GL 7-15-05 : Stupid Ride Ops and Stupid Guests

Stopped at Geauga Lake after work on Thursday, July 15th, to blow off a little steam. Arrived around 6:00 and was amazed by how few people were at the park. Just about every ride was a walk-on.

I normally wouldn’t write a report on this kind of trip but I witnessed two events worth reporting. First involved the crew of the Villain that were working around 7:00pm. The two guys checking the lap bars were racing to see who could check their side the fastest. They were timing themselves and keeping score (15 to 5 was the last tally I heard). They were running down the platform, barely touching the laps. I rode twice more, just to make sure this wasn’t a one-time event. I was so concerned about this I decided to talk with guest relations, something I have never done at any park. The woman at the guest relations was very understanding. I filled out a complaint form and she got a manager on the phone while I was standing there. Based on the one side of the conversation I could hear, it sounded like manager knew which crew I was complaining about. If these guys are repeat offenders, I hope they are moved to a more appropriate duty, like toilet cleaning. It looks like CP culture has not completely filtered down to all aspects of GL’s operations.

The 2nd incident involved a women guest. She walked on to the Big Dipper platform holding an alcoholic beverage (one of those Vodka mixed drinks). The ride op saw it immediately and tried to get her to leave. The women, who seemed fairly intoxicated, refused to leave. Considering there was no line, this was pretty irrational. The ride op, who looked pretty young, didn’t have the guts to force her to leave (I don’t think I would have either at his age). He got the women to place the bottle behind the wall, in the unload area, but 30 second later the woman had the bottle in her had and was drinking while waiting for the train. Its amazing the stupidity of some people.

So that’s my story for tonight. Everything else about the park seemed to be fine. It was nice to see two trains running on Dominator and Villain, even with most of the seats being empty.

Well I would agree with you that the Villian crew needs to be moved, but I don't know about the toilet cleaning. I mean, damn, those things are dirty as it is with people "cleaning" them. Now imagin if they were racing to clean them! ;)

I see no reason to move them. They've been doing that all year, it's the same thing that crews do at all parks to make the job interesting. If the bars are going to fail, they'll fail with that touch they're giving it (push down and pull up and all that junk).

I like the idea of ride ops showing some hussle, but not at the expense of safety. All things considered, I doubt that I'd have gone to Guest Services, but that's just me.

As for drinking and coasting, I don't see anything wrong with that, as long the park sells the stuff, that is. I'm not sure what GL's policy is with that. Was it the fact that she had a glass bottle in the station?

The problem with the lady and the drink was both that it was in a glass bottle and that it was an alcoholic beverage. According to GL web site :

'Alcoholic beverages are not permitted in ride queue lines/areas, theatres, children’s areas or the water park.'

I don't have any problem with hustling ride op's, but there is no way you can know if someones bar is locked when you spend less then 10 seconds checking the entire train. These guys were running on a dead sprint from one end of the train to the other. My bar could have popped all the way open and the ride ops would not have noticed. They were too busy checking if they beat their last time. *** Edited 7/16/2004 7:58:23 PM UTC by JustBob***

Well, then with that rule in effect, I see why she was in the wrong. And I never said you did anything wrong by going to GS, I just said I would not have. I suppose somewhere between the rediculously long time it takes Ghostrider's crew to check a train and the rediculously short time on Villain there is a happy medium.

Well even if GL has some rough spots that still need to be ironed out (esspecially to get it up to CF standards), I think its safe to say your experience at guest services sounds dramatically different from trip reports of past years. I recall alot mentioning a "Well what do you want me to do about it?" attitude.

Why didn't the op call security? My impression was that was the default behavior if a park staff member could not "handle" a guest.