Ridiculous Changes

British Universities North America Club

Thanks, Walt...not what I expected.

MrScott

ejh1701 said:
...and can't even speak in American

Tell me you did not just type that.

He/she can't. They did.

MrScott

As I went to CP for the first time on Sunday (Fathers Day, eek gads I could called something else day but won't...:)) I was unimpressed with the whole ride op deal. You would think the ride ops on MaXair could have done some manual spels but I didnt hear a damn thing.. LOL! Raptor was running at full speed with wait times of 5 minutes. Maggie, Needs alot of work, That damn station was overly packed, felt like I was in a cattle herd (ie no space between the person in front and in back of you, crew running around on other side of station checking things) Could they remove those damn colums out of the way?

Now that I think of it...

The word "stolen" was in the auto-spiel on Magnum. I remember someone pointing it out to me last time I was up there. So if they've shut down the recording, that isn't the reason.

As for the columns on the Magnum platform...

1) They're there to hold up the roof, for one thing.

2) For another, they're located between cars. Without them, you would have a hard time figuring out where the seat queue is for your favorite seat. Not that it isn't darned near impossible the way it is now, since they removed most of the useful railing from that station when they installed the gates...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I don't think the word "stolen" was in there. It said, "Hold on to all loose articles because Cedar Point can not be responsible for their loss or damage." I think it's very possible that the manual spieling is temporary judging by how they've cut the crowd control position to add a spiel person on the unload side. If it were going to be permanent, I think we'd see the return of a headset to the platform.
Fortunately (for the people who like real spiels), it will probably take them ages to "fix" the autospiel.

Walt said:
I always get a kick out of head-shakers. :)

Head-shakers are those who shake their heads at the "typical" American - lazy, dumb, spoiled, etc. Ironically, no one that posts (here or elsewhere) is ever that "typical" person.

I'll be the first one to admit it, I am that typical person when it comes to physical work. I cannot do physical work for much more than 2 hours before I quit. Can I do it? Yes. Do I want to do it? No. I have no problem with sports because that's something I want to do. I have the luxury of never having to plan to do physical labor. I have the luxury of knowing that I'll end up going to a good 4-year college. I have the luxury of knowing I'll end up working 8-5 at a desk or something like it and make $50 grand a year.

Walt said:
It gets a little old hearing how the rest of world hates us, envies us, outclasses us, outworks us, blah, blah, blah. I've never done the research, but I suspect that most countries have their own unique share of lazy and spoiled. Last time I checked, this was still a pretty neat country with a lot of hard-working people.

Of course it's a neat country with hard-working people. Unfortunately though, I think that segment of the population is shrinking. I've worked with so many people from India, the Middle East, Japan and China, that I have a very different take on the U.S. I wish more people could have the dialog I do.

We're losing our competitive edge for a lot of reasons, but American feeling of entitlement is certainly a big contributor.

I hate Magnum's station. I don't think it would be too much trouble to post someone at the top of the stairs who whould only let a certain amount of guests into the station to keep the crowds down and instead have the crowd in the que. Oh well.

Magnum's station is horrible anymore. Even for someone like myself who knows that the queues for 1-2 and 1-3 will be empty, I can't get there from the back of the station because its so packed. Now, I could be inconsiderate of others and just push people aside and force my way to that seat, but wait, no, thats what that other person who just pushed me is doing, while i'm waiting patiently to get up there...

Now if you're packing the station in the hopes of finding that lone single rider, here's my question. Whats the difference between a half full station and a full station while trying to find single rider? You're going to fill the same amout of seats aren't you? You can't put 300 people into one train. How does it help if when you call out for that one single person and they're all the way at the back of the station and has absolutely no chance to fight their way to that one open seat? It made it so much more pleasant, and the line seemed to move faster (on busier days) when they used to fill then "drain" to about half way, and then fill again. Just another Magnum rant...

I always wanted 36 new people coming in when every train went out. I would get mad at people who filled it up and then let it drain down a lot, and then filled it up again for a few reasons. First, the line moved in huge bursts, rather than a more constant movement. We'd end up having 6 queues full, then it would go down to 4 and people would undo the chains and then the line would back out to the entrance and someone would have to go open more queues. Also, who wants to stand under a mister while the line stands still for 5 minutes? If you keep the line moving, people are walking by garbage cans more frequently and throwing less junk on the ground. I also liked a lot of people on the platform because if there are twice as many people on the platform, you have twice the chance that you're going to find a single rider. We got many single riders into the train from way back in the station. I remember calling out and seeing Jerry just walking through the turnstile and he was in the train with no wait even though the station was 3/4 full and everyone else walking up with him had 10 more minutes in front of them. You can't draw single riders from the queues - only from the station. Having said that, there is a point where it can become too crowded. Ideally, it should be between 2/3 and 3/4 full at all times, but not all the way to the turnstile.

Right now, they've had to combine the crowd control person with the freeway person at the bottom of the stairs because they need an extra person on unload to spiel. It's hard to know what the station looks like from the bottom of the stairs. Ideally, they could get it to the right level and then do the counting thing too, but they are worrying about freeway too, so it gets difficult. If they could get a headset, they could have a crowd person again and do turnstiles like I talked about above. There's an art to it, but it's really simple. Get the station to a comfortable level (2/3-3/4 full), and then let 36 more people in each time 36 board the train.

Of course, if they're not letting them pack trains because they have to stand in the V's, then they might as well not fill the platform very full because the seats are going to go out empty regardless and it will make no difference in numbers.

*** Edited 6/23/2005 4:37:28 PM UTC by MDOmnis***

Why do they need an extra person on unload to spiel?

Why is the spieling person at unload-1 not handling the first two cars, as has been done for decades, *in place of* that new person at load-2?

Or did they change the size of the crew at the same time that they moved everybody around?

Platform crew on that ride are more useful on the unload side anyway...not only is there more room to work, from the unload side they don't end up killing themselves trying to straddle the hitches to get to the foot pedals...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(again: never worked there...)

In 2001 (and before I believe), they used three people on unload - unload one handled the first car, unload 2 handled cars 2 and 3 and unload 3 handled cars 4, 5, and 6. While I worked there anyway, the cord on the mic was never long enough to reach the second car. In 2002, they changed to 3 people on load and 2 on unload. Speils were done with a headset at load 1 (or whever felt like spieling really). I'm not sure which setup was better. Sometimes it was nice having an extra person on unload to deal with parent swaps or special access, etc, but the third person on load was nice too since the people on that side sit down and get buckeled later than the ones on unload. Also, it was nice for the purpose of packing trains since each person only had to pack 2 cars.

I feel like they'd be best served at this moment by having 2 on load, 3 on unload (they could start rotations with unload 3 going to entrance), and still having a crowd person. I agree with having three people on unload if they are going to use the hand mic though because that person is basically teathered to the very front of the station and if a parent swap or special access needs to be taken care of by another person, they need someone left to check the rest of the train. Personally, I would always rather cut load 2 (as the ride did run with 2 on load for years) over crowd control when we were short, but for some reason, they became anal about that later on in the season.

I think the best bet for now is to bring the wireless headsets back and let them spiel with those, rather than the hand mic. That way the spieler is free to move. Oh - and forget the stupid V's too so the hosts can do their jobs properly.

Ok, drive throughs have been using wireless mic's for decades, why can't they have the same on the platform. I know they even make wireless converters where you plug a receiver into the wired mic plug in the floor/wall and then you have your wireless headset so that you are free to roam.

Why can't this be done on the platform so that they don't have to use a wired mic for spieling?

I don't know any facts but I can take some guesses. First, at 13 hours a day that is going to eat up a LOT of batteries. The fast food joints have slow times. It would be unending on the platform.

Second, I know those things can wreak havoc on the airwaves. When I was in college we could pick up the McDonald's across the street on our television.

But again, those are just guesses.

You mean you got the McDonalds channel? Sweet! ;)

Wireless mics are used already in ride operations and have been used on Magnum in the past. They're used on Raptor and Mantis to name two and they were used on Magnum in 2002 and the first half of 2003. All they need to do is hook it back up. Yes, we did go through a number of batteries, but we always kept a box of fresh ones in controls and returned the dead ones to park op for recycling. The headsets also wear out every now and then with so many people adjusting them, etc, but they worked fairly well. Then we just kept the hand mic as a backup.

Yeah, and every once in a while there would be a timely chime in. A guy in the house might belch or something more offensive and, a split second later you could hear, "would you like fries with that?"

Ah, college..............good times.

Why are they packing the Magnum station? If they ever had to evacuate the station in an emergency situation, could you imagine the chaos that would ensue? People would definately panic, and get hurt trying to file back out the entrance

Are there any state or local regulations regarding capacity of buildings of Magnum's type?