CP 5-14 day of breakdowns

But Matt, while I definitely commend the CP crews with getting good numbers, I absolutely don't want it to take a front seat to guest service.

Some things I've heard from people who have been at the park trying to ride TTD scare me. It stems from the whole "where I would like to sit" thing. If a grouper cannot accomodate (within reason) someones seat preference on that ride, they don't need to be at the park. I have had a few friends say they have seen groupers for TTD say "NO" to someone who asked to ride in the back when there was *NO ONE WAITING FOR IT*. That is absolutely inexcuseable in my opinion. And if that happens when I am at the park in the upcoming weeks, Park Op will definitely hear about it. There is nothing wrong with requesting a seat if there is no one waiting for it. Hell, even if there *IS* someone there, make it happen. I worked as a ride op for four seasons at a major roller coaster, I know you can make it work.

I sincerely hope it was just a fluke accident what happened to my friends.

(PS I understand MF's assigned seating policy, and that you can wait for the front or back, but first come first serve everywhere else...my understanding of TTD's set up is that the grouper tries to assign you to rows, also having many trainloads in the chutes at once....this means it's 100% easier to accomodate a special request for a specific seat since there are tons of waiting guests all around you that can fill in your chute if need be. This is how it should be, if you're truly wanting to make your guests happy. I don't think I'm off base for my thoughts, either...do you?)

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Top Thrill Dragster -- The most intense, unbelievable, and spectacular fifteen seconds on any coaster, anywhere, ever.

I wouldn't say you're off base at all - in fact I'd probably be upset if that happened to me also. I'm honestly not even sure what their boarding policy is over there having only been in the park once so far. On opening day, they were only using one of the two ramps anyway and it was all messed up because there was an odd number of trains, etc. I know on our first ride, we asked to wait for the back and the person there let us do that without a problem. Personally, I know I'd prefer free-for-all seating like at Magnum, Raptor, Gemini, Mean Streak, Mantis, Mine Ride, etc, but I understand why they have the system they do over at MF - especially with the way people enter that station from the back and it would tend to clog up, but I'm not sure it's necessary at other rides like WT and Dragster. We pair up singles at Magnum on busy days without the need for assigned seats. I wish we had a single riders line, but we make due with what we have and I think in general, we probably don't upset many people with our efforts to have high capacity.

If it were me, I'd physically (like with a wall or even just a queue railing) divide the station in half (right ramp to back train, left ramp to front train) to eliminate confusion on the platform and just let people flow freely onto the platform with one person at the top of each ramp stopping people when there are 3 or 4 trains worth of people in each row. They have extended queues for the front and back of each train (I think?) so I don't really see the need for groupers to assign seats. I think once the ride is up to full capacity, the pace might even be too fast to worry about assigning seats anyway. People are either going to wait for the front or the back (which have extended queues) or pick the shortest row in the middle.

Anyway, I didn't mean to get into this whole boarding policy deal as I definitely understand the sensitivities involved with it and it's been gone over before. Just wanted to give a little support to the crew since it looked like some people were blaming them for the low capacity to start the season and I think it's more issues with the ride itself. I'm sure the crew and the park is very frustrated with the low capacity so far and will do whatever it takes to get it right.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

After my visit to the park yesterday, I too must give major props to the Dragster crew. In fact, I love them! It could have something to do with that front row ride on the last train of the night ;).

In comparison to Opening Day, Dragster's line was moving much faster than before. Since I saw an improvement in the dispatch times (45-65 seconds) in addition to running 5 of the 6 trains, I was more apt to waiting in line for the 25 second ride.

You say the Dragster crew sucks? You really need to pay a visit to some of the other area parks that have the ability of stacking a single train on a one train op. RGR also made a highly overlooked point about the hours that the crew is pulling in. How would you feel if you had to stay 4 hours extra after working all day? I was there on Opening Day when I got my midnight ride, guess who else was there 4 hours after closing? When I rode Dragster at 9:30 lastnight (hour and a half after closing), guess who I saw running the ride? I saw the same dedicated ride ops everytime.

Think about next time when you are in line for Dragster and it breaks down. Remember that the same Dragster Crew that were there opening day putting up with people *****ing about when the ride is going to reopen, the length of the line, and so on and so forth, the next time you think the Dragster Crew "sucks."

i think i mention it somewhere, im not saying the ops are at fault on TTD, they are doing the best they can, i think the #1 time bandit on that ride is thoes goofy seat belts that each member of the crew has to literally TUG on to make sure you are in tight, and the goofy latch seems to confuse people, that tended to be the #1 problem with load times, im not really knocking the park, its defanitly my fav park, but i went the same day last year and just seemed to have a much more pleasent time, and it rained last year!

A friend of mine works on Dragster. Belive me, they are trying very hard to get Dragster running as it should, but they can only do so much. Don't blame the crews for downtime because it is out of their hands. Watch the loading sometime and you will notice that they are done checking bars and belts long before the train moves an inch. It's not the crew holding up the ride, it's the complexity of the ride itself and some minor bugs which still need worked out. Cedar Point needs time to figure out this ride and have it running smoothly. It's not a simple ride by any means, with as Rob said 300 proxy switches.

I am willing to bet that while the line will be long for Dragster the whole summer, the operation for the ride will become very smooth and reliable in the coming weeks and only get better with time. For all of you who had a bad experience, go back in September or October and I bet the operation will be flawless.
*** This post was edited by Etrain 5/18/2003 12:35:36 AM ***

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Red Garter Rob said:

..God I can't believe I agreed with Jo ;)

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God I can't believe I agreed with Rob agreeing with me! ;)

Jo
2000/2002 Raptor Crew
Lifetime Raptor flights: 717 :) (goin for 1k in '03!)
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It's all about getting around the barrels or over the fences, right leads, no faults, fastest time and still looking pretty when done. What's so hard about that? :)

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