The fast pass system PART 2

What I meant in my post(Gemini)was that people will really start to get annoyed about other people getting alot of TTR and them not being able to ride which could cause conflict.Now a days people get annoyed about the stupidist things.I was at Dorney Park last year and someone got shot because he cut in line in front of these other people.Thats only one incident.If this TTr keeps up and someone goes haywire,who is to say what the hell would happen.I was stating this from experience.People do crazy things.

The MF queue re-opens as a "free for all/no TTR" at 8:00pm

For the time being, the queue WILL reopen at 4 p.m. This effectively deals with my chief complaint, that being that evening and late afternoon visitors were being pretty much screwed out of any timely chance to ride.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 34

If the CP admins are doing such a bang-up job, why has the satisfaction level at CP been so much lower this year?

Seems to me that they let a good thing go to their head and took some stuff for granted.

That and started sinking to the SF level.

When are they going to stop TTR? Is this permanent?? or just a testing phase?

i am NOOOOT HOPING for riots..all i meant was that "it's only fun until someone gets hurt" and if it is REALLY hot and REALLY crowded, there is a possibility of mob action here. i do not in any way want to actually see this happen. BUT if they are truly aware of how we feel and their only solution so far is to shorten the length of TTR time, it will take more than complints to make them see how truly bad of an idea this is. what happens, happens. i am not a violent or militant person...i just see this situation as one capeable of becoming out of control on a weekend like this one...extreme times call for extreme measures. and by the way, SFGAm now has metal detectors installed at their front gates, to prevent exactly the kind of incident described by Gillian007...if CP thinks they are immune to such things, this weekend might tell them differently.
(I will be here in Illinois, WORKING all weekend...such is the Chef biz!!)

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ride early, ride often!!!

"If the CP admins are doing such a bang-up job, why has the satisfaction level at CP been so much lower this year?"

Is that your opinion or are you privy to Cedar Point marketing information?

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Cedar Point Virtual Midway
http://www.schmidty.com/cpvirtual

Okay guys, I was there yesterday on the 30th. Let me tell you a few things. First of all, the MF queue DOES indeed reopen at 4 pm. The last TTR time slot is from 3-4. This is good for the people that come after work, as they wont be turned down again, but of course, this also meant that the TTRs run out sooner. I got a TTR for 11-12, then another for 1-2. But when we came back to try to get one more, they were all out. It was only like 12:30. So they said to come back at 4. After 4, we came back and waited about an hour for MF. With that out of the way, let me tell you how the system did not work for me, even though I did get tickets. My second ride of the day, from 11-12, we waited about 50 minutes. Then from 1-2, again using TTR, we waited 1 HOUR AND 45 MINUTES. Why? Well, they only had the yellow train running for a lot of the time, slowing down the line a lot. By the time 2 o clock came, and the 2-3 people joined in the queue, the last people from 1-2 were still at the pop machines. The line got MUCH longer, and even when they got all 3 trains going, it still took forever for the 2-3 people. When I got off, at about 3, there were a few people in the photo place that had surveys about the TTR. They asked how long we waited, how effective we thought the system was, how long we waited for a ticket, whether we would use the TTR or just wait in an open queue, and whether we were familiar with Disney's FastPass system. My responses were mostly negative. We got 2 more rides in after the queue reopened at 4, so we got 5 total for the day. We actually waited longer in line the 2 times we used TTR than the 3 times we didn't use TTR. In addition, there was mass confusion on frontier trail, and everything was screwed up. Without TTR, the line never got 2 rows past the pop machines. So basically, while reopening the queue at 4 helped, the TTR didnt solve anything. You really have to plan around it, also. As for the other lines, they didn't seem any longer than usual.

On a few side notes, I finally got the front seat and the 5th car, and they are both incredible. Airtime galore. I also heard a remarkable number of people call it the Millennium (wrong thread).

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Times I have "Gone Full Force" on MF: 7
-SUPPORT THE ANTI-TTR MOVEMENT!-


*** This post was edited by Majin Heero on 7/1/2000. *** *** This post was edited by Majin Heero on 7/1/2000. ***

I say that based on reports I've been reading here, r.rc, and my own trip. I've heard more poor reviews this year than any other.

My trip this year was fine. Not as good as some, but pretty good all the same. MF, though, was just mishandled. It seems that is getting worse.

Don't get me wrong, I grew up w/ CP and love the park. The current policies, however, have put a sour taste in my mouth.

I went to the point yesterday, the first of july, and I favor the Ticket To Ride. They have signs posted all over the park explaining how the system works. I like it.

MillenniumFpics.homestead.com
See MY Millennium Force pictures

Sorry about my last post, (which was deleted by a moderator) so let me re-phrase that. I have a feeling that there are some people responding to this thread who should mind their own business. If a person is REALLY put off by TTR or ANYTHING else at CP, they have the rite to post their feelings and let us know exactly what they are giong to do about it. If that means going to PKI or SFO instead of CP, fine, it's THEIR choice. Other members DO NOT need to jump down their throat for stating their opinions.

With the TTR sysyem, it is obvious that CP CAN do something wrong. CP is NOT perfect. Are SFO or PKI perfect? NO! There is no such thing as a PERFECT park. If you feel the CP can do no wrong, you are wrong. CP is run by human beings, and we all know that people make mistakes. I did when I made my last post.

Hey they finaly posted what the TTR is at cedarpoint.com.

I was there on the 30th and 1st and well after seeing TTR in action I am well....indifferent!! The ability to get back in line at 4pm is alot better versus the 8pm wait however I HATE seeing people turned away at ANY time to get in line..On saturday for instance all tickets were given out by 12pm and many were disappointed they had to wait the additional 4 hrs to ride now..even saw a few people right in the line ops face about how they felt about TTR...Now my perssonal experience with the ticket system wasn't all that bad at it was a Saturday as well..I got 2 rides in before TTr started early in the morn and then proceeded to get my TTR for the 1-2 pm block and 3-4 block..I had to wait in 2 seperate lines that did move rather swiftly to get these tickets at 2 different times so standing in line to stand in line later inmo was kind of senseless I did it anyways for the sake of the process...I cam back at my designated times to my rides and still waited EACH time 55 min and 65 min respectively..combine that with my line waits to get the tickets to start with I really didn't save that much time..averaged still about a 90 min wait per TTR!! All I really saw the system acomplishing was that it kept the line manageable at about and hr or so..however no one as we all know could enter the queue anyways without a tic...after my 1st TTR expereince I was pulled aside by a park worker doing a survey on what the public thought..well I kept the poor guy busy for about 10 min with all my input and my ideas regarding combining the GP with the TTR public together..You know the 2 lines into one idea..he ended up writing on the back of the sheet when he was through..the last question was "Do you prefer the TTR or standard system"...well in conclusion I said the standard system..reason being is still can't get away from seeing those disappointed faces on people as they were turned away...and I just don't see the need for fixing something that is not broken...TTR is not as bad as most have been saying on this board and it could work with some minor tweaking..I mean the new hrs for it are 100% better!!

Thats how I see it...

BTW I did get 7 rides on MF in the two days..not bad really with TTR...

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http://www.msu.edu/~armbrus9/cp.html
http://www.msu.edu/~levydust/mf.html
new MF photos

I don't ever recall saying that CP can do no wrong. I have in criticized the park in the past and there are things I don't like now. My complaint with these recent discussions is with the extreme overreaction to a system that was brand new. Some here would simply not give it a chance. You can be upset all you want about and voice those opinions here. That's fine. I kept out of this thread until the boycott talk started.

Anyway, as TTR has been fine-tuned, I see some people have been changing their opinion. That's all I asked from the start. Just give it some time.

As for guests being unhappy ... I was at the park on Friday. During the course of my visit, the only thing I saw was thousands of happy guests enjoying the world's greatest amusement park. The only dissatisfaction I see is among a handful of enthusiasts.

Criticize the park all you want, but don't cancel your vacation over something so trivial.

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Cedar Point Virtual Midway
http://www.schmidty.com/cpvirtual

Well, I see that you were able to figure out that I was talking about you. It was just looking like you were complaining about every little detail of other parks, all the way down to the skee-ball lanes, while CP was able to come through with flying colors at every turn.

I agree, cancellation of a trip is a bit overboard, I will still be there this summer. It also looks like the TTR system is becoming more user-friendly. I guess the few horror stories of people not being able to ride, even with a ticket, made many others nervous about TTR.

Thanks for clearing the air, Gemini.
BTW: I did not mention your name in my last post, no hard feelings? *** This post was edited by Soggy on 7/2/2000. ***

I wanted to leave SFO out of the discussion. I guess I was just trying to prove that there are better reasons to skip a trip to a park.

Things like Skeeball are important to me. I'm not a coaster enthusiast. I'm sure for some, you can stick a world-class coaster in the middle of a junkyard, and that would be fine. I need more than that when I go to a park.

No hard feelings!

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Cedar Point Virtual Midway
http://www.schmidty.com/cpvirtual

*** This post was edited by Gemini on 7/2/2000. ***

I have not ridden the "new and improved TTR", but am willing to give a try and then see if I will be able to give CP another try. I'll have to wait until 7/22 as I will be out of the country. Hopefully it will be o.k. by then. Thanks for the report Jeffrey.
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You can fool others, but nothing you do is hidden from God.
JESUS rules :) :)

Just got back from the Point and my first TTR experience. I have to say that for a busy July Sunday I was pleasantly surprised with TTR. However, like so many others, I'm still viewing this as a solution to a non-existent problem.

I got to CP around 9:15 and the non-TTR MF line was already ridiculous (stretching to the lockers near Snake River). So my brother and I said we would pass for now and come back to try the ticket system. Went back to MF at about 10:45 and tickets were being handed out. The line for a ticket looked awfully imposing but it was actually only 10 minutes. We picked up two tickets for the 1-2 slot. Once again we came back to MF at about 12:45 and got in the "standby" queue. Surprisingly our wait was only about 30 minutes and we headed back into the line with our second tickets. The line was actually a little shorter than the first time, but then the Force broke down. Total down time was about 1 and a half hours and we stuck it out. Our actual wait with the ride running was again about 30 min. So if the down time is subtracted(can't blame this on TTR) , we waited about 40 minutes total per ride. This is considerably shorter than my average wait before of around 75 minutes or so. All in all a *decent* system, but I still prefer the first-come-first-serve open queue.

Side note: An op tried to say all of the down time was due to a bad wheel but that doesn't seem to explain an hour and a half worth. It seemed to be a lift sled problem becuase they kept sending the sled up the lift "trainless," and before it was fixed it was making some disturbing noises.

Sorry about the rambling...:)
MF laps: 13

I was told it was a bad wheel inside the lift assembly. I could be mistaken. Or easily duped.

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"what red train?"

You've gotta hand it to CP. Hardly anyone likes TTR, aside from the school groups (or others with a bus to catch). Instead of overhauling the system -- or ending it entirely -- they put a virtual band-aid over the gaping wound that is TTR. Should a season ticket holder want to avoid the BS that is TTR, he or she would have to avoid the ride (or the park) until 4pm. Wonderful. Thanks a whole heap, CP.

If you don't know where it is, the Park Operations office is on the Arcade building, near Kiddy Kingdom. If you don't like it, speak up. I'm sure CP doesn't want to lose season ticket holders. *** This post was edited by Cromulent on 7/3/2000. ***