If there’s one word to describe the past eight months in the theme park industry, interesting feels like a strong candidate. (This is assuming that we can’t use a bunch of choice “four-letter” words, since this a family-friendly website.) What was certain to be an incredible year at Cedar Fair’s 13 properties, complete with new shows, new rides & slides, and multiple milestone anniversaries, instead became an assorted handful of significantly abbreviated operating seasons. While many parks would have just wrapped up their Halloween Haunt events with WinterFest on the way, operating calendars were compressed, and in the case of more than half of Cedar Fair’s 11 amusement park properties, the traditional theme park operating season never came, due to various local and state restrictions related to COVID-19.
“With plans to bring our guests so many new experiences including Grand Carnivale and Monster Jam, we were certainly eager and looking forward with anticipation to re-opening for our 2020 season,” said Raul Rehnborg, Vice President and General Manager at Valleyfair. “Of course, we were also disappointed that we were denied the ability to open, despite having a comprehensive COVID safety plan. That plan has proven to be effective in all of our other parks that were given the opportunity to operate safely.”
However, just because parks were closed, it didn’t mean that full-time associates at Cedar Fair parks wouldn’t be busy in 2020. In August, Cedar Point announced that they would be open through the month of October for their “Tricks & Treats” Fall Fest. However, it wasn’t just those who would typically work at Cedar Point who would be working the Fall Fest. Associates from around the Cedar Fair family descended on Sandusky to assist the company’s flagship park with Cedar Point’s new, unique fall event.
“With all the changes that were necessary to open, we were still determined to provide fun for our guests, even if the season was abbreviated,” said Tony Clark, Director of Communications for Cedar Point. “Unfortunately, while other parks in our family were unable to open at all, or after their own abbreviated seasons were over, the opportunity arose for their teams to come to Cedar Point to not only assist in the operation of the park, but to also return to serving guests at a time they were unable to at their own parks.”
Call in the Reinforcements
According to Clark, associates from Kings Dominion, Valleyfair, Dorney Park, Worlds of Fun, California’s Great America, Schlitterbahn and Michigan’s Adventure were among the Cedar Fair family that provided help during the Tricks and Treats Fall Fest. While there were some part-time associates from the various parks (Check out stories the Kings Dominion Blog & Valleyfair Blog!) who joined the Cedar Point team temporarily this season, there were also full-time associates working in roles that were quite different from their normal day-to-day!
Give it up for our commander in cheese 🧀
Our GM, Raul, is slinging mac at Mac Shack today at @cedarpoint. Stop in and give him a hello 👋 pic.twitter.com/5zcmoNEz6q
— Valleyfair (@ValleyfairMN) October 25, 2020
One of the nearly 30 Valleyfair full-timers who spent some time at Cedar Point this fall was actually Rehnborg, who traded in his “Commander in Chief” title at Valleyfair for the title of “Commander in Cheese,” working “on the line” at the Mac Shack.
“I relished the opportunity to re-experience life in the park as a line associate,” he said. “That experience took me back to my roots, having started my career more than 33 years ago as a seasonal Park Services associate at Knott’s Berry Farm. I also wanted the Valleyfair management team to be able to experience the park as line associates. It was a great opportunity for them to experience what our seasonal associates do on a day to day basis and gave them a valuable perspective of the commitment our employees make every day in serving our guests.”
Cedar Point was not Rehnborg’s first stop at a Cedar Fair park during this wild year. He also spent time at one of Cedar Fair’s newest properties, Schlitterbahn Galveston.
“I personally spent months in Galveston assisting the operation Schlitterbahn, earlier this summer,” said Rehnborg, who formerly was director of Knott’s Soak City Water Park before becoming GM/VP at California’s Great America and then at Valleyfair. “I know it was beneficial for all of our associates to experience how other parks operate and, in the process, make valuable connections with their peers in our organization.”
For Kelsey Bailey, Valleyfair’s Public Relations and Communications Manager, the chance to work at Cedar Point was a fantastic chance to learn what it was like to work at a larger park.
“I liked learning about how Cedar Point operates,” she said. “Compared to Valleyfair, it’s just so much larger. To see the amount of people they have in place – they’ll have four people who do what one person does at Valleyfair. To see those different interactions, and how their park is broken up into zones, and our park is just ‘Valleyfair.’ Their ride selection is off the charts. People bring it up to me all the time that we need to get more rides like Cedar Point, and this was the first time that I had gotten to really go and ride some of the rides at Cedar Point. I was blown away.”
Full-time associates from across the chain were invited to work in various positions in the park on the weekends, and then work remotely during the week, performing their regular home park duties. Since they were already familiar with operating their own parks, transitioning to working at Cedar Point was seamless.
“We were given the option to either work in foods or rides,” Bailey said. “Our entire Valleyfair team went through iROC (International Ride Operator Certification) training in case we were needed to work rides, and we also went through Servsafe food and alcohol training, so that way we could work at any location in the park if they needed us.”
Bailey worked in a variety of food locations during her five week stint at Cedar Point, including the Mac Shack, Chick-Fil-A, and the Coca-Cola Refresh stand.
“Working at the Mac Shack was really fun. They had a really great team there, and I got to learn all of the different positions,” she said. “I got to work in the ‘Mac Daddy’ position, where you get to make Mac & Cheese in a big block of cheese. It was actually very tiring and required a lot of upper body strength, but it was very fun!”
We are a resilient bunch. 💙
Full-time & seasonal ambassadors recently came together with other teams from across Cedar Fair to operate rides and serve food at our sister park, @cedarpoint.
Together, we are great! pic.twitter.com/KigcHgIEy6
— Worlds of Fun (@worldsoffun) November 2, 2020
Another full-time Cedar Fair associate who traded in his “regular” job for a few weekends at Cedar Point was Chris Foshee, Public Relations and Communications Manager at Worlds of Fun. He chose to work in rides because he was looking to expand his skillset.
“I’m always looking to get more experience beyond my department and working in rides seemed like a fun choice,” Foshee said. “During my time at Cedar Point, I was primarily in the ‘Pipe Scream triangle,’ also known as ‘heaven.’ The area consists of Pipe Scream, Lake Eerie Eagles and Monster. I primarily worked as a ride host at Monster.”
“One Team”
Coming together is nothing new for the Cedar Fair family.
“I’ve always heard it, since I started working at Cedar Fair, that we have this ‘One Team’ mentality,” Bailey said. “I’ve really seen it at Valleyfair, where people will jump in and help across departments, no matter what is going on. We’re always there for each other. I’ve also seen it at other parks, because in the past, I’ve traveled to other parks to help set up for WinterFest. I know that’s very common, for the parks that don’t have WinterFest, to go and help set up for it once our Haunt is done.
This is the first time that I’ve seen a real all-call, all-hands-on-deck, everyone has each other’s back and we’re all headed to Sandusky to make sure that their event went off without a hitch,” she continued. “It was really amazing to watch.
For the two Public Relations managers, the chance to network and meet new people from across the chain was an invaluable experience.
“One of my favorite things about working at Cedar Point was getting to meet people from different parks and across different departments,” Bailey said. “I made so many connections throughout Cedar Fair and so many departments that I wouldn’t have made otherwise this year. We really got some good bonding in.”
“I met a lot of new people, from my own team [at Worlds of Fun] in some cases,” Foshee echoed. “It’s always great to reconnect with friends and colleagues at other parks in the chain.”
The assistance from the other parks was greatly appreciated by Clark and the entire Cedar Point team.
“In a time of uncertainty, our family came together to provide a sense of normalcy for our guests,” he said. “We couldn’t be more grateful for their assistance, and we would gladly do the same for all of them.”
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