Hades 360

Josh - I read your last post, then I looked right (to your avatar pic)...hard to disagree! ;~)

Interview with Mt. Olympus owner Nick. He said there will be a 24-seat timberliner train. From the sound of that alone, it will remain a single train ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpmwHtZVFm0

I've never been to Mt. Olympus/Wisconsin Dells. Is Hades the coaster where riders under 18 are not permitted in the back seat? Or is that maybe Zeus, Cyclops, or something else?

^That would be Cyclops.

Knowing that the park only has one train available on each coaster makes me never ever want to visit them. It is absolutely stupid for a full-circuit coaster to only have one train available. Camden Park's Big Dipper and Lil' Dipper comes to mind. I think that Raven at HW once ran only one train also.

Let me ask this; do the crowds at this park call for more than one train? Am I being unreasonable? Does the line ever get longer than, say, 15 or 20 minutes? I see on their website that they have a POP price structure, but do they also offer individual ride tickets?

Being POP, if the line gets extremely long for any of their coasters and they don't have another train to load while the other one is cycling, they are not a good value. If they offer ride tickets and this crap is going on, then they are losing money.

A lemon chill guy just told me, on condition of anonymity, that the owner was recently asked if the park would ever consider adding another train to any of their coasters, and he replied that they wouldn't because they didn't want to risk a train collision. Almost every other park in the country can run coasters with more than one train and not have a problem, so what is that parks problem?

I'm not sure about Mt. O. But, I been to Camden on a few different Saturdays over the years and never felt the lines warranted more than 1 train.

Mount Olympus has the worst ride ops I have ever seen. The only time we went there, the wait for Hades was >1 hour. When we got to the top, I saw ride ops sitting on the ground texting instead of doing their jobs. The turn around time was incredibly slow. I was so mad. Yeah, a second train would help, but what is needed is an entire change in culture/management. We've been back to the Dells since then, but have had no desire to return to Mt. Olympus.

When I read the article, I kept thinking, "Wooden coaster with inversion combined with poor maintenence/management. That's a recipe for disaster."

Lemon Chill Guy? You mean Billy?

Wichcraft much, Jeff? lol

I know, I know... You can see what has been deleted.

Three of the four wood coasters at Mount Olympus were built when the park was just a small roadside attraction with pay-per-ride prices. Attendance was relatively low, none of the coasters ever had a significant wait, and there was no reason for a second train. The cycle times of those three rides is pretty short, too (in fact, before Hades you used to be sent around the course twice each time you rode).

Hades probably should have been built to handle a second train. That would have made the project much more expensive, though, and could have resulted in a much smaller ride. It was also built before Mount Olympus acquired the waterpark next door and just before the park went POP-only, so I'm not sure they really could have anticipated what attendance was going to be like.

...the owner was recently asked if the park would ever consider adding another train to any of their coasters, and he replied that they wouldn't because they didn't want to risk a train collision.

Cyclops, Zeus, and Pegasus are manually-operated coasters with no computer or blocking system. That's where the comment about risking a collision comes from.

-Nate

Wolverine Wildcat at Michigan's Adventure is a one train coaster, as is Zach's Zoomer and the corkscrew. And, with the growing popularity of MA, the waits on a busy day for Corkscrew and the Wildcat are pretty bad. Corkscrew an hour, and the Wildcat sometimes 2 hours. But, I would not bother to wait for either. If the line for Wildcat is out into the grill area, you can expect a long wait. I was very glad to see the Shivering Timbers was built with two trains, even on a busy day the line is less than an hour. But, I don't understand why any park would not build a new coaster with at least 2 trains. If it's not busy, you don't have to run both, and a lot of parks don't.As for Hades 360. I have heard the dells is a crap-shoot on crowds. There are many other attractions and parks in the area, so it really depends on where people want to spend their money. I have a friend who did go to MT. Olympus, and he said the crowds were terrible, but he liked the park. But, he is not a big coaster fan, so he didn't ride Hades, mainly because the lines were too long. His friend was not happy. $39.00 to basically walk around and complain about the lines. Which made me laugh, because that's what happened when we went to Cedar Point. Never again!

Sounds like most of my visits to Great Adventure, fittingly enough. Spend $50 to get in the gate just to walk around all day and complain about the one train operations. When will parks figure out that that is not good business practice? They already have my money for the day, so at least they could try to get me to want to come back. All they seemed to care about was getting me to buy a Flashpass.

I still hate that park.

That's one thing I really love about Cedar Fair, they really seem to care about capacity, and you never see single train operations. At least at the CF parks I've been too when I've gone. MiA, KI, CW, CP, KBF

Keep in mind some of the rides you are talking about. I have often referred to Cyclops as being the best first half of a wood coaster around. Not because it has a great first half, but because it *is* a great first half of a ride. When the ride time is shorter than the minimum time needed to load a train, it becomes very difficult to get much benefit out of a second train.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

LostKause said:

Sounds like most of my visits to Great Adventure, fittingly enough.

I don't know when the last time you visited was, but I've found their ride operations to be greatly improved these past few years. On my most recent visits this year and last year, they were running all available trains on their coasters, even when the lines were pretty short.

I know, I have to stop complaining about SFGAdv and give them one more chance.

How many vote ups will this post gain? lol

Let me edit and come back for a second to say, a lot of the recent trip reports have indicated that the park is still poopoo. I just can't bring myself to drive ten hours and spend the money if the park isn't going to try and give me value for my money. It's still too risky.

The same goes for Mt. Olympus. It would be pretty stupid of me to spend the money to drive all the way up there to experience their coasters when I know to expect terrible value for my money.

I can certainly understand your hesitation- the cost of a bad experience is going to be far greater to someone like yourself who cannot make the trip in one day as compared to a local visitor. It makes me more appreciative of the fact that Holiday world can manage to get people to drive to the middle of nowhere for a relatively small park. They get it right on every visit and people are willing to make the trek repeatedly.

LostKause said:

I know, I have to stop complaining about SFGAdv and give them one more chance.

You could remove the 'one more chance' part and I'd still be okay with that sentence. ;-)

Coasters that run one train: the latest trendy thing for enthusiasts to complain about.

Me? I hate the fact that Possessed AND Stinger at Dorney insist on running only one train :)