Prestige Lounge Replacing Country Kitchen

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I would be willing to bet a years worth of monthly parkfan donations that people ruin it. What I'm not sure of is which type of ruining party we get....
  • Karen/Ken and their spoiled children?
  • The person who uses this as a way to avoid paying for park food?
  • The "work from KD" type? 😉
  • The person who tries to save a few for later in the week?
  • "Well there isn't a sign or limit written anywhere so I'm taking what I want."
  • One person has the pass and grabs all the snacks for non-prestige friends.
If only we could get this data and sell squares 🤣
 
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Blauer said:
People eat 50 plus times a year on the meal plan. They abuse that. They will probably abuse the chips.
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Regularly using the meal plan isn't abuse. The park has actually shared blog posts about how much money you could save with the dining plan by using it every day. As long as people are following the rules (two meals per day, four hours apart, not giving their pass to their friends to redeem the meal plan), then I don't see how using the meal plan 50, 100, or 150 times could be considered abuse. It's fair game.

Grabbing copious amounts of cookies and chips from the lounge is a different story. With no rules written, it's easy to surmise that the chips and cookies are meant to be nice refreshments for the use of folks while they're in the lounge. There's an obvious social expectation of only taking what you plan on actually eating while you're there. Clearing out the snack tray and stuffing all the snacks into your bag violates your social obligation and prevents others from enjoying the snacks. It makes you an asshole.

Now, if you're hungry and you actually want to sit in the lounge for hours and eat 20 bags of chips? I say that's fair game. But if you dump a bunch of snacks into your bag to take home, or you scoop up an armful to give to your friends who don't have Prestige passes? That's abuse, in my opinion.
 
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^Exactly.

The policy has a chance of sticking around considering the snacks are laid out right in front of the “bouncer” (I can’t think of a better word) who I would hope is told to call out any outrageous behavior. If people start stuffing the snacks into bags and it becomes a reoccurring problem, then the worker would probably just start telling people to stop doing that.
 
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I wasn’t envisioning any brawls when I said that, but I think a warning would be fair game. That would deter enough offenders to make a difference. I’m approaching the lounge clientele with cautious optimism here.
 
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Honestly this isn’t really and shouldn’t be a concern.

Not even sure how expensive the prestige pass is but there’s unlikely that many people filing through.

Let’s say is $60 a month.

Fountain sodas costing the park like $0.02 means you need 3,000 sodas a month.
Cookies are like $0.25, the chips like $0.05-$0.15 each?

Like, each person would have to abuse this so bad to make it not worth it to the park. To me this is different than the dining pass people who (on here mind you) have admitted to going to the park 4-5 nights a week just to eat. Grabbing 3-4 cookies when it takes 250+ to “break even”? Not worried.
 
You say “admitted” like it’s some sort of crime. They promise two meals a day when they sell you the plan. They want you coming through the gates.

But yeah, I don’t see the chips becoming a problem either.
 
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guy305 said:
You say “admitted” like it’s some sort of crime. They promise two meals a day when they sell you the plan. They want you coming through the gates.
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The bolded put context that I did not write.

I say they admitted they abused the system in not using it for it's intended purpose. Without the park setting parameters of how it can be used they leave themselves open to this. They want you coming through the gates to also ride rides, pay for upgrades, by merchandise; not come in, have a family dinner at 5 and walk out at 6 without riding anything or spending money.

EDIT: Just to be clear - this is my opinion. Obviously if parks felt the same way they would put parameters on use of passes.
 
Two meals a day is exactly its intended purpose, because that’s what you are given. At the very least, if someone the entire season is only going for an hour for one meal (because meals have to be 4 hours apart), that is still +1 attendance number each day. They don’t have to spend money each time, but any time that they do that would be money spent that the park wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

It’s also about establishing goodwill. I’m going to start talking in the first person here, because honestly KD has made a killing off me. I can say the dining plan is what really got me back into KD. So every time I bring some friends (using the bring-a-friend tickets), and the four of us spend money on alcohol, food, fast lane, etc. All the while I’m telling them how great the meal plan is. It adds up, and Cedar Fair knows this, otherwise they wouldn’t give you two meals a day.
 
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So context of my original post is getting ignored to tell me my opinion on a situation is wrong.
warfelg said:
admitted to going to the park 4-5 nights a week just to eat.
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That's the context that I referred to as "abusing" the program FWIW.
 
From now on, to use your meal plan without abusing it, you’ll have to show the Grain & Grill cashier a selfie of you riding a coaster (while holding that day’s newspaper to prove it’s not an old photo), a receipt from a gift shop, and a stuffed animal won from a midway game.
 
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warfelg said:
That's the context that I referred to as "abusing" the program FWIW.
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I got a bit carried away in my reply, but I still don’t think that your example would be abuse. I’m sure on those empty summer weekdays, getting more people through the gates is good for optics.
 
guy305 said:
But yeah, I don’t see the chips becoming a problem either.
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They did at Carowinds they had families that got one pass and then loaded up bags of the stuff to then take out to the rest of the family that did not have passes so they didn't have to buy snacks. My understanding is this was becoming a chronic issue not just an isolated case. They then started restricting it to something like 3 snacks a visit which I actually don't have a problem with other then it's sad that it came to that.
 
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Hopefully that’s a consequence of putting a bunch of snacks under a tent. But that does have me a bit worried.
 
warfelg said:
So context of my original post is getting ignored to tell me my opinion on a situation is wrong.

That's the context that I referred to as "abusing" the program FWIW.
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I used to go to BGW almost every day before work to get my meal plan food. I guess I’m a shitty person.

It’s not abusing the system if you are using it as designed. They shouldn’t sell it if they don’t want it to be used that way.
 
guy305 said:
I got a bit carried away in my reply, but I still don’t think that your example would be abuse. I’m sure on those empty summer weekdays, getting more people through the gates is good for optics.
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So this is where I'll say, and it's not an excuse because it's very much part to deal with, Autistic brains are very programed to rules and structure. That's why I made sure I laid out my opinion. I don't think anyone is shitty or anything. Just in an autistic mind the intent, so the rule, is that the meal plan is meant for visiting the park for a full day to have a meal. So I develop that rule, and it becomes my opinion that it becomes abuse then people are using it in unintended ways of going to the park for family meals multiple times a week just to eat dinner because they paid for it.

Like I'm having a similar issues with work right now. One of the things we strive for is a phone call before your first appointment, but we can't always get one in. So my mind goes - "ah, rule, I don't really want to try if you don't try, so I'm better off not continuing to work with you if you can't do this one phone call". But yet plenty of people do well without that call, so clearly getting it in isn't a set rule to doing well, but I've set it up because that's just the way my mind operates.
 
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For what it is worth, when we were there last Saturday, there were only a few groups in the Prestige/VIP Lounge. Everyone was quiet and well-behaved and no one appeared to be stockpiling snacks. In fact, my impression was that everyone there was just enjoying the pleasant atmosphere and the opportunity to take a break from the crowds outside. It felt like a cool, clean refuge.
 
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