Guest behavior and ridiculous park policies

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure the logs didn't change, just the policy. A sign was added to the platform that indicated that children had to ride with adults or in certain seats or something like that (I forget the exact wording).

ideame, thanks for the update on the Gran Prix height requirement. Either it changed or I remembered it wrong. I'll assume the latter.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

CoasterDaddy said:
oh just remembered, the cars are only 2 seaters, so we broke up the family into 2, 2, 1. So no way I could ride with another family member as it would have been then 1,2,2.

I could see them enforcing a no single riders rule on a car ride that seats 4 but it seems strange to have the rule in place on a ride that only seats 2 people to begin with. Every car ride that I have seen that only seats 2 people allow single riders. What Hershey does it not allow single riders on the track with the antique cars that seats up to 4 people but allows single riders on the track with the sports cars that seat 1 or 2 people.

Also this reminded me on another stupid park policy. Dorney does not allow single riders on the scrambler. They used to but last year or the year before they stopped allowing single riders.

Eli Bridge's website even says "Recommend No Single Riders Unless Seat Belts are Installed and Used" and of course with it being a CF park, the ride has seatbelts.

My wife and I were at Geauga Lake riding Raging Wolf Bobs and absolutely nobody was there that night. They still made us get up and go back through the queue line. Finally we convinced the ride operators to hold the train until we made the trek back into the station each time.

One other note on Kennywood turnpike. That is the only one I have been on that had spotters watching the track (2 of them in fact) and you also get your picture taken on that ride. Wonder if location of ride at front of park and such led to tough rules to keep things in line there. But I still loved that ride and hope it returns as they hint to.

AJFelice said:
I got one that stands above all in terms of guests ignorance to rules: SMOKING IN LINE!

I understand smoking tends to be a hot topic in society, but it has been proven overwhelmingly that smoking causes health problems. A person legally smoking is personal choice, but when others are in close confinement waiting for attractions, it is very rude to put others including children in harms way of digusting smells and long-term health effects. I know one smoke won't kill you, but it's the principle behind the rules as well as the healthy enjoyment of others. If you can't wait an hour or two at the very most between smokes, you need to grow up.

Bottom Line: Smoking in line is ingorant to others whom wish to breathe fresh air and live healthy lives.

I agree with what you are saying !!

My neighbors just this past weekend had a "smoking issue" happening to them at Elitch Gardens. While they were in line to ride Twuister 2, two young guys ( teens ) had burnt cigars beind their ears. Gross in its own right, but both guys decided to light them and smoke..while in line. My neighbors of course wasnt happy so they complained to an Elitch employee since going directly to the two guys well who in the hell knows how they woruld react anyway.

Anyway the two guys said that they needed to smoke their cigars because both have bipolar disorder and to smoke their Black & Milds helps them deal with their bipolar. Elitches more/less told them that they could smoke, I assume because since the two guys a brought up a medical condition, well they wanted to play safe in order to avoid a lawsuit.

Hardly a surprise there since there is a similar but growing problem in Denver over medical marijuana and those who feel they can smoke pot anywhere ( in front of the entrances of shopping malls, restaurants and supermarkets, city parks, at bus stops and the like ). Whenever someone complains the smoker whips out their "Colorado medical marijuna card" and goes into details about having bipolar, HIV or whatever..and then threatens to sue if they are denied their right to smoke pot in public...as a result people are looking the other way.

YoshiFan said:
Eli Bridge's website even says "Recommend No Single Riders Unless Seat Belts are Installed and Used" and of course with it being a CF park, the ride has seatbelts.

Ah, *that* explains why I had to wait to get "paired up" at....Idlewild's Eli Bridge wheel I think. The op actually remembered a girl who'd been there earlier wanting to ride - she saw that girl on the midway, and called out to her "I've got you a riding partner if you still want to ride". Now that is service, LOL...

My annoyance with park/guest policies isn't often the policy itself - it's usually the way it is implemented or the way you sometimes feel as if it is being implemented on a day where a staff member is having a bad day and wants to shout at someone.

Couldn't the Kennywood no single rider policy be for the same reason that some park will not allow single riders in the back seat of some coasters? They need an extra witness to any accidents that may occur?

^That's kind of what I was thinking LostKause. Almost any odd rule in a park is related to insurance. Just like the odd back seat rule that Six Flags used to have on coasters. They don't want a guest out of sight from a staff member on their own. With the track on this ride being pretty long that would probably be the reason.

An example of the logic behind this would be the tragic accident at Rye Playland a couple of years back on the dark boat ride. Without a witness there's no way for the park to defend themselves against something a guest did on their own or if it was related to a ride malfunction.

That may be the reason, but you have to wonder about the logic of that thinking. That assumes that family members would be witnesses against each other, or that two wiseass kids wouldn't both act up.

LostKause said:
Couldn't the Kennywood no single rider policy be for the same reason that some park will not allow single riders in the back seat of some coasters? They need an extra witness to any accidents that may occur?

Without a seat divider I think there's a possibility (however remote) of having someone end up "lying down" horizontally on the seat due to the laterals. Then the lap bar does no good and someone *could* theoretically be ejected.

Gator, that's the case for the Thunderbolt.

But we were talking about the (now defunct) Turnpike!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I want to ride the Turnpike with Gator.

LOL...sorry.

*That's what I get for being away for four days and trying to jump right back into the conversation.....I'll be quiet now. ;)

P.S. But not TOO quiet....the only Gonch-by I ever had was by KW's JackRabbit. Tina ID'd him, but he was too far away...I still think it was a costumed character in a Gonch mask. :)

Did he have a woman's leg draped over his shoulder? ;)

DaveStroem said:
I too hate policies that are not consistent. Cedar Fair re-ride policy is one that I don't understand. There are some rides that you can jump back on and others that you have to go around even if the station is 100% empty of guests.

I think this may have to do with differences between Cedar Fair's legacy parks, and the parks acquired in 2006. At Cedar Point (which I assume is similar to other legacy parks), the rider count is based on turnstile readings.

My understanding is that at Cedar Point, for the coasters they count how many people enter the station, not how many people actually ride! You must exit and re-enter the station to be re-counted, or as probably the case for VIPs, you are counted separately and later added into the total. This is probably a hassle for more than a handful of people an hour.

At the newly acquired parks, I believe they count the riders on the roller coaster train as it exits the station. That not only makes for a more accurate count, as people who don't ride due to breakdowns aren't counted, but it means one does not have to exit and then re-enter the station to be counted. My understanding is that the PLC counts each train as being full, and it is the responsibility of the person at controls to count empty seats and enter the information into the control panel (via an empty seat button pressed for each seat the operator sees as empty. If you ride The Beast, you can see the "empty seat" button on the side of the control panel.

While I do not know if the above is entirely true, it is my best understanding as to why the re-ride policy at Cedar Fair parks seems to not be applied consistently.

-Sam

I worked security at SFGADV last year during Fright Fest. I couldn't belive the crap people did. Peeing on the outside of the bathrooms because they didn't feel like waiting in line. Punching characters, line cutting was amazing but I saw many people being shown the blue line. Smoking got you tossed if you were caught. There was a major crack down. We just didn't have enough bodies to get everything. Stealing props and pumpkins, parking illegal 3 deep, taking table top umbrellas when it rained and use them as person ones.

Being a coaster junky and seeing behind the scenes of what security has to deal with, its a huge under taking. Especially with the types of crowds that park pulls in it.

I won't go to Great Advennture on a Saturday or Sunday in October because of the crowds. Besides the huge lines, the crowds have always had a horrible reputation for Fright Fest and reading your post I see the crowd behavior was worse than I thought.

I won't go to SFGAdv any day! Worst. Park. Ever.

I'm going with AV Matt on PPP weekend. :)

I haven't been there in years, and I want to ride El Toro.