CP Capacity, A Minor Pet Peeve

Hey all, I'm new here and was reading up on the MF-ticket fiasco, and I noticed people (well more like one person, but I've seen Po!nters do this elsewhere) saying things like "Cedar Point, the park with the worlds greatest capacity and fastest moving lines, does not need Fast Pass, while parks that have low capacity, like Disney parks, do."

Eh, thats not quite true. Disney does infact have the highest capacity, for example, Pirates has around 3400, the Haunted Mansion has about 2100 PPH, Space Mt. at Disneyland is around 1700-1800 PPH, Big Thunder runs 5 trains, etc. And the claim that CP's lines move fastest is also wrong, Indy at DL dispatches 12 people around every 18 seconds, not to mention some rides never stop loading. Also in regards to Fast Pass, Imagineers have said that the system doesn't work on lower capacity rides like DL's Rocket Rods (which has similar capacity to MF).

Of course, DL has 70,000 people in the park on the average summer day, while CP has what? 25-30,000? But Disney still has better capacity.

Just had to clear that up,
Alex

Actually, Cedar Point packs in 35,000 on an average day, and weekends in late July and August are even more significant.

The comparisons you draw aren't really apples to apples. Roller coasters are a different beast, and sadly Disney has lackluster representation in that area. If you were to compare Rock-n-Roller Coaster to a Cedar Point ride, then that would be another thing. It's also important to note the difference between theoretical and actual capacity (i.e., SFO's Batman can't touch Raptor's actual capacity, despite having nearly identical theoretical capacity).

Then you have to add the entire park capacity, including every ride, and compare that to a day's attendence at any given hour. Disney tends to have more passive things to do, so that would certainly work in their favor by taking people away from the rides.

I'm not trying to shoot down your theory, but person for person, I bet Cedar Point has better ride capacity.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 34

I believe Cedar Point has received the Applause Award the last few years and one of the reasons is for being No. 1 in the "Best Capacity" category, which measures how effectively and efficiently guests flow through queue lines;

Yes, but is the measure objective or subjective? I have not been to a Disney park in a while, so I don't have audited capacity numbers for their rides. But for an objective comparison, we can get Cedar Point ride capacity numbers fairly easy; all you need is a stopwatch and a calculator... --Dave Althoff, Jr.

Disney and other FL parks have really confusing ride numbers: for the most part, they don't close parts of the queues, like the big blocks that will be closed in Mantis and Raptor at CP. So while it might look like a walk-on at Disney, you really have been walking for awhile, and all along people have been riding.

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Disaster Transport '97 Crew
Iron Dragon '98 Crew

Yes, but what Jeff and I are trying to get at here is that the number of people waiting in line has *NO* bearing on the ride's carrying capacity. Assuming that the trains always go out full, the *only* thing that matters is the number of people on the train, and the dispatch interval. More people waiting in line merely means that the number of people arriving at the ride is greater than the ride's carrying capacity. Ideally, the number of people arriving at the ride should be roughly equal to the ride's capacity, since that means that the ride will be a 'walk-on' but will still carry the same number of people. Now, who is going to get us some train sizes and dispatch intervals for Disney rides? --Dave Althoff, Jr.

But why does Rock and Roller Coaster and Big Thunder Mountain RR both have FIVE trains while the most on any CP coaster is three??? That would mean a higher hourly ride capacity!

Capacity also has to do with track length, blocking, etc.

I do wonder how RnRC can maintain 5.

Five trains doesn't mean extra capacity. I've never been on RnRC, but I'm assuming there's a train in stand-by between the unload and load, waiting for dispatch. Add two blocks to the circuit and a stand-by area before the unload and you've got your six blocks to hold five trains.

However, all of those trains don't add to capacity. You are still limited to two blocks on the circuit, meaning two trains of riders in motion, like most of Cedar Point's coasters. In the Rock scenario, you have one train sitting idle between stations, one on a stand-by brake and one in each station. That's a lot of trains sitting idle.

Mine Ride was originally blocked for five trains, but even when busy, you still had at least two trains idle, but with a long approach to the first lift and a second lift, you could easily keep three trains in motion.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 35