Winter Chill Out Lottery is Live

And yet opening day is consistently very crowded. :)

Jokes aside, the ticket price has gone up year over year, but demand still remains high enough to warrant a lottery system. So it seems that you're in the minority in this community, POW. Assuredly this is the first time that is the case.

^^Yeah my wife and friends said the same thing lol. They shook their heads when I said “yeah and it’s about double what regular admission would cost.” Then I explained that it’s for charity and they got it.

Just to clarify. I'm not against charity or philanthropy. I'm just opposed to making a trip to Cedar Point without the opportunity to ride anything. That is all.

I'm with you. SkyRide not operating, Giant Wheel is bucketless, wheels on backwards on Shteel Vengeance. Not to mention no-heated restrooms. But they do offer free hot chocolate, coffee, donuts, and swag that they can complain about.

I am in the 9:00 group. Looking forward to going😃

I got selected, but the tickets were sold out before I could buy mine. :c

I thought that is what this lottery was intended to avoid. You get the email and have 24 hours to make a purchase

Maybe Skyhawk06 missed that window.

In the past, they gave people who were selected in the lottery 24 hours to buy tickets. If they were not purchased in that window, the tickets went back into the lottery. With those selected also given 24 hours to buy. Process kept being repeated with a smaller number of available tickets each time. Then at some point, the number of tickets available was small enough that the park took a "buy them while they last" approach which meant that people selected didn't necessarily have 24 hours to purchase. In the past, the part did not get to that point this early. But maybe this year they did.

I mean they were sold out an hour after my email was sent.

They were probably sold out 3 minutes after the email was sent.

Which should make everyone happy.

Because kids.

But shouldn’t there be enough tickets for everyone who gets an email?

In the early rounds, I think there is. But once they get to a small number of tickets available, rather than going out to a small number of people and giving them 24 hours to buy, they just reach out to a somewhat larger group and make it first come, first serve.

Looking at the email I received last year:

Although all lottery winners have been chosen, we're happy to let you know that an extremely limited number of tickets have been made available exclusively for the remaining lottery participants.

These tickets are now available for sale on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. There is a limit of 4 tickets per registrant.

Different from the one I received this year:

Congratulations! You’ve been randomly selected to purchase tickets for Cedar Point's 2024 Winter Chill Out event, benefiting A Kid Again. As the representative for your party, your next step is to purchase your group’s tickets using the gift code(s) and link below.

You received the quantity of gift codes to match the amount of Winter Chill Out tickets that you requested during the lottery. Please complete your transaction within 24 hours of receipt of this email. If your transaction is not complete within 24 hours, your held tickets will be released to additional guests from the lottery.

We talked about it last year. At some point, the number of tickets remaining is so small that it doesn't really make sense to make them available for 24 hours and then start the process again for whatever smaller number of tickets remain. No matter how they approach this, someone won't be happy.

The final email that went out clearly explained that there was only so many left. This isn't hard.

Look at it this way. you just saved 90 bucks!

Perhaps someone here on Pointbuzz will end up with one measly extra ticket due to some unforeseen issue. Wouldn't it be real nice if that someone would reach out to Skyhawk06 with an offer for him to purchase your extra ticket, as it seems as though he was really looking forward to attending. Easy for me to suggest as I am not a purchaser, but a kind gesture towards him would be real neat rather than the mean bickering that is often common here. I hope one comes your way Skyhawk06.

Kinda surprised not to see any reports here yet. Sounds like there were issues. Since I didn't go this year, I've been looking for info. Here are some of the differences from last year I've been able to piece together. Let me know if I got any of this wrong.

Pros:

photo op sitting in tt2 car
raffle tt2 ride exit pass
see new skyride paint jobs

Cons:

Q&A reduced in size
no itinerary
no haunted houses
no maverick/sv tours
costume shop may not have been available to some groups due to time
bathroom complaints

Yes, I am puzzled by the lack of reports here too. Were the attendees told not to post? That seems unlikely. In years past I seem to recall multiple posts about this event the same day.

It seems like many photos were posted on social media, but agree that there doesn’t seem to be much information/fun facts to report.

People are probably waiting for the feeling to return to their hands before they are able to type anything about the event. Lived up to its name yesterday.