Cedar Point reverses no-phone rule for Steel Vengeance queue

I don't remember message board at parks. Though I do recall what was in effect a live message board: one member of the group would remain at the designated meeting place to wait for the late members of the group while the rest of the group moved on to ride something else. Typically when the late members of the group arrived and walked to that next ride, the original members of the group were still in line. Not wanting to wait, the late members moved onto another ride (leaving someone else to be the live message board). Or they would get into the line and make the original group wait until the late group made it through the line (which they typically didn't want to do so they left another live message board and moved on to another ride). Was very inefficient. But as noted, we didn't have other options. Phones provide a much more efficient option.

A lot of people (vast majority of them young people) will tell you they would "die" without their phone. Clearly not true. But I don't think its a winning business strategy (when you are in a competitive market for entertainment dollars) to tell your paying customers (who have a multitude of entertainment options) back in the day we didn't have what you deem critical today and we lived fine without it. Particularly not when there is a solution (pouches in this case) that will not separate customers from their phones. The back in the day approach strikes me as something I would have expected from Kinzel (which is ironic).

I agree that a lot of people would be better off if they ignored their phones from time to time. I am just not looking to others to do that for me. I am very capable of ignoring my phone. I just want to be in control of that rather than having my phone sit in a locker for 1-2 hours in a locker (and longer to the extent I spend time throughout the day in rides that require lockers) or out in my car.

Ok, I’m conflicted. I’m looking at my phone right now.

What I remember is payphones, especially since that was my job. I’m retired now, btw...

We took walkie-talkies to Disney because my parents don't text and barely know how to use their cell phones. It was the perfect solution and surprisingly clear, traffic wise. It was super easy to use, super easy to hear, enabled instant communication (no waiting for someone to respond to a text) and never ran out of batteries.

I don’t typically spend a lot of time on my phone when I’m with friends or in social situations. And honestly I haven’t been to an amusement park outside of my home park by myself more than once in the last 3-4 years.

But it absolutely makes what little time I spend in line more bareable. Granted, I usually go when waits aren’t much.

I was going to mention walkies too. My family had a pair because we did a lot of hiking at state parks when I was young. We brought the walkies to Kings Island with us all the time. We did it before everyone else did.

As for the cell phones, I never used my phone, so I quit buying minutes for it. Still, I always have my iPhone in my pocket, but it's really just a mini iPad Mini. I use free wi-fi all the time. I live deep in a West Virginia forest; there are no cell towers for miles. There are a lot of dead spots along my driving rout to work. If one is ever built near my home, or if I move closer to one, I might get rid of the landline and do cell phone only.

But really, we don''t use the landline very often either.

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I used the pouch at Kings Dominion for my "mini iPad Mini" last October, and thought it was great. If I recall correctly, there were signs up that said you had to leave loose articles with a non-rider, but there was an announcement about the pouches. Or vice versa.

Anyway, the pocket/pouch really made me feel that my stuff was safe. I appreciated that.