5-29-04 decent first trip...

the day got off to a great start, 2 WT rides in under five minutes, i was surprised about the "lack" of crowds.

from there we headed to corkscrew and got a walk on, and a 15 minute magnum wait.

My friend got turned away at the MF gates because he couldn't get the belt to buckle with the slack pulled, so i hopped in line and got a ride in under 30 minutes around 11am. not to bad.

hit raptor, my longest wait of the day at a little over a hour. Got another corkscrew walk on, 15 minute power tower wait, and two gemini rides in a row at under 15 minutes a piece.

headed to mean streak and got on in under 20.

all in all we basically redid rides all day, since my ride partner got turned down from MF and TTD as well, i didn't bother with TTD. We hit wicked twister about 6 times and got the last train of the night, which was by far my best WT ride EVER.

Gemini was also running great around 9pm, got 3 great back seat rides in about a 20 minute get off, walk around and get back on time frame.

minus the time spent in the arcade and midway games, yeah, i took a carload of stuffed little buddies home, we had a great day with low wait times, very surprising for me seeing as how it's a holiday weekend.

so i'm sitting here a lot poorer than i was on friday, and with a nice red sun/wind burned face writing this report for you guys.

if you seen a blond with messy pigtails in a white CP hoodie with ride buttons all over, that was me. Could also be spotted with a giant purple care bear and a large stuffed racoon. >''<

That is strange... last Tuesday I went with one of my larger friends to The Point. With help he got into TTD and MF, but he couldn't fit in WT. Of course, he used the test seats on all three, and I must add, the ops there were extremely helpful.

the ride ops on saturday morning didn't seem to want to be very helpful.

they were very 'stiff' for lack of a better word.
I seen totally AVERAGE people getting turned away.
by average i mean these guys weren't what i would consider overweight at all, they were typically sized adult males.

my friend stood a little better chance on TTD, he ALMOST got the belt buckled, had he had about a extra 1/2 inch of belt he would have been able to ride. MF seemed like a no go though, seemed as though he needed a LOT more space on the test seat there.

personally i had a awesome MF ride, with a nice short wait compared to the 3 1/2 hours i waited in 02. Everyone in line was complaining about the ride policy, the people in the front and rear of me lost party members at the gate due to the seatbelt rule.

speaking of WT though, the ride ops did help him all 6 or 7 times we rode, he needed that little extra push to get the belt in. So perhaps if the ops at MF and TTD were more helpful he would have been able to fit. I did try to help him on TTD but he was so upset by the fact that he already missed out on MF he figured he didn't stand a chance on TTD. It made our day a little more stressful. It's not a nice feeling when someone is told they can't ride, even though it wasn't myself, it hit me hard seeing one of my best friends go through that.

perhaps on our next visit he can get those rides. he nearly had tears in his eyes staring up at TTD. Which is why i couldn't leave him there to watch me get a ride on it. *** Edited 6/1/2004 2:07:31 PM UTC by PunkyPiko***

It's not so much that ride ops don't want to be helpful.

Park operations has instructed operators on MF to specifically not assist guests in buckling their seatbelts. From what I understand, they are able to line up the two ends, but the rider must be the one to physically insert and secure the fastener.

This is all following in accordance with stated riding policies, though. Every ride there has a posted set of rules that include the phrase "Riders must be able to properly secure their own seatbelt." Operators are instructed to go so far as to unbuckle the seatbelt of a child and ask him or her to rebuckle it on their own if the operator sees a parent do it for them.