Seat Assignments

I am a CP regular and nearly every time I have ridden MF this season I have been disappointed by the forcefulness of the station crew. I understand that they want a full train if possible and I understand that they want to keep the line moving quickly. I honestly think that the "seat directing" (for lack of a better phrase) inhibits dispatching.

What I witnessed again yesterday was very long delays in hitting intervals, not because of seat belt issues, but because of guest confusion and forcing people to move around in order to send out a completely full train. Multiple times I witnessed that people were strapped in successfully and the crew would wait to search through the people pre-turnstile to fill 1 or 2 seats and shuffle around people that were already in queue inside the station.

At one point there was a group of 10 kids who were all together and of course wanted to get the same train. They were already in the station and the ride host made them stand back away from the queues. Understandable. However, this resulted in a confusion by everyone else in the station, the crew was yelling, yes yelling, for 2 riders to fill 2 empty seats. Some people were allowed to pass the turnstiles, but they were confused and did not want to sit where they were being directed. It was literally almost 5 minutes before they found 2 people and everyone else had already been strapped in and checked.

I am in support of crowd control and assistance in moving the line along, but I honestly found the crew to be very rude yesterday, and this is not the first time I've experienced this. I've usually kept my mouth shut when it came to this issue, but I feel that it is getting ridiculous. I love MF but the rudeness left a bitter taste in my mouth. *** Edited 9/19/2005 2:53:05 PM UTC by svolk*** *** Edited 9/19/2005 3:17:28 PM UTC by svolk***

Yeah, you can sit there and bitch all you want... but it becomes a totally different story when YOU'RE the person in that situation. Just think about it... no one wants to listen to you, you're trying to fill seats, they dont want to sit where you're telling them to go... and then you MIGHT get a glimpse of what it is really like to be in that position.

Not to mention, it was probably a ride pride that was at crowd.

I was there Sunday and rode MF 3 times between 9am and 10am. It was stacking most of the time, but it was because of seatbelts. I only witnessed one situation where the attendant had a hard time filling all the seats. people in line were waiting for some friends to catch up. There were 2 empty rows. She got 4 people from farther back in line to go on. The only thing I saw repeatedly was people trying to wait for seats other than the front and back to which she had to repeatedly tell people was not allowed.

Yeah, if they tell me to sit somewhere i don't really mind as long as i get to ride it. :)

I agree that I would not want to be in their situation, but I can also say that I would not be rude. Like any other job that deals with customers (and I have had a LOT of them), it is a responsibility of the workers to be curteous and respectful. If no one wants to listen or sit where the ride host tells them too, that is a sign that protocol needs to be changed. I understand that the ride hosts must do what they are told, but I think that they could accomplish the same result by doing things a little differently. I think the line would move smoother if there were a few more people allowed in the station and they could sit where they wanted. When the Magnum has a steady crowd and the station is being watched, all of the rows do get filled up.

MF's when full causes a large amount of confusion between ride hosts. This can be dangerous especially for those who are newer at the ride. Good hosts can still operate 100% safely when working a 15 hour day, has a station full of distractions, dealing with volumes of idiots, and can usually still maintain courtesy and efficiency.

Maybe the host at crowd could have been more courteous. One thing that stands is that management recognizes the safety issues with more people on platform. It's set in stone that with the exception of the first and last row, all other rows may only have 2 people waiting. It's actually an operational violation to allow more than the said guests on platform.

Magnum is not Millennium Force, what works on one doesn't conclusively revert back on the other.

Chances are you got a ride pride or another employee whom was at the ride because of poor staffing. It's not a conflict of interest that CP wants to keep MF running despite too few regulars at the ride. The said employee could have had a bad day, it happens to the best of us. He did his job and nobody got hurt. Sometimes that is as good as it gets.

What is a Ride Pride?

I wonder that too. When I was there in the end of August and early September I noticed that some people had "Ride Pride" on their name tag and some didn't but I had never noticed that before.

A ride pride is CP's way of filling the positions because they can't keep enough employees for the entire season. No, they are different organizations from area colleges and universities that pledge to work hours for CP. They work open to close on a particular weekend and their group recieves money from CP for it. This covers a lot of their groups costs for functions for the upcoming year. Lots of fraturnities and sororities work as ride prides.

I had talked to the Ride Prides at Millennium Force (svolk, you were probably dealing with either Melissa or Nicole), and they were actually really nice. Actually, on Saturday night asked me to help them out at entrance. Obviously I couldn't actually do it not being in uniform, but I was giving them pointers on who to test and so forth.

Yes, interval was pretty slow, but they weren't used to identifying who they should ask to try the test seat, and they even told me that people that weren't fitting were getting in line anyway, and they can't do anything about it.

With that having been said, on Friday night, I was SO impressed at how the line wasn't even halfway down the ramp all night!

ForgottenEE said:
One thing that stands is that management recognizes the safety issues with more people on platform. It's set in stone that with the exception of the first and last row, all other rows may only have 2 people waiting. It's actually an operational violation to allow more than the said guests on platform.

Magnum is not Millennium Force, what works on one doesn't conclusively revert back on the other.

If the rule of all rows (except first and last) may only have 2 people waiting, why isn't this rule enforced on the Dragster as well? I understand that what works for one ride may not work for another, I'm just trying to get a better understanding of these kinds of issues from a management standpoint. I have only seen the strict station/line policy enforced on Twister and MF. Dragster's platform seems to be similar to MF's platform, and they are also dealing with seatbelt issues on that ride. I have seen ride hosts limit the number of people on the platform, but there are always more than 2 people waiting per row.

I don't know if the person was a ride pride on Sunday. I would probably have chalked everything up to their having a bad day (she did look angry every time I rode MF and passed her), but that experience has happened to me so much over the summer that I wanted to state for the record that it disappointed me each and every time. *** Edited 9/20/2005 2:05:18 PM UTC by svolk***

We had very very good rides this weekend. The staff seemed to be quick and working really hard. We didn't wait at all on Friday, and on Sat evening, we got in line At 15 till 8, but they said that as long as folks were in line by 8, they would run the trains till everyone rode. WELL worth the 1 1/2 hr wait. It was cool, and both nights, it seemed like we were running faster and smoother.

I hate these first come first serve seating policies at CP. TTD, WT, MF, Mantis, Raptor. The only big roller coaster in the park that doesn't have this seating policy is Magnum, which I like a lot. Sometimes Mean Streak and Corkscrew attendants limit the people on the platform. Wake up CP, let people choose where they sit!

Magnum XL-200 ROCKS ! said:
I hate these first come first serve seating policies at CP. TTD, WT, MF, Mantis, Raptor. The only big roller coaster in the park that doesn't have this seating policy is Magnum, which I like a lot. Sometimes Mean Streak and Corkscrew attendants limit the people on the platform. Wake up CP, let people choose where they sit!

You can pick where you want to sit on just about every ride in the park. MF and WT have to be the way they are for safety reasons but in a way you can still pick any seat you want.

As much as it may inconvienience someone, the seating policy, especially at Raptor, is necessary. At Raptor, the wait for the front row will sometimes spill outside of the queue, blocking the turnstile. In this case, you've got 28 empty seats. That's why it's necessary. Oh, and Magnum will limit the amount of people in the station, it's just the open station design that allows people to line up without clogging any other line, usually.

Well its not entirely the workers fault. Just think for a second here, its as easy as asking two people to go to a row and stand right? Well, of course thats in a perfect world (which we dont live in). Adding in the human element, person X wants to ride with his friends on the same train. So you ask for some people to come up through the line to fill those seats. Now, those new people dont want to sit in the empty seats that person X left open. Now you have to fight with them to go sit down on the ride. I hope this made some sense to somebody. :)

~the clean up crew~

Most people who do crowd control can do it fast enought that trains go nearly full or full. The goal is to have at most 1 empty seat. There are a lot of times when you have to settle with 2 or 3 seats open. You don't want to seat certain people together or split up other groups. Some hosts get yelled at for doing crowd "wrong." They sometimes do even worse as a result of that and upset the guests over trival matters. The leaders plays a critical role and the quality of service reflects that. This goes from Team leaders and their assistants all the way up to upper management. Somewhere along that latter is those who hire and fire ride hosts.

I know of one single rider that waited for the front row and when he was next to get on. He decided to sit in the second row to fill up the empty seat there. That guy really did his part to make sure the ride was running as efficiently as possible... Also Dick Kinzel was sitting in the other seat.

Ok. I only read the first post. You better be glad they do that, where the station is pretty much empty. Look at TTD and Wicked Twister, people keep flowing in, and have no regard. Assigning seats, or two per row only is the BEST thing they could do, and need to do it on more coasters.

Edit: I forgot the best example of station crowdness... MAGNUM. And its hard to find what line your in, and who is in front of you. *** Edited 11/14/2005 4:55:23 AM UTC by Keith 2005***

I think WT has the best way of doing things. TTD never seemed bad to me.

the fact is, whether you feel the seating policy on MF is understandable or not, crowd control is rarely the reason why trains stack.

if you've worked crowd at MF before, you'll agree that the position almost completely independently from the load platform. Also, it's easily the most difficult position on the ride. let me explain.

You're practically jogging for a full hour, trying your very best to be as polite as possible to the guest who swore at you an hour before when you were working entrance. You have a team leader telling you that a single rider seat needs to be filled, and you have in front you a group of 26. so that means you stand on the rails, screaming past them at the top of your lungs "one rider! i need one rider!" which, of course, you don't find.

then the entire group of 26 wants to both be on the same train and ride in the front row at the same time. when you tell them that this is physically impossible, they get angry, start yelling about how much it cost to get in the park, and say they want to speak to a manager to tell them what a terrible employee you are.

cut them a little slack. it's a long summer.