Farewell, Wildcat.

So now I'm torn between implications here. I'd argue it's actually worse if the press release reason is the ONLY reason for its demise, because that would imply very poor planning on the park's part, moreso than justifying it because of a mechanical failure.

To those wondering why they wouldn't just say it was a mechanical failure, why should they? Giving a "clean" reason like this, as cover-uppy as it may seem to us, is better than giving the public a mechanical reason that would inevitably telephone game into something along the lines of "They removed it because it crashed during testing and somebody died."

Which I wouldn't totally count out from happening anyway, what with the rumors being passed around enthusiasts as it is.

Read it with me...
http://www.cedarpoint.com/celebration-plaza-expansion

WildCat was coming to the end of its useful life. With the desired expansion to Celebration Plaza, coupled with the low ridership and increased maintenance costs, Cedar Point has decided to accelerate the removal of the ride.

Those of you suggesting that the show was the "only" reason to remove it have selective reading impairment.

I'm gonna stick to my first instinct that this was going to be announced later in the summer but something during testing accelerated those plans a few months

Jeff, my biggest issue with the phrase 'rising maintenance costs' is that such a thing doesn't justify removing the attraction quick like a bunny less than 2 weeks before opening day.

I also still take issue with simply wanting to expand the plaza; if we accept that, we must also accept that the park decided to (at almost the last possible second) remove a roller coaster to increase space for a show that:

A) Nobody has yet to see, so
B) Nobody knows if it will be any good, which leads, most importantly, to
C) Nobody knows if it will be popular enough to justify removing WildCat at all.

If we discount theory that a serious malfunction occurred during testing and accept the company line, then by default we must also accept that there was at least some degree of poor planning & lack of foresight. I think that is what people are having the most difficult time with.

Sause, I don't know anything about the testing schedule, but obviously when they were testing management didn't yet make the decision to remove it yet.

Jeff said:
Read it with me...
http://www.cedarpoint.com/celebration-plaza-expansion

WildCat was coming to the end of its useful life. With the desired expansion to Celebration Plaza, coupled with the low ridership and increased maintenance costs, Cedar Point has decided to accelerate the removal of the ride.

Those of you suggesting that the show was the "only" reason to remove it have selective reading impairment.

I'm not saying that it is the only reason, but when they already had a crew and were already testing it it shows that they were going to open the ride. So, the question I keep getting caught up on is, "Why now?".

We-o-we-oooo said:
Jeff, my biggest issue with the phrase 'rising maintenance costs' is that such a thing doesn't justify removing the attraction quick like a bunny less than 2 weeks before opening day.

I also still take issue with simply wanting to expand the plaza; if we accept that, we must also accept that the park decided to (at almost the last possible second) remove a roller coaster to increase space for a show that:

A) Nobody has yet to see, so
B) Nobody knows if it will be any good, which leads, most importantly, to
C) Nobody knows if it will be popular enough to justify removing WildCat at all.

If we discount theory that a serious malfunction occurred during testing and accept the company line, then by default we must also accept that there was at least some degree of poor planning & lack of foresight. I think that is what people are having the most difficult time with.

Exactly! Couldn't have put it better myself.

We-o-we-oooo said:
C) Nobody knows if it will be popular enough to justify removing WildCat at all.

Seriously? That ride was probably not popular enough to justify its own existence anymore, considering the rising cost to maintain it and the relatively low ridership.

You seem to be implying that there can be only one reason for WC's removal. Can't it be both?

Maybe they were already planning to remove WC this fall. And maybe they decided they could use some extra room for Luminosity. Taking both into account, they decided to remove the ride early.

We-o-we-oooo said:
Jeff, my biggest issue with the phrase 'rising maintenance costs' is that such a thing doesn't justify removing the attraction quick like a bunny less than 2 weeks before opening day.

According to whom? One of the things that the park does well, almost to a fault, is understand the cost of operating a ride, to the penny, per rider. That means the cost of electricity, the staffing cost, the insurance cost, the maintenance cost, and probably other things well outside the domain knowledge of people who post conspiracy theories on the Internet. If something expensive broke during testing, or a state inspector decided that expensive changes had to be made, that drives up the cost, and suddenly the cost per rider can no longer be justified. Eventually you have to cut the cord.

We-o-we-oooo said:
such a thing doesn't justify removing the attraction quick like a bunny less than 2 weeks before opening day.

If needed repairs became apparent during the testing period, then yes it does.

But Pete just said that it had nothing to do with anything breaking during testing, which is where I think We-o-we-oooo and I have issue. If something broke during testing, then fine, but tell us as such. However, everyone is telling is that this is simply for the show.

This whole thing just reeks of a snap judgement that shouldn't have been made so quickly. If you don't want to repair it right away, fine. I think they owed it to the fans to consider all options instead of just scraping the thing.

Wildcat was on it's last leg to begin with. The midway there is moving on the bigger things and those plans did not include Wildcat in the long run. This was certainly it's last year

Was there an announcement when they removed Chaos? Did they give us a CHANCE to ride it for the last time? I was surprised but not shocked that Wildcat was removed at such a short notice. But I bet the cost to maintain it was equaling out to an amount to just build something else. We all won't ever know what happened to it during testing. Just give it a break with all these "mechanical malfunction" speculations. Cedar Point lnows what they are doing! Rollercoasters at Cedar Point will have to come down someday, just deal with, or go all crazy about it.

MillenniumDragster said:
Was there an announcement when they removed Chaos? Did they give us a CHANCE to ride it for the last time? I was surprised but not shocked that Wildcat was removed at such a short notice. But I bet the cost to maintain it was equaling out to an amount to just build something else. We all won't ever know what happened to it during testing. Just give it a break with all these "mechanical malfunction" speculations. Cedar Point lnows what they are doing! Rollercoasters at Cedar Point will have to come down someday, just deal with, or go all crazy about it.

We at least suspected Chaos's demise. It was apparent that it's repair cost were too high.

tcgolfer said:
But Pete just said that it had nothing to do with anything breaking during testing...

No offense to Pete, but I believe he's basing his opinion off of, at best, second hand information.

There seems to be conflicting information floating around.

As illogical as it seems, what I am hearing outside of the discussion forums agrees with Pete. The rumors I am hearing are that the only thing mechanically wrong with the Wildcat is that it is being ruthlessly and deliberately torn to pieces.

That the pieces are welded together doesn't surprise me at all; if nothing else, stopping motion on some of those joints would stop the wear. Still, even with welded parts, there is more than one way to take a structure apart. The Knott's Berry Farm Corkscrew (as an example most of us are probably familiar with) was an all-welded structure but that didn't prevent it from being reassembled at Silverwood. Unfortunately, dismantling a ride like Wildcat in such a way that it could be accurately reassembled might take longer than ten days. Chopping it apart with a torch (grinder, butcher-saw, C4, whatever) can probably be done in a few *hours*.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
...ruthlessly and deliberately...

This "emotional" language is what makes me wonder whether your take on the situation is accurate, or whether there's some selective hearing going on.

Though I should probably know better than to question you. :)

Sheesh, you people type faster than I do.

We don't know how long the Decision Makers discussed whether or not to pull the Wildcat this season. I think we can eliminate its popularity as a concern, as it (unlike Chaos, which frequently ran half-empty) moved pretty much as many people as it possibly could. The length of the line doesn't tell you much about the ridership when the line is still long enough to keep all the cars full.

What we should know, though, is that there is a pretty strict schedule for performing off-season maintenance, and for getting both the insurance inspectors and the State inspectors to sign off on the rides so that they can operate on Opening Day. This means that even if the park management team was strongly considering removing the ride, they had to continue with the full maintenance and testing program right up until the final decision was made.

It is obvious that the final decision to remove Wildcat was made yesterday morning, probably shortly before 11:00am. That does not mean the entire decision process took place yesterday morning.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Dave,

Good points. I guess where I get the most frustrated is if you're going to wait this long to decide, then why not just put it off one more year? Is having that space really of that much importance? I guess we'll never know.

Ugh, while it was my gut feeling all along, I really don't want to hear what RideMan and Pete are saying. It makes this news much more difficult to take, and it really makes me question the new management style.