jenrose66
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2005
My family just returned yesterday from a 2 night trip to Cedar Point. Traveling party was myself, DH, and 3 kids DS8, DS5, and DD3. My husband has been wanting to go to Cedar Point so we decided to try something different (and according to him cheaper, more on that later) for this Summer.
I know that Cedar Point is an amusement park and Disney is a theme park, but I'm going to compare them anyway. 1. I just read an article about a guy that used to work for Disney taking some big job with Cedar Fair, and 2. there is a lot of talk on these boards bashing Disney for a variety of things lately, I'm sympathetic to that and after my trip this past February felt a little Disney'd out with all the MDE smart phone nonsense.
So when we arrived at Cedar Point I was impressed with how clean the park and grounds were...straight down to the workers, who were well dressed, not sloppy in appearance at all. Cedar Point also seems to have some type of college program as well, since many of the workers were from other countries, I found that interesting. The flowers were pretty, everything was well kept and no overflowing garbage or trash on the ground. The bathrooms were also very clean.
We stayed onsite at Hotel Breakers. This was a very scenic place, right on the beach. Again, I found the room and grounds to be immaculately clean. The room was very old though. Incredibly. The furniture and carpet (not to mention the tube television) felt almost as old as me and I'm 32...It's not that it hampered the enjoyment of our stay, but for just shy of $300 a night they need to do a major refurb of the entire hotel. I did find all the staff to be very friendly. I would say that the only place that lacked cleanliness was the hotel pools and water park. The kids really wanted to go into the pool so we checked them out and they had algae floating in them and the water was cloudy. We left the pool area and went on the beach instead. There is something wrong with your pool when I'd rather swim in Lake Erie....The wave pool at the water park had the same problem....just gross.
Ok, so finally to the Disney part to keep this semi on topic! Disney has Cedar point beat for young family friendliness hands down...for a variety of reasons...especially for a family of 5. In all of Cedar Point's marketing materials they state how family friendly they are, however, I didn't find that to be the case outside of the dedicated kiddie ride areas. At Disney I'm used to my family being able to share a ride vehicle the majority of the time. This is impossible to do at Cedar Point. Most rides only allow 2 people....plus with the heights of my daughter and younger DS that would mean that DH and I had to be in a ride car with them and my older DS would have to ride alone which he wasn't going to do...at all. So this was a logistics nightmare.
Also, the entire park and beach area has popular music blaring...all the time...you can't escape it...I mean so loud it's impossible to hear anyone talk. I found it off putting. It's loud enough with the rides and people, we don't need music blaring. Turn it down!
They did have a childcare center which was just as nice as Disney. It was great because it was the only place I found in the entire park that is air conditioned. Also, they had actual paper towels in the bathroom. No other bathroom had this. I'm pretty sure they have hand towels in all the bathrooms at Disney. When you have a little kid that is either afraid of the turbo driers, or makes a mess on themselves and you want something more substantial than a napkin, you take them to the bathroom in hopes of a paper towel. By the end of our trip, I was getting really annoyed at the lack of paper towels.
So lets get back to the a/c issue. I know Cedar Point is in Ohio; but Summer is Summer and in Ohio Summer is hot. We were melting and there was no where to cool down. The shops were hot, the bathrooms were hot. I'm assuming the sit down places to eat were air conditioned, but we were already bleeding money so I didn't go inside any of those establishments.
I also noticed that their counter service places did not have kids meals. That made eating expensive.
Finally, DH and I split up at the water park. He took my older son to do some slides and I was with the little kids. At that point my DD decided she was hungry. I had no room key and no money and a crying kid. While that may have been poor planning on my part, how awesome if I would have had my magic band that I could have tapped for some french fries!
I missed Disney this entire trip. They get families. They get families so much that I think sometimes we forget how good they are until we go somewhere that isn't as family friendly. From the little things like plentiful a/c and paper towels in the bathroom, to bigger things, like truly being able to experience rides with a family...Disney can't be beat.
This trip was not cheap. For two nights in their hotel, food, gas to get there and a couple stuffed animals the cost was $1280. Food at Cedar Point was crazy expensive...like a small coffee at Starbucks in the hotel was $4. I found the food prices to be as expensive or more expensive than Disney. I know that a Disney vacation would have been more money, but it would have also been 8 days. I haven't done a complete analysis, but I think Cedar Point and Disney are close to the same price per day if I was to break it down.
I have seriously been considering an offsite trip and trying Universal next time we are in Florida. However, after my experience with Cedar Point, I don't think we will do that. I think, with the more thrilling type rides I would probably be facing the same issue with my family there as I did at Cedar Point.
Family vacations are done best at Disney and going somewhere besides Disney has solidified to me that our family's vacation dollars will be spent at Disney for many years to come.
I know that Cedar Point is an amusement park and Disney is a theme park, but I'm going to compare them anyway. 1. I just read an article about a guy that used to work for Disney taking some big job with Cedar Fair, and 2. there is a lot of talk on these boards bashing Disney for a variety of things lately, I'm sympathetic to that and after my trip this past February felt a little Disney'd out with all the MDE smart phone nonsense.
So when we arrived at Cedar Point I was impressed with how clean the park and grounds were...straight down to the workers, who were well dressed, not sloppy in appearance at all. Cedar Point also seems to have some type of college program as well, since many of the workers were from other countries, I found that interesting. The flowers were pretty, everything was well kept and no overflowing garbage or trash on the ground. The bathrooms were also very clean.
We stayed onsite at Hotel Breakers. This was a very scenic place, right on the beach. Again, I found the room and grounds to be immaculately clean. The room was very old though. Incredibly. The furniture and carpet (not to mention the tube television) felt almost as old as me and I'm 32...It's not that it hampered the enjoyment of our stay, but for just shy of $300 a night they need to do a major refurb of the entire hotel. I did find all the staff to be very friendly. I would say that the only place that lacked cleanliness was the hotel pools and water park. The kids really wanted to go into the pool so we checked them out and they had algae floating in them and the water was cloudy. We left the pool area and went on the beach instead. There is something wrong with your pool when I'd rather swim in Lake Erie....The wave pool at the water park had the same problem....just gross.
Ok, so finally to the Disney part to keep this semi on topic! Disney has Cedar point beat for young family friendliness hands down...for a variety of reasons...especially for a family of 5. In all of Cedar Point's marketing materials they state how family friendly they are, however, I didn't find that to be the case outside of the dedicated kiddie ride areas. At Disney I'm used to my family being able to share a ride vehicle the majority of the time. This is impossible to do at Cedar Point. Most rides only allow 2 people....plus with the heights of my daughter and younger DS that would mean that DH and I had to be in a ride car with them and my older DS would have to ride alone which he wasn't going to do...at all. So this was a logistics nightmare.
Also, the entire park and beach area has popular music blaring...all the time...you can't escape it...I mean so loud it's impossible to hear anyone talk. I found it off putting. It's loud enough with the rides and people, we don't need music blaring. Turn it down!
They did have a childcare center which was just as nice as Disney. It was great because it was the only place I found in the entire park that is air conditioned. Also, they had actual paper towels in the bathroom. No other bathroom had this. I'm pretty sure they have hand towels in all the bathrooms at Disney. When you have a little kid that is either afraid of the turbo driers, or makes a mess on themselves and you want something more substantial than a napkin, you take them to the bathroom in hopes of a paper towel. By the end of our trip, I was getting really annoyed at the lack of paper towels.
So lets get back to the a/c issue. I know Cedar Point is in Ohio; but Summer is Summer and in Ohio Summer is hot. We were melting and there was no where to cool down. The shops were hot, the bathrooms were hot. I'm assuming the sit down places to eat were air conditioned, but we were already bleeding money so I didn't go inside any of those establishments.
I also noticed that their counter service places did not have kids meals. That made eating expensive.
Finally, DH and I split up at the water park. He took my older son to do some slides and I was with the little kids. At that point my DD decided she was hungry. I had no room key and no money and a crying kid. While that may have been poor planning on my part, how awesome if I would have had my magic band that I could have tapped for some french fries!
I missed Disney this entire trip. They get families. They get families so much that I think sometimes we forget how good they are until we go somewhere that isn't as family friendly. From the little things like plentiful a/c and paper towels in the bathroom, to bigger things, like truly being able to experience rides with a family...Disney can't be beat.
This trip was not cheap. For two nights in their hotel, food, gas to get there and a couple stuffed animals the cost was $1280. Food at Cedar Point was crazy expensive...like a small coffee at Starbucks in the hotel was $4. I found the food prices to be as expensive or more expensive than Disney. I know that a Disney vacation would have been more money, but it would have also been 8 days. I haven't done a complete analysis, but I think Cedar Point and Disney are close to the same price per day if I was to break it down.
I have seriously been considering an offsite trip and trying Universal next time we are in Florida. However, after my experience with Cedar Point, I don't think we will do that. I think, with the more thrilling type rides I would probably be facing the same issue with my family there as I did at Cedar Point.
Family vacations are done best at Disney and going somewhere besides Disney has solidified to me that our family's vacation dollars will be spent at Disney for many years to come.
My DH did make his way onto the Millennium Force though...
