Daily ride starting times

I feel I've searched this web site thoroughly enough, and not found an answer to my question.For the soul purpose of my curiosity, who or what dictates when the rides actually open daily? Example- park opens to public @ at 10Am , I go to ride the Gemini, it's 10:15, and it's not accepting riders yet. So I head over to Magnum, it's not accepting riders yet either, and its now 10:30AM. Ok, lets try the Monster-same thing! Taking into consideration weather,staffing,mechanical issues & start of the new season-I know there will be set backs. However, shouldn't most rides be completely tested and functioning by 10AM? We visited 5/18 and the weather was perfect @ 9AM for early entry. After that, at 10 in the morning, most rides still weren't accepting riders. Felt dead in the water at that point. Food service wasn't open, shops still closed. Just curious as to why this may happen. Not upset, just want to know as much as possible to make this the best summer for my daughter and I! It's our first time being pass(platinum) holders.

It may depend on when the worker arrive, they have to make sure nothing is wrong because remember safety is always #1. Also, I saw on the webcams that Monster was having some maintenance issues, they were working on it late last night, and this morning.

Been going consistently since 1995 and over the years it seems the major(most popular as far as what the public heads to first)rides are what they TRY to get up and running. I would put the majors as GateKeeper and Raptor since they're close to the main entrance,Millenium Force,Maverick, and Top Thrill. Everything else seems to be as staffing comes on-line. Food services I've never seen(except for the old Donut Time now Starbucks)operating at opening,people want to ride,not eat.
Back in the mid to late 90s',park opening was 10am,at 9am security would bring out the flag and send it up,national anthem would play and EVERYONE was let in at 9,there was no early entry. The majors of back then,Raptor,Mantis,Mean Streak,and Magnum were up and running at 9.

Yea back even as recently as 2004 and maybe later, they let people in at 9:30 (Joe Cool Club which would be platinum passes and resort guest early entry today was at either 8:30 or 9 depending on the day) and pretty much everything was open by 10 at the latest (with just a couple Water ride exceptions).

When I worked Magnum, we had one leadership person plus two more people get to the ride at 9. One did a track walk to change the locks on the gates and the other walked the third tunnel. We had a little goal that the people waiting at the resort gate wouldn't hear the national anthem at 9:30 because they'd better be hearing our lift instead as we were doing our block checks and transferring on our third train. If we weren't open by 9:45, it was unusual.

Nowadays - who knows? I've been there days when everything is open promptly at 10 and other days where it seems like everyone is still trying to shake off the previous night at Louie's. I haven't bothered rushing in for early entry as much in recent years, but a couple times when I did, I found Maverick not ready to roll by 9. Same with MF. Gatekeeper has been better in my experience.

Yeah, its quite annoying when the park "opens" at say 10am but realistically only half of the park is open. Hate rushing back to maverick to see it not open yet. Last season during my second visit we got to maverick about 10:10 and it wasn't open yet, so we rode meanstreak which was open, then Skyhawk.

Should just change the opening times (open 30 minutes earlier or whatever) to compensate. Or have employees come in 15 minutes earlier just saying.

Agree 100% with all comments! Yes, safety first Alex! Great point made. As a paying customer, I still expect ALL properly functioning rides to be available at 10am- the posted, and advertised time. If staff scheduling is an issue, it needs improvement soon when the really busy season starts! I arrive promptly @ 8:30 to line up and enjoy early entry. I know its a free for all after that. But Cedar Fair won't make any money from guests if they are kept waiting, and waiting...lol

Dennis Urban said:
Back in the mid to late 90s',park opening was 10am,at 9am security would bring out the flag and send it up,national anthem would play and EVERYONE was let in at 9,there was no early entry.

Yeah, I can remember years ago the park would play national anthem and start letting everyone in by 9am. The rides did not open until 10am, but it would allow guests to start lines outside attraction entrances.

Most employees who have early entry rides are there at 7:30am. We can't start the ride without the okay from our supervisors. We're usually done before 9am, but sometimes at 8:58 the train just decides to stop running. Unfortunately, we can't help that. Sometimes, it's an ongoing issue that maintenance has to fix daily. We can't predict what will happen and when, we just do everything we can to ensure you guys have a great day.

Have some of you forgot that rides are machines and they tend to break down or sense errors? Things occur that result in late openings. Come back at a later time and more than likely you'll be able to ride

We aren't complaining about occasional problems, obviously issues can arise unexpectedly. However when I visit multiple times per year and notice rides not open at posted opening time every time, it then becomes an issue to voice a complaint about. Especially when its the same rides.

Its not that hard to have employees come in 15-30 min earlier. Or just post your opening time a little later. Perhaps those aren't good solutions, perhaps they just break down during opening whenever I visit (and others in this thread), either way, doesn't look good to general visitors.

Hopefully you have better days at CP. Every time a ride breaks down, it is a mad house trying to get it back up. Also, employees are there 24/7 (night maintenance doesn't get off until we come in). We can't predict when something will happen so changing the times won't help. Again, I'm sorry but there's really nothing that can be done. Sure we can come in at 7am, get our checklist done, test ride (as we do every train with employees in them) and the ride can still break down at 8:58. It's a gamble that is out of our control.

We appreciate how quickly you guys get things back up and running too. When that situation happens to me when I am there, I'm not blaming operators/hosts, I'm blaming management for not taking better care of equipment or replacing parts when they need it.

I get it, **** happens. Didn't attempt to try to start a war. The situation is just annoying. ☺

Edit: also I'm just speaking about the start of the day. Obviously after 100s or 1000s of cycles things beyond control could happen.

I'm not buying the reasoning that this is mostly mechanical issue related. Those type of issues do happen, but not so often that they are related to this trend. This seems more likely to be a management issue with either when employees are asked to start each morning, the amount of pre-opening work they have to do, supervisor approval efficiency, or any combination of the above.

I recall from years past (and as Matt stated above) that many rides would routinely open before their scheduled opening times. For coasters and more popular rides, it is pretty inexcusable to be opening late on a daily basis.

If you are referring more or less to opening popular rides in the park, management will pull somebody from a different location who is already trained at that ride to fill the position of the missing ride host. Not to mention, platform positions are designed to cut up to 2 positions.

If the crew does not get clearance from maintenance as there are problems found with rides during the middle of the night, that's another reason they can't open on time.

So whatever your guys theory is, just know Cedar Point has a reason for a ride not opening on time. Just as cpemployee2014 said, as a ride op, it can be out of our control when a late opening occurs

On a morning with nice weather, what option would you do first: Park in the front of the park and do GK first during ERT, or park in back and try for Maverick first??
We usually did Maverick, but most mornings in the past, it seems like it's not running right away, while GK always was. And TTD is not usually ready until 10, correct?

I was just curious, do they actually test ALL the rides at night, and I saw a video of Mean Streak on the Discovery Channel that says they walk the track every morning, is this also true?

I think it varies on a ride by ride basis. For Mean Streak and Blue Streak, the track is definitely walked every single morning.

I get that rides are machines and sometimes have maintenance issues. But, that has been the case always. What is unexplained is why back in the day (say the 80's), when the park advertised gates open at 9:00am and rides start at 10:00am, every ride was consistently open before 10:00am. Sure, there was the occasional maintenance issue, but that was the rare exception.

So, what is the explanation? Is it the employees not starting early enough? Is the increased complexity of today's rides causing more downtime than the old classic rides? Does the maintenance staff need to get larger in order to have more resources to spread throughout the night to get things completed earlier? Only the park knows the answers, but I also have noticed that it seems that things are not starting up in the morning as consistently on time as they once did.

I would say the complexity of the newer rides contributes to a lot of downtime. Everything is run by a computer now, unlike the older rides that run off of basic hard-wired controls and sensors.

I agree with Pete; there has been a noticeable increase in late openings compared to years past.

One particular Halloweekends Saturday (2011 if memory serves) we started with Maverick, then tried Mean Streak (nope), Mine Ride (nope) and Gemini (nope). At this point it was nearing 1PM, and any advantage gained by getting to the park promptly at opening had evaporated into the wandering around.