April 5 2007 - Helping a friend process in

I have a friend who is working at CP next year (she will be starting out in Pagoda) and since I live in Sandusky she asked if she could stay with me for a couple of weeks before she started. I agreed and yesterday I took her down to CP to process in.

I first dropped her off at Human Resources and stayed in the car to see if I could get a wireless internet signal. The only thing I could pick up was the marina WiFi and you had to pay to use it. After she got out of Human Resources we drove around the back of the park to Wardrobe.

Well we actually had to drive around behind HR first because perimeter road was closed off for a small section due to some kind of construction and the Marina Gate (I could not see what it was :( )

While driving around I got a <i>good</i> look at Maverick. It looks great and I can't wait to ride it in May. The rock work looks wonderful in person, even better than the pictures look.

Sorry no pictures the weather was really bad, (snowing) so I didn't even bother with pics.

After getting through with Wardrobe we had to go the the Merchandise office so we walked through the park. It was weird seeing all the trains and cars off the tracks and sitting on the midways. It did seem that the Scrambler and Skyride cars had fresh coats of paint (the Scrambler cars didn't even have the logo on them yet) and there were a few other flat rides that looked like they had fresh paint.

Well when we left Merchandise we were going to walk around the park some but it was so cold that we decided to just leave and check into housing.

Well the only housing that was open was Bayside, so she got a room in Bayside and we moved her stuff up. The rooms are smaller (they only hold 2 people instead of 4 in commons) and did not seem very clean (neither the rooms or the hallways) but she is stuck there for at least a week till Commons opens. If she decides to move to commons when it opens she is going to give me a call and I will help her move again.

That is the story of me helping someone process in at Cedar Point. This is very disjointed so I will probably edit it again later, but not right now ;)

Snow is not a reason for not taking pictures of Maverick...

No stopping or slowing down on Perimeter Road is a reason...

Still... It would have been nice to see some up close pictures.

You didn't happen to see any testing did you? ;-)

Unless they were authorized, we wouldn't have allowed the photos to be linked here anyway.

Walt, I understand and respect CP's policy as far as picture taking and such goes. But can I ask for clarification? I understand if someone had trespassed and taken pictures that they would not be shown here, but when they were authorized to be driving around the park, why would CP object to the pictures being shown, unless they were showing something the park didn't want people to see? To me it seems to be a grey area.

Would this be an issue of legality, or simply one of sustaining a good relationship with the park?

Again, I'm not challenging your decision, just curious what goes into the decision-making process.

It'd be an issue of Walt sustaining a good relationship with the park.

Morté615 said:
Well we actually had to drive around behind HR first because perimeter road was closed off for a small section due to some kind of construction and the Marina Gate (I could not see what it was :( )

I believe the crosswalk is being re-bricked.

That's a fair question, Josh.

First, there is no doubt Matt was perfectly fine in what he was doing. I doubt anyone would even care if he took photos for his own collection, or just shared them with friends. This really has more to do with Cedar Point keeping control on information coming out of the park.

Yesterday, there were a couple of videos of the Maverick station posted on YouTube by a sub-contractor working on the ride. I know firsthand that the park was upset about those videos being online. The fact that they were taken by someone who was authorized to be there didn't matter.

There was another case earlier this off-season where a seasonal employee posted a bunch of photos from a couple of winter visits. There are some here who probably saw the pictures, which were linked from a coaster enthusiast web site. To make a long story short, those photos are no longer online. Again, that person wasn't trespassing, but he wasn't authorized to post the photos either.

On top of that, now that we're close to opening day, there's another factor in play as well. As was mentioned in the Register article from last month, the site itself is closed off to any non-essential personnel. Even the Register photographer was limited to a few photos from outside the ride area. I suspect at this point they want to limit views of the ride until May, which will enhance the unveiling. I'm actually heading out for some photos in a couple of weeks, but I'll be limited in what I can post from that trip, at least until the park opens.

After years of working with the park's Public Relations team, I have a pretty good idea of not only what is and isn't OK, but why they have the rules in the first place. Sometimes enthusiasts don't understand, because they don't look at it from a public relations perspective or a business perspective.

I always respect those rules, not because I'm afraid of losing access, but because I respect the people who put the rules in place. That's really the reason we're aggressive about keeping links to offending material off PointBuzz. It's not because we're afraid the park will be mad at us if we don't remove them, it's because we respect the people who work with us, the friendships we have with them, and the job they're doing. And, honestly, I agree with the policies 99.9% of the time, so it's not like I'm having an internal struggle. :)

Jeff and I have taken a lot of grief over the years about what we do and don't allow here. We've heard it all: fanboy, brown noser, corporate shill, etc. I hope this offers a little more insight into why we do it.

*** Edited 4/7/2007 1:07:20 PM UTC by Walt***

I dont read allot on the TR forum but I must ask out of curiosity.....Matt, were any of Dragsters trains on the track yet or were they on the midway?

Josh M. said:
Snow is not a reason for not taking pictures of Maverick...
You didn't happen to see any testing did you? ;-)

True I probably could have taken some pics anyway, I just don't think they would have turned out very good, with the snow and everything, so I did not bother. But now I wish that I had taken some :(.

BTW for anyone who is interested I do have some CP pics up on my Photobucket: http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/mdcomp615/ and my Deviant Art: http://morte615.deviantart.com/ pages, and Walt these were taken during the season and as far as I know break no rules :)

And no unfortunately there was no testing of Maverick, but they were testing SkyHawk both that day and on other recent days. (I have been down to the Jackson Street Pier a couple of times and seen it running)

TTD 120mpg said:
Matt, were any of Dragster's trains on the track yet or were they on the midway?

Sorry but I did not end up going that far into the park, it was really cold and my friend that I was helping process in didn't want to walk around any so we really just went from Wardrobe to the Merchandise department and back. But I did see that the Ocean Motion supports were down and getting a fresh coat of white paint. I guess this is the year for the flat rides to get some new paint :) *** Edited 4/9/2007 10:55:02 PM UTC by Morté615***

This is just speculation, but I wonder with all the testing they have been doing of Skyhawk (several weeks now)... if they are testing a longer ride cycle. I know it had been discussed that it was possible, but I wonder if there is a chance it could happen this season.

Just a thought.

Since they finally "fixed" the broken side, I'm guessing they're trying to make sure it's going to operate properly. There also may be some type of regulation, after changing the design, of a ride for how many hours they have to test it also.