Dragster Closes Early 10/5

I need to vent a little here. My wife and I arrived at the park yesterday, Sunday, at around 7:20pm after we got off of work. We were excited to get there on a not so busy, nor cold night and get a ride or two on Dragster. As we walked to the Dragster midway from Magnum, we overheard that the ride was closed, and would not reopen for the remainder of the evening because from what the op at entrance says "maintenence requested that it be closed". Ok, I don't have a problem with that in of itself. But what does irk me is that they continued to run the ride to clear out the queues which weren't more than 20-25 minutes long.

I know I don't know what the "real" reason is for closing the ride early, but hey, its Sunday, the park closes at 8...why couldn't they run the ride for the remainder of the evening--a whole whopping half hour!? In my opinion, if it needed maintenence that badly, they should have shut the ride down right then and there. But apparently it didn't, so why not keep it up!
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Michael McCormack
Magnum Count: 913
Dragster Count: 11 "Is it raining nickels?"

what makes it worse is that they are not open on weekdays so surely any maintenace that needed doing could have been done over that period of time. Also it does sound very silly to close it early and yet still continue to empty the line when the ride seems to be operating fine.

Did you not ask someone why it was closing early????

I was a little upset becuase I wanted 18 rides for the day and we were in the station when they made the announcement that they closed the line. I ended the day with 16 laps. :)

My first thought was that they have the entire week to work on the ride why bother.

My second thought was the ride felt very powerful. We thought maybe they were pushing the hydrolics too much to get it over in the cooler weather.

My third thought was that they wanted to get the crew out early. Some crew members were at the ride until 3am the night before. They actually had crew members from other rides come over and cover the rest of the shift for the crew members who worked late.

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Dan Haverlock
TTD Rollbacks 2 For 59
"get a job man!"

Didn't bother me, I got my last ride of the evening and headed to the real fun....walk up Raptor rides! I didn't notice it being more forceful than normal in either of my rides, but I did think it was odd for it to be running as smoothly as it was the whole day despite the cold. I think they just wanted to give the employees an early night as Dan suggested, because maintenance could've waited and even if the hydraulics were jacked up, an extra half hour on top of the whole day shouldn't have made too great a difference.

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HW 2K3: 3

The park sure has been doing a lot of lame things lately... I hope to God that they get it out of their system and get it together before May.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Personally, I hope the park hasn't grown arrogant about what it can do because of who they've grown to become. It seems as if since they've installed TTD, their heads have gotten as big as the ride itself...closing rides early...auto-spiels...
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Michael McCormack
Magnum Count: 913
"Is it raining nickels?"
*** This post was edited by BirdOfPrey00 10/6/2003 9:46:25 PM ***
*** This post was edited by BirdOfPrey00 10/6/2003 9:54:03 PM ***

As with auto-spiels, that is more of a legal matter. Guests decide that they don't want to listen to the safety instructions given and then if they get hurt, they sue the park saying they didn't hear the safety instructions. As with closing rides early, it is for very serious concerns. I would rather not get to ride because maintenance wants to work on the ride, than ride while they know something is wrong. Just makes me feel better and I would hope that more of the GP would be a little more caring.

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MANTIS ROCKS 2002 & 2003

But if it was that serious of a problem...the ride wouldn't run period...right? Thats what I'm saying. They obviously feel its safe enough to run the ride to clear out the queues, but not for an additional half hour that the park is open?

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Michael McCormack
Magnum Count: 913
"Is it raining nickels?"

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Millennium Force Laps-129
**Vertigo Launches-21**
Dragster Launches-20
I also felt the sting of that early closing. To make matters worse, we ran over to MF and would have had at least two sweet night rides but someone yacked all over the red train and we had to wait for the cleanup and ended up with only one.
Sunday was a great day though. I went with some friends who had to leave by 2pm. I was going to stay at Dragster for the remainder of the day(my iPod was charged and ready;)) but ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen in 8 years. That kind of spoiled my Dragster plan but I ended up doing Ripcord(still makes me shake and whimper) and catching up with my long lost buddy. Man, what are the odds of meeting in Dragster's station? I still managed to get 7 rides under my belt that day .
I saw yøu in line and wanted to say hi Dan but our queue's never crossed paths.
*** This post was edited by macho nachos 10/7/2003 12:39:02 AM ***

I used to be able to jump to the park's defense because there always seemed to be a reason for the things they did. Unfortunately, that has not been the case lately. If there was a serious maintenance issue, I doubt they'd have continued running to clear out the crew. I also doubt that they closed early to get the crew out of there, but honestly, I just don't know. Maybe there's some sort of reasonable explanation, but I'm not seeing it.

Once again, I think the management at CP needs to realize that they set the standard for excellence in the industry and they should really think twice about cutting corners and lowering themselves to the rest of the industry. Slowly but surely, several decisions that have been made over the past couple seasons have begun to ruin the park experience that we all love so much. I'm not sure what it's going to take for someone that matters to recognize this and stop with the backward steps.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

Sometimes the ride closes early because it needs maintenance. You guys should be happy they decided to run out the line instead of just shut it down and kick everyone out. They did not close the ride so we could go home. If that had been the case, they wouldn't have made us come in at 7:30 AM.

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Brent Haley
Gemini Crew '02
Dragster Crew '03

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Brian Short said:
As with auto-spiels, that is more of a legal matter. Guests decide that they don't want to listen to the safety instructions given and then if they get hurt, they sue the park saying they didn't hear the safety instructions.

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Nonsense. It doesn't matter if it's a human or a recording. No wait, it does matter, since the recording is longer than the time a train sits in the station on certain rides.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

It's not about getting guests to listen. It's about being able to prove that you told a guest not to do the dumb thing they did that led to an accident. In other words, it's not about safety, it's about covering the park's hindquarters, and killing the atmosphere on the platform as a side effect.

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.

I just find it funny as hell that first people ***** that the ride isn't running.. then when it is, and a problem comes up and they close off the enterance to run out the queue so they can work on a new problem.. People *****..

Would you rather they just kept running it and possibly caused more damage that would lead to a longer downtime?

I'd have to say that 99% of the people reading this dont' know why it was closed early, including alot of employees and former employees. Soem of us do because we were there.. It was closed because maintnance requested it and that's all that can be said. It's not CP being on a power trip or being arrogant like someone suggested. If you're looking for a park that is being arrogant, goto SFWoA and pay extra for thier haunted houses.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82

Did anyone consider that the park ran out the queue, instead of shutting the ride down immediately, in an effort to give the best experience possible to the most number of people?

I think people forget that earlier in the summer CP ran MF for about 45 min. past closing, to give people waiting for a down Dragster a chance to ride something else. Or, that they work to fix a Dragster breakdown way past closing to allow people in the queue to ride. Many parks cut the line off early on a popular attraction just because they don't want to run late. CP always keeps the queue open 'till closing, unless something unexpected (rarely) comes up.

I don't hesitate to criticize something when I feel it is deserving. This is not one of those cases. I've seen them run the queue out in the early afternoon to shut the ride down for maintenance. This problem just happened to occur closer to closing time.

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I'd rather be in my boat with a drink on the rocks,
than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.

I also would like to vent, and I think that this is the proper time to do so. I have been a member of the TTD crew since May, and I just have a few things to say.

The queue was closed early on sunday because of routine maintenance. Yes, I know, you say that they should wait for the week, but there's a slight problem with that. The Intamin Employees are NOT at Cedar Point during the week. The crew was asked mid-day on Sunday to take a vote. We were either going to have to close for an hour around 6:00 PM and reopen around 7, or we were going to close TTD an hour early.

Since most of the crew are college attendees, we were all in favor of keeping the ride open during the day, and closing early, for 2 reasons. One, we didn't want people to see that it was down and decide to leave the park on that account, and Two, most of us have at least an hour drive home that night and school the next day.

I understand how this frustrates everyone, but know that we have NO CHOICE in the matter! And when I hear everyone bashing the ride based on ignorance, rather than knowing what is going on, it gets me a little heated. Intamin leaves on Sunday night and does not return until Friday morning. During the week, only Cedar Point maintenance is in the park, and they are not authorized to TOUCH TTD without Intamin being present.

Either way, whether we would have closed for an hour during the evening, or closed early, we would not be able to please everyone. Give us a little credit, though.. we have put 150% effort into this ride this year, we have put up with the constant remarks and complaints from guests, and we have been open every single second that we were permitted to. Some nights we were there until 2AM, just to make sure everyone in line gets their ride. Where are the compliments there?

All in all, I'm not trying to be an idiot about the matter, I'm just saying that without knowing what is going on, you shouldn't throw words around. We are doing everything we can to keep this thing up and running. Look at the other side of the matter... Cedar Point could have said "Well, we don't want to keep paying Intamin so much, lets just close Dragster on Sundays so they can do maintenance and get back as soon as possible". Just know that we're doing our best, and when we go down, it's not out of spite, its out of necessity.

Pete,

Very well put! IMO, some people are just never happy (especially on this board).

I have been driving my friends crazy about TTD, since its inception. Living in Boston, I knew not to go to CP early in the year, since the ride is new and could be down.

I am FINALLY going to the Point this weekend (2 days), and CANNOT wait !!! I am a bit nervous about TTD, but I am confident I will love it once I get over my initial fear and ride the damn thing. I will be thrilled with 1 ride, jumping for joy if I get 16 rides on TTD, and disapointed if it is down (but I wouldnt complain, because I know CP would prefer it to be operating and it is out of their control).

I just dont understand all the critisism given how CP has raised the bar on customer service given all the issues with TTD..

Thanks to CP for building this monster, kudos for handlinng all the maintanance issues, and thank god it wasnt built at SF.

Tom

The Dragster crew is pumping trains through the ride much more often than not these days. You should expect to get on at some point, particularly because your two days will include either a Friday night or a Sunday.

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.

Nice post R.C. Glad to see that there was a reasonable explanation for the early closing. Considering how great the ride ran on Sunday, I don't think anyone has any reason to claim. Keep up the good work.

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Bob M.

R.C.: You're a victim of circumstance. You didn't build the ride nor do you maintain it, so don't take it personally.

R.C. and Rob: Nobody cares what the problem was or why they closed early. Guests really don't care. The only thing that guests care about is that they spend their money and expect something in return, and if they don't get it, they're going to be pissed. It's not any more complicated than that.

And that feeling is made worse with the high levels of mediocrity and perceived indifference this year. No one cares what the reasons are (though you can draw certain conclusions based on the fact that there was really only one significant change in management two years ago).

And by the way, it's probably not the best thing for your employment status to be opposing guests in a public forum.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?