Gatekeeper- terrible stacking

Been watching gatekeeper today. Taking almost 2 minutes for each train to cycle in station.

Hmm, interesting. How is the park so far today considering it's a holiday weekend?

Parking lot was about 3/4 full when we arrived around noon. Gatekeeper is about 1 hr wait. Haven't gotten past it yet.

It's pretty crowded but about what I expected

Wow, glad I figured it'd be packed this weekend with good weather. Guess it's going to be a KI day for me. Best of luck getting some rides & shows in, sounds like today will be a long day in queues

I did a little digging and found IROC's procedure for loading Gatekeeper. Little surprise it's taking so long for trains to load. It's all on a new auto-spiel playing in the stations.

All the way over and back with pride
When we're through we'll take a ride!

Let's all join hands in a great big ring
Treat your rider like a dear little thing.

Ace of Diamonds, Jack of Spades,
Meet your riders & all promenade.

Call your dogs and grab your gun,
Let's get in our seats and have some fun!

Comb your hair & button your shoe,
click that seatbelt like you always do!

Crack that whip, and walk the line,
Lets start riding and have a good time.

Four ladies chain and don't be slow,
Two more visual checks before we go...

Promenade this cute little chick,
Make those restraints go clickity click.

Hurry up girls now don't be slow,
Kiss the operator and away we go!

It's all very well done with good timing, but some of these procedures do seem a bit cumbersome. I mean, two promenades? That never would have happened back in the 80's.

Getting all that done in 2 minutes is actually pretty impressive. The hair comb is usually what holds up Six Flags' operations, and dogs are just plain unpredictable.

Interesting, last weekend the crew was releasing trains to the lift and it started up the hill right as the second train was entering the MCBR. The only time there were delays is when a person would request off the train after the restraints were locked, not sure if that is common for GK but I was amazed by how many people were getting off after the restraints were locked.

^ It happens with every ride, all the dang time.

It would be a shame if some new strange SOP slowed that ride down. I was blown away at how efficient they were last year. That ride's blocking makes it pretty excellent if you can load quickly, and that they were doing it so well with riders having to exit on the same side as the oncoming folks is amazing. To see how not to do it, go to Dollywood.

I've watched Gatekeeper on the webcam here and there and they seem pretty inconsistent to me. Sometimes they stack all three trains, sometimes one is leaving when the previous one is at the block, but rarely before like they seemed to be doing very often in past years.

Had a friend tell me he watched Magnum set up in the safety brakes outside the third tunnel 5 times out of 7 trains yesterday.

To put it in perspective, when I worked there, 5 setups was about what we'd have in a really BAD DAY. Most of the time, 5 was typical for 3-4 days worth. We had a good number of days with zero.

I am honestly not sure what the deal is. They don't have loose article bins anymore. The trains are parking in the station better than they were last year. Things seemed to be running better again toward the end of last season. I can see their new SOP procedures making it hard to hit interval (dispatch when previous train is at top of the second hill), but setting up involves taking about 30 seconds longer than that.

What the heck is going on? It's Cedar Point, not Six Flags over Sandusky!

I think Gatekeeper's first year crew was the best crew it has had so far. The 2 guys in leadership that year are all around great guys, and kept that crew paced like a well oiled machine.

However, some of the people in leadership at certain ride locations don't understand the importance of capacity.

^ Exactly what I was thinking yesterday. I know it is still early season and most of the employees are still getting used to the job, but none of them seemed to be in much of a rush dispatching trains yesterday. Getting in what looked like to be about a 45 minute wait for some rides last year took much closer to an hour or more, and stacking was very common for most rides yesterday, not just Gatekeeper. Rougarou had it pretty bad.

Can confirm that stacking was terrible yesterday. Rougarou's crew was decent thought and MF was a well oiled machine as always.

Because the Supervisor who is at MF this season, is the same Supervisor from Gatekeeper's inaugural season.

If everything continues to go well with all 3 trains running, I expect MF to crush numbers.

Gatekeeper2013 said:

^ Exactly what I was thinking yesterday. I know it is still early season and most of the employees are still getting used to the job, but none of them seemed to be in much of a rush dispatching trains yesterday....

On a similar note, I've aged a year waiting in line and watching the crews/operator of the Mine Ride and the renamed Tiki Twirl loading and unloading so far this year, just painful especially this past Sunday. Just safety overkill and like watching slugs race in slow motion. Just my 2c.

We rode Blue Streak the other day, the sign said 20 mins and it should have been easily. The line was just around one queue line up to the stairs/station. It took us a flipping hour and 5 mins to get on. They averaged about 4-5 mins per train to send once they were in the station. At one point the workers were switching headsets and his didn't work, so instead of continuing without it, they other workers gathered together with the MANUAL, to figure it out. They took a solid 10 mins to send that train sitting there figuring out how to turn on the headset. I swear this happened. It blew my mind. I've never seen that. Every line was slow but this waits were ridiculous. Cedar Point has turned into Six Flags has another poster pointed out. I hope this is just the new workers getting used to there new jobs and it gets better.

I hope it is new workers getting used to their job too. I can't believe they were so focused on fixing the head set rather than dispatching trains when there is a line. The operator from controls has a mic, so he/she could have easily done it!

Aside from little petty things like that, I just expect wait times to get longer and longer as long as IROC is in affect. I wonder how long it will take before management realizes that this program is a poor decision for both numbers and guest happiness.

Smells like a ride op strike in the near future :)

The people running Tiki Twirl took forever to load the ride because they were standing around talking about something while riders were waiting to board the emptied ride. One person yelled out to ask it the ride was down because nothing was happening.

I visited the park for the first time in 2 years yesterday, and I can attest that the stacking seemed pretty bad on several rides. As Matt (MDOmnis) said, I watched Magnum set up outside of the tunnel multiple times on Sunday. On Monday, they only ran 2 trains. Rougarou was also stacking pretty badly. I will give my kudos to the MF crew though, as they were doing terrific. At one point on Monday, they were down to 2 trains and the line was still moving well. I can't speak for Gatekeeper as it was down for wind all day on Monday...

thedevariouseffect said:

Wow, glad I figured it'd be packed this weekend with good weather. Guess it's going to be a KI day for me. Best of luck getting some rides & shows in, sounds like today will be a long day in queues

I took my oldest daughter to Kings Island yesterday (Memorial Day). I hadn't been to the park in over twelve years and it was her first visit. I was pleasantly surprised at all of the improvements that have taken place over the years and it was nice to see how well they've integrated new attractions into the park.

We arrived around 1 pm and it was pretty busy but most of the lines had less than a 30 minute wait. Having the ability to check wait times on my smart phone or to look at the electronic kiosk was awesome. I think Firehawk and Flight of Fear had the longest advertised wait times at 60 minutes each. We did not get in line for those since we knew we'd be back in a couple weeks and would have more time available then. Banshee was about a 5 minute wait most of the day which surprised me at first but then I noticed how efficiently it was operating.

Speaking of Banshee I really have to give Kings Island credit for creating an all-around enjoyable ride experience. The color scheme was warm and inviting, the line queue had some interesting thematic elements (nice nod to Son of Beast), and the ride itself was smooth, fast, and quite long.

I love Cedar Point for all of the thrill rides and it offers some pretty spectacular lake views. But I do have to admit that I really enjoyed Kings Island's more compact park-like setting and how easy it is to walk from one side of the park to the other (and be in shade much of the time). I'm eager to see what my youngest daughter thinks of Planet Snoopy when we return in a couple weeks because it looked a heck of a lot more interesting than the areas at Cedar Point.

Both parks have their strengths and I think they complement each other nicely.