Ocean Motion This Year

I mentioned this in a trip report, but I wanted to see if anyone else had noticed this, and had an opinion or an idea. What the heck did they do to that ride? The ride cycle is super-short, and they have totally changed the loading procedure. Gone is the long rope which allowed you to line up more or less where you wanted to be on the ride. Now you are stopped at the turnstile, and they only let you through to the platform when the ride is empty. This means you have no real opportunity to get to either end of the ride unless you are one of the first 10 or 12 people boarding. I guess that's OK, because they were only loading it to about half capacity anyway. Nothing like taking something that works really well and making a mess of it.

Didn't you know, that's what CP has been best at as of late--taking things that have worked perfectly fine for decades and altering them so it's less efficient. Apparently its all in the name of safety but its getting ridiculous.

While they're at it, they ought to fix the railing on the right side of the stairs going up to Corkscrew's station. The thing is barely up to my knees and I could easily see someone flipping right over it.

Here's some more stupid things I noticed at CP this year:

1.) New seatbelts on Camp Snoopy rides with a plastic piece with a small hole over the button which require the operator (or maybe your key or something) to release them.
2.) The wedge shaped safety zones cut into Magnum's gates not only make it next to impossible for the crew to see eachother's clears, but also impossible to watch the train as it goes out. Not only that, they have the front-most hosts standing behind the first car now so the first car doesn't get visually double checked at all like it used to.
3.) The gate they installed by the dispatch enable on Millennium Force. How many people are going to rupture themselves on that trying to hustle back there?
4.) The new gates on Paddlewheel next to the boat. I think that would be great if they were letting people past the turnstyle to get to that point before the boat is there and stopped, but they're not. So what's the point?
5.) Double checking every seat on maXair with only two ops. The loading takes multiple minutes. Add that to a decent ride cycle time and you have a really bad interval. Very un-CP-like.

On the positive side, I am happy to see more exit gates in place, especially on Magnum. Things to discourage people from coming up the exit are good although I still saw one lady bringing her stroller up there.

Trying to make the park as safe as possible is an admirable goal, but some of these things just need to be better thought out. When you see things aren't working, fix them. An example would be Magnum's Freeway entrance.

Actually, I found the interval time on maX to be pretty good. I waited about 15 minutes for a ride, standing at the end of a full queue. Not bad.

Matt: The operators are already ignoring the wedge-shaped stations on Magnum, at least when the supervisors aren't around. Maybe when they *are* around as well. I just wish that they had taken that new rail behind the 3rd seat queue and extended it all the way back to the edge of the 4th seat queue, and angled the rest of the front-car railings accordingly......

I think we're seeing something happen in parks these days that I've come to call, "the Lawnmower Effect." Have you tried to use a gasoline powered lawnmower lately? In the name of safety, those things have become so junked up with "safety" equipment that it is almost impossible now to use them to cut grass. We're seeing the same thing happen on amusement rides. In an effort to make the rides "safer" they are becoming more and more difficult to operate and to ride.

There's more to my lawnmower theory, but I don't want to get into that right now...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

What was done with Maggie's freeway entrance, Matt?

Nothing has changed with that and that's the problem. It's just the fact that the average park guest without a freeway stamp can't understand that it is not the regular entrance. Just stand by the freeway person for 10 minutes on a busy day and watch the number of people that have to be sent around to the regular entrance. Then about once a week deal with an amployee getting cussed out by a guest who can't understand why he can't just go through right there when there is no line. If they constructed the freewy entrance more like they did at MF (merging from the entrance), it would be okay. Since they didn't, they need some signage to make it clearer. Either that or move the phone out to the midway end of the ramp and let the attendant sit out there so people don't walk all the way up the ramp only to get turned around.

Once a week getting cussed out? I'd have to say close to, if not daily.

I never realy see a long enough line on magnum to warrent a freeway pass to begin with.

While we are talking about stupid safety additions this year, have you seen the exit gate at the unload platform of disater transport?

Whats that about? Its like putting an elevator in an outhouse....its just not needed.

the maXair interval isnt that bad...as long as people know how to pull their harnesses down and fasten their seatbelts it goes fast...it also helps if they put their shoes in the bins and not in the grass...Hats and glasses have to go down the shirts too or that slows down the interval as well

It seemed like the crew was doing an admirable job for the situation it was given. Checking 50 seats yourself just takes some time even if you are hustling your butt off. Are there plans to have more staffing on that ride? Say four people instead of two checking restraints or is this just the way it's going to be?

I can see why they have two people checking restraints on MaXair. The way the ride is configured, with 50 contiguous seats, makes it much easier to overlook something than a coaster with 2 or 4 seats next to each other. "Isthiseasytoread" or "is this easy to read". Same difference.

As for the new restraints on the kiddie rides, I suspect there have been more than one complaint from parents about small kids releasing their restraints. I know my son was able to release those plastic snap restraints at age 3 (those restraints are used on all kinds of things...fanny pack closures, kid's backpacks, etc).

Again, safety is paramount, and when you are dealing with smaller children who ride alone and are more likely to release themselves and move about, stand, or try to get out of a moving ride, it's better to be safe than sorry.

You'd have to actually be a parent of a child who is capable or has released themselves on a moving ride to understand how scary it can be for a parent to watch.