Worlds of Fun Ends Reservations and Reduces Operating Days

© Worlds of Fun

Worlds of Fun was the first large Cedar Fair park to open this summer, and as of this week has made some changes to their operations that are noteworthy.

I had a feeling that after some of the large parks opened we'd see changes in response to consumer demand, especially with regard to hours and operating days - though I wasn't sure in which direction exactly.  Obviously there have been a lot of very small changes as the parks have learned how to open in a COVID-19 world, but Worlds of Fun has now implemented two large modifications.

First, the park has stopped using their reservation system to track attendance to limit ahead of time the overall number of visitors in the park on any give day.  The use of reservations was a change that many parks have implemented, and while I'm not sure if Missouri is requiring reduced attendance at this point or not - it seems that the park isn't concerned about hitting any given maximum. 

There have been many reports online of the park being quite empty on some operating days, and depending on what their given maximum capacity is I guess they're getting no where near it.  So far from it that they're comfortable assuming they probably won't hit the limit.. and now are advertising no reservations needed to visit.  Of course, I guess if they do have a limit and hit it they'd have to turn away guests at the entrance, something they'd never want to do no doubt.

© Worlds of Fun

Second, and more telling of the reason for change number one, Worlds of Fun has revised their operating calendar to reflect that starting next week they will stay closed Monday through Wednesday.  That means they will operate only Thursday - Sunday for the rest of the summer... as of right now.  The daily hours of 11 am to 7 pm have stayed the same.

If the park was operating at such small capacity that they needed to close three days a week then I'm thinking that crowds were considerably smaller than expected.  Even on prior earnings calls Cedar Fair noted that most parks are profitable at much smaller attendance levels than we might think, so for them to bag three days a week to try to remain profitable then things must be slow.

In the end it is what it is, this is really a lost summer anyway, and I have a feeling that if cases continue to trend upwards, and the water parks attached to these parks are not opened, that this type of change will be common in the coming weeks.  On the plus side, if you visit you may have the smallest wait times you've seen in a long time!