I thought the GL tunnel of love ride was gone

RCG Said:

"Is it that freakn' hard to crack a smile and say "Hi" to a guest when they enter the que? .... Instead they have to act like death warmed over ... It quickly ruins the experience."

" think I need to clear up something since a few people "assumed I my day is ruined if the someone dosn't smile." I'm not that ignorant. While I do believe it's the simplest thing in the world. Does it subtract from the exprience? Yes. But it takes a lot more than that to ruin the experience."

Slightly paraphrased, but I just wanted to point those two lines out. Draw your own conclusions. And what is this excited Beast night crew you speak of? I remember nothing exceptional about any personel at PKI, and the only thing I remember about workers at my night ride on the Beast was that it was one of the few rides I noticed lacked an auto-spiel, so the drone of a bored employee who just wants to go home greeted and sent off every train (but it wasn't that that made me not enjoy my ride - that would be the lack of power ... oh, I just connected two threads, I'm good ... ;) )

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eightdotthree said:
Does your garbage man say hello to you when he is collecting the trash from your house?

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As a matter of fact, my garbage man, Larry, does say hello when I happen to be home on garbage day.

Well, mine say "buenas dias" but it is the thought that counts.

I don't mind paraphrasing Brett, but the first paraphrase ruining the experience is refering to a host greeting while eating out not to smiling at a theme park ruining the experience. We don't want to start this whole political cutting and splicing of words ;)

As for your Beast experience, I'm sorry you haven't "experienced" The Beast yet. That crew is one of the best night time crews. It ranks up there with some of Maganum's past crews, Raven, Legend, and some of Cedar Creeks' Mine Ride's crews :)

I guess I just live in a happy part of the world, where it's nice to say hi to people ;)

*** Edited 6/30/2004 1:51:13 PM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***

The "part of the world" certainly makes a difference. Being from South Florida, where the universe revolves around me, me, me, my wife and I were struck with how polite people were when we visited up north again.

Down here you rarely have the door held open for you, there is no such thing as yielding on the roadways, and "have a nice day" is not in the vocabulary...in English OR Spanish.

When my wife was pregnant it was unusual for someone to offer up her seat to her if we were waiting someplace.

coasterwiz, thats how every flight I have been on has been, unless your in first class. :)

Well, Brett, if you don't experience it then it must surely never happen!

Oh I'm sorry Jeff, should I have asked your permission before I posted my expierences? I'll be more careful next time ...

RCG - agreed, I don't wanna be a politician ;) *** Edited 6/30/2004 3:48:25 PM UTC by Impulse-ive***

Don't be a smart ass, Brett. You know what I mean. Just as my experience is not necessarily representative of everyone's, neither is yours.

As a ride operator myself, I think it is very important to be nice to guests. First of all, it makes them happy and it also makes you happy by seeing someone else enjoying their day a little more because of you. Secondly, it makes the park more profitable. If a guest is treated nicely, they are more likely to spend more time in the park and buy more stuff. Plus, there is also a good chance that they will come back for another visit. In turn, some of that money helps pay your paycheck. So, yes, there actually is some motivation to be nice to people. Besides, it's just common courtesy to atleast say "hi" to a guest and send them off with "have a nice day," let alone have a nice conversation with them.

Bottom line, Cedar Fair took over GL with about a month until opening day. They had to overhaul the park's infrastructure, inspect and pass all the rides, clean up all the crap, rename attractions, hire staff, and deal with all the other messes that Six Flags left behind for them. It's been two months, and it's gonna take little while to bring the operation all the way up to where it needs to be. There have been improvements in the past 2 months, and I'm sure they will continue to improve the park experience with TIME.

Anyone who passes judgement on Cedar Fair's operation of GL at this time is being unreasonable and unfair. That goes for the locals, the industry, and all of us sitting in front of our computers. CF is a great park management team, but they are not magicians. All parks have those few associates that are either having a bad day..(as we all do), or just have a bad attitude and need to be weeded out. Many of us realize that, and sometimes (as in this case) maybe we need to cut the place a little slack. Don't get me wrong, ride ops need to pay attention, but if they don't crack a smile every minute of every day, it's not the end of the world.

If you guys known half of what I know about the ride ops and even the rides at GL, you'll all be in shock. ;)

When I hit GL now, I see overworked, underpaid, and tired employees, and not the happy and cheerfull employees I've see earlier this year and most of last year. I'm also seeing alot more employees goofing off and rude employees as the season goes on. I understand 'the first season bugs' CF is dealing with, but come on, when it effects quests safty, something has to be done about that before some gets hurt. I have seen a few ride ops this year that do not care about the riders' safty, and that's a few too many, IMO.

I don't expect a smile from employees, however I do expect the employees to respect the quests, and do there the job the way they were trained.

I partially agree with you D-the-Great, there are a couple things though.

1) If a place is going to be open (ie GL or any other place), it's going to be critized good or bad.

2) This is like DejaVu all over again. The park DOES have to impress people, the park DOES have to their BEST job, the park DOES need to quickly weed out the problems.
as you put it "...it's not the end of the World." Not yet, but it SOON can be if they don't fix it. Look what happen with SFO/SFWoA The first year they had a TON of people but the customer service killed them in the long run (that and of course a few other things.) I think a lot of people who have seen this AND experienced this here and at the park DON'T want this to even remotely happen again. Which is my problem of what I feel, see, and hear when I talk to peopel about Geauga Lake. I just get this sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I just keep saying to peole Transitional, transitional, transitional...I pray to God that CF/GL can pull out of this with the right changes.

3) Geauga Lake is advertising "The Fun is Back" but to thos people who don't understand the whole thing of changing a HUGE park into a HUGE new owned park and all the challenges that envolves they go to the park, see a 1/2 opened waterpark, mostly closed down other side of the park, and the parts that are opened on the Happy Habor side have closed buildings all around or temp. closed signs. Then on the Rides side they find a few of their favorite things some times closed down or mostly due to renovations. Then they see those select few employees goofing off (who ruin it for the good employees.) They don't see "The Fun is Back." It's sad but it can, does, and has happened from my personal experience and talking to other locals. I personally think GL chose the wrong saying for this year out of all the possiblities...on top of that, while the commercials look great, I can't help but wonder if their cheesy "Fun" guy is mocking the SF commercial guy ;)

That's why I say it like DejaVu again.

The two biggest questions I hear from Ohioans is:

1) Is Geagua Lake worth it/Is Geauga Lake better than it was before?

2) Is Top Thrill Dragster running this year? ;)

*** Edited 7/2/2004 2:39:04 PM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***

I agree that the park does have to impress people this year. Had they taken over 6-8 months ago instead of 3, we may be singing a different tune. Cedar Fair has a reputation for good park management. Because of that, I think that people are expecting them to be magicians and turn GL into Cedar Point overnight. That's not going to happen right now simply because of the massive amounts of improvement it needs to make. I also agree that there is no excuse for a bad ride-op. People need to be safe, and CF ride-ops usually are safe (ie stapling people into MF). Surely they will take care of those problems as well. A phone call or complaint may take care of it very quickly.

In the case of overworked, underpaid employees, I can see employees having to work a little harder this year because of the transition that CF has to make. Not that employees should be overworked, but I understand why some would be this year. Judging from the previous state of SFWOA, I wonder if they were ever worked at all. I don't know how many SF employees are left over from last year, but I bet that they are finding out that CF management style is a lot different from Six Flags style.

Many have been skeptical about CF taking over Geauga, but I think that they will make it happen. From my observations, Cedar Fair doesn't make things happen immediately, but they make them happen quickly. Once they have the park's infrastructure complete and iron out some bugs, then they will sink a little money into it. Once that happens, the people (and employees) will start to believe.

If the park wasn't ready, they shouldn't have opened it. By opening, CF is asserting that the park is within their standards for operation. Just as "things are getting better" never worked for SFWoA to get repeat visits, "We just bought the park" won't get people who had a bad experience to come back to GL.

Yes, brilliant. Spend $140 million on a park and then put off making the money back. As a unit holder, that's just what I'd want.

Just the idea that Six Flags no longer owns the park plays well in the media and public opinion. It'll be fine.

I'm just saying that the buck has to stop somewhere. I'm not convinced that giving guests a sub-CF-standard experience at the park (and I haven't been so I don't know) is making money back in the long run.

So because a couple of people don't have their expectations met "guests" are all getting a sub-standard experience? The season has barely started. It's a little too early to make that call.

See how things go in the second half of July and first half of August, then we can safely grade the park on how they're doing this year.

Well, from the posts in this topic, my impression was that a lot of people were leaving the park with a bad taste in their mouths.

I am just amazed at some of the CP/CF fanboys here. (Not, really, I guess in retrospect...)

Comments from CF/CP fanboys

Bad time when is was SFWoA - "Of course! SF Sucks!"

Good time when it was SFWoA - "Iit must be an abberration - SF sucks!"

Good time at 'new" GL - "Of course, CF got rid of the bad SF influences!"

Bad time at 'new" GL - "Some people cannot be pleased. It's early in the season and CF just came on board- give them time."