What is with ALL of the CP hotels closing on Sunday night when the park is still open?

It cost $1,100 per night in the suite? Holy crap!

Nope. That's for 3 nights. I dun messed up my arithmetic. Sorry.

The biggest inconvenience is having to check out sunday morning and not having access to your room all Sunday, which is why you stay on-point to have access to your room while the park IS open.

People that have not stayed on point won't understand the benefits of staying on point and having your room at your disposal.

That is an inconvenience wherever you go, that is not unique to Cedar Point. Yes it sucks, but most hotels are that way, across the nation.

But at almost EVERY hotel across the country, you can book the room for the next day.

The reason for staying on-point even one of the days is to have access to your room while enjoying the park, while the park is open.

You are missing the point of staying on-point.

It is what it is. Not much you can do about it. I have been in the same situation many times during Halloweekends. We usually leave on Sunday about 3 to make the drive and all the work that entails arriving home. We've stayed at Breakers and the campgrounds.

We are camping at Lighthouse point for the event on Friday and then Saturday. Luckily we have better things to do on Sunday since it's Mother's Day. So we have no interest in hanging around past early entry. In years past we have always checked out and went back into the park for 4-5 hours. We have a pop up camper. They don't allow you to stay set up on Sunday past check-out time. I don't know how strict their policy is. I always just follow the rules. But it would be nice to keep the camper up on Sunday if the site isn't rented the next day.

Perhaps they should offer a late check out for these days. For a price obviously. But I'm sure this has been thought of by them. It would be hard to keep the whole resort open for a select few.

Breakers lets you request late check out among other things, but they charge extra. We're doing a late 1pm checkout Saturday after Coastermainia. Maybe they'll spread options like that to all of their properties. I only stayed there once before the remodel, the cost didn't remotely justify the convenience & quality in my mind.

There is a lack of nice hotels, HOWEVER, there is an Econolodge right off of the end of the causeway on RT6/Cleveland Rd that is $70-110 a night depending on the date and it is in better shape than most other places in town. That's my usual spot to stay when I'm out there from the Chicago area. The other Econolodge up on Milan road is in worse shape, just like most everywhere else in town.

There are a few nicer standard hotels, like the best western on the far end of Milan road, but again, I'm there for CP, not to spend big bucks on hotels (with water parks I won't use) that are marginally newer on the inside than a cheaper place up the road. I did notice the Roadway Inn on RT6/Cleveland Rd was being remodeled when we were in town for WCO, that use to by my cheap place to stay up until 3 years ago, but it was getting pretty run down.

XS NightClub said:

But at almost EVERY hotel across the country, you can book the room for the next day.

But almost "EVERY" hotel across the country is open 24/7, not sitting on a peninsula next to an amusement park that is open for just a weekend.

Prawo_Jazdy said:

...that's $1,100 they could have gotten out of us on just one weekend...

The problem is still that there aren't enough guests to make keeping the hotel open an extra night profitable. Cedar Point exists to take as much money out of your wallet as it can. If Cedar Fair had the numbers to indicate they'd make money being open on Sunday, they'd be advertising that, not leaving money on the table.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious, as I was responding to another post about most every other hotel in the country.

Like someone else suggested, maybe they could make one wing of one of the properties available for the extra day.

Opening just a wing still incurs plenty of costs. (And begs the problem, how do they prevent people from wandering around the un-opened wings?) If there was money to be made having any or all of the hotels open an extra night on these weekends, they'd be making the money.

redsfan said:

It is what it is. Not much you can do about it. I have been in the same situation many times during Halloweekends. We usually leave on Sunday about 3 to make the drive and all the work that entails arriving home. We've stayed at Breakers and the campgrounds.

We are camping at Lighthouse point for the event on Friday and then Saturday. Luckily we have better things to do on Sunday since it's Mother's Day. So we have no interest in hanging around past early entry. In years past we have always checked out and went back into the park for 4-5 hours. We have a pop up camper. They don't allow you to stay set up on Sunday past check-out time. I don't know how strict their policy is. I always just follow the rules. But it would be nice to keep the camper up on Sunday if the site isn't rented the next day.

FYI, this Sunday you could stay setup at the campground all day if you wanted, since the park isn't open on Monday. We do it all the time during Halloweekends, the campground office said it was fine. Halloweekends is probably one of my favorite times to camp up there because we're not rushed out on Sunday. We can stay setup and play all day in the park if we want to.

noggin said:

Opening just a wing still incurs plenty of costs. (And begs the problem, how do they prevent people from wandering around the un-opened wings?) If there was money to be made having any or all of the hotels open an extra night on these weekends, they'd be making the money.

The biggest additional cost is baked into the room price, which is housekeeping, and this expense is easy for the company to plan ahead and staff.

Which leaves the additional staffing of the front desk to cover, which doesn't need to be heavily staffed as there is no additional check-ins for them to process and most check-outs are automated, requiring a staff of two persons to cover break periods for each other and handle customer needs. Minimal hours to payout as one employee could easily be a manager on salary.

As far as the wandering around a building full of locked doors, which happens all the time when the hotels are open. This so called problem, could be easily managed at Sandcastle Suites with their 2 wing/3 floor layout. Simply close one wing entirely and lock the two upper floors of the open wing. The already on staff front desk person would be there to monitor the hotel hallways as with any other nightshift of the season.

So, in reality the approximate $300/night cost of a suite would likely cover the costs of the additional payroll for the desk (again, housekeeping is baked into the price, it's how hotels staff housekeeping). Say, a second suites rate would cover the supposed additional maintenance costs for locking unused wing doors and unlocking them the next day and any other additional costs that could be attributed.

As far as stopping people the next day from wondering about the property, the full time year round staff is on Monday-Friday and the park is locked down as with any other evening after closing. In addition, there is extra employees from the seasonal staffing on to do what is scheduled for this "off-week day" period.

Do I think the park knows what its doing by staffing and scheduling? Yes... for the most part. However, it is a large company that is no longer micromanaged (which is a good thing).

This was noted last year when, the pools all closed early with the exception of Hotel Breakers, it was a horrible idea and the new pool services manager assured me it was not done just to save payroll. He said thats how it was in the bookwork he had from prior manager, and was not aware that all the pools were normally open late. He promptly changed that and all the pools were opened until normal operating time of prior years within two day.

Another example would be Surf Lounge operating hours when the new Hotel Breakers opened last year as well. The original scheduled operating hours where oddly short and it closed early no matter how many customers were there. Only staying open one night for a late running game on TV. This was also brought up to the responsible manager and the hours of the lounge also were changed in accordance to customer demand. The original decision here was the management didn't know what customer demand would be and they scheduled minimum payroll hours to cover this as was prior managements requirements (this was a holdover staffing plans from the Kinzel period). Thankfully, management changed the hours and added staffing to maximize profits they DID NOT REALIZE they were losing out on.

Also, smaller note, the fire pits behind Breakers also originally shutoff very early, and was another disappointment, especially when the park closes early in cold May months and the Lounge had closed. Hotel manager came out and turned them back on for us each night and we had quite the large group each night gather around after park closing and enjoying cocktails from our rooms and the cool beach view by the fire. Those hours were also expanded.

The point I'm making here is, the new management does not micromanage the teams as was done in the past. There is holdover payroll planning and some "that's the way we've always done it" mentality that will take some time to work out. And with any customer orientated business, learning what your customers want and listening to them is the key to maximizing your profit potential.

Maybe I'm completely wrong on the additional expenses for opening a wing for a day, and I completely admit that I do not have full knowledge of their planning. However, we have seen just last year the changes that can come about by just speaking to management and having your voice heard.

A lot of talk about Cedar Point having the numbers on Sunday night stays, so they won't open up. It's been what... at least 10 years since they allowed Sunday night stays when they're only open on the weekends? I think it was 2002 the last time I did it, but let's say 10 to be fair. So much has changed in that 10 years, that they cannot have any accurate data on that. Unless they are polling guests. I stay there at least 5 times a year and get nothing more than a simple 10 question "rate us on a scale."

I'm no dataologist, but I'm pretty sure you need some hard data to make that decision. How would they even know that people want a Sunday night stay? When you book a room a date they are closed the next day, the reservation robot tells you your requested dates are not available. Do they log those?

I say it's worth a shot. It's easier to take a Monday off now than it was then.

My opinion is that the folks in charge of stuff like that know what they are doing. If there were enough profits to be made to make it worth having the on property hotels open on a Sunday night when the park is closed Monday, I have no doubt that they would do it.

Keep in mind that it isn't always as easy as "hiring more people" during the times of the season when the park isn't open daily. Often times it is hard enough to staff the place in early May and during HalloWeekends, let alone trying to staff a hotel on a school night.

There are plenty of options within a half hour radius if you don't want to drive all the way home after being in the park either this Sunday or on a HalloWeekends Sunday. Are they as nice and convenient as Breakers? No. But there are options.

Personally I can't imagine there is enough demand to make it worth the time, effort, and cost to keep the hotels open on Sunday nights.

+1 Prawo - I agree very much, times have changed as has management.

And as I pointed out they're very willing to change policies when confronted with guests requests.

It's a good thing, let's be happy for this new direction of the company :)

They are willing to change policies when changing them makes sense. They aren't making changes simply because one, a few, or even a lot of guests tell them to. Changes are made only when it makes practical business sense and they can back that up. Sometimes that falls in line with what guests are saying, sometimes not. Speaking (or complaining) to a manager or someone "in charge" is not going to make any changes, If something you talked to someone about changed, there is an extremely high probability that those in charge were having the conversation long before you brought it to anyones attention.

As for the issue at hand, honestly, I don't see keeping the resorts open on a "closed day" as making sense.

Prawo_Jazdy said:

I'm no dataologist, but I'm pretty sure you need some hard data to make that decision. How would they even know that people want a Sunday night stay?

Because Cedar Fair is a multi-billion dollar company that will always want to increase profits, and they're just not going to leave money on the table. Not being open on Sunday nights is a decision driven by hard data, not speculation.

They're not just looking at responses to questionnaires, they're looking at room occupancy rates in Sandusky hotels on those Sunday nights, they're looking at how many people even check on Sunday night accommodations at Cedar Point's hotels -- they're looking at a lot of data.

noggin said:

Because Cedar Fair is a multi-billion dollar company that will always want to increase profits, and they're just not going to leave money on the table

-No, it's not.
-And, yes it does.
-Someone's analytics are off, rooms are selling at other hotels.

-Cedar Fair barely breaks 1B in revenue and has been seeing yearly increases in the single digits.

-Kalahari, that's a whole lot of revenue on someone else's table. (It's a private company, but the Sandusky location alone has estimated yearly revenue of up to $25M) ,
-according to Booking.com rooms in Sandusky, OH on Sunday, May 8 are more than 34% sold out and rates are likely to rise.

There is your answer right there. 34% occupancy with CP resorts closed? Hardly seems like there would be any reason for them to stay open

That's actually a lot of rooms, which includes put-in bay and surrounding areas which are likely at lower capacity at this time.