for rides that are not open and will not open. They continue to sell drink and food plans for services that will take over an hour to get a soda.

I love the park, but there’s no excuse for these issues.
Reposition staff from all the FL, drink band, tickets counters, retail stores, etc.. to actual food/drink/rides positions. This isn’t only an issue for fall either, summers have been under staffed for the last few years as well.

Erie County has a high unemployment rate, The Park will not authorize overtime for full time staff or pay comp-rates for them. These are self created problems, when you are selling hot dogs meals for $14.99 you can easily afford to offer pay high enough to attract locals and nearby that are looking for extra money for the upcoming holidays... yet they refuse too.

And the ‘we are having a hard time finding quality candidates to fill our open jobs where I work’ arguement doesn’t apply- these are positions to fill at Coke Freestyle stations where they don’t do anything , French fry Attendants and churro makers.
They are not certified ride maintenance personnel, licensed operators or any skilled employees.

Those are the kind of employees that I need and cannot find. How does it not apply? It’s a reality that those unskilled workers are not applying for part time seasonal jobs right now.

I will drive up from Columbus and work a couple of weekends for them. All they need to do is put me up in a moderate hotel and pay me $25/hr. Can I bring my 15 year old? He makes about $20/hr mowing lawns, I bet I can talk him down to $15/hr. Believe me we have experience with hot dogs.

Kevinj said:

What budgetary restraints does Cedar Point have to work in? Is it an unwilling park, or is it a park that is doing the best with what cards they have to play? Do any of us actually know?

We know via public disclosure that the parks make huge amounts of money during October, and that the October share of annual revenue continues to grow. As does YOY attendance, revenue, and net income.

On one hand, it might thus be argued that the park doesn't have a problem to fix (insert Yogi Berra quote here). But on the other hand, if CF is waiting for attendance (and thus a significant portion of annual revenue) to decrease, that demonstrates shocking shortsightedness.

We also know via public disclosure that CF is aware of their inability to adequately staff the park(s). So they know there's a problem.

To be fair, maybe throwing money at the problem won't solve it, but has the park actually tried that approach? It's hard to reconcile their impressive revenue/profit growth with their inability to solve the staffing issue.

Another small thing thst someone brought up to me yesterday was how much they have been advertising this year on tv. Seems like they could probably cut that out now and shift that money to a hiring dept. Congrats advertising you did well.

It's easy enough to sit in front of a computer and condemn the park for its shortcomings.

It's not so easy to be in a position where you have a finite number of dollars to spend and trying to figure out how best to spend those dollars.

Cedar Point is on a peninsula, hours away from major metropolitan areas. Finding staff willing to make hot dogs three days a week is going to be a challenge.

noggin said:

Finding staff willing to make hot dogs three days a week is going to be a challenge.

It is a virtual certainty that the difficulty is inversely proportional to the wage.

They're not being tasked with curing cancer. They're being tasked with upholding their self-imposed "best day of summer" mantra.

As fans of the park what would it take for anyone here to pick up a short term, weekend only second job to help the park for Halloweekends?

$15/hr minimum? Free lodging in the dorms? Fuel reimbursement? Able to work rides and not a food stand?

Honestly as a Cleveland resident, I would highly consider it if at least 2 of those conditions were met. Also I would want to work rides, it's been 12 years since I operated a coaster and I'd love to do it again. :)

^"Best day of summer"

But it's fall? ;)

All in all I think that this weekend was a perfect storm and the park could in no way perfectly predict or prepare this. For people to sit here & say the park needs to staff everything perfectly, it just won't work. Cedar Point's employee scheduling, operations, and retention are almost akin to a retail store. As more people + sales come in, the # of employees hired, scheduled for hours, and workload goes up. As it decreases, positions get cut, hours dropped, etc. I mean for example it was common for Power Tower on Friday to go down to one leg on each side and cutback a significant part of the crew a bit into the night.

The parks have said staffing people is a problem. Rides requires 18+ for operations, and I believe several other positions may as well (food leadership, etc. -- but not sure). Other places can pull from the local community, but that's to an extent. Not every high school kid in Sandusky or the general area wants to work there. Some 17 year old kid in Cleveland isn't going to drive an hour over, work three days for low pay + pay for extra housing / living expenses for those three days, and then head home late Sunday / early Monday. That's not how it works lol.

Plus, the job isn't for everyone. The season involves a ton of hours, more than a full time employee at a normal job at minimum wage or barely above, sometimes crummy work conditions (extremely hot + humid, outside, sun, extreme cold, etc.), and it isn't a work environment that many would feel rewarding. Someone somewhere else mentioned people immediately quitting after trying to move into Commons, and that's a flat out truth. Some even quit within their first week. One person I talked to that was just as stoked as me to work there quit within literally the first week due to the job.

If back in 2011 they had as difficult of a time of hiring, training, and retaining a labor force, it'll be even harder now unfortunately.

If only there was a case study we could reference where an amusement park invested heavily in attractions to bring in the crowds but didn't properly invest in the infrastructure to support those crowds. There might not be an exact apples to apples scenario but maybe some conclusions could be drawn. Anyone have any ideas?

This weekend is set to be full of nice weather again. We’ll see if the storm strikes again.

It's as safe a bet as anything.

thedevariouseffect said:

All in all I think that this weekend was a perfect storm and the park could in no way perfectly predict or prepare this.

We need to dispense with this whole "but how was the park supposed to anticipate this?!?!?!?!?" argument. Again, perhaps the park doesn't regularly see crowds exactly that big, but super busy Saturdays in October have been a reliably-regular thing for the better part of a decade now.

As it decreases, positions get cut, hours dropped, etc. I mean for example it was common for Power Tower on Friday to go down to one leg on each side and cutback a significant part of the crew a bit into the night.

All in the name of saving on staffing. Which is fine, but that door swings both ways. It's fine to send staff home early when the park is dead, but not at the expense of customer experience when the park is busy. If it takes paying people to stand around doing nothing on a rainy Friday evening, so be it. Their bottom line suggests they can afford it.

Plus, the job isn't for everyone. The season involves a ton of hours, more than a full time employee at a normal job at minimum wage or barely above...

You know how they could make that job more appealing?

Even increasing the wage amount would only add a marginal increase to the number of applicants. Lets say that they did increase the nominal wage rate by $1/hour for the Halloweekend's, while this might increase applicants slightly, the issue is the available workforce for them to pull from. The immediate Sandusky area is not overflowing with people, and while the unemployment rate may be high that does not mean those out of work are going to take a 3 day a week job. They are going to be looking for more permanent employment.

I think they would have better luck reinstating the end of season bonus. It would hopefully allow them to keep some of the more experienced employees, however this again runs into the issue of available workforce.

Regarding the food lines, I experienced this on Saturday as my wife demanded a funnel cake at the end of the night. The line was quite long and did move very slowly, but once ordered the food was promptly delivered. This leads me to think that the person running the register was either a very new and inexperienced person, or was one of the temp/charity workers. So while the idea of having charity workers come in to help with staffing is well thought, they do create more of a bottleneck due to not having worked in the position prior to that morning.

Cedar Fair can anticipate general crowd levels, and plan accordingly. They cannot anticipate, months out, what the weather will be like.

If Six Flags Great America came to me and said, "We'll pay you $15 an hour to work weekends in October", I'd turn them down. It wouldn't be worth it to me. And I have the advantage of public transit to get to the park.

If they can assume the weather will be nice enough in October to be open for guests, they can also assume there will be at least 1 or 2 weekends with weather nice enough to draw enormous crowds. And the global weather trend means that nice weather will become the new normal going forward.

And what would convince you or I to work there is not relevant. What is relevant is that there is likely some point at which they'd convince some people to take on some very part time work for a few extra bucks for the holidays (or whatever).

djDaemon said:

To be fair, maybe throwing money at the problem won't solve it, but has the park actually tried that approach? It's hard to reconcile their impressive revenue/profit growth with their inability to solve the staffing issue.

Your question is my point. Many are speaking as if Cedar Point and Cedar Fair are just not trying to fix the problem in some way, and none of us have any clue what has or has not been said, implemented, attempted, etc...That doesn't mean it's not a discussion worth having, it just means that it needs to be acknowledged that (as you said) they have publicly acknowledged the issue is an issue.

I do have one safe assumption to make, though. You know who's even more concerned with this problem than any of us or anyone venting on Facebook?

Jason McClure and Ouimet. And now Zimmerman. And anyone else charged with helping make this problem less of a problem.

It's really, really easy to sit back and assume that there is a culture of "Greeder Point" (very clever) when you have had a bad day. Call me a Cedar Point apologist if you like, but that's an idea I simply can't buy into.

Yes, global warming will make Ohio a weather paradise state after the oceans rise and flood the coasts and make southern areas way too hot to live in comfortably. Just all the people moving north should increase the pool of available workers. :)

Seriously though, there is a lot of discussion going on here about last Saturday and how staffing made everyone supposedly have a bad time. I don't believe it is primarily the staffing, it was the 70,000 people that showed up. No amount of staffing would have made last Saturday a good experience. They certainly need to work on staffing but this thread should really be titled "Crowds at Cedar Point hits nightmarish levels". From my own experience last Sat. the Burrito place in Frontier Town had a tolerable wait and all three of the Freestyle Coke places had quick moving lines and were not a problem. I had zero rides though, wouldn't even think of waiting with those crowds, just had fun in the beautiful weather strolling through the park.