New Steel Vengeance Locker System for 2021

It's all armchair park-management for us, but let's just say...

There are no perfect answers to an impossible situation, and with the depleted staff and amusement-hungry-crowds it sounds like a basketball team reduced to 4 active players on the court with no backups available (which also leads to the unfortunate temporary "rides closing early" situation).

I will say, given the comments and eyeing the webcam to peek at the crowds I was surprised that reservations were readily available all weekend.

It's also somewhat flabbergasting that the people I personally know who made a trek out to the park this weekend on various days all had a good time (god forbid!). Then again, they are all CP regulars who didn't expect every eatery and ride to be open...no one Hope Flood would be interested in following on Twitter.

TwistedWicker77 said:

Cartwright said:

WKYC has a story about the cluster of a weekend the park is having

https://www.wkyc.com/amp/article/entertainment/places/cedar-point/c...ssion=true

Well, they can get over. It’s not like Cedar Point doesn’t want to hire people. They even raised the hourly wage for employees significantly. If I was closer to the park, I wouldn’t mind working some weekends for an extra flow of income.

This is one of the main problems with their staffing issues. They're kinda "in the middle of nowhere" when it comes to population density. Too far from Cleveland, Columbus or Detroit to really pull people who would be down for a weekend only job. And we all know there will be no internationals this season. I feel horrible for anyone taking on the challenge of working there this summer.

My job has me on a 4x10 schedule with Friday - Sunday off. If I lived even 30 mins closer to the park I would consider Fridays and Saturdays. I loved working at GL and miss it.

I sometimes wonder if that's the issue. It's either 6 day 50-70 hour weeks or nothing. Are part time and flexible schedules an option for most (if any) positions?

The woman belittling guest services over minor hiccups and then pulling the "I used to be a ride op here" card was a cringeworthy end to the weekend

Name the last time an opening weekend went smoothly?? Isn't that why most smart enthusiasts skip opening weekend??

Cartwright said:
I feel like this conversation happens every year on Opening Weekend. Outside of the fact that they got an October Saturday crowd, was the park in any different shape than it usually is on a non-2020 Opening Weekend?

Yes. It was.

I just got home, and what I noticed (besides the gorgeous weather that we often don't get on opening weekend) was that physically, the park seemed more "ready" than usual. Staffing is an enormous problem, and trying to get food or drink in the park was clearly a fool's errand.

But all of the marquee attractions were open, and for the most part seemed to experience relatively little downtime. I didn't catch any 'first weekend teething issues' like seat belts too short to buckle over an empty seat, or four major coasters still awaiting maintenance parts from the manufacturer, or sections of the park still decorated in HalloWeekends decor. It really looks like they made good use of the extra week before opening so that the park looks better on opening weekend than I have seen in years.

The 8:00 close feels totally wrong, even though that's standard early in the season. Sorry, but it never feels right to close before sundown. The hard close is terrible and seems to lead to a lot of attractions being shut down before closing time. I think there has to be a better way, especially given the mess it creates in the parking lot when everyone tries to leave at once.

Oh, and the band organ is back on the Midway Carousel.

It seems to me the biggest problem is staffing, and we knew that going in. The big difference this season is that a lot of the other little issues that we've come to expect from Opening Weekend seem to have been handled a lot better than in the past.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I actually bumped into the outgoing "Black Shirt Higher-up" on Friday. He was all smiles and relaxed, as I wished him well on his promotion. Granted, this was at 9:30am Friday.

I actually bumped into the new "Black Shirt Higher-up" on Friday. She looked a bit tense and I didn't want to interrupt whatever she was preparing to tend to as she was heading at a fast pace towards Steel Vengeance. Granted, this was at 11:30am Friday.

Perhaps JC was demanding to be made whole

^Eh, I don't know, man. From what I've heard, the wheels seem to have been installed correctly on Steel Vengeance this year.

I agree with what Joe E said. The locker system, for the most part, is going to work well and it's a big improvement over prior systems. I do think they're overcomplicating it a bit with tying to have two separate lines after the tunnel after everyone is merged for the trip through the tunnel. If one metal detector is a bottleneck (and I don't think it would be after people just emptied everything into a locker) just make the lines for front of the train/back of the train and let people choose. There's really no advantage for Fastlane people to be kept separate at that point, need to check wristbands, etc. Doing this would save at least a staff position or two.

I don't know what the math is behind how many Fastlanes they sell, but it must be about as "limited" as the "limited capacity/reservations required" to enter the park. 50% of the ride's capacity was being dedicated to Fastlane and purchasers were still waiting upwards of an hour supposedly. The merge before the tunnel probably adds 15 minutes, but there are just so damn many people with Fastlane! Still better than the 2.5 that the regular stiffs were waiting, but right now, they don't seem to be making either group happy. It was the same story over at Maverick. The main parking lot was damn near full on Saturday and I heard multiple reports of people showing up without reservations and being let in so not sure what the deal is. It wasn't Columbus Day busy, but I would guess there were 35-40k people in the park on Saturday. Slightly less Friday and Sunday, but I would still say they were 30k+.

I noticed they were not opening the platform gates right away when the train parks at Steel Vengeance. I'm not sure if this was an attempt at social distancing, inexperience or what, but it was not helping with intervals. The difference in urgency was noticeable between Steel Vengeance and say Magnum. I was pleasantly surprised to see Magnum running all three trains on day two and three. They aren't going to break two million, but it was being run better than I've seen in a few years and good to see. Also noticed the crew was allowed to de-mask and do manual spiels after the first day. Makes it more fun for everyone.

Also have to agree with Rideman. The park did look great. Didn't see any rides still in pieces or construction projects still underway. Everything, including bathrooms (which I think they were outsourcing the cleaning to some company with green shirts) was clean and looked good. Just need more staff!

Park was packed, Food lines were long. Wife and I was there Saturday - Platinum FLP+ all season. Stood in line for 1.5hrs to ride SteVe, Was so happy it wasn't the almost 3hr line. stood in line at backbeat BBQ for 1.5 hrs - the food was great. All the staff seemed to do the best the could to keep up, accept serious criticism from people, and still smile. To wrap up the Saturday visit - we rode Millie twice, SteVe, Raptor and Gatekeeper once. I feel a packed slow day at any park is better than a fast day at work!

Sunday we were back, this time with two grandkids. both are only 42" in height. We packed a cooler and small grill for our lunch/dinner. day was beautiful!

In all fairness we are Fully Loaded Season pass holders. I understand if you were a single day visitor - but why opening weekend? Any park on opening weekend will have issues - even if fully staffed.

I like the fact that they split the line again after the locker stop. The left side is where they send FL+ and it's significantly shorter than the right side.

So there is a reservation system but this weekend saw crowds of 35k+, full parking lot ect?

Seems like this was an avoidable problem. It's stunning to me how incompetent this park operates at times. It's that or at the top they just don't give a damn about the guest experience because people keep flooding in.

Oh well I'll still head out to the park this year. Just one trip though (Down from 3) and that can be attributed to my pre-covid experiences at the park. And yes I'm aware you and the park don't care what I think, so need for the tired "whole" crap.

Cartwright said:

Perhaps JC was demanding to be made whole

jimmyburke said:

I actually bumped into the outgoing "Black Shirt Higher-up" on Friday. He was all smiles and relaxed, as I wished him well on his promotion. Granted, this was at 9:30am Friday.

I actually bumped into the new "Black Shirt Higher-up" on Friday. She looked a bit tense and I didn't want to interrupt whatever she was preparing to tend to as she was heading at a fast pace towards Steel Vengeance. Granted, this was at 11:30am Friday.

I bumped into Carrie on Sunday while she was doing a park walk through, and she appeared to be as cool as a cucumber.

My experience in the park on Sunday was vastly different than what was reported on Friday and Saturday. We have all season FL+, and the longest wait was for SV due to the locker situation, but still only added about 15 minutes so not horrible. I'm sure more tweaking will be done as the season moves on.

So the locker situation added 15 minutes to your SV Fastlane wait. Out of curiosity what was the total wait?

My wait was about 30 mins total. That was at 10:30am

Nice! Thanks for clarifying. Going this weekend and hoping for the best but going with low expectations.

What is the cost of the SV lockers?

Free ninety-nine.

Thank-you!