9/5/15 visit

Being a Saturday, on a holiday weekend, I was skeptical, but we went. I was pleasantly surprised! This was the smallest crowd I've EVER seen for early entry. MF was first , as our required first ride(s) of the day. It was walk up ramp, pick a seat and ride-literally that quick...until a guest got ill, and cleanup needed done. No big deal. Maverick was next, but mechanical issues caused it to be down. We headed over to Magnum and waited for morning testing to be completed. Riders didn't board until 10:30. This is where I get slightly aggravated. It states that park opens to public at a 'stated time' per any given day. So why aren't the rides tested and ready to go at that time? If there is more time needed, get employees there earlier! That morning ride was rough, but smoothed out as day progressed, as we love it and ride a lot! Next stop was TTD, and people were leaving line, as we see almost every time when we are thinking of entering que. We seem to have the best luck when it is down. People get impatient & leave line. I'm willing to take a break and wait it out...never a long wait, maybe 15 min. This visit, after issue resolved, there wasn't even a test run..riders right on. 10 min wait max!

We were now hungry & thirsty..so we headed to Breakers for a beverage & lunch at Perkins. The breakfast is great, burgers, not so much. Beer is much cheaper there, plus they were giving away free Surf Lounge plastic cups this weekend!

The rest of the day went smooth as silk. From our ride on GateKeeper, I could see the parking lot 3/4 way full, but that wasn't the crowd in the park. Lines were short and efficient. We opted to not indulge in $1 hot dogs, yuck IMO, and I have all season meal plan. We did take advantage of the sales at Pagoda gift shop. Selection was quite nice compared to other 'sales/specials'.

We had a great visit for a hot summer Saturday! We'll return after HalloWeekends gets into a normal routine!

My god, you should have been there on Thursday. Walk right on to Dragster's and Millennium's platforms.

Surf Lounge has had the plastic souvenir cups most of the summer. They are a really nice clear, hard acrylic plastic with the Surf Lounge logo on them, I have about 20.

Hi Janeen! I'm glad you had a good visit to Cedar Point. As a ride host your section on employees being there earlier kind of irks me. Of course being a guest you might not know that the ride host get to their ride anywhere from an hour and a half to 2 hours before the park opens, or in my case since my ride is early entry(9am) I have to be there at 730am. After they get to their ride a multitude of things must happen before they even test run the trains. This includes cleaning the entire queue lines, the ride platform, and the trains themselves sometimes. Then they need to transfer on all the trains. Also sometimes weather has an effect, as the morning is colder trains need to be either held off for an hour almost, or they need to fill up water dummies to simulate a loaded train, which then need to be dumped and put back into storage. After everything, each train needs to be run through 3 times each before they open the ride. Each and every variable I listed, and there are even more, change day to day. So one day Magnum will be ready for guest at 930a, the next it could be 1030am. It just all depends. I'm not trying to be arrogant about this, but it's a lot more complicated than "get the workers there sooner." I hope this helps! And trust me, we are just as anxious to get the ride up and running ASAP. Have a great next visit!

Thanks for the info. In no way do you sound arrogant. I assumed some of this(things you pointed out)was an issue, but not as much, my error. Are you able to voice your opinions to management about the work load? It sounds like you don't understand my initial statement however. IMO, the rides opening at posted times, should be close to being on schedule, so yes, maybe employees need scheduled differently.That responsibility rests on upper management, providing sufficient and adequate employees to do so. In no way does that reflect on you, and wasn't suggesting as such. Any visit @ Cp is great, because of good employees and great variety of attractions.

Being a former ride host I can also support it's not as easy as "get employees there sooner!" Teams are scheduled to get there with more then enough time to accomplish their tasks. However, there are situations were is just doesn't happen. Such as weather, or short staffing due to call offs (like all jobs).

But mainly ride hosts aren't even allowed to touch the rides until maintenance has signed them off for the day, every day. Getting a ride host there at 6am or 7am does little if the maintenance team doesn't hand the ride over to operations until 930am.

Not to mention, this time of year, staffing is very VERY short.

I'm glad I didn't come off as pompous.I could definitely talk to my supervisor about it! Anyways, as WolfBobs stated, maintenance has to sign off every ride, every day. And I do understand your statement. We do have an obligation to the guest to open up the ride on time, and we usually do, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. I can understand your frustration with waiting for a ride to open after waiting for the park to open after driving however long you did. Actually in only very seldom instances to we not open up the ride within half an hour after opening. When it's beyond that it's usually attributed to a mechanical issue or weather, as mornings are usually colder(you wouldn't think it would affect a roller coaster, but it does) and more windy.

As Point pointed out in their recent ride announcement they have over 70 rides in the park. I will guarantee they do not have 70 mechanics. Maintenance runs 3 shifts during the season so they do their best. The department is also usually broken down into departments, wood coaster, steel coaster, controls, etc to name a few. These guys are responsible for your safety. They take their jobs seriously. Ride repair and inspections for the next day usually start on 3rd shift after the park is closed to guests. However, under some circumstances mechanics just don't get to rides in a timely fashion. Lets say MF has a repair. That's obviously a main attraction. The entire 3rd shift steel coaster team may spend the entire night on it so its ready for open. That leaves ride inspections to 1st shift with little time to complete them before park opens or early entry. The crews do their best and want to be open on time just as much as you want them to be. It unfortunately just doesn't happen sometimes.

And temperature wise, most steel coasters can not run in sub 40 degree weather. So the earlier in the season or later in the season (October) you go, there are very good chances you will miss early ride time just because they can't send trains when its that cool.

I actually spent a day at Kings Dominion (their opening day) where the temperature didn't hit 40 degrees until around 2pm. Nothing was open other then their two indoor coasters until then. Talk about a boring day!

WolfBobs said:

As Point pointed out in their recent ride announcement they have over 70 rides in the park. I will guarantee they do not have 70 mechanics. Maintenance runs 3 shifts during the season so they do their best. The department is also usually broken down into departments, wood coaster, steel coaster, controls, etc to name a few. These guys are responsible for your safety. They take their jobs seriously. Ride repair and inspections for the next day usually start on 3rd shift after the park is closed to guests. However, under some circumstances mechanics just don't get to rides in a timely fashion. Lets say MF has a repair. That's obviously a main attraction. The entire 3rd shift steel coaster team may spend the entire night on it so its ready for open. That leaves ride inspections to 1st shift with little time to complete them before park opens or early entry. The crews do their best and want to be open on time just as much as you want them to be. It unfortunately just doesn't happen sometimes.

And temperature wise, most steel coasters can not run in sub 40 degree weather. So the earlier in the season or later in the season (October) you go, there are very good chances you will miss early ride time just because they can't send trains when its that cool.

I actually spent a day at Kings Dominion (their opening day) where the temperature didn't hit 40 degrees until around 2pm. Nothing was open other then their two indoor coasters until then. Talk about a boring day!

I recall riding banshee while it was snowing on closing weekend. Diamondback didn't open however. Banshee was running only two trains and had half the train full if lucky. I had a train on the bat to myself. I left in 3 hours with over 10 rides on banshee and atleast one ride on everything open including the mazes. The next day was a saturday and had the same crowds but diamonback opened.