RIDE PRIDES

Do you love them or hate them?

Any good stories this season?

The ride prides on closing weekend at Magnum rocked!

Overall I hate them, but there are a few good groups out there amongst all the bad apples. They would throw anywhere from 0-6 "scream team" kids my way at Terror Island on any given weekend. All I really wanted them for was to have one doing special access at the turnstiles, and a couple more pushing the buttons that triggered the guns, cannon and air compressors. Most of them had no desire to be there and just detracted from our overall quality. There was one weekend where I actually found the groups' costumes stashed in a corner and caught them getting off of Magnum at the end of the night. However, I had a couple of weekends where the groups, or at least a couple of people within them really impressed me, a few of them should have been full time Screamsters. There was a girl in the queue of Pharaoh's the second to last Sunday who was probably more talented than most of our Screamsters, and she had no experience doing anything like that before, she was just a natural. Needless to say my supervisor and I spent some time trying to recruit her for next year. :)

I won't even get started on some of the groups we had when I used to do admissions. I never knew people could complain so much about having to do so little until I saw the groups we'd get up there. I'm just glad Ripcord/Skyscraper requires enough training that there will never be ride prides there.

Ralph Wiggum said:
There was one weekend where I actually found the groups' costumes stashed in a corner and caught them getting off of Magnum at the end of the night.

That cracked me up. Maybe they just really liked Magnum? :)

Can you blame them?

I heard about some that were supposed to be sweeping because we were over staffed and they stashed their brooms and shirts in the bushes and went and rode Sky Hawk. Too bad, I heard a sup found all their stuff and they lost their bonus. lol oh wow

Few years back I was TL of Blue Streak and The Ride Pride I Had there just walked off and we never found him again. Come to find out his whole fraternity had their bonus taken away and he just walked off with all of them. The only way i knew he left was by having a family with a baby and two kids that were under 48 inches came up on the platform ready to ride....

Ride prides.... Can't live with them, can't live without them. Err, maybe we could live without them.

Probably the best story I heard wasn't the ride prides but the actual sweeps. My sup told us about the sweeps he was in charge of one year who walked off and went to the movies. No one noticed them till the theater called...they never bothered to change.

In merchandise they're called "fund raisers", and we pretty much had good groups of them. The ones assigned to my location did a good job, and seemed to be eager to help the guests, and keep things neat and clean. At the end of the season when staffing is very low, they really do make a difference, and help out as best they can.

I had one leave on his last day at 6 pm, couldnt wait 2 more hours, and some ride our ride, you can see their uniforms under their pullovers. Last year there were a few in line for 2 hour wait at maverick, sup was called and he took them out.

I was begging for a couple of ride prides, or "scream team" people to be pulled out of the haunted houses for use in Terror Island's button pushing and special access positions each night. I didn't always get them, and even with the insanely easy tasks, about half the groups managed to suck at it. Luckily the other half made up by going above and beyond and really getting into it and having fun.

Ride Prides / Fundraisers really are a mixed bag. Back in 2005 we had two that walked off for 2 1/2 hours at lunch, claiming they got lost going to the cafeteria so they just decided to ride rides for a while. By the time they got back we already had a replacement from them. Another week we had a girl that was so good she was working a register within 20 minutes of starting and was probably better than 75% of our regular seasonal staff. We were sad to see her go.

Hmmm... Ok, I'm old. I've never even heard of Ride Prides. We certainly didn't have them in the mid 70s. What are they???

Typically groups of college kids, either frats/sororities or sport teams or music groups that spend a weekend working at CP with the money they would be making going to their group. They generally (but not always) have an attitude of not wanting to be there and acting like the work is below them. They work pretty much everywhere. Traffic, admissions, games, food, merchandise, rides (which bugs/scares the living crap out of me now that they're being allowed to check restraints and work co-dispatch positions) and during Halloweekends they're in the haunted houses and Cornstalkers.

That's what I first thought, too, when I heard about the new positions they could work. In reality, thought, it's actually worked out quite well. The Ride Pride positions are in very high demand, and the program has been run long enough that most groups have fairly established reputations. The park has been able to be quite picky about who they allow to work. For the most part, the Ride Prides this past season did great work, with several wanting to come back and work this summer.

And really, if you think about it, allowing Ride Prides into position isn't much different from opening weekend, except there's the benefit of having several more pairs of experienced eyes watching things.