June 23 2005 (Warning, Long)

Ahh, the first time at Cedar Point since opening day. Man, its been too long ;)

I went with a friend, brother and mom. After some difficulty getting to my friends house, we set of to the point and arrived at 10:11. Now, my brother is 10, and still afraid of roller coasters, but he does love Corkscrew, so we headed to that first. Dispatch intervals were really really low, sometimes stacking both trains outside the station. They were slow moving and drained of energy. My mother had a "fanny pack" that they would not allow her to hold (it wasn't around her waist at the time), and one of the ops said that they couldn't touch it because of "park policy". But they did at least let her slide it over to the other side of the station. Got a nice front seat ride with lots of air time.

Since we were close to Magnum, we headed over for that. We tried to get my brother to go on, but he was still afraid. So my and my friend went to go ride it. Ops were using the headset, and allowing guests to place items on the side of the station. The station it self wasn't bad at all. Not very crowded, and almost a walk on ride. They did have one car (for each train) completely closed off for the time we were riding (I believe it was car 4, but not sure). We got the very back seat with no one in front of us in for the next 2 cars. Pretty cool to have half a train to yourself. We rode it 5 more times, and finally got my brother to go on it, and he loved it.

Then we headed for some cheese fries at the Happy Fryer (Sp?) and got on Gemini with little wait. Got beat by the blue train. Then we left.

We walked all the way down to Mean Streak. I haven't ridden this is a few years and I thought it would be cool. It was a walk on, and we got as close to the front seat as possible, and it wasn't as rough as I thought it would be. Man if only that trim wasn't turned on on the first drop.

Then, we headed for Millennium Force, and saw that it was only an hour wait. First time that I ever saw a DJ working in any Que's. There was stacking, but nothing too bad. Got a ride on the Yellow train back seat. Great ride as always.

It took my little brother some convincing, but we got him to go on Mantis as well. The ops today were doing exceptionally well, with little to mostly no stacking at all. Props to you guys! This turned out to be one of my brothers favorite rides.

We rode the Sky Ride back to the front of the park, and we got on Raptor with hardly any waiting. Rode it 4 times, once in the front, and twice in the very back seats. Ops were doing a fantastic job dispatching trains. Very fast with little stacking. Props to you guys too!

Then we headed over to maXair, and my brother was a little nervous about this one, so my mom and brother sat out while my friend and I went over and rode it. Only a 30 min wait, and the ops were moving pretty fast. After that ride it took him some convincing, but we got him and my mom to go on it. He loved it. Mom hated it, so she sat out while we rode it for a third time.

Sat down for a few mins, had some food and drinks. Then we went over to Wicked Twister. Fast dispatching, nice ops, and a nice ride.

After that we took the Sky Ride back over to where corkscrew was and we split up, since my brother wasn't feeling to good. My and my friend rode Power Tower both sides in only 30 mins. We then met up with my mom and brother and they were going to go back to the car because he wasn't feeling good. They let us do what we wanted until close to closing time (It was 7:45 around then).

We saw that Dragster was down "due to mechanical reasons", and we decided to wait along the black fence. There were only a few people in front of us, and we had nothing else to do. Got some dippin' dots and ate those in line, and I went to go down to the station to see what they were doing. The green train was out in the pre-stage, but just sitting there. About an 45 mins later, it launched, but did not make it over. They did let us go in the line though.

It was the first time I had ever seen TTD's station so deserted. Only a few people still in the station. I heard the op say several times "Switching to Manual". But we did our ride on the blue train. I finally got my friend to put her hands up on the launch, and we flew over the top hat with some awesome air time. It was funny too, because the green train behind us, never launched, it rolled back into the station. I was so happy we got our ride before it broke down again.

Headed over to maXair for our final ride because my mom wanted us to come to the car soon. Got an awesome night ride, brining my count of that ride to 7 rides total, and 4 just today. We went and bought some bottles of soda, went into raptors Que just for some candy for my mom and brother in the car (the one outside by raptor didn't work), and we left the park at 9:50-ish.

Now I cant wait to go again here soon!

Coaster Krazy said:
Dispatch intervals were really really low, sometimes stacking both trains outside the station. They were slow moving and drained of energy. My mother had a "fanny pack" that they would not allow her to hold (it wasn't around her waist at the time), and one of the ops said that they couldn't touch it because of "park policy". But they did at least let her slide it over to the other side of the station. Got a nice front seat ride with lots of air time.

I was afraid that they'd do the "ops can't touch people's stuff thing" because I know they've done that at Mantis and Raptor for years. The problem is though, on those rides, it's fairly easy to walk through the train and put something in a box. On rides like Magnum, Corkscrew, and Iron Dragon, it is tough navigating through the train and back into the train. On Magnum, sometimes the lapbars fall down and if they lock them, they'll have to pedal guests back in. Also with the intervals and abilities of certain rides to set up, I could see it being a pain. I guess I understand that they don't want ops to "take responsibility" for someone's stuff by touching it, but it makes a poor impression when an op says, "I can't take your stuff from you because of park policy." I think people would do it on their own for the most part, especially on the rides where it's practical, but I don't think having hosts offer a bit of help would really hurt things.

Over on the Magnum platform today, several people had purses as they sat in the train and the ride op came over and told them they had to set it on the side, and they gave it to the op and he took it and set it on the side without any problem, was this against the rules of him to do?

Technically, it probably was if they have the no touch policy, but he or she was probably doing what was necessary to keep the ride from setting up. I'd have done the same thing.

I was at the park on 6/23 and ride ops on Magnum were taking guest items for them, but i did not see the headset being used. On Corckscrew, the ride ops refused to touch anything. On TTD (6/24), the police has to come escort a women out of the line (nearly arrest her), for walking past the ride op in the enterance when they told her to put her purse in a locker.

Kyle Dersch said:
I was at the park on 6/23 and ride ops on Magnum were taking guest items for them, but i did not see the headset being used. On Corckscrew, the ride ops refused to touch anything. On TTD (6/24), the police has to come escort a women out of the line (nearly arrest her), for walking past the ride op in the enterance when they told her to put her purse in a locker.

Exactly. I guess I should have put in my first post that I did see Magnum's Crew taking stuff to the other side of the platform. I mean, if your gonna enforce it, then enforce it!