2021: 3 rides with over 1,000,000 riders...... wow have things changed!

From CP email subject: 2021... A year packed full of fun! Let's take a look.

3 Rides - 1,000,000 Riders!
Last season, Magnum XL-200, Gemini and Millenium Force each had over 1,000,000 riders. That's 40 times the population of Sandusky, OH.

2- Arrows

1- Intamin

no Train or Skyride?

Nor any B&M's, specificially Gatekeeper, the annual people-eater? Interesting, unless they were just highlighting the rides that don't normally meet that milestone.

^Gatekeeper has been on the list a bunch the last couple years, but if I remember correctly it was down for a couple big chunks of the season which would explain that.

The other text from the email (and a link to PassPerks).

We Had Quite A Few Riders!
Last season, Cedar Point gave a total of 21,330,955 rides! This is 2.5 times the population of New York City.
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3 Rides - 1,000,000 Riders!
Last season, Magnum XL-200, Gemini and Millenium Force each had over 1,000,000 riders. That's 40 times the population of Sandusky, OH.
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By The Gallon!
Approximately 4,810 gallons of gasoline was used to fuel our motorized car rides.

Oh right... totally forgot about the whole lift hill chain incident for GK. Also, with the price of gas, it's no wonder they took out the antique cars... ;)

If you want to see some Gas bills that will literally blow your mind, go sit on the Marina dock by the gas station and watch when a large boat comes in and takes over 500 gallons of fuel, it's only premium BTW.

If they counted all of the empty rows on Steel Vengeance that were caused by the bottlenecks of the TSA process before the ride, bet that would be in the top 3. That 2 rider train we watched go around the course while we sat in a 55 min FLP/120 min standby queue is a CP memory I'll never forget, albeit one I wish I never had.

I got an email with a similar title...except it had Kings Island random stats for 2021. So these appear to be corporate-wide emails, probably to all season pass holders about their home park. The Kings Island email stats didn't have any ridership numbers. Instead it had info about the number of Beast trains, Drop Tower drops, and log flume boats that were completed in 2021.

KI doesn’t use turnstiles, how do they get ridership numbers ?

^How do they get ridership numbers? Possibly with the same accurate system I will outline.

I know a guy (no names please) who over the course of two Halloweekends would work the front door of a certain haunted mansion near Scrambler. They issued him one of those hand-held clicker counters and as he let groups in he was to click how many entered. He may or may not have at times neglected to click or other times continuously clicked. Once per hour a guy would check it and mark down on a clipboard the figure, later to submit numbers to black-shirt higher-ups.

Counts about as accurate as internet speculation regarding future rides/attractions at Wicked Twister site.

XS NightClub said:

KI doesn’t use turnstiles, how do they get ridership numbers ?

My guess is they have the infrared counters like Disney uses now

Actually they don't.

But Kings Island, at least on the older (pre Cedar Fair) rides, has a button on the operator console for counting the *empty* seats. Apparently there is some code in the control system that counts the number of dispatches, multiplies by the number of seats, and subtracts the number of button presses.

That's actually probably more accurate for counting riders than an entrance or exit turnstile, as it doesn't count the chickens, underheight kids, and oversize coaster enthusiasts who didn't actually get to ride.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thanks, Dave! That's informative and makes sense.

What I would like to see is a compare and contrast

Choose a year in the mid 90s vs 2021 ridership numbers on each ride. Blue Streak and Gemini come to mind as rides that are likely doing less than half the riders an hour than they did back "in the day"

Yeah I remember the days of Gemini running six trains and they rarely stacked. I believe the capacity was 3,000 PPH. You could be there on a July Saturday and still have a wait ~15 minutes. I know that ride doesn't "need" capacity like that anymore but it's still sad to see how poorly the capacity has changed over the years on many rides. I don't think mid 90's can be beat but the early 00's before Spehn left for Geauga Lake were pretty good too.

Now their marquee attraction dispatches half-full trains. Makes you wonder what went wrong.

What went wrong? Idiots who took out their phones after the ride started.

They way overcomplicated the SV process, IMO. It has 3 major failure points that only DON'T fail if all 3 ride hosts, who are out of talking/viewing range of each other, all act in perfect unison. I've seen it run smoothly and as a complete disaster on the same day, just at different times. Sucks.

I clocked Gemini at 3,300 PPH on a random day, and this was after they added seat belts.

I do think Gemini needs at least one of its other two trains back, and the crews really should know how to run it with 6 trains. Not because they need to be able to run 6 (although on Saturdays in October that could be useful…) but because of the more frequent days when they still have a heavy crowd, but for staffing or mechanical reasons can only run one side…it would be useful to be able to run 3 trains instead of two.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

First they need to be able to run Gemini with 4, without hard-stopping/stacking every cycle. As for SV, I'm still a believer in letting people be responsible for themselves (and their phones), but dropping the hammer on them if they break the rules. Put a monetary fine on cell phones being out on the coasters, and enforce it hard.

Fines are very difficult for a private entity to enforce, prove and actually collect.

Easier penalty is expulsion from the park, could be permanent or temporary. (CF already has forms and protocols for expulsions.)

Then you also have the possibility of vengeful employees using a false occurrence for their personal vendettas (not unheard of with youth, you have people SWATting people for less).

Then there's PR issues and also the inevitable Make-Me-Whole-Department drama for kids kicked out or fined with parents believing them over a teenager ride-op.