Cedar Point 2013

So if my camera isn't at the platform when I get back from my ride on Wild Eagle...who is to blame? Is Dolly springing for a new one?

^That's a good idea in theory, but it come with liability issues if a rider hands their Ipod to a ride op to put in a bin than they see that person as responsible for that item regardless of signs they may have posted. If someone else takes that Ipod A good bit of people are going to go right up to that ride op and say hey did you put my Ipod in the bin and likely assume they took it. Most people can understand a little better at least when they put their items in the bin themselves. If I was a ride op I would rather have the guest put it in themselves so I could clearly say I never touched it, and had nothing to do with it missing. you left it there at your own risk end of story.

I personalty say if you go to the park with more stuff than you can fit in your pockets you have to buy a locker and not hold up the ride time by putting stuff in bins that goes for all rides!

I vote for the loose article box on Gatekeeper... I understand why they haven't on MF because they have a separate unloading station, which could get very confusing...

Jeff said:
You can't bring crap up to Millennium Force, and somehow, people ride it anyway. Ditto for countless rides elsewhere, like Islands of Adventure where they're clearly not having any issues attracting customers.

That so many customers ride coasters without bins is no more justification for it being a good process than is McDonald's having served billions justification for their food being good. :)

Islands of Adventure provides free lockers while you ride, correct? That's a solution I can get behind. That way, customers can still bring their crap with them, and capacity isn't hurt by that practice.

Regardless of your moral (or whatever) stance on the issue, people like to bring crap with them. Telling them not to isn't a solution, as evidenced by IoA and others providing free lockers rather than bins.

Read the signs. No loose articles permitted on ride. You read it, you lost it, your fault.

They should just make LAB(loose article bins) with numbers assigned to them, that match up with the seat numbers. Less confusion there, but the GP would never catch on to this system, they still have YEARS to go.

Jason Hammond said:
That's one thing I always thought was cool at Holiday World and Dollywood. The ride ops take the loose articles while the riders concentrate on getting in the trains.

This is how they have been doing it on Leviathan this year at Canada's Wonderland. The ride Ops are always taking your items and not allowing you to go to the bins while boarding.

^ If you did this on a coaster then you would have people searching for their seat number reducing capacity even more.

Cedar King said:
Read the signs. No loose articles permitted on ride. You read it, you lost it, your fault.

They should just make LAB(loose article bins) with numbers assigned to them, that match up with the seat numbers. Less confusion there, but the GP would never catch on to this system, they still have YEARS to go.

They actually do that with maXair and Skyhawk and I like it. I don't have to put my stuff with a bunch of other peoples crap. I can see how it would be annoying if they were to do this with a coaster though.

What I meant was that the LABs would be adjacent to the seats on the unloading platform.

not sure if you guys have seen this yet or how accurate it is, but the cedar point web page says that Gatekeeper will run through ~1,710 riders per hour, which is similar to the raptor's ~1,800

Too bad people always carry around so much crap with them. When I go to an amusement park I find it easiest to have the least amount of stuff possible. And if I do have something I have a secure pocket available for it to fit in. The flip flops thing annoys me to no end. As much standing and walking you do in an amusement park you would think you would be wise and wear sneakers. After my last trip with my wife she learned the lesson after I told her to wear sneakers instead.

If I were Cedar Point I would get rid of bins altogether and go to a daily locker rental. Charge a flat rate for an all day locker.

I had my camera out when I was waiting for the next Voyage train at Holiday World taking pictures. Before I got into the next train, I put the camera in my pocket (as I have on hundreds of coasters/rides over the years). But when the ride op checked my seat, he told me I needed to leave the camera because once they saw it, the camera became a loose article. They took it and placed it into a small locker next to the train and gave me the key for it. Camera was there when I got back. I did not see them doing that later in the day though there were some people taking pictures in the station. I rode the rest of the day on Voyage with the camera in my pocket with no issues.

I was amazed at how many people got onto rides at Holiday World holding up various items (from bags to cell phones to sunglasses) with the ride ops running over to take them all and put them in bins. I guess they have concluded that its faster that way? Not being used to that it seemed odd to me.

Overall, I think people bring way too much stuff to parks and on rides. Parks have to account for the fact that is reality. But I am not sure the guests should necessarily have any expectation that bins or free lockers will always be provided.

djDaemon said:
That so many customers ride coasters without bins is no more justification for it being a good process than is McDonald's having served billions justification for their food being good. :)

Islands of Adventure provides free lockers while you ride, correct? That's a solution I can get behind. That way, customers can still bring their crap with them, and capacity isn't hurt by that practice.

Regardless of your moral (or whatever) stance on the issue, people like to bring crap with them. Telling them not to isn't a solution, as evidenced by IoA and others providing free lockers rather than bins.

I would recommend you stay away from Busch Gardens - Williamsburg. No loose items allowed in the station and the lockers are not free.

I don't carry stuff that I can't fit in my cargo pockets, so that doesn't apply to me. :)

MDOmnis said:
I, for one, am not disappointed by the ride. I like Maverick as a ride, but it's an Intamin and has suspect reliability and poor capacity compared to Raptor or Magnum. WT is pretty ordinary, Dragster has been a fiasco. As a result of all that, I would say that GateKeeper is the best new ride decision that CP has made since Millennium Force.

Dragster isn't a fiasco anymore, its a great ride that has very good up-time considering the technology it uses. Maverick only has low capacity because of the short trains, but that's a nice part of the ride. I don't want every ride in the park to have trains with 8 cars in a row.

djDaemon said:
I don't carry stuff that I can't fit in my cargo pockets, so that doesn't apply to me. :)

I don't either until I bought some silly top hats for myself and the kids to wear. Seems like I ended up spending more money on the lockers than I did on the hats.

Maverick only has low capacity because of the short trains, but that's a nice part of the ride. I don't want every ride in the park to have trains with 8 cars in a row.

And having six trains makes up for the size of them too. When they're running them all that is. ;)

But they still take the normal 3 minutes to load. Most of the time you have two or three trains waiting behind the station.

Perhaps bins like Skyrush at Hershey, where each row has their own set of cubbies next to the gate for each row would work. (Skyrush loads/unloads on the same side)

And hopefully Cedar Fair avoids a system like Six Flags, where each ride has no bins and $1, one-use, designated to a specific ride lockers. Makes you spend $5-10 more on lockers per day.

I took the time to relook at the layout, and it is worse than I originally thought. This has to be the lamest ending in roller coaster history.

This ending reminds me of the ending of the Double Loop at Geauga Lake after the two loops.

This is the same thing but worse, at least the Double Loop had a reason for putting that helix in there, the helix on this is just plain stupid.

Cedar Point should be ashamed of approving a ride design with that type of ending. This ride is supposed to be intense from start to finish.

More disappointed now after I examined the layout all over again.

Just another Double Loop disaster in the making.

Just Coasting

Well they may have had another design and it failed to complete circut, budget, etc. They may have been out of time and needed something easy, so they put that ending in.