Dragster in 2006

Very logical, the summer of 2005 was very hot and we didn't see excessive rain like in 2004.

I'm pretty sure the lower numbers in most of those cases can be attributed to way the ride is being operated. Last year was hardly a banner year for the efficiency of ride operations at Cedar Point.

But Jugga, I can tell you that even on a monthly, weekly, daily, hourly basis, Raptor and Magnum spank the pants off Dragster and Millennium Force in terms of number of rides. A typical July Saturday sees Magnum and Raptor giving in the neighborhood of 20,000 rides while Millennium Force would give around 16,000 or 17,000 max. This includes extra time for Joe Cool and having a line at closing time.

Now I can admit, that if MF or Dragster could physically push more riders through, they would for sure be right up there and probably beat the other two mentioned. But their poor capacity is always going to prevent that. Up until they took off two of the trains, Gemini was always the perennial champion. Now it's going to be Magnum or Raptor for the forseeable future until they build something else with capcity close to or better than those two.

Other than a few rides, I didn't notice much change with the park operations. MF, Magnum, Gemini, CCMR, and Corkscrew are the only rides I can think of off hand that were being ran poorly.

For the worst rides for reliability, WT and TTD can cycle through very large lines very fast when running properly.

Raptor's numbers were down pretty significantly too. Seemed to me like they were closing it in the rain more last year though - probably due to the rusting again. For a couple years after the paint job, they were letting that thing run in anything. Maybe that has a bit to do with their drop, but I doubt that's the only factor.

As far as more examples of bad operations in addition to the ones mentioned so far, I'd point to MaxAir for sure. The double checking is ridiculous. If you're going to double check every seat on that ride, why not on every other one too? And even if you deem it necessary, put four ops on the ride, not two. Just seemed real cheap to have your new for 2005 attraction being run like a ride at Six Flags. All of those Camp Snoopy rides with those ridiculous seatbelt releases can be thrown in there too. Not to mention rides like Witches Wheel which ALWAYS had two people working them only have one now. Operations have been sagging for a few years, but last year they really took a dive in my opinion. *** Edited 3/21/2006 10:01:30 PM UTC by MDOmnis***

I agree with every point you made.

I too feel operations has taken a dive the past few years. However, last year was, in my opinion, the worst of the decline.

I think its a general consensus that ride operations has slipped a lot over the years. I really miss the same sex crews, I know that we will never see those again, the first several years when they had co-ed crews I think park op was at the top of their game, since then its been on the decline.

Although it isn't a major attraction, CCMR operation was horrible last year. I don't know if the crew had an attitude of "this isn't a major attraction so we don't need to hustle." It had some long lines that didn't seem necessary. The main event that stood out in my mind was a Saturday night in October. It wasn't busy at all and it was towards the end of the night. There were two guys running the ride, and only the front half of the train was being loaded and that line took forever. The guys walked so slow and looked so bored and spoke with the most monotone voice ever. They took a long time to release and lock the restraints. It was the poorest ride operation I've ever seen.