Ridership.

I really like the sound of Magnum's lift hill, its very memorable.

I liked the sound of Magnum's lift until I spent a season working underneath of it every day. We prayed for Magnum to have downtime just so we could have some peace and quiet.

Speaking of the sounds of the rides, I love how each one has their own personality! I love the roar of all of them! My kis and I go on you tube when we are bored and play a game of "Name that Ride!" We have on close their eyes and then we click on different rides to see if they can guess them! It strange, but to us it is fun! It keeps us going throught these winter months!

Bill Abele said:
CONGRATS to the Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad - #1. Imagine how many rides they could have given had they run two trains everyday like we did back in the early 80s (three trains on Saturday). Goes to show everyone how important the CP & LE RR is!

How about like it was in the early 70's when we ran three trains everyday in July and August.

That would make sense if the park's total ride capacity wasn't three times what it was then.

Chuck Wagon said:
Monster usually has a crew of what? 3?

2 load/unload and 1 operator?

Correct though, almost every time I have been to the park in recent years, it was only staffed with 2 people and at most 3 arms used, all the while the line is a decent size. This saddens me. It is a very nostalgic ride for me and I rate the park based on the nostalgic rides as opposed to the coasters.

Ensign Smith said:Don't get me started on Spehn. Biggest liar to ever walk the Dominator midway.

If it's about the Geauga Lake closing he may have never knew about it til later.Maybe he wasn't able to give you the answers you wanted to hear? Bill Spehn Is what changed crew morale in 08. Ive been at Cedar Point for years now in Ride Operations. Bill was there like every other night congratulating everyone on numbers. Heck I set GIANT goals for ridership in a day and my crew crushed them.I told Bill I was buying them pizza for the good performance and he turned around and gave me 20 and said tell your crew they are doing amazing the pizzas are on me. Bob Wozniak never.... ever would do that. Bill would even visit the rides on a daily basis and ask everyone if there was something he could do. Spehn does his job and he does it right or he would've never been brought back to Cedar Point. Speaking of numbers....Corkscrew 937.000 in 2007 a whopping 1,100,000 in 2008 with seatbelts and boatloads of downtime. example day before and all day coastermania but we did it. Not to mention it rained all may and early june.

Bill definitely is all about valuing the employees. When he found out about the Screamster tradition of having a party after work while waiting for traffic to clear on the busy Columbus Day Saturday, he threw us a pizza party in the cafeteria. I can't even imagine how much he's spent from his own pocket just to show appreciation for a job well done.

I don't know who this Bill Spehn is and i have never met him. But he sounds like a great person to work for. Why are some people dogging him for?

That doesn't sound like the Bill Spehn I know. Sure he came around and congratulated people, but would never be caught giving out money. He seemed to demand respect in a more friendly manner. I will agree he was never as bad as Bob became after his promotion. Bob as rides manager was cool. Bob as director was like an extremist dictator. I last worked for Bill in 2003, so maybe he can change.... But like they say about old dogs and new tricks....

Edit: I should also say, I learned a lot from Bill about professionalism, and have a lot of respect for him. I liked the fact he demanded respect in the most friendly of manner.

I was the primary person who was "dogging" him, four pages and almost two months ago. But I said my peace and I'm done with that conversation, for my part.

I think as long as Cedar Fair keeps Bill Spehn, the company (atleast Cedar Point for the time being) can go in a forward direction. The man is great, nice, and knows his job best and can get the job done.

MonsterMan said:That doesn't sound like the Bill Spehn I know.

Then you don't know Bill...plain and simple.

He is what everyone above has said: A great man. Now that I am leaving Ohio, he is atop my list of colleagues I am really going to miss. The man bent over backwards to help me anytime I needed it.

Then you don't know Bill...plain and simple.

Interesting. I like how people can assume things and read what they wish to read and not the entire posting.

I think that's a valid comment. I've known the guy for years, and I see how people respect him. I've seen him interact with employees. He's never been anything other than a straight shooter with me, both willing to ask what my opinion is about something and tell me when he thinks I'm full of crap. He's a very solid manager.

Chuck Wagon said:
Great numbers! Is this all Bill Spehn or what? Maverick up almost 25% over it's opening year jitters. Dragster up yet again.

Here's the link to Jason's chart which includes last year. Hopefully he'll update it again.

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/Cedar_Point/Ridership.bmp

I lost my original CAD file that had all my information. So I had to start from scratch. I realize it's a bit late. I kept putting off remaking the file thinking I would eventually find the old one. No such luck. So, I've finally got the motivation to recreate the file. I have it backed up in a few different places this time. It will be easier for me to update it when this years numbers are released.

The original link is still good.

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/Cedar_Point/Ridership.bmp

I went more in depth this time and can remove or add rides as wanted. There are only a couple rides I have entered that I didn't show. I started entering the small flats and everything started overlapping. If I decide to finish the rest, I'll have to blow up the lower half of the graph in order to distinguish between all the rides.