Wall Street Journal?

Does anyone read the Journal?  I ask because there is an article in today's Weekend section about theme parks.  They held a "Theme Park Challenge" where they tried to hit as many rides as possible in one weekend day between 10 am and 4 pm, along with some other rules I won't put here (take too long).  They claimed that CP was the worst of the 14 parks they visited.  They went on Father's Day, and rode 6 rides with total waiting time of 2 hours, 50 minutes.  They said the best was Adventuredome, where they rode 15 rides with waiting time of 1 hour, 10 minutes.  I don't care, though.  CP still puts guests through line better than anybody. 
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UCSigEp

Isn't Disney World a people trap run by a mouse?

MF 2K1: 4
MF life: 12

AdventureDome?  If someone wants to waste money there, more power to them!

They just had a thing on The Today show, where Matt Lauer called Cedar Point Cedar Park. The girl was complaining about an hour and eightenn min. wait on Millennium Force. I was at Cedar Point on Father's Day and I didn't think the lines were bad at all.

My bad, I misread, Adventuredome wasn't the best, they said the best was Astroland at Coney Island.  31 rides with 1 hour 43 minutes waiting.  Adventuredome was listed in the fastest group, though.  Now, when I was out in Vegas, I didn't see as many people at Adventuredome as I do at CP.  Seems they don't get near the crowds CP does, maybe that had something to do with that.  :)
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UCSigEp

Isn't Disney World a people trap run by a mouse?

MF 2K1: 4
MF life: 12

I think when figuring out realistic wait times, you need to look at overall crowd size as well - something they didn't appear to do. Sure, you may go to one park and get on 10 rides in 30 minutes, but there are only 100 people in the park. You go to Cedar Point, and it takes you 90 minutes to get on 10 rides, with 10,000 people in the park - much better efficiency and faster moving queues. It's just that the lines are longer to begin with, and realistically that's not the park's fault.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

I agree completely, Kat!  A quote from the article: "Our worst performer: The rides may be fast, but lack of a line-cutting system makes waits painfully long.  After nearly three hours of standing around, we were ready to scream."  It does mention that CP tried the TTR, but it "backfired when people started lining up an hour in advance of their reservation tiems, creating yet another endless queue."  Not a bad article, but they really should have done more homework before writing it.  I mean, how can the park voted "Best Capacity" in the world be worst in the WSJ?
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UCSigEp

Isn't Disney World a people trap run by a mouse?

MF 2K1: 4
MF life: 12

Somehow I refuse to believe that an article in the WSJ is going to have any bearing on whether the GP attends CP or Coney Island, whether the coaster community is going to think more highly of one park over the other, and most importantly, whether CP is going to change their current efficiency.

Who cares if it does?  Although I would love to CP to be profitable, I would not mind smaller crowds and therefore smaller lines.

People tend to be attracted to the best.

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Next trip to CP on August 25th - 26th!

I don't think it will, either, Duane.  I just read it and found it interesting, so I thought I'd share.  The main readers of the Journal seem to be more concerned with FUN's earnings announcement and apparently the accident at MA, 'cause that price has fallen fast the last couple days.
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UCSigEp

Isn't Disney World a people trap run by a mouse?

MF 2K1: 4
MF life: 12

Most of the time they spent in line would be MF, I'm assuming. Did it tell you when they went? Because it would have to be a very busy day then since I was once at the park and at a walk-on for Raptor and 15 minutes for Magnum..
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Brian Z.
Assistant Webmaster
Kennywood Park Unlimited
www.kpunlimited.com

I just can't get over how they would rate the

"best park" by how short the lines were. That is definitely no way to rate a park! They didn't really have that much time to begin with. Why end it so early at 4 PM? Most parks close at ten or eleven at night. Maybe if they paid more attention during the rides at CP, they would realize why the lines were so long in the first place.

*** This post was edited by PrayingMantis on 8/4/2001. ***

You might think the best park would be determined the other way, by their logic - "best" would imply that more people attend, which naturally would have the longest lines.

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PO!NT OF VIEW - A Different Look at Roller Coasters
http://www.crosswinds.net/~justmayntz/thrills/

I was there on fathers day and from 5pm to 10pm (that's 5 hours for any journalist here) I rode:

MF, Magnum, Mean Streak, Iron Dragon, Raptor, Paddle Wheel, Train, Cedar Downs, Wave Swinger (I sat that one out but others in group rode)and the Magnum again (including time it took to convince wife to go on Magnum).

Oh yea, Woodstock Express, I guess they now let you own without a kid.

Dennis