Water Main

Goatdan said:

Again, this was my suggestion for Sunday night, not Saturday. Hotels were no where near 90 percent capacity that night.

According to whom?

You keep suggesting that there's some enormous difference in occupancy between Saturday and Sunday. That doesn't seem to be the case, considering the market and time of year. Anecdotally, there are only 7 rooms left at LaQuinta Sandusky for next Sunday, and we're almost a week out at this point.

The point is, hotels in Sandusky aren't hurting for guests this time of year. I don't see any motivation for a hotel to pay CP for the "privilege" of hosting their displaced guests.

It's also how sites like Hotels.com and whatnot make their money - the hotel pays the company for filling the room.

Yeah, in exchange for advertising. Also, buying through Hotels.com (or wherever) doesn't get you the lowest price. You're paying the room rate plus whatever fee the hotel pays to the advertiser.

djDaemon said:

According to whom?

You keep suggesting that there's some enormous difference in occupancy between Saturday and Sunday. That doesn't seem to be the case, considering the market and time of year. Anecdotally, there are only 7 rooms left at LaQuinta Sandusky for next Sunday, and we're almost a week out at this point.

The point is, hotels in Sandusky aren't hurting for guests this time of year. I don't see any motivation for a hotel to pay CP for the "privilege" of hosting their displaced guests.

...

Yeah, in exchange for advertising. Also, buying through Hotels.com (or wherever) doesn't get you the lowest price. You're paying the room rate plus whatever fee the hotel pays to the advertiser.

Sorry, I forgot how much more people on here know about how the hotel industry works than I do.

From other markets, hotels advertise their lowest price through the third party Web sites - those contracts often cause that, which is why the majority of sites have the identical prices. If you call directly you can sometimes get a lower price, but that is usually limited to independent places who control their own booking prices.

In the case of Cedar Point sending guests directly to them, they would get paid due to the same advertising thing they are doing with the other sites. It's standard for the industry to do stuff like this with groups that deliver the guests directly to the hotel, although I guess not in Sandusky. For most hotels, the difference between 90 percent capacity and 100 percent capacity is complete profit, as they have to have the same amount of people there one way or another. If you sell those last 30 rooms at $100 the night of, it's a free $3k. Hotels that I guess aren't located in Sandusky are often willing to say hey, if you fill these 30 rooms, we'll give you $300. The hotel still makes $2700 of pure profit. It's a good deal for them. Sandusky area hotels should think about it.

Since the price isn't advertised, the hotels can make it a better price and give whomever is sending the guests a kick back.

I think I'll take up the suggestion that XS had. Considering a lot of this information I know of comes directly from the Sheraton brand of hotels I work with, it might just work...

Goatdan said:
Sorry, I forgot how much more people on here know about how the hotel industry works than I do.

If you call directly you can sometimes get a lower price, but that is usually limited to independent places who control their own booking prices.

Yeah, that's just not true.

In the span of about 90 seconds, I was able to find rooms at 2 hotels in Sandusky - direct from their site, no phone call needed - for significantly cheaper than through Hotels.com. And these aren't "independent places" either, one of them being a Marriott brand hotel.

For most hotels, the difference between 90 percent capacity and 100 percent capacity is complete profit, as they have to have the same amount of people there one way or another. If you sell those last 30 rooms at $100 the night of, it's a free $3k.

On what planet does it require zero man-hours to clean an additional 30 rooms? And even worse, guests coming from Breakers would almost universally be one night guests, and one night guests have literally the lowest profit margin possible.

But again, this is all beside the point. I agree that the park could have responded better. But just because you work "with" hotels doesn't mean your suggestions for improvement make any sense.

Goatdan said:

TL:DR

The park is operating a multimillion dollar high quality resort with a professional management team, and responded to a scenario noone could ever plan for or have a contingency for. They made sure to take care of things as best they could in the quickest way possible I'm sure. Complaining here doesn't solve it. Talk with guest services or the hotel for a grievance, but free FL+ and other things given that the park had to deal with regarding this break, they handled this as best they could, and tons better than the break in 2014.

GoatDan, I feel for you man... Apparently the experts of the internets know way more than veterans of any said industry.

Best of luck with contacting upper management, they are usually very responsive from CP and would most definitely appreciate hearing from someone in the industry on how their response came across from the guest side.

The trouble with internet discussion groups is that such a small sample size of people mention that they had a less than an ideal experience that you really can't judge how well the hotel did. Perhaps the majority (or not) of guests had no problem with how the situation was handled. There is really no way to reach a conclusion of the overall handling of the event by one or two people sharing their experience.

Djdaemon, no this was not my first trip to an amusement park, I've gone to cedar point almost every year since I was a kid. I was upset and frustrated with my friend, what I didn't say on here was she was the one that wanted to leave because it was the parks fault she couldn't fit on anything. It upset me a great deal, but it still was a not a very good experience with several staff, i was not rude until guest services acted like they didn't care. Yes I was upset that I had reserved a room at motel 6 for $89 but changed it to breakers express and paid $199 so we could have early entry. That's a lot of money to waste for a crappy room that wasn't even clean. (I do not have the luxurythe to go to the park regularly as it's 6 hours away and I do not have a car, so I have to rent a car, which gets pricey, so every penny counts for me). Considering there was a water main break in 2014 they should have had a better plan in place. I was not the only upset guest. I also felt I paid for dining and drinks and there was a lot not open. I realize they could not control this but they can let guests be more informed before entering the park, Yes these services are important to me because I cannot walk a lot, I have a hip injury that makes it difficult to get around. I have to walk a little at a time and sit down. This makes it pretty hard when most of the stands are closed for drinks and food. Sure most people probably wouldn't care, but until you have a disability that limits you, you cannot imagine how hard it can be. I just wanted to have the knowledge before entering the park. I did not want to leave, in fact I was in tears walking out. That decision was made by my friend who kept comparing everything to Disney and universal. All I wanted was an employee who was nice and possibly just refund our drink and dining but that just wasn't going to happen. They offered to downgrade my friends ticket to a junior ticket which just made her more irate. Please don't judge me because I said she's going to be a former friend, you have no idea how she acted because the park did not have extensions on the seat belts, my husband and I were mortified that she was blaming the park because she was too large to ride anything. Everything that combined together did make for a less than pleasant experience and I wanted someone in management to know all that happened, but what I was told was that they were too busy running the park for me, which meant I'm not really valued as a guest.

I did apologize to Pete, I was not even talking about him in my reply. And yes I do realize Kings Island does not open everything in the morning, but that's something I know and plan accordingly, I've never had this at Cedar Point and that was only one small thing that happened, it was a lot of small things that added up to one bad experience. I'm really not sure why I've been made out on here to look like a bad person and actually i rarely post on here because I have seen some people really come down on others but I was frustrated with such a poor experience. If the admin on here thinks I have crossed the line then I will leave but I honestly feel like words online can be misinterpreted so much, which is why I did apologize, please show me the same respect and not get rude with me.

I really don't understand why people have to argue with everything someone says on here, goatman has made some very good points. I'm just as much a fan of the park as everyone else on here. I thought this was a place to come and talk about our experiences and discuss things, but after reading this entire thread it seems like some people just want to dispute anything anyone else says that may be negative towards the park. I worked with the public almost my entire life and in the travel industry which is why I was so disappointed in how the park handled this. I guess if you want to bash me go for it but like I've previously said there were a lot of upset people this weekend, it wasn't just me.

thedevariouseffect said:

The park is operating a multimillion dollar high quality resort with a professional management team, and responded to a scenario noone could ever plan for or have a contingency for. They made sure to take care of things as best they could in the quickest way possible I'm sure. Complaining here doesn't solve it. Talk with guest services or the hotel for a grievance, but free FL+ and other things given that the park had to deal with regarding this break, they handled this as best they could, and tons better than the break in 2014.

I don't know why you'd reply if you didn't read what I wrote, but okay. My short reply to that is simply that for a scenario that "noone could ever plan for or have a contingency for", the fact the same basic thing happened in 2014 makes me feel like they probably should have been able to dream this one up.

XS NightClub said:

GoatDan, I feel for you man... Apparently the experts of the internets know way more than veterans of any said industry.

It's all good. Like I said, I should have known - there were multiple enthusiast boards in my last industry, and I avoided them because once you know the behind-the-scenes of an industry, it's only amusing to have people who aren't involved "correct" you when you explain how things work for so long. I was just thinking of sharing my experience from being on the other side of the desk in how the people saying that this wasn't handled that well were correct.

Best of luck with contacting upper management, they are usually very responsive from CP and would most definitely appreciate hearing from someone in the industry on how their response came across from the guest side.

Thanks, and yeah. If I can route it properly, it would be nice to make a difference. What I think people who love the park don't understand is that I also love the park even though I haven't been there in ages, but my past involvement makes me hyper-aware of certain things that can be improved.

harmony29 said:

I really don't understand why people have to argue with everything someone says on here, goatman has made some very good points. I'm just as much a fan of the park as everyone else on here. I thought this was a place to come and talk about our experiences and discuss things, but after reading this entire thread it seems like some people just want to dispute anything anyone else says that may be negative towards the park. I worked with the public almost my entire life and in the travel industry which is why I was so disappointed in how the park handled this. I guess if you want to bash me go for it but like I've previously said there were a lot of upset people this weekend, it wasn't just me.

You're the reason I hopped on, to try to explain it further because I thought people were being unfair, but like I said, it's a Cedar Point fan site, so a lot of people who adore everything the park does do not want to admit that in this particular case, the park's response was not great.

Like I said a while ago but was apparently lost on a lot of people,we made the best of it. I was not unfriendly to any employees, I had a couple very nice conversations with them, including some of the upper people at Breakers and did share my thoughts with them. I explained our situation of it completely changing how we could handle our business that we wanted to do at the park, and how we spent more than four hours dealing with it, and got a small compensation for that. At no point did I yell, demand, swear, or anything like that.

I've been on the other side of the desk, and I know how it can feel to have that done. And there was a lot of people around me doing that. I joked with our person they should take off their name tag for the rest of the day. It sucked for everyone.

And, no matter how awesome Valravn is, their response for it could have been better.

With all due respect, Goatdan, do you really expect the park to have a perfect response ready for each and every possible scenario? What should their immediate response be if the park is invaded by Giraffes or Unicorns?

What's the word on the new water tower? Fully painted yet?

Thank you goatdan I appreciate your words. I'm actually a really sensitive person so I hate people questioning my sincerity, I have nothing to gain by lying about what happened, as I said I love this park and always will which made what happened this weekend heartbreaking.

CPboy77 said:

What's the word on the new water tower? Fully painted yet?

When I was there Sunday, looks like the first coat was done but far from a finished product.