[arby]

2011 season passes for Carowinds are now available on their website at the 'Buy Season Passes' button at the top of their site. The listed prices for Gold passes are about $15 less than normal so if you are looking to purchase passes for next year, now is a good time.

I would suspect they'll have a banner up for that in the next day or two after they announce what's new for 2011.

FYI, these passes are not valid until 2011 (unlike the way most other parks let you finish out the current season) and are also not valid for renewal season passes. They did say that if you purchase your 2011 season pass at the gate they will give you free admission to Carowinds that day for free.

Now I have a dilemma...

[arjaybee]

This is disappointing I was holding off on going to carowinds this year thinking I would get the remainder of 2010 thrown in once the 2011 passes were offered...don't think I'll go at all this year now.

[RiDeWaRrIoR]

This is disappointing I was holding off on going to carowinds this year thinking I would get the remainder of 2010 thrown in once the 2011 passes were offered...don't think I'll go at all this year now.

Yea, you used to be able to do that, but the last few years you cant... they dont let you get your pass made until the beginning of the next season... Sucks I guess... I guess its mainly because scarowinds is free now so if you were to buy an 2011 pass, why would they let you go to 2010 and 2011 scarowinds free... oh well, reneweal is what I do every year because its the price of a junior pass

[arjaybee]

Funny how Cedar Fair gives the rest of 2010 to 2011 pass buyers at Great America but not the other parks...

[Jay]

Great America needs all the help they can get.


IIRC this happened last year, and it was discussed ad nauseam on this very board until it was switched over so the people who bought 2010 passes could still use them the rest of 2009. Does anyone else remember this or am I imagining things....

[arby]

I'm a newbie to this site so I don't remember. We haven't had season passes since 2006 but that's a separate topic... Because of this site and a few friends of ours, we decided to give Carowinds a try again. We even canceled our trip to Atlanta in October to stay here and go to Carowinds instead, but without season passes we are seriously considering going back to our original plan of traveling to Atlanta in October and getting season passes to Six Flags (which allow you to go to all of their parks, btw). We love amusement parks and don't mind traveling to visit them.

I know it's not necessarily a Carowinds decision. I looked around and see that many Cedar Fair parks do the same thing, so yesterday I sent an email complaint to Cedar Fair corporate offices. We'll see what they have to say. I'm just surprised that they don't want my money. As I explained to them in my email, their press release (8/2) mentioned that this year their guests are averaging spending $39.02 inside their parks. It's not costing them any more money to be open the rest of the year, so why wouldn't they want the extra money from a few hundred more people coming? These people are the people who currently don't have season passes so they are the new bodies I would think they are trying to attract anyway and keep coming to spend money inside the parks.

I'll get off my soap box and not go into more marketing and business analysis of what this stand causes.

[Chris]

IIRC this happened last year, and it was discussed ad nauseam on this very board until it was switched over so the people who bought 2010 passes could still use them the rest of 2009. Does anyone else remember this or am I imagining things....

I very much remember this.

[arby]

Well I know some of you don't really care about this thread, so feel free to ignore it. There are some of us out here who do care, though.

After my third email to Cedar Fair corporate offices I finally got a reply that basically said that it is their policy that season passes are only good for the year that they are issued for and not from the time they are issued. They made that policy at the end of 2006 to bring Carowinds in line with the rest of the Cedar Fair parks and have no plans to change it in the future.

We were expecting all along to pay full price for Gold passes to get a trip or two in at the end of this year so we weren't trying to get one over on them. Now I have to figure out what to do. I got a good offer to renew my Dollywood season passes (that I have to dig up now) and I'll have to compare that to Six Flags season passes when the information is available.

Yes I'm difficult and cautious with my money. I'm learning well from Thomas Stanley and Dave Ramsey!

[arby]

By the way, I did hear back from Carowinds a short while ago. Their letter was much more professional than Cedar Fair's - it makes you wonder about who's running the show.

For any of you following this thread, they stand behind their policy of a season pass only being good for the season that is on the pass. With the higher quality and professionalism of their letter, I have to be fair that they did mention that they plan to continue to allow current season passholders a chance to renew their passes at a discounted rate at the end of the season (like the promotion that is going on now). They consider that to be value enough in and of itself.

They just won't budge on the topic of allowing new customers (the hardest people to get from a marketing perspective) to use new season passes for the remainder of the year when they were purchased. I can't fathom that decision from all my experience, but that's the way it is. If I were smart enough, I'd be running Cedar Fair!

[Skycoastin Steve]

It makes more business sense to make people buy two separate season passes for each year. It's all about the money, which sucks for the customer sometimes.

[arby]

It makes more business sense to make people buy two separate season passes for each year. It's all about the money, which sucks for the customer sometimes.

Yeah, I hear you and know exactly where you are coming from.

[arby]

I got over this, by the way, much to the delight of some of you, I'm sure. I'll keep an eye out on their site as I suspect they may get a little more lenient as we get closer to the end of September. We decided to take the full plunge and get platinum passes. I'll be going to visit Cedar Point for the first time since 1987! I bet it's changed a bit since then.