Whats with the secrets?

MDOmnis said:

I just hate to see 200 people standing there waiting along the fence when I know that say the catchcar isn't even installed or something! :) That's 200 people who are going to go and tell their friends about their trip to CP where they stood or sat on the ground next to Dragster for x hours. Not great word of mouth marketing.

This is again the type of situiation I am talking about. 200 people waiting for a ride when you know that it is going to take a serious amount of time before it opens? As a ride op dont you want to scream at those people "hey its going to be another hour at least!!!" Again, not the ops fault, but managements fault. The problem is that we all know that if we wait for dragster it could be 5 minutes or all day, its almost like a gamble...unless we were better informed.
*** Edited 4/22/2005 1:40:08 PM UTC by BPMCH02***

I agree that if the downtime is known to be hours, some type of announcement should be made. In all fairness however, I did hear the ride ops telling people that they strongly encourage them to enjoy other rides in the park, and to check back later.

And if the ops tell people it will be several hours, and then they leave the line, and then it opens in 5 minutes? What do you tell those people who were mis-informed? Instead of solving a problem, you've created a much, MUCH bigger one. I think it is better that the park just stay quiet. If its down its down, if its up its up. What more do you need to know. You can choose to waste your time waiting.

MDOmnis said:

HeadSpins, the least you can do is get on the PA and make an announcement about whether it is due to mechanical, weather, or something else. If you have a person at your entrance, they should say the same reason to approaching guests - not just say, "we're closed beat it." Of course you're not going to tell them the exact problem even if you do know, but a little bit of information is better than just no announcement at all. I think as an ATL, these are simple things you should probably know. The spiels for these situations are in every ride manual at Cedar Point and if Geauga Lake isn't similar, I expect it will be soon.

I meant to say if there is all ready been said over the pa we are down for weather/ or mechanical, there should not be any questions about when is the rain going to stop?
*** Edited 4/24/2005 7:37:17 AM UTC by HeadSpins***