Water Main

Never posted here before, but..

Thanks Pete for the info. Was at Cedar Point for the first time in 16 years. Arrived Saturday at about 9pm and was worried we wouldn't get to do much of anything. Your updates were quite helpful in figuring out what was up.

Having said that, while I had a blast at the park, what Harmony is saying I sort of get. What he didn't say was that for guests staying at Breakers, like we were too, there was nothing offered in any way. We were told that our Saturday reservation was canceled and we would need to find our own off property hotel. We inquired about the next day and were told we would need to come back to find out. When we did, not just did it take nearly an hour to wait in line / talk to them, we were told that we could get put up in Breakers Express for full price with no other compensation.

We wanted to stay at Breakers because me and my buddy wanted to do work for our small in between coasters and be able to walk there and hang out. On Saturday night, we found a hotel nearly an hour away with a decent price and rating (and it was terrible) and we didn't get in until 2am. We didn't get back to the park the next morning until 11am. We couldn't drop onto the beach to do the stuff we wanted to.

I understand that it isn't Cedar Point's fault in any way, but for them to offer to people absolutely nothing for the inconvenience seemed weird. I explained the situation, and we got two pair of Fast Lane Plus passes which was nice, but if I was in charge, everyone who was staying there would have received a percent off a future stay coupon. The hotel looked great from the two hours I was there, but with the possibility of it closing it didn't serve our needs and I wouldn't stay there again.

The park itself was great and we got to ride everything we wanted to and had the chance to ride things multiple times and did for Valravn, Dragster and Gatekeeper.

Overall, we made it work, but there is a reason that people at the hotels on property have to be disappointed.

Welcome aboard GoatDan. it's such business decisions that can encourage guests to seek other entertainment for their next trip. It would seem a water tower project is currently underway to supplement such, now reoccurring, incidents. CP lost money and was also dealt a crappy hand. In business, customer service sometimes falls behind that ever important EBITA figure.

Boy, it's interesting seeing people here say they got no compensation, because I remember a few years ago, we stayed at Castaway Bay, one of the rooms smelled like cigarette smoke, and they gave us a free room for our next visit, which we used for a Halloweekends visit.

And that's nowhere near as serious as a water main break.

I'd say the pair of fast lane plus passes were good compensation.

The hotel was likely sold out on Sunday which is why they couldn't promise a night on Sunday.

The park refunded your room and gave you FL+ passes. Not much else they really could give you.

Yeah, the "oh well here is a list of area hotels, good luck" thing just sucked. I was surprised that the people in Breakers were for the most part so calm and understanding.

Full disclosure, I used to work in upper management in a different but similar themed entertainment venue. I also own a small amount of Cedar Fair stock. Both the operator in me and the stockholder was disappointed that they didn't do something for the guests until you basically begged, and while two front of the line passes were nice, it will definitely make us think twice before trying to stay there again.

Having said that, because I think about this sort of thing, the closing and "evacuation" of Breakers on Saturday night cost the company a minimum of $153k in revenue as it was sold out. (511 rooms multipled by $300 average guest night - which is low, only the king rooms were lower than that and there isn't many.) That also doesn't take into account employees that had to be paid as they still needed to flip the entire hotel for the next available check in time - which would be tonight. Monday the hotel was not sold out, but I would figure minimally another $50k in revenue. Since they also lost Sandcastle, I would estimate the two day revenue impact to be at least $400k.

The park luckily for them this time was relatively unaffected. The hour early close wouldn't have lost much.

I'm actually surprised that the water break wasn't more acknowledged in their stock price today.

Finally, like I said, it was what it was and we made the best of it and still had a great time. We left a day early, which made me more or less break even for my Platinum Pass for the year (managed to also visit Kings Island and Carowinds). I've never really been impressed by Cedar Point before, but everything seemed cleaner, brighter, and better than before. Seeing the lake beside Gatekeeper is particularly awesome, and although I may have been the only one to really love all the rides from that area of the park that are gone (Disaster Transport was seriously my favorite ride last time, and I do feel like the park is really missing a good observation deck to enjoy the views now... And Demon Drop was way scarier than Power Tower is...), Gatekeeper more than makes up for it and truly makes the entrance extremely dramatic. I'm excited for what the future brings! (Even if my ride on Mean Streak wasn't painful at all, just rather dull!)

bgiese said:
I'd say the pair of fast lane plus passes were good compensation.

The hotel was likely sold out on Sunday which is why they couldn't promise a night on Sunday.

The park refunded your room and gave you FL+ passes. Not much else they really could give you.

The hotel was *not* sold out on Sunday. Don't know if you missed that I said it, but they told us to physically go there to check a second time. Between losing out on about four hours of park time (hour and a half the night before, hour the next morning due to the late late late drive we weren't supposed to do, and hour of waiting and talking at Breakers again on Sunday, it just seemed like the Fastlane tickets should have been automatic, not something we had to ask for after all that time. We used them on Valravn and saved about two hours, so we were still down two and a half hours of time. Like I said, lines weren't long and we were just making the best of it, so it's not a big deal, but it's not how I would have handled it.

On Sunday they did offer us a room at Breakers Express, but for the full price of Breakers Express, no discount of any type. Again, just seemed weird that they didn't give us a room for a better deal.

Ultimately, we rode everything we were hoping to and drove an hour and a half home last night before sleeping. Got a very nice hotel for half the cost of our offered Breakers Express room. Didn't visit the park this morning, but it is what it is. I'm not angry myself, I roll with the punches and had a blast, but I also know that next time we want to do a trip to talk business with a hotel right in the middle of the action of whatever fun stuff we do in between, I don't think we will have any incentive to do Breakers, and that's too bad considering it looked like a great place.

Goatdan said:

On Sunday they did offer us a room at Breakers Express, but for the full price of Breakers Express, no discount of any type. Again, just seemed weird that they didn't give us a room for a better deal.

It's easy to sit in judgement with the benefit of hindsight; Cedar Point was responding to a serious threat to the health of guests in real time. Should they have done this or that? Sure. Does this or that occur to members of senior management when they're focused on getting tens of thousands of guests out of a resort that doesn't have functioning restrooms? Maybe not.

And ... sorry ... but why should you get a discount at Breakers Express when you're enjoying the full benefit of the hotel? One year when I stayed at Breakers, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. The hotel was evacuated. It never occurred to me to expect some type of compensation.

So, Goatdan, are you saying you will never stay at Breakers now because of a water main break, something completely out of the control of Cedar Point, or because they didn't give you a free room?

noggin said:

It's easy to sit in judgement with the benefit of hindsight; Cedar Point was responding to a serious threat to the health of guests in real time. Should they have done this or that? Sure. Does this or that occur to members of senior management when they're focused on getting tens of thousands of guests out of a resort that doesn't have functioning restrooms? Maybe not.

Oi. Seems like I typed too much. This was Sunday during the day. They had about 13 hours to decide how they were going to respond. And the restrooms functioned, only the fire suppression system did not. On top of that, Breakers has 511 rooms. There was no "tens of thousands" of people they were evacuating.

A proactive response would have been for them to call us to tell us what was going on so we didn't have to waste an hour a second day at the hotel talking to them, and then offering something for the inconvenience to try to re-earn the guests business.

And ... sorry ... but why should you get a discount at Breakers Express when you're enjoying the full benefit of the hotel? One year when I stayed at Breakers, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night. The hotel was evacuated. It never occurred to me to expect some type of compensation.

First off, yeah, we would have got the total benefit of Breakers Express, but the majority of that didn't matter to us or we would have picked Breakers Express to begin with. We were hoping for a room where we could walk directly from the park to our room to do some work and then return to the park to play. We wanted to be able to have our laptops plugged in but accessible during the day if we wanted to sit down outside the room to talk about something.

Breakers Express couldn't provide an answer to either one of those problems.

Neither Breakers or Breakers Express was sold out last night, so clearly the people staying at Breakers picked it for the benefits they felt staying there even at a higher price gave them.

To offer nothing to the guest at all automatically, even though the situation wasn't their fault seemed odd.

I wasn't there, but again did a similar job in a high position once upon a time. Offhand, for Sunday (not Saturday, which I get the chaotic response to), I would have...

1) Proactively called all guests to tell them what was going on before they arrived. Having to go back a second day was a giant waste of time.
2) For Breakers Express offer a decent discount to anyone who wanted to stay there - maybe $20 off - understanding that wasn't anyone's first choice.
3) Call a couple local hotels you're friendly with and ask for a discount rate for the guests you're transferring to them. Hell, if you're smart, ask the hotel for a rebate for each room you send their way (that means the hotel pays you some for the booking). Offer these to guests as another option. It doesn't cost you anything and you actually stand to gain from it.
4) Any hotel your people end up booking for you, give that guest a voucher for early entry the next day, regardless of if it is Breakers Express of not.
5) Any guest who ends up in the lobby of Breakers for the issue, automatically give their group one Fastlane Plus single use pass. They spent time going there, recognize that.

The above costs you a minor amount of money at Breakers Express, but is otherwise free to do. It does not cost Cedar Point to allow additional early access for displaced guests, nor would it cost anything for some extra Fastlane passes. By proactively calling, the majority of people wouldn't collect the passes anyway.

Again, I was just surprised. For the company to take a seemingly hard "nothing extra, no discounts!" line was not what I was expecting. We made it work. I would have done it differently, and my minor stake in the company wishes that they would have too.

PyroKinesis09 said:
So, Goatdan, are you saying you will never stay at Breakers now because of a water main break, something completely out of the control of Cedar Point, or because they didn't give you a free room?

You guys are funny. Okay, I guess I'll bite on this one and then probably give up explaining it as I know many on here think they can do no wrong...

I am saying that I doubt we'd ever use Breakers again because the benefits that we were looking to receive by booking the room were taken away by the situation so it wasn't what we expected. By not giving us any compensation (and again, my suggestion is a *discount* off a future stay, not a free room like you're suggesting), if we are looking to do something similar, why would we risk using a place that could have an issue again?

Put it this way - you booked a cruise, and the day you're supposed to leave they say there is a problem with the boat that is outside their control and now you're not going to go, but it's okay, they will refund your money in whole. The next time you decide to go on a cruise, would you pick the same company? Most people would choose another company unless they were given something, like a coupon, to retry the first place.

Maybe I'm just crazy and should have settled for another room that wasn't what we wanted or were looking for at full price to make people on here happy. :-)

Breakers Express is much cheaper than a room at Breakers, why would they not charge full price? You were refunded the room charge and given fast lane plus bands, the room credit is a given but the FL+ bands were a bonus. I'd say they went above what is expected or routine.

Goatdan said:

1) Proactively called all guests to tell them what was going on before they arrived. Having to go back a second day was a giant waste of time.
...
3) Call a couple local hotels you're friendly with and ask for a discount rate for the guests you're transferring to them. Hell, if you're smart, ask the hotel for a rebate for each room you send their way (that means the hotel pays you some for the booking). Offer these to guests as another option. It doesn't cost you anything and you actually stand to gain from it.

So, I generally agree with where you're coming from. It's odd that there was no discount, even $10 or whatever, for guests that were inconvenienced.

That said, your other expectations are a little out of touch I think. Let's look at item 1 in your list. There are 698 rooms between Breakers and Sandcastle. Because this is the peak season, let's assume 90% occupancy, or 628 rooms. How long do you think it would take to call each of those rooms? Let's assume an average of 7 minutes. Some will be shorter, though some will certainly be longer as guests berate the staff. The total phone time would end up at more than 73 man-hours. The park would need to dedicate 10 employees to work a full 8 hours, just to make these calls. And those 10 employees would have to abandon their other responsibilities (unless Guest Services/Hotel Operations keeps clones on ice for just such an emergency), which I'm guessing would not have gone unnoticed by both their fellow employees and guests.

So, even if they could somehow throw 10 employees at that task, they couldn't rightfully call anyone before, say, 9AM. They wouldn't finish making those calls until 5:00PM, assuming these employees skipped lunch.

Regarding item 3, are you aware that this is literally the peak season for Sandusky hotels? Why on Earth would ANY hotel in the area pay CP for bookings? That's absolutely, utterly ludicrous. The hotels in Sandusky are making plenty of money at or near capacity (and without offering discounted rates), so paying CP to send their tired and annoyed displaced guests is a lose-lose for them.

On the contrary, CP would almost certainly have to pay them for a discounted room. I mean, you had to travel nearly an hour away to find a room. That's a pretty strong indicator that the hotels in the area were not hurting for guests.

Goatdan said:

The next time you decide to go on a cruise, would you pick the same company? Most people would choose another company unless they were given something, like a coupon, to retry the first place.

Maybe I'm just crazy and should have settled for another room that wasn't what we wanted or were looking for at full price to make people on here happy. :-)

I'd try the same cruise company. Why would I hold a company responsible for something beyond its control? You got your money back for the cancelled night and, apparently, held up the line, forcing the people behind you to wait even longer, until you got Fast Lane passes. If you won't stay at Breakers because there might be an "issue" again, well, how will you ever find a hotel in the future? How can you know that Motel 6 or Days Inn or Holiday Inn won't have an issue that forces them to cancel your reservation?

Breakers may have only 511 rooms, but perhaps you don't realize that there's another hotel on the peninsula or that there were guests in the park. And it's easy to say they had 13 hours to develop a response when you're tapping away at a keyboard days after the issue; not so easy when you're in the midst of a rapidly developing crisis.

The above costs you a minor amount of money at Breakers Express, but is otherwise free to do.

Um, if it costs money, minor or not, then it's not free to do.

Maybe this cruise company can dock a handful of ships at the marina to help accommodate Cedar Point's tens of thousands of hotels guests during future evacuations.

I agree the water main break was not the park's fault. However, no matter what the circumstance or who's "fault" it was, when you pay for a service and do not receive that service, refunds should be offered. No one should have had to ask. This should have been automatic. They had an employee coming to each room asking the guest to leave. Management should have ensured this employee had a piece of paper explaining how to proceed with receiving a refund for the hotel stay and any unused portion of a multi-day pass. This would have avoided a lot (not all) of the confusion and frustration of the affected guests. In addition, this would have given the official park response to the situation and would have taken the situation out of the "low-level management" employees hands.

This is not Cedar Point's first rodeo with this situation and crisis preparedness and response is a responsibility of management regardless of who or what created the crisis.

JUnderhill said:
Breakers Express is much cheaper than a room at Breakers, why would they not charge full price? You were refunded the room charge and given fast lane plus bands, the room credit is a given but the FL+ bands were a bonus. I'd say they went above what is expected or routine.

Was not given Fast Lane bands. Was given four single use passes, two for each of us.

CPJim is right on:

If CP doesn't want it's hotels to be seen as the Motel 6s or HoJos like they used to be, and sandcastle & express still are, then they should treat their guests as if they're staying at a Starwood Hotel (which would never treat guests in this manner).

Before smart*** reply comments; look to see who used to run Starwood Resorts.

djDaemon said:

So, I generally agree with where you're coming from. It's odd that there was no discount, even $10 or whatever, for guests that were inconvenienced.

Like I said, it just seems like something should have been automatic. The single use Fastlane things we got should have been automatic. Wouldn't have cost the park a dime.

That said, your other expectations are a little out of touch I think. Let's look at item 1 in your list. There are 698 rooms between Breakers and Sandcastle. Because this is the peak season, let's assume 90% occupancy, or 628 rooms. How long do you think it would take to call each of those rooms? Let's assume an average of 7 minutes. Some will be shorter, though some will certainly be longer as guests berate the staff. The total phone time would end up at more than 73 man-hours. The park would need to dedicate 10 employees to work a full 8 hours, just to make these calls. And those 10 employees would have to abandon their other responsibilities (unless Guest Services/Hotel Operations keeps clones on ice for just such an emergency), which I'm guessing would not have gone unnoticed by both their fellow employees and guests.

Ah, but here's the thing... First, I'm talking about on Sunday after the break was known. They knew they weren't opening at the hotel, but no where else.

They would have already had all the people scheduled to handle guest check out. They should have started calling. For each 7 minute phone call you do, you save that guest what was nearly an hour to go to Breakers, and the 7 minutes to talk to someone in person so it's a wash. We didn't go there until about 3pm, and it floored me they apparently knew all day they weren't opening but were having people go there.

Regarding item 3, are you aware that this is literally the peak season for Sandusky hotels? Why on Earth would ANY hotel in the area pay CP for bookings? That's absolutely, utterly ludicrous. The hotels in Sandusky are making plenty of money at or near capacity (and without offering discounted rates), so paying CP to send their tired and annoyed displaced guests is a lose-lose for them.

Again, this was my suggestion for Sunday night, not Saturday. Hotels were no where near 90 percent capacity that night. Even if they were, every additional room sale is gravy. To ensure they sell out the rooms, this is exactly what they do. I work with hotels quite closely in some of the things that I do, and believe it or not, this is standard operating procedure. It's also how sites like Hotels.com and whatnot make their money - the hotel pays the company for filling the room.

On the contrary, CP would almost certainly have to pay them for a discounted room. I mean, you had to travel nearly an hour away to find a room. That's a pretty strong indicator that the hotels in the area were not hurting for guests.

Again, Saturday versus Sunday night here. I get Saturday night, although again offering zero compensation for the trouble was weird. Like i said, the single use, Fast Lane pass (not bands) should have just been a "hey, if you still want to come tomorrow, here is one pass because of the trouble. Sorry about that!" would have gone a long way.

XS NightClub said:
CPJim is right on:

If CP doesn't want it's hotels to be seen as the Motel 6s or HoJos like they used to be, and sandcastle & express still are, then they should treat their guests as if they're staying at a Starwood Hotel (which would never treat guests in this manner).

Before smart*** reply comments; look to see who used to run Starwood Resorts.

Exactly. I sort of get the cluster on Saturday, but to have that continue on Sunday was what surprised me. I should have known that commenting on a fan site would have received a lot of fan type reactions and not ones used to the world of handling stuff like this.

I know that I'm just a dude on a keyboard and could totally be lying, but I used to work in themed entertainment, I currently work directly with multiple hotels, and am a shareholder of Cedar Fair.

From all three standpoints, their response fell short of what I expected. If that's impossible for people to accept as an opinion, cool.

Goatdan: A well written letter to Mr. Ouimet personally regarding this may go a long way to not only address your specific concerns, but also to help him understand how this was handled so poorly.

This will allow upper management to see where the mid-management failed and can be corrected for future crisis response.