July 1st, 2005

We got to the Point around 10:10. It was only a day trip, so I kind of had to make the best I could of the coaster lines… First ride of the day was Raptor, front seat. There seemed to be very fast train dispatches for Raptor, and (the most surprising thing on the trip), Top Thrill Dragster. I never once saw a rollback through the entire day, and the trains were running pretty consistently.

Second ride, MaXair. Sat in Seat 16, I believe, and gave a great ride as usual.

Along the lines of that park area, WT was down for the entire day. A real bummer, since I’d been looking forward to it since the last trip (May 14).

Third ride, Blue Streak. A little bumpy, but still a classic ride with some great airtime.

After Blue Streak, something… interesting… happened. Some lady asked me and my sister to take her kids on a few rides for her (Calypso and Turnpike Cars). Now, I’m 14 and my sister’s 16, so on Turnpike Cars, I couldn’t ride with the kid because I wasn’t 16 or a “responsible adult“. :)

After that, I don’t remember specifically what I rode in order, but I went on the following:

Magnum (three times)

Millennium Force (twice in a row, surprising line shortening around 5-6:00)

Mean Streak

Gemini (both sides)

Raptor (twice)

MaXair

Mantis

Blue Streak

The live entertainment was a major surprise to me. I’d never experienced it before (aside from popping my head into the Red Garter Saloon for a few minutes to see what was up). Let me say,, Cedar Point really has great performances. We watched “Livin’ In America” around 4:30, great dance sequences and SFX.

Also, we experienced “Snoopy’s Summer Vacation”, which was a very unique show. An ice-skating show in the middle of the summer, about summer. There’s never been anything quite like it before.

A great time overall, and not that bad of a Canada Day, in my opinion. ;)

--Cedar Dan

Where the TTD ride comfirmation!?

WT has been down for 3 or 4 days now.

CP4eva'04 said:
WT has been down for 3 or 4 days now.

As of now, WT's been down 6 days. I'm really starting to get worried; if I get re-assigned I may not get back there; it was a lot of fun.

I didn't realize WT was down until I got to the park... I have to look at more WT threads here. ;)

Man, anyone have any idea when Wicked Twister will be back up? Im going on Wednesday and Thursday, and Wicked Twister is probably my 3rd or 4th favorite ride in the park.

Does anyone remember Cedar Point of five or ten years ago? Were there ever rides down for days at a time like there seem to be now? I'm thinking it's one of two things. Either there weren't rides down for days at a time or there were rides down for days at a time and we just didn't know about it because there weren't forums like this.

Which one is it? I'm leaning toward the first choice, but I guess I could be wrong. I mean is this the same park that hooked an air compressor on a truck up to Magnum (since the primary one died) during a Coastermania day just to keep the ride running?

Besides our favorite Intamin rides, what goes down for days at a time?

I think that these forums have brought an awareness that didn't exist a few years ago. Ten years ago, there was no easy way for large amounts of people to talk about the park. Now, we hear about a "broken" web cam minutes after it stops updating the picture. My guess is that uptime hasn't changed much, outside of recent problems with the three newest coasters.

I've been reading a lot of posts lately. It seems like we're taking this "down on Cedar Point" attitude and are now being negative for the sake of being negative (or because everyone else is being negative).

I still have a lot of fun each time I go to the park. I don't go to Happy Friar and say, "aw, my fries taste like crap because Corkscrew has a seat belt and I can't enjoy myself." I wonder if, because of these forums, we pick up on things and then come here and feed of each other's negativity. There are some forum regulars who whine and complain in just about every post. I mean, really ... why even go to the park? You guys sound so miserable!

I know some of you will say, "it's been a growing problem" or "it's a park-wide issue" or "they're sucking the fun out being there." Are we looking to pick a fight? Why is everyone so mad? It's still fun for me! I'm not putting a happy fanboy face on. I understand that Cedar Point has issues to work through. Guess what? Nothing new there. That's life in this industry.

With the understanding that there are problems to be addressed and issues to discuss, are we blowing things out of proportion because we're able to talk about the park 24x7? Now that the idea of online discussion is a few years old, are we becoming "grumpy old men (and women)"? Most people don't shake their heads after a day at the park muttering, "I can't believe they have an auto-spiel on maXair."

I think everyone needs to take a day at the park and look at it as a fan ... and not as an enthusiast, former employee, insider or expert.

[moving to General Discussion]

*** Edited 7/3/2005 7:19:29 PM UTC by Walt***

Right on Walt!! So the ride goes down. BIG DEAL. It will get back up. Its not like Cedar Point says "Hmm lets "shut-down" (insert favorite ride here) for a couple of days." Machines break. I know this. I go to a school where we HAVE to build stuff. Something goes wrong at least once a week. It gets repaired and we are back to using it.

And is an enthusiast not some one who goes to the park because they love it? If you don't like the way things are going. Then stop visiting! It's the simple. No one is forcing you to go. And instead of saying "well this was broken down and this had a long wait"... look at it as "Hey I got to ride _______ today! And man that trip on _______ was by far the best I’ve had!"

Try it that way and see how your day goes. That is all for now.

I don't think people are imagining it. I can't stand to read half of the stuff people here talk about, so I'm certainly not influenced there.

Either my tastes are changing with regards to what I like to do in my free time, or the park is annoying me with a lot of things that weren't issues a few years ago, and I therefore don't visit as often.

My personal issues all center around a degraded customer service philosophy, especially in foods. I'm tired of getting crappy service. I'm tired of filling out complaint forms because nothing happens anyway. I was disappointed with the filth and lack of maintenance at LHP last closing weekend too. These aren't really deal breakers for my average visit, but they do stick in my mind. Why do I want to drive an hour each way for that?

For everyone else it's clear that the MF seatbelt issue and Dragster downtime put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth. (Neither of which bother me, for the record, because I fit on MF and Dragster doesn't interest me all that much.)

I really think things will get better now that the "new regime" is in place. The executive team I think is outstanding now. It has to get better.

Regarding Walt's post:

I could never put it into words before, but that's exactly how I feel about the forums here. Whatever happened to being positive? Yes, Cedar Point has issues, but these days, what doesn't? In the grand scheme of Cedar Point, something as small as the auto-spiel changes, for example, won't ruin my day. It's like saying, "The computer at the office was down for 2 days... I hate my job, and I'm thinking about quitting".

Again, great heartfelt post, Walt.
*** Edited 7/3/2005 8:47:52 PM UTC by Cedar Dan***

I couldn't disagree with you more, Walt. Sure, I think that there should be a balance of positive and negative in a forum like this. But, I'm a firm believer in running a park (or any business for that matter) to please your strongest critic. Yes, you can never please everyone, but you can do a pretty good job trying.

I used to work at Disney as an Imagineer and did theme park design for them. The best thing I learned while working there was designing parks so people didn't notice things. Yes, that may be confusing, but if you think about it, its a great mantra. Basically, we weren't doing our jobs if someone noticed something as being out of place. If a guest could see how an effect was created on a ride, that was bad. If they saw someone emptying garbage, bad. If they could see the parking lot from a ride, also very bad. You were supposed to really BE the environment created for you, not at a "park". So, outside intrusions were a very bad thing. Yes, Disney is a theme park and not just an amusement park, but the general concept still applies. Walt and Roy's goal was to have everyone leave their parks happy. (Even the "fanboys" as we'd call them today.)

Personally I don't see anything wrong with this. Disney proved that its possible to make billions of dollars this way, so we know its possible to make money being perfectionists. You just have to know how to do it right. Also, with a park like Cedar Point, you're providing a place for people to have FUN. If seatbelts, broken rides, poor customer service, etc hinder people's fun, then you're not accomplishing your goal.

To address your questions though, I think forums like this show a lot of complaining because we can. But, if you look at all the "complaint" posts and compare them to the "positive" posts, I'd say that there are still way more positive posts. The forum shows what matters to us though. Its the best "comment card" Cedar Point could have. You are able to see what's bothering other people, and we can see what's bothering you. Or, we can see what each other likes a lot. That's the beauty of a forum like this. We learn what other people like and dislike from all over the world.

In closing, I see no problem at all about bringing up issues that bother us about Cedar Point. If we just accept things for what they are, they will just continue to get worse. That's just a general rule that can be applied to everything. Like fluffy said, if it gets to a point where the annoying things outweigh the positives, people WILL stop going. And, that's what we're all trying to prevent because we LOVE the point!! I know I do. But, just because some new things bother me there, I still overall love it and will continue to go. Silencing people's concerns is not a solution though.

Some of the posts have been very heartfelt, especially in the ridiculous changes thread. There's a lot of us out there who are former employees/enthusiasts/fan boys/whatever and we've noticed changes, and we don't like them, and this provides a very good medium to vent.

Sure we can all go fill out comment cards, but that may or may not even get the attention of anyone. With a public forum such as this, if we have a complaint we can voice it, and it's read by others who may or may not agree. The fact of the matter that it's read gives it a little more weight than a comment card.

I think we just want to see some rather minor changes (I mean really, a lot of the stuff we're talking about could be fixed within a weeks time or less) made to the way the park is run so that it can run as well as it has in the past.

As for downtime, I can think of days where rides didn't open in the past. Or even when rides that are Non-Intamin haven't run in the past. Mantis blew its lift motor last year, Iron Dragon broke 2 chains, corkscrews chain broke in what.. 1999? Magnum broke its chain right after it opened. I know in 2003 they welded the cobra on raptor and it was down for a day or two. Downtime is understandable, but the current state of operations isn't.

Silencing people's concerns is not a solution though.

Who said anything about silencing people's concern?

I still don't understand why everyone is so miserable and maybe I never will. I hear the complaints, but, seriously, has anyone had any fun this year? Or do you guys drag yourself through the park wondering why you even bother. Everyone sounds so disgruntled. There must be some redeeming quality, because you all keep going back.

I wonder if it's because I enjoy Cedar Point for different reasons. My love for the park comes down to the atmosphere. Watching my son run from one ride to another in Kiddy Kingdom. Getting mad because I got a 260 in skee ball. Riding Magnum with a beautiful sunset as the backdrop. Those are the things I care about. Honestly, I could care less that Corkscrew has seat belts or that Mantis stacks trains.

Maybe "my" Cedar Point is different than everyone else's.

I think its just a matter of looking back at how it used to be, and comparing then to how it is now. The changes are painfully obvious...it's just hard for us, when we KNOW it used to be better. Someone that goes to the park for the first time this year probably wouldnt say anything about poor food service or slower dispatch times or auto spiels. But if we could somehow take those people back in time to show them how much better the park used to be run, then I think we might hear some complaining. Thats just my take.

Walt, I think you're just misinterpreting our concerns for more than they are. I voice concerns over what CP is doing and the changes they've made, but I still love going there. I had the best time I've ever had there a couple weeks ago. A lot of that had to do with the people I was with, but we also rode everything we wanted to, and had great rides on everything. But, had someone in our group not been permitted to ride MF or TTD, that would've altered our experience. Had WT been down, that would've altered our experience. But, I'm guessing we still would've had fun. But, since this forum exists, I would've posted that "So and so could've been better......" or something to that effect. But, without bringing up concerns, how can anything improve? Improving is good. It could be that I'm a designer and I improve things for a living, but that's just how I approach things - always looking on how anything can be improved.

I wouldn't say poinbuzz is all depressed and full of CP haters though. Look at all the fun trip reports recently. The majority of the people have had amazing things to say about stuff. You hit the nail right on the head by saying that we keep coming back though. That means that we all still love CP.

I am in the exact same boat as Walt, I might even be sitting next to him. My aunt called my house today and told me that she booked out trip for August 29th and 30th. When I heard that I was so happy. I thought about all of the fun times I would have. I thought about how my sister will be coming along and how she has never been there before so I will introduce her to the wonders of Cedar Point. I thought about how my mom too will be coming, her first visit to the point in over 25 years. I thought about how awesome my aunt is because she is the first person I went to Cedar Point with, 2 summers ago, along with my cousins and uncle. However, I didn't think about how there is a chance that Dragster may be closed, or that I might get hit with Corkscrew's new seat belts because I DON'T CARE. All that I care about is having a fun time and enjoying the atmosphere of Cedar Point because no such atmosphere exists anywhere else in the world.

Walt said:
I think everyone needs to take a day at the park and look at it as a fan ... and not as an enthusiast, former employee, insider or expert.

I guess I could probably be considered most of those. I am enthusiastic about CP and other parks (some more than others), I am a former employee (no I didn't get fired and I'm not bitter at anyone or anything still there), but most of all, I'm a fan. I admit that there's a lot of former employee that comes through and that I talk like an expert on the subject of Magnum operations because quite frankly, I am an expert on that particular subject, but not so much on anything else. Truthfully, I am more of an expert than the people that have made the changes to the ride. That's just how it is. Call me a prick, but the ride is less safe and has worse capacity today than at this time last year or the previous 15 seasons. I'm happy to see spiels back, but disappointed to see that the park can't provide the crew with a headset (the ride used to have one - where is it?) so that they may have someone left to sit at the top of the stairs in the crowd control position.

I'm pretty sure that if you look back since 1999, I've defended CP a lot. But CP is not perfect and when they screw up in my opinion, I'm not going to defend them blindly. People used to accuse Jeff of blindly defending the park. I think he just says what he feels about the place. It just so happens that right now, maybe we're both a little down on Cedar Point and I think we have good reason.

It just seems to me that they don't want to get sued. That's great. But who's going to sue you if no one shows up in the first place. Attendence is way down this year already and it's not going to get any better if they keep ignoring what their biggest fans are saying that "LITTLE THINGS MATTER."

Things like the situation at Magnum's Freeway where guests think it's the entrance to the ride (or a ride called Freeway) and continually walk up the ramp, only to be turned around and pointed to the regular entrance. Some get mad when there is no line and they have to walk all the way around even cursing out the host. Sure, they should have made the entrance to the Freeway merge alongside the ride entrance like at MF, Dragster, and Mantis, but they didn't. And I don't think they will ever do it that way. But the situation that continually upsets guests could be fixed by simply moving the phone and the host to the other end of the ramp so they can catch guests before they waste time walking all the way up there. They're talking an hour's time (if that) and about 100 feet of phone wire.

That's just one example of something that has been pointed out time and time again (I've done it personally at least three times and I'm not talking about on Pointbuzz), but not fixed. There are plenty of others, but they've been discussed in detail in the "Ridiculous Changes" thread.

There are plenty of parks with great rides. But it has taken a lot more than rides to get me to fall in love with CP. The rides aren't changing - they're still great, but something else about the place is. The park lacks the energy it had even five years ago. I never used to see a miserable face there on a guest or an employee. Now it's commonplace. Why should we just accept it and still just say, "on the whole, the place is still nice." We know it was and still should be better.

Attendence is way down this year already

Is it way down? Even if it is, no one's going to convince me it's because of the little issue that have been brought up in this and other threads. The typical guest doesn't care about those things. If you were to discuss a Magnum freeway entrance, stacking trains, etc. with the typical guest, you'd probably get a blank stare.

I'm not saying those things don't matter or that they don't need to be fixed. Yes, little things matter. I just think we're acting like the little things are big things.

I think a lot of the critical posts on here stem from the fact that we know that important people from the park have read/continue to read this message board and we possibly feel that we can accomplish something by "venting" here rather than at guest services.

I live over 400 miles from CP. I have a season pass to the place and have had one for the past several years. During the early spring, getting out of here and heading north for 4 or 5 days at a time is all I look forward to, BUT here's the kicker: Every time I visit the park, I walk through it like I'm some kind of company inspector. I look for things that are good and things that are bad. For the most part this "inspection" rarely gets in the way of me having fun while I'm there but occasionally when I find something that stands out that is a bit odd or even bad in my eyes I'll remember it much moreso than an average lap on oh say Corkscrew. (just a random ride, not picking on one :) ) I think that happens with almost everybody that posts/visits here and that's probably another reason that we tend to be so critical with our posts once we return home and log on to this site.