Millennium Force Crowd Control

Actually I enjoy Magnum's station better with less crowd control, seems the line for 1-3 is always shadowed by front row and sometimes 1-2.

Can get ahead 3 or 4 trains sometimes.

Yeah MF's station is good when only one or two train loads are waiting, but then it gets filled up like in my picture it is a mess. That picture was taken on the last week in Aug of 2006 when the park was under staffed.

The main thing I noticed when I worked at MF in '06 as opposed to when I worked at Disney was that when we TRIED to do crowd control at MF it didn't work. I can't tell you how many times I'd go through an entire train's worth of people and every single one of them would ask me for the first row, which I then would have to explain was a 30-45 minute wait.

Many times, they'd sit there and debate it at the turnstile instead of letting people through and thus we'd have to send with empty seats cause we couldn't keep it with 2 trains worth at all times.

If we tried to assign rows to speed things up, people would fight us on it. If we tried to assign single riders to empty seats, they'd fight us on it, because they didn't want to sit with some stranger.

At Disney, none of this happened. 90% of the time people would go where I told them to go without complaint. I'd get an occasional request for a specific row at Big Thunder Mountain, which I'd always be happy to take care of, but it wasn't EVERY SINGLE PERSON asking for the front like at MF.

Considering that MF occasionally sends out trains with people in rows 2-18 (or so I've heard), I think you're dead-wrong. Sure, some people will request and wait for the front row, but many people will happily ride wherever.

Having crowd control at MF (and most coasters) is, to me, absolutely necessary. It makes queuing up for a ride far easier than entering a chaotic station packed to the brim.

^Yeah, I'm dead wrong because I worked there and my first hand experience is clearly falsified. Regardless of the fact that I worked there 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week, many times between breaks working crowd control, I don't know nearly as much as you. Regardless of the fact that though you may not visit CP every day, you certainly go often enough, and the few times per day you go to MF you certainly have better firsthand knowledge of the crowd-control situation than any given employee. That's logic for you.

Not only that, but I was saying crowd control WAS necessary. If you'd actually read anything I said, you would have realized that.

DFMatt said:
I'd get an occasional request for a specific row at Big Thunder Mountain, which I'd always be happy to take care of, but it wasn't EVERY SINGLE PERSON asking for the front like at MF.

You're clearly exaggerating, or speaking hyperbolically, which makes me not likely to believe you, regardless of how many hours you've worked at CP.

I've seen crowd control work every time I've seen it employed at MF (and elsewhere, for that matter).

^When I say every single person, I mean per train. I'm not saying that every time I loaded a train, every person asked me for the front row. I'm saying that there were multiple occasions, not just one isolated incident, where quite a few people I attempted to load on the same train were asking for the front row.

And quite frankly, if you haven't worked there and been on the front lines every day and gone through as many guests as I did any given day, you really are in no position to act as informed as you do. I don't care how many times you visit the park, it's not the same as being in the same spot every day and seeing the patterns that come through.

I've seen crowd control work just fine on probably hundreds of occasions, without any rows going out empty, so declaring that it doesn't work doesn't for work for me.

DFMatt said:

And quite frankly, if you haven't worked there and been on the front lines every day and gone through as many guests as I did any given day, you really are in no position to act as informed as you do. I don't care how many times you visit the park, it's not the same as being in the same spot every day and seeing the patterns that come through.

Being exposed to something has nothing to do with being good at it.

I think they only time I've seen no crowd control at MF was during the last week of Aug in 2006. Other than that I've always seen the station controlled, even during the morning ERT's .

I went yesterday to Cedar Point and rode Millennium Force 2twice. Both times they were using the crowd control method. Everything goes smoother when they have someone there at the turnstiles.

when i went on the 31st every coaster had wonderful crowd control, except for TTD

And TTD might be where such control is needed most. Unlike at MF, you cannot stop at the station entrance and wait to make sense of the madness within, due to the lack of a barrier separating the two halves.

While I also hate when they let the station flood, it's not as bad on MF as it is on Magnum. At least in MF's station you can actually see what seat you're waiting for. Magnum's station can have 7 or 8 trains' worth of people in front of you for some seats. And I've seen both flooding numerous times this year.

It's funny when some ride prides just let people fill up the station and sit there watching. And it's annoying when people go into that staion and stand there in the way of everyone else as the rest of the crowd tries to push past them. :)

That would be great if the turn style at the station, would lock on unlock. Were someone on the station or in the booth could control the crowed when that person is needed else were. But then again if you build the park with over 70 rides your going to have staffing issues.

Heh, I was just thinking of this topic, since I just got back from my CP trip yesterday. I didn't really have any problems with MF's queues, but I did have one with Dragster. Obviously there are a lot of people that want to ride the front, which is no problem, but crowd control for that line is bad. We got into the front row line (after a lot of checking to figure out where the end was) , and because it was such a mess, a group of 4 guys just cut in front of all of us. They offered a half-assed apology, saying they didn't know where the end was, but also didn't bother to go to the end of the line after a bunch of us told them where it was.

Because there was no ride op at the platform entrance, there was no one to deal with it. It all worked out in the end though, because the 6 of us that technically came before the line cutters, cut back in front of them, lol. Team work with the front row riders basically! :)

Overall, I agree though. I wasn't sure if they were short-staffed due to budget cuts or what, but I was surprised with the mess.

Yep the No. 1 Amusement Park in the world, and didn't amusement today have a listing of the best capacity a few years ago? And Cedar Point was No. 1 on that list to.

I know Cedar Point got the Golden Ticket for Capacity from 1998 to 2003 and in 2006. I'm not sure if they didn't get it the other years, if it was discontinued, or if maybe that turned into one of the things that only gets voted on every once in a while. There are a few things that are not on the ballot every year.

I also have it written down that they had the worlds best capacity in 1970. And on my 1972 park guide it says that Cedar Point has the nations biggest capacity at 86,000 rides per hour. Though I don't remember where I saw the info about 1970 or who determined the information about 1972.

Thanks for the upload Jason, nice 1972 park guide. I remember seeing in the 2006 issue of Amusement Today a picture of Raptor's line with hand railing's set up outside the entrance, setup for extra queue which was full. I don't have that issue, when I worked at Kings Island they had a copy in the rides office.