Platinum Early Entry... Sloppy?

HeyIsntThatRob? said:
Based on the evolution of the early entry concept at CP I no longer waste my time showing up to the park early like I used to. Joe Cool Club's early entry days was the friggin' bomb in '01 and '02 and made the $15 perk totally worth it. Based my one early entry experience this year I ended up waiting 45 minutes for Maverick to open and by the time I made it down to MF it already had an hour line since the park had already opened to the "disgusting, putrid GP." ;)

~Rob "Those were the days!"

Another reason that I just sleep in.:)

I think this is one of the reasons we used to call it the "Joe Fool Club."

djDaemon said:
I think the early entry problems are greatly exaggerated. Sure, there are inevitably going to be issues getting the rides up & running on time, and yes, that shouldn't happen. But even when 1 ride isn't up on time for early entry, others are.

However with them all being pretty far away from each other you waste more time leaving Maverick to go to MF, or leaving MF to go to Raptor, etc. I never get to the park early enough to partake in ERT so it doesn't affect me, but if they're going to advertise something, get it right.

Invertalon said:
Then of course you have Dragster, which runs at 1/3 to 1/2 capacity for the first hour, for reasons I will never understand. And yes, I have read through the entire topic on this forum (with no offical answer in it). Some days, they have fully loaded trains within 20minutes of running. Other days, it takes a full hour. No rhyme or reasoning there, either.

I totally agree. If I had to guess, I would say they do it because the computer system tells them to. In other words, they are instructed to do it when the wind/weather/whatever values on the screen are above a certain threshold.

That's just a guess though. Who knows if those values are actually accurate.

I guess it all boils down to whether or not you feel that, with the inevitable issues getting up & running on time, you feel the pass is a good value. If you really value early ride time, and don't feel it's living up to your expectations, then don't buy the Platinum Pass. Simple enough.

What? The consumer has a choice?

They offer pills now that help to get the rides up in time.

Nice one. :)

I think HeyIsn'tThatRob? is right, in '01-'02 ERT felt very exclusive. Then they made it more corporate with more hotels, people, and rides.

Kinda reminds of FreeWay, which was totally awesome until the GP figured it out and made long lines waiting for handstamps.

Rapids 77-78 said:
They offer pills now that help to get the rides up in time.

Yeah, but if they're up for more than six hours, they're supposed to consult a mechanic.

djDaemon said:

. If you really value early ride time, and don't feel it's living up to your expectations, then don't buy the Platinum Pass. Simple enough.

Some of us buy Platinum Passes for more than just morning ERT...

And honestly, there is no "justifying" why they are late to open the rides. If they can open ALL the other rides at 10am, on time, they could do the same at 9am for the few rides they do open. They start testing the other rides around 9:30 to be sure they are ready at 10am, yet for early entry, they may START at 9am (the case for MF, many times).

Chuck Wagon said:
...in '01-'02 ERT felt very exclusive. Then they made it more corporate with more hotels, people, and rides.

From the sound of the Joe Cool Club ERT, the park was expending a ton of effort for a very small group of people. It makes all the sense in the World to extend that benefit so that more than a few enthusiasts could enjoy shorter lines. So, if by "corporate", you mean "an intelligent business decision", then I agree.

Invertalon said:
Some of us buy Platinum Passes for more than just morning ERT...

Then why do you care that morning ERT isn't perfect each and every day? Like I said - either you think the Platinum Pass perks are worth the expense, or you don't.

And honestly, there is no "justifying" why they are late to open the rides. If they can open ALL the other rides at 10am...

But that's just it - they don't always open every ride every day on time. These are very complex machines you're talking about, and CP even warns guests that not every ride is guaranteed to be open. There's simply no practical way to ensure that these rides are always running perfectly.

I think it is beyond the Platinum Pass. It is about the early entry in general and the perks that are stated. I know a lot of resort guests stay on site just to have that extra time to get in some rides. I have been to many early entries this year and it's always the resort guests who I hear complaining, and they are furious. Especially when on multiple occassions it is multiple rides that are not open. I was even there one day when Maverick, MF and Iron Dragon were all down. I know if I was on vacation/making a once a year visit I would be pretty upset too. Especially with the cost of staying on site.

Granted, I know things happen, but I can see why people get upset.

djDaemon said:

From the sound of the Joe Cool Club ERT, the park was expending a ton of effort for a very small group of people. It makes all the sense in the World to extend that benefit so that more than a few enthusiasts could enjoy shorter lines. So, if by "corporate", you mean "an intelligent business decision", then I agree.

I think it was definitely an intelligent business decision, but I also think that when the idea was "new" they put more effort into its execution. They seemed to make you feel a bit more "special" in those years. It doesn't feel special at all to get to MF at 9:05 only to have to wait for 20 minutes for it to open.

djDaemon said:

But that's just it - they don't always open every ride every day on time. These are very complex machines you're talking about, and CP even warns guests that not every ride is guaranteed to be open. There's simply no practical way to ensure that these rides are always running perfectly.

I struggle with the complexity of the rides. There are certainly more complex machines than these and they seem to fair pretty well with reliability day in and day out. Not sure if I buy that as an excuse. But things do break down occassionally so I will give them a pass on that. However, for the majority of the times when I have seen something not open on time the perception I have is that it is not a mechanical issue but rather the crew just moving very slowly and not caring. I would guess that is what drives people crazy.

I'm hearing things like OMG I go to the park 25 times a season, and on 3 occasions not every ERT ride was up-and-running in time, and I only got 3 rides on MF. So what?

In addition to the fact that the park operates these rides with a limited work force, some of which have to close a ride one night, only to re-open it 8 hours later. On top of that, these rides are inspected on a daily basis.

I think the "problem" is being blown WAY out of proportion, and sounds like something you'd hear from a spoiled child. Which, coming from a bunch of enthusiasts, does not surprise me the least bit. :)

The fact is that these rides will not always be open, and there's not much that can be done to avoid that. And yes, that's a bummer. If you don't feel the quality of ERT is worth the cost, don't pay for it.

We just wanna vent with eachother about it :)

djDaemon said:
they don't always open every ride every day on time. These are very complex machines you're talking about, and CP even warns guests that not every ride is guaranteed to be open. There's simply no practical way to ensure that these rides are always running perfectly.

I am completely ok with them not "opening every ride, every day, on time", but when 11 out of 12 days the ride is not up on time, people are bound to get a little upset.

They need to do something to "ensure" the ride opens on time most of the time.

Mechanical malfunction or an unplanned crew absence aside, I see no excuse for not being open when advertised.

When I worked on the old STR, it would take about a half hour to bring the ride up. You had to walk the flume to look for any issues, power up the pumps to get the water circulating, clean and put all the boats into the flume, get them circulating, and have all hands at their stations by 10:00 am. Yup, we actually had to get our butts in gear early enough to meet our time committment.

We did it routinely and our area supervisor would have taken us to task if we didn't.

Last time I stayed at the Breakers, I also noticed this problem of not delivering on advertised perks. Sloppy? Yup.

Like I said, if their lack of perfection is so troublesome, don't pay for the perk! It really is that simple! :)

Kyle2154 said:
I am completely ok with them not "opening every ride, every day, on time", but when 11 out of 12 days the ride is not up on time, people are bound to get a little upset.

But what if that number is really 11 out of 114? That just means that person has terribly luck, not that there is any fault of the park.

12 days is an extremely small sample size for a park that operates daily from early May to Labor Day.