Park Design & Crowd Management
MIAdv's dirty little secret is that flat ride alley is almost never jammed, unlike the Logger's Run/Wildcat/Timbers midway.
Except for Orleans Place, of course: But that's more a function of what's been done to the design, not the original design itself. And that probably won't last after this year, either.
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I hear America screaming...
MagnumForce said:
Except for CP, But I am betting that eill change this year. My poor Maggie :(------------------
It's like a Whirlwind inside of my head!
Let us hope Magnum Force that TTD's enterance and exit is more by Power Tower and that stupid GP cant see our favorite red coaster peaking through the trees and turn around and ride MF instead heading that way towards our lovely, for the past 2 years, much appricated line free Magnum
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I don't care what anyone says, Magnum is better then Millenium Force.
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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"faster, cheaper, and more often" that's somebody's new sig -UpsideDawnGrrrl
My shirt in my photo seems to be for "Aging Bull"
Now one thing that I've seen a lot of, since I visit Cedar Point and Kennywood and Kings Island a lot, is a design that seems to make a lot of sense...instead of one big loop, the park is built out of a series of smaller loops, all interconnected. Cedar Point is kind of like this in places, but it's more stretched out than would be ideal. I guess that's also sort of what Disney did with their parks, with a few notable exceptions. Again, Kings Island shows as a pretty good example of this.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
MK's spoke and wheel I think is proably the best, but I still will go with a circle over anything complicated. Layouts like PKI make it very confusing for first time park goers to get their directions straight and you waist a lot of time locking at a cartoon map that looks nothing like the park layout, I still say give me a circle.
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I don't care what anyone says, Magnum is better then Millenium Force.
*** This post was edited by Touchdown 3/30/2003 11:13:35 PM ***
The Train would help, but you could probably walk faster than the train would get you to your destination.
Knott's layout is good. Its a medium size park, but there are many paths which make it easy to get from one place to another. I think that it could confuse the average guest, but if they have a map, I think the layout is very practical.
Magic Mountain... well its huge! It certainly takes a while to get from the back of the park to the front or from Viper to Scream! A problem there is that I have *never* seen their monorail operating. That would be a very good thing as far as traffic flow. The Orient Express is an invaluable tool to get from Samurai Summit to the entrance area. Saves a lot of uphill walking!
Cedar Point is another huge park. It takes a long while to get from Mean Streak to the main entrance. Fortunetely, they do have the skyway and the train to help. Even so, you will do a ton of walking when visiting that park. Its not like the layout could have been formed any differently, considering the land the park was built on.
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The Trip: CP, SFWoA, PKI, KW, HW, IB, SFGAm, MiA and LeSourdsville too.
8 Days- 10 parks. May 2003
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I don't care what anyone says, Magnum is better then Millenium Force.
-Danny
The added areas at both of the parks broke the outer loop, at Kings Island both paths from Intl Street and Oktoberfest lead to one entrance into Action Zone. This coupled with too many major rides in one small area and it being in the front of the park leads to some overcrowding. Not to mention its plain ugly and treeless. The additions at Kings Dominion also are mostly one way in/out and not well thought out.
Carowinds orginal layout was good also, a small loop. But when the added areas were built, they were first one-way in and out (HB land and County Fair), which was flawed. HB has been opened up with a second pass into the former Queens Colony, but the Zoom Zone area added to it is really poorly thought out. The thrill zone area is definitely a huge afterthought from the master plan there.
Great America's (IL) loop is good, and the addition of SW Territory as an additional loop is also good, but the flaw here is you have to travel halfway around the park to get to the opposite side. A cut through from Yankee Harbor/County Fair would have solved this.
Six Flags designed parks (TX, GA, St Louis) are poorly laid out. They seem to be almost spider webs or mazes with no rhyme or reason.
Cedar Point is big, and lots of pavement, so it will spread out a crowd as the day goes on. But it takes a while for the crowd to find the rear of the park. I wouldnt call it well designed. It is the product of 100 years of evolution, and limited by the penninsula. It's a long way from front to back, but narrow from side to side.
There are two ways (the first is easy to miss, it's to your left right past Paramount Theatre- good spot to head straight for Face/Off!) in and out of Action Zone at PKI and one of them was widened for this season. I think the locations of all the AZ rides are good with Face/Off at the far left, Drop Zone right in the middle, Son of Beast and Top Gun in the far right corner, and Delirium directly to the right. You have so many rides to choose from in this area that I find it hard to pick a first one to go to in the morning (I usually go for SOB though).
Luckily, TR:TR and The Beast draw a nice crowd and hopefully Scooby Doo will help even it out this year, so one (or two) areas won't be overly crowded. Each area of the park has at least two "star" attractions, so I think they're keeping the crowds in mind and this may be the reason TR:TR was added to Rivertown and not Action Zone like many thought it should be. I hope Coney Mall gets the biggie for 2004 (to be announced in the next two months)! :)
-Danny
*** This post was edited by Koaster King 3/31/2003 1:07:00 PM ***
The terrain at SDC is not exactly for the faint at heart or week in the knees. During my visit, the majority of guests leaned toward the more geriatric end of the spectrum, and some were visibly tiring just hiking up some of those inclines. There was one wheelchair-bound elderly lady being pushed by a youngster who was almost horizontal whilst trying to force the wheelchair up a very steep walkway. At least the SDC map did indicate routes that were not as severely inclined, but those routes appeared even more confusingly random than the most direct ones.
I also think the spoke and wheel designs are the most efficant designs. It makes it very easy to get from one side to the other side of a park quickly.
But, I also like the random set up of some of the older, unplanned parks, like Knoebels. They allow for some mystery and surprise. You walk around those parks and it seems there is something new and exciting around every corner. Sure, you may not get everything the first time around the park, but it is really exciting to do a second walk around and find a great ride that you missed the first time.
Finally, I think that for the most part, park transportation systems are useless. A train or monorail is only really useful if you happen to get to the station just as the train gets there, otherwise the distances are short enough that you might as well walk it. The skyrides are much more useful.
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"If you make it too smooth, it'll be like sitting in your living room."
-Bill Cobb - Designer, Texas Cyclone
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If at first don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
All I know is, I have never had reason to complain about Great America's loop.
Well, maybe once. But, after 11 years of attendance, I think that's a pretty good track record.
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I hear America screaming...
I dig DCA's layout. Not too many dead ends, and direct routes to get from location A to location B.
KBF's can be very tricky for a first time visiter, but once you know the layout, its so easy to take the shortcuts to your advantage. And it only takes about 4 minutes to cross the park in any direction. Now, the backstage layout I can live without!
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