What's Up With CP's Older Coasters?

Er, a quick correction...
Last time I was at Cedar Point...for CoasterMania...Gemini was running all six trains, at a capacity of about 3,200 PPH.
There was barely enough of a wait for it to keep the trains full.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

That ride (Gemini) is waaaay too good for it's time in terms of ride quality, height, capacity, etc., and I think is at least partly responsible for CP becoming the park it is today, where capacity is king and customers don't leave feeling as though they didn't have a chance to ride all the rides they wanted.....

bill, still lovin' the *mine* rides....which is basically Gemini's construction, if not layout...and with KW Racer's hand-slapping TOO.

What's up? The crews there are the greatest anywhere at moving people, all their rides have great capacity (even WT has great capacity for a shuttle, the way they run it), and they have greater total capacity than anyone else. Put those together and you have a park with great lines, even when there are a ton of people there. It's one of CPs great attributes.

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- Peabody

Personally, my longest wait last year was 1.5 hours for MF on a July morning when my parents were too lazy to run with the bulls. I was already on and off in 20 minutes and then they decided they wanted to ride so we waited it out. The wait was under an hour for the rest of the day. Besides that, a full queue (not long entrance which would make it about 1:15) on Magnum is under an hour (more like 45-50 minutes). Raptor is about the same. Unless there's a breakdown or something while you're in line, I really doubt these stories of "no lines shorter than 1.5 hours." The vast majority of my waits last year were 15 minutes or less. You can have a platform only wait on Magnum usually after 9PM on a weekday and be on in under 5 minutes over and over. I bet a 1.5 hour line for Gemini with six trains could fill the queues, go back toward Magnum, back to Power Tower, and over to Millennium Force! :) That thing does about 3,300 riders per hour which is barely less than the number of people that can navigate through the ride's two turnstyles in the same time! :)

If you add up the capacity of all of CP's coasters, it is somewhere around 18,000 (or more) riders per hour. To have a 1.5 hour wait on all of them, that'd be 27,000 people waiting in lines for coasters. Plus there are probably usually equally that many wandering the midway and thousands more doing the other 53 rides in the park. Attendance isn't that high very often. :)

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-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

I wasn't complaining that there were no lines for the rides, I just found it funny that the park patrons were so "unevenly distributed" through the park. I was glad the lines were so short, I just thought it was rather interesting.

I do realize that this is due mostly to the ride crews hustle. I wish all parks were like that. Nothing gets me more upset then a two hour line and the laziest crew I've seen in my life.

*** This post was edited by Pablo8194 on 6/29/2002. ***

Ozzy said:
I love Magnum, but personally can't see (or feel) the difference between this Arrow Hyper, and a Morgan Hyper.

There isn't a huge difference (which should make sense since Dana Morgan was part of the Arrow team for many years prior to his departure to create Morgan), but at least what I've experienced/seen is larger, roomier trains and a slightly beefed-up track profile on Margan coasters (this difference is well apparent on Steel Dragon 2000). I've also noticed that Morgan designs his bunny hops in the profile of sine waves, whereas Arrow's are parabolic. The ride experience on the bunny hops is different because of this.

*** This post was edited by ophthodoc on 6/29/2002. ***

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B&M ROCKS said:
"Wel what is the GP gonna go to: the new 300 foot coaster, or the ten year old 200 foot coaster?"

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I wouldn't underestimate the GP...I've been to CP with several non-enthusiast friends since MF was built and I don't think one of them preferred it to the Magnum...
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* The Legend @ HW
* Superman: Ride of Steel @ SFNE
* Track Record: 101 Coasters @ 17 parks

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ophthodoc said:

I've also noticed that Morgan designs his bunny hops in the profile of sine waves, whereas Arrow's are parabolic. The ride experience on the bunny hops is different because of this.

DAVE, please respond if you read this! Remember about a month ago, a thread where I was trying to get a the difference between floater and ejector air.....THIS is exactly where I was headed with my train....of thought...;).

bill, thinking that a parabolic-shaped hill *should* give more of his "preferred" airtime.....

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I wasn't complaining about no lines..don't get me wrong..I just found it really strange because the park was crowded all day.

We couldn't find where the people were..Soak City wasn't even that busy for 2 hot days..

The midways were jamming with people but when you went to a ride like Magnum or Gemini, no lines.

MF was 45 mins to one hour..and the longest wait I had was for WT which was 1hr 15 mins and well worth it..I found that coaster to be alot better then S:UE..(I rode the back seat)

Mantis had long lines no matter what time of day we went past there..I rode it 2 years ago and found that the forces put alot of strain on my knees so I passed on it.

and no, I am not the same CoasterMom..gee I didn't know there was another :)

Capacity, capacity capacity. CP just has so much to offer and a lot of the newer rides are real people movers. According to CP's web site, Gemini gave more rides than any other ride in the park last year.

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The worst day at Cedar Point is better than the best day at work.

The thing is when Magnum was built the park only had seven other coasters (i think), so the lines were out the door. But with each subsequent ride adding at least 1,000 or more rides per hour. The overall park capacity has ballooned. So now there shouldn't be any terrible lines except on the worst of days. Lines for the magnum, gemini and others are so short with regularity that when i go and they are over a half an hour, i think they're getting out of hand!! Things sure have changed over the last 13 years.

I was just at CP yesterday, and it was PACKED, for the first time I've ever been, as my 4th visit there. It was on a Saturday, so I was expecting it. I did get a walk on on a couple of rides though. Either way , it is still an amazing park.