One of America’s top roller coaster destinations might have found the breaking point for coaster fans.
Cedar Point’s Top Thrill 2 debuts to the public this week. A rebuild of the former Top Thrill Dragster, the 120-mph coaster now features three launches and a 420-foot spike to go along with its iconic 420-foot top hat hill. But none of these physical elements are too much for devoted roller coaster fans.
Paying $2 for a locker in order to ride Top Thrill 2, however, just might be.
The Ohio amusement park is enforcing a strict “no loose items” policy for the coaster. The policy is so strict that the park is not allowing guests to bring items onboard even in zippered pockets. Eyeglasses are allowed only if they are tightly secured with a head strap.
But the sister park to Knott’s Berry Farm is not providing free lockers or bins for its guests to stow their items while on the ride. Instead, guests must pay $2 to rent a locker outside the queue for two hours. That policy has enraged many fans, who have gone online to complain that Cedar Point’s decision effectively makes the long-awaited Top Thrill 2 an upcharge ride.
I have no problem with strict no-loose-item policies on thrill rides. I would rather see parks push limits with wild new thrills than to have them neuter rides to keep guests’ packs and purses from flying away. But there’s no excuse for parks not designing free and secure accommodation for guests’ phones, sunglasses and other items while they ride.
Asking people to stuff their items in trackside bins worked when people were not carrying $1,000 phones to the parks. Today, many people do not trust that honor system and want more something more secure. If parks do not trust their guests to keep their phones inside their zippered pockets while on thrill rides, they need to provide some form of free locker system.
Maybe this problem goes away when some park develops a 100% biometric-based admission and in-park payment system, but even then, people will want phones to stay connected with their family and friends while visiting.
As parks become more dependent upon annual and season passes to drive attendance, they are becoming eager to find ways to make up the revenue that they lose when higher percentages of their visitors walk through the gate on passes rather than daily tickets.
Mandatory locker fees are not the place to make back that cash. Whether parks should upcharge for popular new rides is a fair question for another day. But if that is the choice, parks should be honest about it.
Asking people to pay for lockers where they are carrying nothing more than the bare minimum of what is needed to navigate a park these days feels like an insult. And no consumer wants to feel insulted after paying their hard-earned money to a business — especially one, like a theme or amusement park, that is supposed to be selling fun.
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Robert Niles covers the themed entertainment industry as the editor of ThemeParkInsider.com.
