New "valuable" lost article policy?

Folks,

Just an observation from the park today. Since our oldest just hit 54" this week (literally), we decided to stop in the park for a couple hours before checking into Breakers so she could try Rougarou for the first time.

We got in line around 2:00 or so, and after about 10 minutes Kylah (that's the daughter) noticed no trains were running at all. Sure enough, she was right. I just assumed it was a little breakdown of some kind, but then a few minutes later a worker walked up and down the line informing us that a customer had lost a "valuable" on the ride, and they were shutting the ride down until it could be found. Sure enough, there was another worker under the tracks searching for this valuable.

A few of us starting talking in line, wondering just what this valuable could be. An irreplaceable wedding band? The rest of the map to find Luke Skywalker? Kinzel's lost diary?

Turns out it was the cell phone of some kid. A very broken cell phone.

Since when is this a policy of the park? The line was shut down for about 20 minutes while we waited for a kid's phone to be found. I'm not suggesting one's phone isn't valuable...I think we all know the lengths some have gone to retrieve this possession...but, really?

They shut it down for someone losing a flip flop while I was in line once.

^^ Maybe the lengths someone went to attempting to retrieve their phone previously is the reason they shut the ride down and went looking for it. Not saying they should have...although I don't understand why they won't let people stick their phones in the shoe cubby. A phone isn't any bigger than a flip flop.

That sounds pretty idiotic. When I worked at the park, we'd pretty much only shut down for a lost item if it was something medical. Otherwise, come back at the end of the night and we'll do our very best to find it. A single person's inability to follow the rules shouldn't inconvenience the other 1,000 guests waiting in the queue.

That's what I thought. I was pretty astounded, actually, that this could actually happen, and in my 40 years of visiting Cedar Point I have never witnessed this happening. Granted, I don't remember much from those first 3-4 years, but I'm pretty sure the Mill Race was never shut down entirely so someone could retrieve his/her walkman.

Is this just up to a ride op's discretion? It simply cannot be a new park policy. People lose crap all day long on so many rides.

I had (and continue to) assumed the park policy was, "If you're irresponsible (or unlucky) enough to lose it, sorry...it's not our fault and there is little to nothing we can do about it".

Are you sure it was a cellphone? Could it have been an insulin pump that could have pulled out and fell? Similar size and look to a cellphone and that would make sense for a shutdown. I simply can't see them doing this for a cell phone for any reason.

I did witness this on Gatekeeper last season but it was handled a bit more efficiently. The ride op apologized to the line and said she knew exactly where the phone dropped and then proceeded to run down the stairs and through the old que to retrieve it. Took all of 3 minutes so I wasn't really annoyed by it and was kind of impressed.

I did see them stop Mantis on one occasion to retrieve a kid's tennis shoe that was lost during the ride.

How in the world do you loose a shoe on a stand up? Anywho, I can go along with that, his day would be rather ruined with only one shoe.

99er said:

Are you sure it was a cellphone? Could it have been an insulin pump that could have pulled out and fell? Similar size and look to a cellphone and that would make sense for a shutdown. I simply can't see them doing this for a cell phone for any reason.

I can guarantee you it was, 100%, a cellphone. The ride person who spoke to us in line stated that they do this for valuables, which includes keys and cellphones.

Perhaps this is a new unwritten policy born out of the Raptor incident.

Cedar Point is not responsible for items lost, damaged or stolen... unless you ask us, then we'll totally just shut down any one of our marquee attractions, inconveniencing thousands of responsible guests so you can get your cell phone back.

I saw this happen at Magnum last year during HalloWeekends. And it isn't exactly a quick task for the ride op to find the item there given the amount of area the ride takes up. Took about 20 minutes and sure enough the guest who complained got their phone handed back. They also took the time to bring back a handful of other items lost throughout the day.

When the park is extraordinarily busy (HalloWeekends) and you are already running below capacity with 2 trains due to lack of staffing, and the line is very long, it's not exactly great customer service to shut the ride down to go on a treasure hunt. I certainly don't condone this action at anytime but the circumstances at that time made it far worse.

Needless to say, there were a lot of angry folks in the station when they saw they shut the ride down for a phone. Lots of people saying, "Don't they say they aren't responsible for lost items?"

Asinine.

It won't be long until you have to empty your pockets (and prove it) before you enter the que.

If we shut down Magnum every time a person lost their cell phone when I worked at Cedar Point, the ride would literally never operate. We'd easily find 15-20 cell phones a night on our track walks.

I'm guessing this is in response to what happened at Raptor, and now they're too worried someone will try to get in if they tell them to wait?

We had so many things get lost in the pit at maXair that there's no way we'd go down just for something as trivial as a cell phone.

The only way we'd go down was if it was a shoe or pair of prescribed glasses. It was very much about essentials, and not anything that couldn't be retrieved at the end of the night.

I really hope this isn't a new policy, because this happens multiples times on almost every ride with a low zone.

It is nearly incomprehensible for me that people loose phones on any ride. It is also incomprehensible that people walk around in public with a naked phone half sticking out of their back jeans pocket.

This is the first season I have allowed my boys to bring their phones into the park and due to the cooler temperatures they were in jeans and not cargo shorts with zippered pockets. Every ride they handed over their phones without me asking and were darn near annoying making sure I had them in my zippered pocket, asking multiple times to make sure.

It happened to me on Blue Streak on Friday. Took bout 30 mins to get a cell phone back for a kid that looked to be about 10-12 years old. Why a 10-12 year old has a cell phone, let alone stop a ride for 30 mins just to retrieve it is beyond me.

This was the way it worked when I worked at Walt Disney World. I remember shutting down Dinosaur and having a 60+ minute downtime and dumping the queue to go retrieve a hat once for an irate guest. The policy was always "come back at the end of the day" but if they caused a big enough scene, we would inconvenience a couple thousand guests. I never agreed with it.