7-20-06 - Short Lines, Decent Weather, and Peoplewatching

For my 4th trip of the season, I hit the Point with the Youth Group at my church. I was there as a chaperone so I didn't get to "power-ride" as much as I normally do, but I still had a good time. It was interesting to hang out with a group of teenagers, rather than enthusiasts or former employees while in the park. I dealt with everything from their silly questions (is Gemini bigger than Millennium?), to wanting to ride Raptor despite the 45 minute wait, and wanting to go to Mantis right after that. It was sometimes frustrating, but I had to be sympathetic to the fact that many of them had never been to the park before. Despite all of that, I still had a great time, and was able to ride quite a bit:

Magnum - 5
MF - 2
Skyhawk - 2
Wicked Twister - 2
Raptor
Gemini
Dragster
Power Tower (Shot & Drop)

Lines were generally between 15-45 minutes for MF, Dragster, and Raptor, and everything else was a walk-on. The weather was suprisingly nice, considering the forecast called for strong to severe thunderstorms to roll through. The day started cloudy, but cleared up by the afternoon. It was quite muggy, but got much more pleasant by the end of the day.

I also took 2 laps on the CP&LE RR to get a look at the Project 2007 site. Many more supports have gone up even since 7-19. There are some areas where it is pretty clear what type of elements are going to go there, but there are other areas where a footer for a turn is right next to one with a turn going in a completely different direction. There is even a support for a turn in the middle of where everyone believes the station is going to go. Im starting to think this thing is going to look like an outdoor version of Flight of Fear with its compact twisted track.

Another interesting point of the day was at around 7:40 PM. It appeared some sort of incident happened at the Giant Wheel. There were 5 or 6 CP Police Officers interviewing people as they got off the ride. Some people stopped and talked to them, and others just kept walking. I saw some people laughing as they got off, but acting like they had hurt their legs, as they were limping. The CPPD was also interviewing one of the ride hosts. It may have been something minor, but it was definitely noticeable that something was going on. Anyone know anything about this?

I also did quite a bit of people watching of both the employees and park guests as I was in lines amd walking around the park, and here is some of what I observed:

1. The annoying basketball saga continues. Near the end of the day, there were kids throwing their basketballs to other friends on the Midway Carousel while it was running. Eventually, one of them dropped it, and it rolled around the whole ride.... Annoying

2. I saw a ride host... A TL actually, on their cell phone while high clearing (dispatching) a train. I was shocked as this person has been with the company for several years...

3. Why is it necessary for people to swat at the chains in the queue lines? Several times during the day, a group would be in front of me, and each member of the group would hit the chains as we were walking through the queue making as much noise as possible... Annoying...

4. Up until this trip, I have been very impressed with the Gemini crew. Yesterday they seemed to be lacking enthusiasm, and seemed to be stacking with the 2-train operation left and right. And to be honest, it seemed like they really weren't concerned about it.

5. The MF Crew was fantastic yesterday. Even with the short lines (on the ramp most of the day) the crew still was hauling to hit interval, and they were on par every time I saw them. Fantastic job MF crew! All of this, and the ride was FLYING today. I got great airtime on both of my rides (5-1 and 2-1)

6. Dragster was down until around 1:40 PM, but once it was running it seemed to be running great. The crew was enthusiastic, and moving very quickly. Trains were launching like clockwork.

Finally I have questions about 2 nitpicky cosmetic things about the park:

1. Did the Wildcat bathrooms receive new graphics on the front of the building for "Men" and "Women". I know the bathrooms themselves were renovated a few years ago, but the graphic seemed new to me.

2. On the "Skyhawk" side of the building where CCMR comes into the final brake, there is what appears to be a series of troughs running down the side of the building where it seems water could be running down. Did the park ever have water running down these, or have they always just sat dry?

I know these are minor things, but I know there has to be someone on here who knows the answers, and I was just curious.

Overall it was a great day at the park, especially for July.... And wow, I just wrote a lot...

Observations:

1) I'm surprised the op didn't stop the ride and kick them off. I'm surprised they were allowed to take the ball on in the first place.

2) That's surprising, I wonder if it was an emergency or something

3) Boredom. Plain and simple boredom.

4) It happens

5) That's what my sister said, short waits all day.

6) 3 hours and 40 minutes is 1 minute too short to be considered significant downtime, no need to mention it. ;)

Sounds like you (and my sister, but not with you) had a good time yesterday. She'd had to make sure to send me lots of text and picture messages throughout the day to rub it in.

Ugh, I really hope that the 2 days I go next week the crowds are fairly low.

Great Trip report. I was also very surprised when I went on the 19th with some of the support locations for project '07. Some of them were in places I thought for sure would be something else (as you said one at the presumed station).

I'm going to have to look for the troughs by CCMR. I've never seen those before. One cosmetic thing I noticed at the park was on Dragster. It was nice to see that they replaced the TTD logo on the red train that had sort of torn off. Really surprising about the person on their cell phone. I was also thinking it could've been some type of emergency.

If it was an emergency, it was a funny one, because they were laughing while talking...

And Jugga... I dont think the op saw the basketball shenanigans... It was happening on the side of the carousel facing the front gate... the Op was on the other side...

1. I got hit at least four times by people trying to dunk the balls into the loose article bins. Ugh.

2. You should see TPR's review of an SFMM trip a couple weeks ago. Employees laying down behind counters and ride ops on phones left and right. (Then again... that's Six Flags, not CF.)

3. Agreed. Sometimes I just hold the chains when they're swatting them just to get them PO'd for no particular reason.

4. My observations that day: Stacking, yes. Enthusiasm... quite a bit. I know Eli from the Gemini crew seems to be a fan favourite around these parts, but David was REALLY into it when I rode (around noon).

5. Agreed on all counts. I rode twice in a half-hour. Would have ridden more if I didn't have to meet back up with my cousin. (I was trying to convince him the whole second day to ride it, since he ended up taking Magnum in stride.)

6. Also rode TTD around 6:00. Launching like clockwork, as you stated. :)

The Wildcat bathroom "logos" seemed to be there last year, from what I recall.

Indeed, the weather was especially nice... towards the end of the day. No storms (surprised me), but dang, was it humid!

Didn't notice the Giant Wheel thing.

Overall, sounds like you had a good time. I could have sworn I saw you with a few teenagers, so it was probably your youth group. (Who else would wear their MF 2004 Crew Test shirt? ;))

My favorite thing to bother employees about while I was an area sup. Cell phone use! Got to write some finals for that! Bad enough it was atl while working! Most of the staff I caught would be off work but on the midway.

Cedar Dan said:
1. I got hit at least four times by people trying to dunk the balls into the loose article bins. Ugh.

There would have been four less people with basketballs in the World, had it been me (or my lady) that was hit.