Breaks, and how do they work?

No rotation goes perfectly, it all depends on the quality of workers at the ride and how mature they are to rotate on time. That was a problem with a few people at RipCord, but I'm sure there are problems with people at every ride. A large majority of the RipCord-ites enjoyed the rotation and its application to the ride, and did quite well with it.

If you need a point of reference, look at a two-day period in which I was gone from RipCord at the end of July/beginning of August when they didn't use one, and how literally everyone complained about how horrible not having one was the two days I was gone. It doesn't matter how long the period of rotation is, it works well when people cooperate and are mature. People are going to go to the bathroom and come back late from break from time to time, it happens. That will happen whether it's 30 or 60 minutes. It really wasn't that difficult to change and adapt with any curveballs that got thrown during the day. Intelligence is key there.

It's like a football team and its coaches. The coaches put them in position to win with a good gameplan, but if the players aren't responsive or don't follow the gameplan, it won't work and you get beat 41-14 in the national championship game (sorry, had to throw in the Gators reference there).

I'll second that. The only bad days I can recall at Ripcord were days we had no rotation. Of course, a few people liked that because they would "flight suit/sit in the office during the flights" all day while everyone else was stuck doing real work or sitting at Skyscraper for 3 hours at a time. I can recall many days where one or more people seriously screwed up breaks by being late, and it was never difficult to adapt the rotation.

If I ever came back from a break late and someone called me out on it I would just make up a claim that my break ended at whatever time I got back...

lladnar said:
If I ever came back from a break late and someone called me out on it I would just make up a claim that my break ended at whatever time I got back...

Because, you know, that's the honest and responsible thing to do.

As for rotations..Yes, they are supposed to happen every 30 minutes. In fact, there were a few morning notes over the course of the past two summer where it was specifically mentioned to remember to rotate, and rotate on time. On some crews it was becoming a problem.

I'm so glad I didn't work in rides. Everyone takes things way too seriously. Does it really matter if you rotate every 30 minutes or every hour? I can't imagine any position that would be so awful you couldn't stay there for a full hour instead of just 30 minutes. I realize on rides it's a staying alert thing, but seriously, if you can't focus for more than 30 minutes you're probably pretty screwed anyway.

I think some load positions on the coasters can get quite monotonous. I think around 30 minutes it would start getting a bit irritating checking the same lapbars and belts over and over, so rotating to something fresh would help time go by. Also, if someone isn't really a talker, I don't think they'd want to be stuck at spiel for an extended period of time. Plus, on hot days rotating to controls on the major coasters is plus for some people, if it's available for everyone.

Plus if you're in the speil position, you're getting a double dose of monotony.

Ralph Wiggum said:
I'm so glad I didn't work in rides. Everyone takes things way too seriously. Does it really matter if you rotate every 30 minutes or every hour? I can't imagine any position that would be so awful you couldn't stay there for a full hour instead of just 30 minutes. I realize on rides it's a staying alert thing, but seriously, if you can't focus for more than 30 minutes you're probably pretty screwed anyway.

It actually does matter. When theres four positions of checking lap bars continulously, one including the microphone, an hour is too long. It's a lot of work to constantly run up and down the platform, make sure everyone is in, that there are no lose articles out and about, seat belts on, no one jumping gates and underneath the ride, etc. to be done at an hour rotation. Things needs to be taken seriously in Rides. This isn't RipCord where after 5-10 minutes of flying people, you can just sit down.

If someone is shy are they allowed to be excused from the microphone asong as someone else is willing to do it? I am not afraid of the mic when I worked at Conneaut Lake Park I was always happy to be running the bumper cars which was the only ride to have a mic it was fun to yell at people for head ons or going the wrong way Lol. But I was just wondering?

You have to do it.

We get it Brandon, you think working rides is better than working at Ripcord. You loved working at Mean Streak.

I wasn't saying anything towards that, but okay.

kidcoaster said:
it was fun to yell at people for head ons or going the wrong way

There's a "wrong way" on bumper cars?

Some bumper car rides feature a central divider that effectively turns the ride area into race track-like oval. Cars are only supposed to go in one direction, more or less. It's not as fun, but it reduces or eliminates those jarring head-on collisions. I'm not sure if Conneaut Lake's layout was this way, having never ridden it on any of my visits, but I guess this is what kidcoaster is referring to.

Interesting. And completely ruins the fun of bumper cars. If I want laps I'll go to the go-karts.

eliminating the front end collisions eliminates the fun.

Well CLP's were alot faster than other bumper cars. It could do some serious damage with head ons. When we had a rainy day some of us working rode the bumper cars to pass the time we were not going the rules as it was just us.. After our rides they had to throw out 2 cars and fix 3. Not to mention going through the Devil's Den haunted house by hooking up all 4 cars in a chain standing up and holding on to each other, Lol good times. Shame the park is closed.

as for break areas, gotta love stockade! only the ppl tho, i dont love stockade for having to wait my entire break to order a cookie, only to be told they were out.

And as for rotations, gemini wasnt so bad but on monster, if i didnt roatate i would have lost it staring at that thing spinning for more than an hour.

CP_Obsessed_Freak1987 said:

Ralph Wiggum said:
I'm so glad I didn't work in rides. Everyone takes things way too seriously. Does it really matter if you rotate every 30 minutes or every hour? I can't imagine any position that would be so awful you couldn't stay there for a full hour instead of just 30 minutes. I realize on rides it's a staying alert thing, but seriously, if you can't focus for more than 30 minutes you're probably pretty screwed anyway.

It actually does matter. When theres four positions of checking lap bars continulously, one including the microphone, an hour is too long. It's a lot of work to constantly run up and down the platform, make sure everyone is in, that there are no lose articles out and about, seat belts on, no one jumping gates and underneath the ride, etc. to be done at an hour rotation. Things needs to be taken seriously in Rides. This isn't RipCord where after 5-10 minutes of flying people, you can just sit down.

When I was at Carowinds, there were multiple times I had to work unload or load at Hurler (wooden coaster, about the same lousy ridership as Mean Streak), and I definitely was in the same position for more than half an hour and it was definitely not that bad. Sure, my back hurt from having to bend over to check lapbars, but when you're 6'5 like me, your back gets sore pretty easily. Having mental toughness and not being soft has a lot to do with that.

And there were certainly a large number of days when I didn't sit down for several hours at a time at RipCord. It was actually a pretty busy summer from late June until I left.

I am slightly envious of the multiple breaks. Admissions got one 45 min. break but they let us be gone for an hour as long as we didn't abuse it. That was it though, no 15 min. or half hour breaks. Regardless of the shift, as long as you worked 5-whatever hours you got 1 hour.