Ride Nights

My friend and I are considering working at Cedar Point for the 2006 season. And we have read a lot from several site and forums. We have seen ride nights mentioned, but never an explanation for "ride night." Could someone please inform us on what "ride night" really is. Thanks!

It's a night where you can ride. Without the public.

Why on earth would anyone want to spend their day off work AT work?!?

Because it's CP, I guess.

MrScott

I am thinking about working there in a few years what is the minimum age limit to be a ride op?

Working at Cedar Point = Fun, Money, Car, Collage.

You have to be 18 to stay in the dorms and from what i've seen at the parks the ops are all older. So my guess is 18 to run to the rides. They will still hire you at 15-16 if you are local, but you you will get sweeps duty.

I was watching one of those shows about CP and they mentioned the ride nights. They look very interesting and fun.

Ride Nights were a great time. Unfortunately, I was told that a couple (or maybe even several) were cancelled this season for budget reasons. Things must really be pretty bad when CP can't afford Ride Nights. I mean considering it costs a whopping $58.30 to have a ride open with a crew of 8 for that hour (and that's assuming they all get their bonus).

Calypso Bash was cancelled too.

I think Chief Wahoo is the one that has said CP needs to be more creative in recruiting and retaining good employees. I agree 100%. No offense to anyone, but the quality of the employees working at the park is definitely on the decline and has been for several seasons. They used to have no trouble getting all clean cut college kids. Now those people aren't coming and they get thugs from Sandusky and other places that are going nowhere in life.

But let's look at the reasons why. The pay has been the same since at least 2000, the housing isn't getting any better. Now they are cutting ride nights and special events. It has also gotten a lot less fun to work there (at least in rides) with the removal of spiels, some questionable operational changes making the job harder, and the shift in culture from working as a crew, competing against other crews in friendly competitions, etc to "don't screw up or you'll be written up." The place just isn't as attractive for employment as it once was for college students.

I hate to say it, but unless there are some drastic changes in attitude starting higher up on the management food chain, things are going to continue in this direction too.

That's very unfortunate if they cancelled ride nights. That was one of the highlights of my summer last year. I loved Ride Nights.

I have to agree with you Matt.

The best way to figure out the minimum age requirements for job positions is by looking here:
http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/jobs/_joblist.cfm?category_id=6
Interestingly enough, you actually have to be 18 to be a sweep.

offroadcavi03, if you are interested, at the link below you can view pictures from some of the employee events the park holds:
http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/jobs/galleries.cfm

Gotta agree with MDOmnis.

Thanks for all the info on the ride nights. After reviewing some of the pics, why are people dressed up in what appears to be costumes? Do they have themes for the nights? And is the whole park open for the nights, or just certain rides per night?

18 to be a sweep? That can't be, I've seen green tags.

why was Calypso Bash Cancelled That sucks. Wow.

Ride nights where always nice, but mostly after working all day, the last thing we wanted to do was go back into the park to ride. But since I worked the TTD, by the time we got the last train cleared, and transfer the trains off, the ride nights where almost over, so we hardly got to go to them. Plus after riding mantis 4 times in a row, it starts to get to you! LOL Cause they only have 1 coaster open for ride night, and you hated to be the one that has to stay over and run it.

CPKid said:
Working at Cedar Point = Fun, Money, Car, Collage.

Yeah, you do have some fun. No, you don't earn that much money. So no car. And as far as a collages go, I'm sure you'll take enough pictures to make one ;)

Anyways, yeah, ride nights were mixed for me. I worked in park operations also, so by the time our ride closed down the ride night would almost be over. They seem to benefit the other departments more. I really enjoyed the wickey twickey ride night, power tower night and the dragster night (3 times in like 20 minutes!) As far as the snake river falls, the last thing I wanted to do was get all gross, wet, and cold in the night. The Millennium ride night was a joke. They hadn't even started it by the time I got there and I think the line was out the tunnel. Nope, not worth it at all.

As far as "interesting" goes, yeah they can be. I think the power tower had dorks this year, gemini had "walk it off(?)", and wicked twister had "follow the yellow track" (clear, you're off to see the wizard in 3,2,1). Other than that, they're not that special.

And yes, Matt has hit the head on the nail for as far as the attitude at CP has been lately. It ultimately caused me to quit. I loved all the people I met there, but they made the job really suck with a gazillion rules about everything. It's a true corporate feeling - they don't care about you, you are just their slave. Do your job, and you'll go unrewarded. But screw up, and you'll get demoted.

Calypso Bash was given a different name and cut down to a ride night (no DJ). During the end of July the Monday,Tuesday night events had weather problems.

My last Cedar Point moment was the fan favorite Bubbles Night. I left right before Big Bash. If you want to talk about Employee Events. That's when CP gives something back.

It was a rough year to work at Cedar Point. The labor pool isn't what it used to be and then your asking people who haven't worked a labor job to work 80 hours in the hottest summer I've ever seen. I had international employees actually saying NO to extra hours. And anyone who's ever worked at CP knows that just doesn't happen.

The internationals were probably saying no to extra hours so they could get more in at McDonald's ;).

Working at Cedar Point = Fun, Money, Car, Collage.

My bad wrong collage. If there isn't money for car there is no money for collage.

If you save your money right and don't spend it on Louie's or the Sandusky mall or anything like that then yah you could get money for college. I know that I paid for my books with my bonus money. All $500 something of it.

The best way to save money is to stay away from Louie's, and to pack your own lunch.

It's not exactly easy to do that, however. The cafeteria took quite a bit (well, more than if I had packed a lunch each day) of my money each week.

The best ride nights are the informal ones. Just catch Maintenence working on a ride and ask to hop on! At least that's the way it used to be... One of my best memories of CP was riding the Corkscrew at 2am in complete darkness after an evening at the Rec Center - when they still served beer!! Round and round she goes... When she stops only Maintanence knows!! We probably went around 6 or 8 times before they stopped it and let us off.