Reride with No Line Policy

You can freaking see if its popular or not. If they're sending mostly empty trains all day, they probably aren't that popular. That's all you'd need is a little common sense observation for any reasons 'numbers' might require a decision to be made.

All roller coasters & pretty much all major attractions close at 10:08. This is for a few reasons. One it allows people who want that last ride in before the end of the night to get it. Two people can't say "well my phone says 9:58", ect...10:08 is a bit past 10:00 and you can't argue that it's before closing, ect...It's downright just a last minute courtesy to guests in the park.

For rerides...One the people aren't counted through the turnstile. Those numbers mean things, and it's highly important to the park. It shows the ridership, it shows how well we put out people, and it shows how many people go there on an hourly/daily basis...Turnstiles aren't going anywhere, nor will they ever. Also it is considered line jumping. Just because you don't see anyone on platform when you come in doesn't mean we don't have anyone coming up the queues, or in my case up the stairs, ect. So basically re-rides would mean that we're letting you line jump...Everyone here pretty much knows that's a big no-no in Cedar Fair's book...

I just say this...If you want to ride again, I'm all fine with it, I'm in fact honored that you want to get off & on again. Run up the queues carefully and get back up and on either on this train or the next train, you only maybe have to wait two minutes top on my ride..If not any other ride that you're trying to get a re-ride on anyways...

You don't seem like one of the fun ride hosts. ;)

I don't really consider re-rides line jumping. The definition says: “CUTTING IN FRONT OF OTHER WAITING GUESTS." If there is someone waiting in the station for the specific seat, the ride hosts always say go into an empty seat. If there is no one waiting, it isn't line jumping.

When I was at Busch Gardens Williamsburg last year, their policy was one reride without having to get off the ride if there was no one else waiting. I think that is fair.

I've had rerides on both Magnum and Mean Streak this year and it was done exactly as coolkid mentiouned, except that you can reride as much as you want as long as no one is in your seat's queue line. The ride ops were very good at counting the reriders and actually annouced the number on the PA so someone else could update the total. Well done to both the Magnum and Mean Streak ride hosts, it made for a fun evening.

decil76 said:
What I find unacceptable is when they cut off the line Before closing time. So if there's a 30 minute wait, they'll stop people from getting in line 30 minutes before close.

I absolutely hate when parks do this. It pretty much makes closing time a mystery as you go from ride to ride trying to find one that hasn't cut their line off yet.

A few years ago at SFA, I was waiting for Superman right around closing time (which was 6 PM in the middle of summer, I never understood that) and precisely at 6 the crew just left. Never closed the line, never made any announcement to the guests waiting in line, just unloaded the incoming train and then walked out before the train was even done unloading. That was possibly the most unacceptable operations I've seen at any park.

bholcomb said:
You can freaking see if its popular or not.

Guesswork is not a valid way to do business in a billion dollar company.

Is it better to send out a train knowing that there are precisely 6 people on it because they went through the turnsile or to send out a train with 12 people on it but the turnstile count only shows 6 people are on it?

The first scenario is better, obviously, as it provides an accurate measure of that attraction's popularity. That's the whole point of counting riders on any given attraction - to determine popularity.

Well as I stated though you may not see someone on platform in the queue before the gates. But I may have a group coming up the steps or walking around the bend and they'll be up in the station in the next 10 seconds or whatever...But like I said...Just walk back around. If you're wanting a reride, that means the ride is dead, so walking around isn't that cumbersome haha

We allowed re-rides all the time early in the morning and late at night last year at Magnum... practically every day. Once we got a steady flow of riders in the morning, we simply let those who had been re-riding know that we wouldn't be doing it anymore. They were always very thankful that we were letting them do it (we have a ton of regulars at Magnum) and understanding when we told them that we weren't allowing it anymore. As the re-ride trains were rolling out of the station, we'd ask the re-riders to raise their hands so we could count them on our clicker. Easy as that.

It's definitely not Cedar Point approved, though. However, we were never told to stop it either. It's also quite a hassle from a ride op's point of view, but our crew didn't mind providing that extra little perk to the guests that wanted to power-ride the best coaster in the park first thing in the morning :) Don't expect re-rides, but enjoy them if they're offered.

Shades said:
Is it better to send out a train knowing that there are precisely 6 people on it because they went through the turnsile or to send out a train with 12 people on it but the turnstile count only shows 6 people are on it?

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but the turnstile will never show exactly how many people are on a given train, since all it does is count how many people are entering the station. I suppose a turnstile positioned at the exit could, but I'm not sure why you'd ever need to track how full every single train is.

Chuck Wagon said:
I wonder if the CP policy for line closing got changed at some point in the last 10 years? I seem to recall marathoning Magnum when I used to stay at Sandcastle or Breakers from around 9:30 till 10:00. I was pretty sure that they closed the line promptly at 10, but I could be off. This would have been around 2002-2004 time frame.

Yeah, I think the extra 8 minutes policy has emerged within the last 10 years. I remember as a kid (probably 15-20 years ago, ugh), sprinting from Mean Streak to Demon Drop with my Dad; it was the only ride we hadn't ridden that day. We could barely breathe from the run, and it was right at 10PM - they said the line was closed. My Dad begged the ride entrance host, but he refused us entry. It was a sad way to end a once-per-year trip, as I was such a completionist like my Dad back then. This memory still stands strong, and my Dad and I joke about it today.

So, I can't say enough about how much I agree with the policy of today. Cedar Point is supposed to be a day of fun - not a school detention lesson for being 30 seconds late. With 8 extra minutes, no one should ever feel let down, but ecstatic that they made their last ride well past close -- this is such a great way to end a trip and get repeat visits from your customers. Kudos CP - now pass the word over to KI. ;)

Re-rides are not a regular thing. But another thing that the turnstiles are important for is insurance. When you empty the train it gives you a chance to see that everyone is good to go when they walk away and around. Plus while I know CP frowns on copyrights, I know rides like Superman at SFGA, the hosts actually give you a ticket. Which I'm 95% positive is for rights fees for the name and theme.

I've never received a ticket for rights names at SFGA, or any other Six Flags park... Occasionally, however, they will issue numbered tickets. These tickets are in an attempt to catch line jumpers. If you reach the platform without a ticket or with an out of sequence ticket, you will be removed from the line, and possibly the park.

CP does, I believe, look at the operational cost of a ride on a per-rider basis. So in other words, if a ride gives 100 people rides, and the maintenance, staffing and amortized cost of the ride total $100, it costs a dollar per rider to operate it. (Absurd numbers used for illustration.)

I would imagine a ride like Mean Streak has a very high cost per rider, while a ride like Gemini has a very low cost per rider (unless those brass upstop plates are really expensive). If the cost per rider gets too high, I suspect they have discussions about whether or not they want to continue operating the ride.

We do not allow re-rides (atleast on my ride), because it messes up the numbers, it's not fair to the people entering the station, or the queues at that time, and simply it's a rule that we enforce. Most guests don't understand it and try to sneak right back on the ride. Everytime I see them do that, HARNESSES RELEASED, and kick them off. I mean they're just gonna run out of the exit, line jump through the messed up queue rails we have now, and get right back in the station, so I don't see what they complain about!

The reason why we (once again, atleast on my ride) allow re rides at night, is because we can count how many are going to re-ride and either turn the turnstile that many times, or use the hand counter.

Yeah I have had re-rides at KI many times... just find a friendly ride-op, or pretend you have just gotten back on the ride ;)

King's Island is awesome about rerides. 17 straight Beast rides at night was pretty sweet last year.

DBCP do they also subtract the people that don't want to ride once they get on a train after going trough a turnstile. Let alone the countless number of people that have to take the walk of shame on MF and TTD. If for one think a manual count of empty seats would be more metric of a systme then the turnstile CP uses.

Ralph Wiggum said:

Shades said:
Is it better to send out a train knowing that there are precisely 6 people on it because they went through the turnsile or to send out a train with 12 people on it but the turnstile count only shows 6 people are on it?

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but the turnstile will never show exactly how many people are on a given train, since all it does is count how many people are entering the station. I suppose a turnstile positioned at the exit could, but I'm not sure why you'd ever need to track how full every single train is.

That was my poorly written point. With the current no-reride scheme the park can calculate a $/rider cost. Great. If they allow rerides and decide not to have the operators manually tally these additional riders then I agree that the accuracy of the $/rider ratio is not accurate, but does it screw it up so badly that the ratio becomes worthless with regards to measuring a ride's popularity? If a ride's popularity is low then I do not see how allowing rerides - who would want to reride it except for a few people - would matter much.

My biggest complaint is you either allow re-rides or you do not. Everyone gets to or no one does. Do not give special treatment to certain individuals.