Winter Chill Out 2015

If a green train were to come to millennium force that would be awesome haha! As long as they leave my yellow train away im good.

In my tour we heard the red dorms are staying for now, but I believe I recall Matt saying at one point he wanted all dorms off site. Realistically though, they were built in 1901, have to be in much worse shape than the Bon Air section of Breakers, take up a nice chuck of real estate, and that wood must be awfully dry.

I think they will be gone for the 2016 season. They're long overdue for demolition. It's an eyesore to look at.

Another thing I forgot to say here was that on our tour I found out that Point Pavilion is just being renovated, not removed..

Why doesn't Cedar Point provide good employee housing? I am going to be working there for summers soon and I am not concerned about the housing, but it is interesting how it is so bad.

Previous management was hardly concerned with the state of employee housing. It was believed to be more than sufficient.

Current management, however, has a different view. Times are changing. Expect more expansion off-point in modern facilities that treat employees like the human beings they are, not wild animals needing to be caged.

I think CP needs to get out of the employee housing business. More than a few colleges are leasing land to companies who build and technically operate housing on campuses nationally. I would suggest you could eliminate virtually all on-site and near-site housing in favor privately administered facilities.

The obvious issue is that this is a seasonal location. How does a company handle paying for buildings not used for half a year or which need to be empited for employees? I'm not sure how you do that without spending time to consider it but I suspect somebody could and would.

Improve shuttles and service to the park and you could then clear-out the dumpy dorms and such at the causeway entrance, do something else with the land. Maybe off-point parking at long last and shuttle people up the causeway to a limited extent.

I feel that at this point most of the employee housing has paid for itself. The only cost is operating them 6 months out of the year. The location is just fine for the housing, they could spruce up that corner with some landscaping to hide the prison like structures but for the most part its fine. Employee housing doesn't need to be anything special, you just need a bed to sleep in at night. It certainly shouldn't be as bad as the on-point housing but what they have off-point is just fine.

To utilize more space on-point, they should just have ALL employees park off-point and bus them in for work.

I agree that, given the seasonal nature of it, I doubt there's much money in operating dorms as a third-party. I wouldn't want to be in that business. A lot of the hotels can barely make it work.

I don't think CP considers employee housing a profit center, but I'm sure the rent they charge is enough to cover building maintenance throughout the year. Plus, I believe there are a number of seasonals who basically work year round, except for a number of weeks off in the off season to allow them to be classified as seasonal. I believe housing is made available to them also. I can't think of an upside to moving housing further away through contracting with a rental management company to use other facilities. I don't think the new construction they did is bad, I'm sure conditions are much better than at Cedars.

Indeed and a lot of the hotels around CP are....well I'll just say not memorable.

It goes without saying housing isn't a minor thing for CP, being both seasonal and too far from most of their workforce for commuting. There isn't money to be made doing it and yet I suspect somebody out there deals with such things. To my mind it is more about being enough capital to fund new construction or rehabbing what limited apartments could be had for the purpose.

If and when they finally nuke the Cedars they surely won't burn cash for on-point housing, assuming the land isn't slated for use within the park. Unless they expand on existing sites they'll need to find land and build something new anyway. Unless they go another route or determine they don't need to offer it.

They could look at leasing out the lower-end hotels-or just buy a few, squeeze the rooms off the market, drive-up demand, hike their prices (as would others) and impact things that way. Buying would be more logical. Leverage the rooms for housing, sub-contract the management/accountability, and eventually close the hotel down if they build new elsewhere. Improve the hotel market locally.

CP doesn't charge much for housing and has not (until Kinzel left) spent much on employee housing. I remember him saying once that the housing was "good enough for him" therefore money need not be spent. Of course, that was 25-30 years after he actually stayed there.

By comparison my housing was more per week at Disney than what I spent per month at Cedar Point. But, with that I had very nice condominium style housing, resort amenities such as pools, weight room, tennis and volleyball, etc. It was a chunk out of my paycheck but I had no problem paying it because we were living pretty well.

You have a choice: invest in your employees and value them...or do what Kinzel did. To his credit I think Ouimet saw the problem with employee housing immediately on his arrival...and he has been steadily trying to do something about it.

99er said:

I feel that at this point most of the employee housing has paid for itself. The only cost is operating them 6 months out of the year. The location is just fine for the housing, they could spruce up that corner with some landscaping to hide the prison like structures but for the most part its fine. Employee housing doesn't need to be anything special, you just need a bed to sleep in at night. It certainly shouldn't be as bad as the on-point housing but what they have off-point is just fine.

To utilize more space on-point, they should just have ALL employees park off-point and bus them in for work.

Yes, but it must not be all that great to be in a room that is dirty, too hot, too cold, with old appliances, loud, crowded, etc.

coasterblu said:
Yes, but it must not be all that great to be in a room that is dirty, too hot, too cold, with old appliances, loud, crowded, etc.

I never experienced any of that during the years I worked at Cedar Point. I had a heater/ac in my room and I kept the room clean. As long as a fridge keeps my drinks cold and the stove heats up my food, who cares how old it is? Loud and crowded? No more so than what a college dorm is. Are the dorms something comparable to the Ritz? Hell no but like I said, you only need a place to sleep at night when you are working 70/80 hour work weeks all summer. I was happy to have a VERY cheap place to stay while I made some good cash for 4 months out of the year.

Obviously you did not stay in Cedars or Gold. The off Point housing is better....but a lot of kids were living in those two crappy structures.

King's Island is re-theming their Troika ride for 2015. Do you think it's likely Cedar Point will do the same since they are sprucing up the midway? Maybe a new color scheme and a L.E.D. package?

Jordan_Vanichek said:

King's Island is re-theming their Troika ride for 2015. Do you think it's likely Cedar Point will do the same since they are sprucing up the midway? Maybe a new color scheme and a L.E.D. package?

I think they are adding giant Vladmir Putin heads on the front of each car, painting it red and renaming it the Tsar and Back.

myxmastrmike said:

So, forgive me if I missed an explanation about this one but:

"Season Pass Holder preview night, Friday May 8th"

Between the Season Pass Holder preview and the Rougarou first rides auction, does this mean no Ohio State Day this year?

During the Tweet with Tony he mentioned Ohio State day was May 15th when the park is open to the public this year
https://twitter.com/tonyclarkcp/status/570032132107739137

Tony said none of the rides are getting new lighting, but they are getting a new paintjob.

Chief Wahoo said:
Obviously you did not stay in Cedars or Gold. The off Point housing is better....but a lot of kids were living in those two crappy structures.

I actually stayed at Cedars for a couple months my first year. I only moved off point because I didn't want to be that close to work but it wasn't that bad of living conditions. Because of their late opening each year, most of Cedars would always fill up with Internationals anyway. They definitely didn't care about living conditions.