Cedar Fair Reviews

Pros

Great people made best friends
Fun to work with guests and be outside
Employee nights with rides and food are fun
No two days are the same
You will have many life experiences and great stories

Cons

Hours can be dreadful especially if you are over 18
Sometimes you feel burned out
Crowds on a weekend in July and August can be a handful

Advice to Senior Management

Keep employees happy and energized. The job is difficult on a daily basis as far as employee energy from the heat, crowd, and stress.

Pros

Meeting internationals from EVERYWHERE
Benefits of amusement park when not working
Beach (dirty)
Fun summer and good times
Good customer service experience

Cons

Not professional
Horrible Housing
Complaints from workers
Can be unbearable heat
Workers feel as if they deserve better
Not good professional experience

Advice to Senior Management

Pay workers more
Give more convincing work
Have more of a teamwork environment for employees
Make work environment more fun

Pros

Hours are great and the pay was just raised so the pay is even better than before. Its a great challenge to those who want to perform for a living and builds stamina and endurance which is a major plus.

Cons

Because of the small casts and short time frames, vacation time or time off is very limited and usually not granted. There are no swings for the shows which leaves reblocking the show hard at times.

Pros

Free entrance to the park.

Cons

Hours are good in the beginning but as the summer goes on, your hours go down.

Pros

I learned a lot during my time at Kings Island in Cincinnati. With a small full time staff, you are pulled into a variety of projects...this can be good to give you a variety of experience, but it can take away from the time you need to complete your job responsibilities. Full time staff are pulled to sell and scan tickets at the front gate, help security in searching bags as guests enter, cleaning up the picnic grove during company outings.

Cons

Cedar Fair, Kings Island's parent company, does not respect a balance between family and work. You are expected to work 6-7 days a week, minimum of 8 hours each day, April through November. It is not unusual to work 70-80 hours a week. It's a good place to work if you are single or just graduated from college and want some hands on experience, but I would not suggest it if you have a family. During Halloween Haunt, it is not unusual to work until 1am. The pay is horrible because of all the hours you put in.

Advice to Senior Management

I understand that Dick Kinzel is being pushed out of the company. This is good news for employees. Mr. Kinzel cut back staff so severe to save money and bump up his end of year bonus. The management of Cedar Fair is incapable of making good money decisions, this is why they have been so strapped for cash ever since they purchased the Paramount parks.

Pros

some of the coworkers are nice

Cons

No respect for you or your life outside of the park. Extremely long hours, little pay, changing schedules regardless of when you tell them you can work. Place is awful and no one cares to change anything. Full time staff has 6 day works weeks and has been told no vacations from Memorial Day to Labor Day, stay away from this job if you have any life whatsoever outside of work.

Advice to Senior Management

It is a "family" park so you should respect that fact that your employees have families and not expect them to work so many hours that they will all probably end up divorced.

Pros

A fun atmosphere to work in.

Cons

Cheap. Fix the ride as cheap as possible. No communication between the mangement and maintenance workers. Upper management is very cold and condisending.

Advice to Senior Management

Do it right or someone will get hurt on the ride or from the ride and it's not the mechanics falt. The mechanics are trying to make it as safe as possible but they can only work with what they have and do what they are told to or not to do. You have to have a training program (which you don't)! Reading manuals for a few days and being trained by someone that doesn't know which way to turn a screwdriver is not training. You better bring the moral up real soon, make us feel like we are family not a mindless monkey that can't do anything right.

Pros

Surrounded by youthful peers, good perks (if you like amusement parks), decent bonus if you do your job well enough

Cons

Very long hours, poor working conditions, and the higher ups look down upon the staff built mostly on seasonal help

Advice to Senior Management

Get up to speed with technology and new trends in the industry, treat your employees with a little more respect

Pros

Free season pass, make a lot of friends, meet a lot of interesting people, work a lot if you like doing that.

Cons

One day off a week. Working 70+ hours per week. Minimum wage. Seasonal job. Upper management contradict other managers in what needs to be done/ level of importance of tasks. No recognition for hard work. Manager's personal opinions prevent honest hardworking employees from being promoted or recognized in the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually work in your own stores for a week and you'll see how hard it really is to get everything in perfect condition when your co-workers refuse to do their own work and/or the store is too busy to do anything but help customers.

Pros

The job is definitely what you make of it. I really enjoyed the people I worked with and had a lot of fun each summer. It was hard to tear myself away from that atmosphere.

Cons

The work is tough and the pay is not exactly amazing.

Advice to Senior Management

Raise the wages for your supervisors. Otherwise you will not be able to compete for those with good leadership skills.