Season Pass Holder Days: Thoughts, Observations, & Changes

Happy Season Pass Holder Days. Not everyone will be able to make it during these first Season Pass Holder Days, but those who do will be among the first to experience some of the changes made to the park's operations for this season-like-no-other.

Were people wearing masks and maintaining social distancing?

How did the new access card program go for rides like Maverick, Millennium Force, and Steel Vengeance?

Did you see Tony?

Is the bridge over the lagoon really ADA compliant, or did they cheat on that angle of descent?

Do you feel whole?

Were the wheels put on correctly this year on all the coasters?

Share your thoughts and observations here below.

Since today (Thursday) is not part of opening weekend I think we need a new topic to keep people from being confused as to whether they should post their Thursday observances here.

Better?

I noticed there are wheelchair elevators on both sides of the bridge on my Millie ride. So for those that don't feel the ramp is practical it should meet requirements, if you look carefully at the right corner of the bridge in the image posted on here somewhere you can see the boxy shape it's hosued in. I do think the bridge ramp is within ADA specifications now that I've seen it in person but I'm not an engineer.

Edit: Also took a photo I'll upload later

Much better:)

So does riding down that ramp in a wheelchair count as a credit? :)

We should bring wheelchairs next year and have a FFAI Bridge ramp first riders benefit!

I have rollerskates. Can I bring rollerskates?

Anyone have a 10 am reservation today? What did they have you do when you were in the park by 10:05 and nothing was open yet. Could you walk around? Were you stuck in the cattle pen for 55 minutes?

No cattle pen. Got here at 10:00 and was in Milles line by 10:15. They are using a flir thermal camera to the side of the tent on each side, if you read high there is a rep that must do a secondary screen as he had a cheaper handheld model.

Screening was fast and so was security and the gate.

Access passes are being used on Millennium, Steel Vengeance and Maverick. I'll post a photos of my Maverick access pass when I get to my computers.

Were the rides actually ready and open at 10:15?

According to queuetimes there is much more closed than open. And what is open has October Saturday wait times

None they ran millenniums test at about 10:30. We could just disperse into the park and get in line.

As to rides operation I'll break it into visually confirmed running, testing, closed, and no visual confirmation (I haven't been to the front of the park since opening).

Running:

• Millennium
• Steel Vengeance
• Magnum
• Valraven
• Gatekeeper
• CCMR

Testing:

• Top thrill dragster, noted as closed

Closed:

• Gemini
• Rougarou
• Corkscrew

Unconfirmed:

• Raptor
• Blue streak

The posted wait times almost don't seem right to me from the lines I've been in I have to say. Not sure exactly what they are but I think they may be intentionally overestimating those numbers.

Edit: Just got in Mavericks line and I'm timing this one. Currently posted as 90 min wait.

Yes Cartwright, very October-ish wait time wise. The ride queue site times are pretty accurate today. Paul the woodcarver said most employees including himself weren't brought back until yesterday. He stated you would have thought yesterday was college dorm move in day.

It's interesting they did that so last minute considering GP to Enthuasist did move in a week or more ago based on his YouTube video and I saw him running Magnums line today. I'll have to ask him if i see him again.

I'm surprised at the wait times with the access card. At Kings Island, Orion's wait was only about 30 - 45 minutes tops once you got into the queue with the card.

Some people are reporting that Steel Vengeance still has a 3 hour wait with the card.

If that's the case, hard pass on that.

Speaking of Paul, what are the frontier trail shops like? Open, closed, set up for social distancing? I like making dipped candles every year but I'd definitely understand if Rose's tiny shop was closed this year.

Hit the delete button...

They are using access passes to prevent queues from overflowing so it's the full queue when you arrive at your time.

Only things I saw open on frontier trail were the tavern, woodcarving, drink stand by FFAI/PDFF entrance.

43 minutes to get onto the Maverick bridge from switchbacks to station. And 1hr 40min to get to the stairs. Probably 15 min from here.

Edit: I wondered if they worked on the second launch at WCO. There's new mag brake fins at the entrance to the second launch tunnel for Maverick.

One thing I've been watching that seems odd to me, they are disinfecting all rows even though their not all being used. Especially with the spray/wipe method they're using it's burning time that could be put back into ops.

Any ideas on what's up with that?

On one hand the respiratory aerosol could be landing on the empty rows so they need to be cleaned, but if those rows are not being used then why do they need cleaned?