Years worth of thoughts

Which isnt alot, really.

This year wasnt the best year for me at Cedar Point. There were many things that went downhill for the park without even mentioning Dragster, though that was an obvious issue especially the last month or 2.

To start from the top, picture taking this year was great. I have not been accosted once about my tripod or gear as I walk through the park. Ive heard others having problems with tripods and taking pictures in general (in non-restricted areas as well) so its been nice to waltz around without interferance.

Second, smoking in line is officially at an all time high and Im about ready to ditch my season pass because of it. I dont dislike smokers, I just dislike smoking. (dont give me anything about if you smoke, I have to like your smoking) My last 3 visits have been completely ruined by people standing all around me smoking in clear view of both ride ops and signs. When will ride ops start caring about things that matter instead of worrying about things that dont? They seem to take some issues far too seriously while others they just ignore or act like they never saw them. Its way out of control.

Same goes for line jumping. I have seen more of this this year than in years past and Ive been to CP less this year than ever. More and more people try to pull the "My family is coming" and they invite their family, their friends, their friends friends and oh what do ya know, like the whole county is cutting in front. Ive gotten downright mean and people dont care. Is waiting that big a problem? Are we that impatient of a culture? Ridiculous.

Those 2 problems should be watched very closely throughout the park but no one seems to care. Ive told ops and freeway stampers alike to watch for people and they get up, act like they are looking then sit down probably wondering why they were bothered to actually get up off their butts to do their job...amazing.

If theres anyone here that works here, which I am sure there is, do me a favor and watch for this. The rules state you cant smoke in line and you cant jump. sure you cant catch everything but you have to look for it too. It wont jump out and bite ya.

As for rides, Maxair was an instant favourite. Especially during Halloweekends so far, it has been spinning faster than I can remember since I had it timed how much we rotated per swing and Im getting almost an entire rotation more.

MF sucks as far as load times but its still MF. However its grown more boring to me in recent trips, just not exciting me.

Dragster was great while it lasted. I had some great rides on it, almost all front seat and then more of the same came up to steal away its time.

Whats up with the belts on the Corkscrew? Just dont get it. Unless there was an issue, I dont see the need for the redundancy. Oh well.

MS still needs to be burned to the ground and replaced with something better and more economical as Im sure CP is spending a bunch of money just to keep it up.

Raptor has run great this year and Ive been very pleased with it. Mantis on the other hand, still a pile of scrap - though it looks pretty.

Magnums paint job looks awesome and adds new life to a ride that seems to have been forgotten about by the general public though it still offers up gobs of airtime. Great, great ride.

So to end this, heres a gallery of pictures Ive taken from Cedar Point this year with more to come I hope.

http://www.real-coasters.com/images/gallery/Cedar%20Point/index.html

Too bad it seems that in general your park experiences are getting worse....Just have fun! Your pictures are amazing, especially the MaXair and MF ones

Amazing pictures!!

Yea, but I havent been the only one who goes there 10+ times a year and feels this way. Several other people have noticed this decline in "quality" happening ever so slowly over the past 3 years.

It mainly seems to be within managment and the workers. I know its gotta be hard to run that many people at once. I am a supervisor at UPS and we manage around 300 people at a time for 4 hours and its hectic there so I have a slight picture.

It just doesnt seem like many of the people enjoy their jobs or if they do, they try to act very gestapo instead of being very hospitable.

I really think before Kinzel leaves he needs to take a few trips to Holiday World and figure out what they do there to get 99% of their employees to smile and love their jobs.

Thanks for the comments on the pictures!

You want some cheese with that whine?

Where was I whining? I think its perfectly valid to complain about things in which are rules that are broken.

But if thats not the case, dont ever whine if someone runs a red light and smashes into your car, injuring you or someone else. Because its the same principal.

It shouldnt be the guests job to police the park ;)

CoasterReal, great pictures. I'm curious, what equipment do you normally bring to photograph parks? Digital? SLR? What lenses?
*** Edited 10/6/2005 3:07:55 AM UTC by MilleniumMadMan***

Your night pictures are amazing.

http://www.real-coasters.com/images/gallery/Cedar%20Point/Millennium%20Force/slides/IMG_1256.html

http://www.real-coasters.com/images/gallery/Cedar%20Point/Wicked%20Twister/slides/IMG_1340.html

This one is unbelievably clear -
http://www.real-coasters.com/images/gallery/Cedar%20Point/Top%20Thrill%20Dragster/slides/IMG_1820.html

My favorite -
http://www.real-coasters.com/images/gallery/Cedar%20Point/Top%20Thrill%20Dragster/slides/IMG_1838.html

Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. Like pyrocoasterkid said, just try to relax and have some fun. I wouldn't get too concerned about that stuff. There's not too much you can do about it unfortunately. By the way, yes those picture are very nice. I'm addicted to MF at night.

I think you raise some valid issues there, CoasterReal. I can't sympathize too much about the smoking (doesn't bother me), but the line jumping is one of the most frustrating things in the world. It makes me want to strangle people when I see it, though I haven't seen it in quite a while (lucky me). Hopefully, someone(s) up in the offices is paying attention to these things, as they seem to be common concerns amongst the guests. Only time will tell though.

As an anonymous ride op employee I would like to say that whenever you see somebody line jumping or smoking in line report it to a ride op employee. The ride op employees that deal with these issues are entrance, freeway, and crowd. If they don't do anything about it and don't give a good explanation of why they are not doing anything you could report them to Park Operations. I can assure you that any complaint or compliment that goes to Park Op's gets to the employee pretty much instantly. However line jumping is difficult because if you don't see it and you confront the guest and they deny it there is not much a ride host can do, its one persons word against another. That is unless maybe you can get others in line to turn the person in as well. Be easy on ride hosts though its not as easy as it looks and can be pretty stressful at times ;) I know that I have been yelled at (with profanity) a lot for not allowing guests to line jump and have even had cigarettes thrown at me when asking them politely to put it out. Also a good guest compliment at Park Operations is always nice too, I know it makes my day a whole lot better when I get one :)

MilleniumMadMan said:
CoasterReal, great pictures. I'm curious, what equipment do you normally bring to photograph parks? Digital? SLR? What lenses?
*** Edited 10/6/2005 3:07:55 AM UTC by MilleniumMadMan***

I use a Canon Digital Rebel SLR with two Canon EOS Lenses, one an 18-75 (which when converted to Digital is like a 30-90) and a 75-300 which the last time I used it gave me an error so if THAT goes bad I will be very ticked off. I dont need to purchase another long range lens.

Thanks for the compliments guys. Ive been making posters of them for my home through a company out of NY, fantastic quality.

As for the experiences:
I usually dont say things to the Ride Ops because I understand (not literally, but I have a good idea) that their job is stressful enough. I usually say stuff to the Freeway guys since they normally should be looking for this. Its not like Freeway is ever really that packed.

Sadly, these things happened in the big lines like MF, Raptor and Dragster. Usually the cops patrol MF and both times, no cop to be found. I think later in the year some people (not all) just want to get in, get their hours and go home. I know alot of people there take it very seriously and thats good but not everyone does.

I try to have fun and usually I do, but my sister gets watery eyes and coughs as she doesnt take well to smoke in the air, at least direct smoke. I dont like it much either and when most of your time is spent in line, its hard to just block that stuff out. I used to block it out but Ive become to agitated by it lately and especially with some ops ignoring it, that really bothers me.

CoasterReal said:
Where was I whining? I think its perfectly valid to complain about things in which are rules that are broken.

But if thats not the case, dont ever whine if someone runs a red light and smashes into your car, injuring you or someone else. Because its the same principal.

It shouldnt be the guests job to police the park ;)

In point of fact it is our job. We are the customers aka the boss. If we as consumers do not like CP we will go to PKI or SF God forbid.

I have been working or going to the park longer than you have been alive and have not noticed the bogus complaints that you have brought up IMO.

The picture link didn't work for me. It brought me to a search site called "real-coasters." Is there a way to get it to work?

Same thing for me.

The site no longer exist it seems.

CoasterReal said:
Second, smoking in line is officially at an all time high and Im about ready to ditch my season pass because of it. I dont dislike smokers, I just dislike smoking. (dont give me anything about if you smoke, I have to like your smoking) My last 3 visits have been completely ruined by people standing all around me smoking in clear view of both ride ops and signs. When will ride ops start caring about things that matter instead of worrying about things that dont? They seem to take some issues far too seriously while others they just ignore or act like they never saw them. Its way out of control.

You can only take enough of getting blown off by security before you stop caring. It happens all of the time. I use them as a last resort with guest problems. There are days when we can't do anything about it and security won't show up either.

CoasterReal said:
Those 2 problems should be watched very closely throughout the park but no one seems to care. Ive told ops and freeway stampers alike to watch for people and they get up, act like they are looking then sit down probably wondering why they were bothered to actually get up off their butts to do their job...amazing.

When it comes down to line jumpers and smokers, we have to catch them in the act. Most people see one of us coming and put it out. Unless they admit to doing it, are seen doing it by the host, or the host has resonable suspicion (several complaints about the same issue) then he can't really take any action. One case I had someone that someone complained about so I pulled him out of line to talk. I didn't really have any basis to kick him out of line and was about to let him back in. Then he lit up a cigarette, right in front of a no smoking sign of all places. We have enough experience to know when action will lead anywhere or not.
Sometimes we get security and they let the people back in line.

CoasterReal said:
Whats up with the belts on the Corkscrew? Just dont get it. Unless there was an issue, I dont see the need for the redundancy. Oh well.

They wouldn't be there if there wasn't an issue. Imagine what would happen if the restraints popped up mid ride while loaded? That exact situation didn't happen, but one very close did.

CoasterReal said:
Raptor has run great this year and Ive been very pleased with it. Mantis on the other hand, still a pile of scrap - though it looks pretty.

I remember making a comment to a now supervisor how Mantis would look better in a scrap yard. He didn't think it was as funny as I did. :)