Waldameer Comet new brakes

CP Chris said:
Aren't a lot of companies dumping customers who do that though? I read something around a year ago about how lots of people who paid their balance every month were being dropped because the banks were losing (or at least not making) money on them.

I've never had a balance on a credit card, and no one has ever dropped me. The banks are still making money off of cardholders even if they pay their balance each month, since they charge the retailers these people use a percentage of the sale. They just don't make as much money.

And they're still killing it. When you buy a CoasterBuzz Club membership, the first $1.50 to $2 goes to the bank, not me, and that's not even counting the nonsense annual fee and per-transaction fee. Granted, my rates are higher because I'm a relatively low volume vendor, but it really sucks.

^Yeah, I see the credit card processing fees that our clients pay. If the banks ain't making money off that, they are doing something seriously wrong.

During the depths of the "crisis" I had two zero-balance credit cards dropped. Cost me about $30,000 in available credit, which should tell you a thing or two about (a) my credit-worthiness and (b) the insanity of the bank's lending policy. I can't imagine having five figures of *credit card* debt. Thanks, Chase, I really didn't want to do business with you anyway.

The point remains, though, that there are people who do not have credit or debit cards because they are lacking in personal wealth, credit worthiness, and banking relationships. I know; I used to be in that situation back when I was living paycheck to paycheck and those were coming irregularly....and I didn't have credit or banking problems. Add in a poor credit history, a risk of garnishment, and a poor banking history and it is possible to be effectively frozen out of the banking system entirely.

As for me, I simply prefer not to use cards for small purchases as those little <$10 charges are the ones that always seem to screw up my bookkeeping. Not to mention that the little green pieces of paper in my wallet tell me at a glance how much I have left.

Getting back to the Waldameer situation...

My recollection of the Wally Card system last year was that there wasn't any practical way to match up the amount you put on the card to the amount you were going to spend. Kind of like when you go to a carnival midway and they sell you a book of 20 tickets, then every attraction takes 3 tickets. That annoys me at carnivals. At a park where I've already bought a POP ticket for rides, I'm more likely to respond by simply not participating. There's a little hot dog stand right down the road that still takes cash...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I had a whole rant typed up questioning the legal issues of not refunding money to customers and the implications of state unclaimed funds laws.

Now that I think about, it's completely a mute point. The remaining balance is points, not dollars. Sneaky bastards.

^^ And Sara's! I think I've only bought food in the park once, because we usually stop at Sara's on the way in.

If they accept credit cards at every location that takes Wally Cards (which is what the blog post seems to say), I don't really see a point in putting money on a Wally Card. If they're willing to put up with the fees from all those little transactions, that's fine with me. I'd rather use my credit card than have unused 'points' left on a card -- even if I know I'll be visiting the park again, it's possible I'll forget to bring it next time (see also: stash of leftover Knoebels tickets I always forget at home). Sure, it's probably only a few dollars, but who cares? The filling of a bucket of money begins with a single bill. ;)

In general, if a place will take credit cards, I use it if the transaction is over $10. I don't like carrying a lot of cash, but I keep some on hand for the few places that don't take cards. I pay the balance off each month and use the reward points for free/discounted hotel rooms on my park travels. If I could, I'd pay my rent and utilities with the card too, but the utilities charge a fee to pay with a credit card.

Wow. I'm amazed that this topic was allowed to continue this long. They started banning people at a certain other theme park site for continuing to debate the pros and cons of a completely cashless system.

At any rate, while I'm not technically "local" to Waldameer, I vacation in Erie annually so I'm there at least once every year. So, I've been interested in this whole thing.

According to Waldameer's site, the cards never expire so anything you have left on the card can be used any time you might come back. Which is fine, assuming you're local enough to be a repeat customer.

The kiosks, as I understand it, accept debit, charge or cash for the purposes of loading up a Wally Card. Cash will be useless anywhere else in the park except the arcade.

You will NOT be able to buy food or anything else with cash. The Wally Card will be the ONLY way that you can play the midway games. Debit or credit will not be accepted there. They will be, however, for food.

Waldameer has been rather silent on whether or not this will apply to the Water World portion of the park, including the surf shop, the food stations, and the locker rentals. And, if it's used for locker rentals, does that mean that you will no longer get a refund for returning your key as before.

The question I had is whether or not, in Waldameer's attempt to seemingly act like the "big parks" that they are running the risk of pushing themselves out of their own niche.

The comment I made was that Waldameer has no shortage of competition from virtually every compass direction. There are bigger parks than Waldameer within a 2 hour drive north east, west and south.

For me, as somebody close to Kennywood, the advantage of Waldameer has always been price and short lines. As I mentioned elsewhere, I joked to my co-workers that I could leave work (about 10 miles north of Pittsburgh), drive to Waldameer and ride the RF2 in about the same amount of time as it would take me to ride one of the more popular rides at Kennywood at a lower price.

Looking at Waldameer's website, they have once again raised the price of admission for the combo pass. Up to $26.50 unless purchased in advance.

No mention of what it will cost for ride only passes or night passes on the site. Looking at past years, I wouldn't be surprised to see ride only tickets come in around $22.

You can buy all day passes for Kennywood for around $24 at any local Giant Eagle, which are virtually everywhere. It's all but impossible to NOT pass one on the way to the park.

How many dollars do you need to leave behind on a Wally Card before it's no longer a bargain to go to Waldameer?

Plus, with gas prices expected to hit $4.50 or higher by peak season, there's going to be a lot less incentive for anybody but locals or die hard coaster fanatics to go to a small park when bigger parks can be had closer for around the same money.

I love the RF2, but I'm not sure it, alone, would be enough to draw me up there if I weren't going to be there already.

They should at least give people with remaining funds on their card the option to exchange it for things like stuffed animals, like they do/did with the locker keys.

That way you at least don't feel like you're losing something in the deal.

People elsewhere have suggested that loss prevention seems to be the primary reason why they are going cashless.

Who knows.

Anyway, thanks for continuing the interest in this topic.

TJinPgh said:
Wow. I'm amazed that this topic was allowed to continue this long. They started banning people at a certain other theme park site for continuing to debate the pros and cons of a completely cashless system.

Certain other theme park sites suck. :)

As for the original topic of the thread, the magnetic brakes, they're certainly cool to look at.

And, anything that can make lines move quicker is generally a good thing.

The only question I had about using them on this particular coaster is that the Comet is such a short ride to begin with, is there a huge advantage to running two trains?

By the time the train moves into loading position and people get secured, the previous train is likely already back at the station. Which seemed to be the concern with human error to begin with.

Lord Gonchar said:

Certain other theme park sites suck. :)

LOL.
Well, since I'm new here I'll refrain from commenting on that and testing the waters too much!

Just seemed to a few of us that anything worth mentioning by management as noteworthy at coasterbash was worth discussing as customers, employees (of which I'm not), management or whatever. Even if the end result of such a policy can't be determined until some point in the future.

I've personally never liked the "well, that's the way it is now and you'll just have to get used to it" approach to doing business.

But, that's just me.

Even when stacking occurs, one train will be set to go out onto the course instead of waiting for a single train to unload then wait for it to get to the loading plaform to load. More of a continuous process opposed to the former load and wait for the train to complete the course.

Stacking is just a fact of life on the shorter coasters in small parks. Even on RFII we busted our butts to keep up with the two trains, but when a cycle is only 90 seconds it is tough. Especially when there are only two lapbar checkers because of tighter operator budgets. Don't even remind me of delays due to customers, or intervals would be a lot easier to hit.

So does that mean that it will save a good bit of time, or not? LOL.

I don't have a really good point of reference for long waits on the Comet. At least, not recently, anyway.

The last two years I've gone to the park on the Friday before Labor Day and both times the park has been practically empty.

This past year had it not been for two people standing at the platform waiting to get on the comet (literally... 2 people), we could have just kept going around without stopping.

RF2 wasn't any busier. I was actually able to sit in the front car alone on the second ride through.

Although, in retrospect that wasn't the brightest ideas as, unknown to me, I had received a slight concussion earlier in the day when I hit my head on one of the water slides.

At any rate, for those who want extremely short lines, the Friday before Labor Day seems to be a GREAT time to go. Kids have all gone back to school in the region so things are kind of slow gearing up to the big weekend crowd.

^Welcome to Coasterbuzz! Did the water slide you bumped your head on look like this

Hey Demon. Copy the link, then come back over here to CoasterBuzz and highlight the word you want to show up as that link, then click that earth with a chain link in front of it above the comment box. Paste the link in the window that pops up, and you have a genuine CoasterBuzz hyperlink. You're welcome, friend.

^Holy guacamole! Thanks Travis :) That worked. Haven't been able to figure that out for years. Funny thing... last time I tried figuring it out, Moosh was trying to instruct me how to do it across the net. Good job!

LOL. Not quite.

It was just one of those fluke things. It was the very first slide I went on. Not even completely sure which slide it was. I know it was a tube slide (those are the only ones I like) so it was probably Wild River.

I've been on it numerous times before. For whatever reason.. maybe it was just me... maybe something else. It just seemed that the tube was going faster than normal. I ended up going up higher on one of the banks than I expected and the tube overturned. I hit my head on the side of the tube in the process.

On my way over toward the midnight plunge tower, I realized my head was bleeding a little. Seemed like just an abrasion scratch.

Had first aid check it out. All seemed fine at the time. But, later in the day, when I went on some of the faster rides and some of the spinning rides (which I usually avoid anyway) my head was throbbing. Nausea. Few other relative symptoms.

Like I said. Just one of those fluke things. In no way anything that Waldameer did wrong.