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Coastercameron

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Everything posted by Coastercameron

  1. Out of curiousity, how much does a voyage on the Carnival Ecstasy run?
  2. If you read the description on that video, it would imply that the guy who posted it worked on the ride. He has a bunch of videos of new Italian rides test running etc. Does anyone know who this "M. Savegnago" is?
  3. SBF-Visa makes a lot of rides. There are some of thier rides in the US, mostly Kiddies. I know ComoTown here in Saint Paul has a couple units from them. Also, does anyone know if the Mondial Indiago there happens to be the one from the State Fair of Texas?
  4. My visit to Boomers a couple years ago was a surreal experience. IIRC, it was a Friday or Saturday night, and Boomers was open till like Midnight. We roll up at like 10:30, and find the parking lot FULL of possible gang memebers loitering in the lot and blasting their stereos. At the front of the lot, I took note of no less than FOUR parking spots signed "Reserved for Sherriff Department Vehicles" and no less than FOUR Sherriff Department vehicles present in said spots... If it wasn't for the cops being there, we may have just left right then and there. We hurried in, got our credit, and got the HELL out as quickly as possible. We did slow down enough to notice the little boy pissing off of the ramp up to the Hurricane. If this park sold the typical "I survived..." shirts here, they would sell tons of them. We truely felt like survivors in more ways than one!
  5. After dreaming about doing it for years, I did the College Program this past fall. I worked at Camp Park at Nickelodeon ( ) at the Mall Of America for 4 years, so i figured that Disney would be everything I loved about working there except bigger and better. I ended up being put at a LAME attraction, The Wildlife Express at Animal Kingdom. There were only a handful of CP's there, and the many of the CM's were quite um.... odd... I HATED my role, the housing situation left a bad taste in my mouth every time I went through the security checkpoint, and I wasn't making ANY MONEY. I was getting bare bones hours and being at Animal Kingdom, at a minor attraction, extra shifts were non-existent. These factors, along with some personal influences from back home, led to me decision to withdraw from the program after two months. I was not a part of any sort of co-op with my school, so not only was I essentially losing money being there doing a job I strongly disliked, I was on my own time and delaying my education. It was simply not worth it for me. While some people THRIVE in this program, I wanted to share my experience to any perspective participants on here to make sure you really think about it. To make this work you have to be willing to put yourself through some real crappy conditions all for those special mouse ears at the end. If you can justify it, that is great, but I simply couldn't. To me, the program seems almost like slave labor. You are Disney's indentured servant trying to eat off the Rat's table scraps. Finally, the housing situation is ABSOLUTELY LUDACRIS. They collect nearly $2000 a month in rent from a 3 bedroom apartment in Patterson Court.... Simply ridiculous! The College Program made me realize that Disney is an AWESOME place to visit, but not a good fit for me to work. It did make me gain IMMENSE respect for those people that are able to tolerate the pay, conditions, and management; and still put on that smiling face and make the magic happen. Disney should be ETERNALLY grateful to these people, because I don't think any other company could coax the caliber of work some of the CM's exhibit from it's workers at minimum wage.
  6. It really seems like Six Flags is starting to "get it". I think the current management team has staged an amazing turn around for this brand and the parks. While they continue to be blighted by the lingering financial problems that started over a decade ago, I think as those problems begin to resolve themselves we will see GREAT things that we never expected coming out of this chain. If only Cedar Fair could get their act together and get back to what it is all about: Creating a new and unforgettable guest experience. Six Flags today is living proof that it is the KEY to success in this business.
  7. Also, any modern sprinkler system should have a pressure switch in the system. The drop in pressure caused by a sprinkler's activation will cause a drop in pressure in the system, activate the pressure switch, and trigger the fire alarm system in the building. So using my expert skills of deduction, I would have to say that either, 1.) Robb got out before a sprinkler head was activated, 2.) A sprinkler was never activated, 3.) There was a major malfunction and/or power interruption to the fire alarm system. Glad no one was hurt!
  8. James... you are being an apologist for poor operations. All 4 of the people in our group are current/former park employees with over 20 years in the business between us. WE KNOW the realities and challenges of running a park, but that doesn't make what we saw acceptable. WE KNOW what it is like to be new on rides, ETC. However, like I said before, it should take no more than a few hours for people to start to get into the groove. Loading a roller coaster is NOT rocket science. On numerous occasions we saw bare bones staffing levels checking the trains, while 3-4 people were huddled in the doghouse talking. I don't care if they even had a good reason for this, but it is bad show to say the least. As Looty said, are you going to expect PAYING customers to be OK with waiting 2x as long as a line should be because "The crew is inexperienced!" It may be the truth, but it doesn't have to be as bad, and it IS NOT a valid excuse. /rant
  9. As an official member of this trip... yes... Beast was stacking 3 trains, almost every train. The crew was that bad. They sure got a lot better after the park closed and they were rushing to clear the line to go home though... I really cannot express how disappointed I was with KI. I had been there before in 2000, and had a good time. I can honestly say I've never had such a bad experience at a Cedar Fair park. On the other hand, KUDOS to SFSTL... Even though the crowd had a large part of it, the employees were EXCELENT consistantly at Six Flags. Every employee greeted us, was very friendly and ran the rides efficiently(though there were no riders!) I truely believe that Six Flags is passing up CF when it comes to service and efficiency. It's too bad that they can't get thier finances straightened out because they have really turned around.
  10. Ah... We rode Firehawk (2 hours), IJ (20 mins), ate lunch, and rode Beast (1:15) before finally riding at like 2pm, and waited an hour for DB. We still got "First Rider" t-shirts however.
  11. I personally doubt any story of a line over 2:30 for Diamondback. I was at KI all day (and had a terrible day overall, more on that in a TR later). I waited all the way through Nick Universe and the line was just over an hour. We experienced this wait 2 times. To say that a ride getting over 1200 pph had a 6 hour wait would mean that there was 6000 people in line between Nick U and wherever the line ended at it's peak. This is simply NOT TRUE. I haven't heard from anyone who waited more than 2-2.5 hours, but if anyone truely did, I guess you can call me out.
  12. My parents are both from Montana, and my grandpa still lives in Billings (which is very close to Laurel). I will actually be going to Billings next month, but I don't think the coasters will be there yet. Maybe I'll try for some construction pics!!! My grandpa told me that the coaster is being billed by the local media as "A ride never seen before ANYWHERE!!!" I cannot think of a more accurate description for a 30+ year old used mouse coaster.
  13. What is the name of the movie you got from netflix about kennywood? PS... Ironoically.. SFNE got the same improvement in 2008 that Kennywood got in 1900, a good ol' athletic field.
  14. On Arrow style brakes, the tanks stay pressurized with air (and have sensors to fault the ride if air is low for some reason) However, the valving is set up to fail open. So, power fails, air valves open, pressurizing the bladders in the brakes and clamping them shut. Assuming the air system is tight, it should hold the pressure and remain closed indefinately.
  15. Big Mike, your GPS might not have totally screwed you too bad. Arnolds is in the middle of nowhere and just a few miles south of the MN border. It may actually be fastest to take 90 through MN to get there from Adventureland. Maybe not though...
  16. I'm suprised I'm not in any of the photos. I'm pretty sure I was working at FOC (Fairly Odd Coaster) the morning you were at NU.
  17. Wow... that story was HUGE on local news when it happened, so I'm rather suprised it never found it's way here. Essentially, a family at the park's daughter was harassed by a guy and when the father told him off, the thug called over 7 of his friends, and they beat the hell out of the father. The original story is no longer avalible online, but here is a follow up that rehashes some of it. http://www.startribune.com/local/south/26319019.html?elr=KArksUUUU
  18. Another fight in a CF park with supposedly inadequate security response! This is becoming a trend this summer, first Valleyfair where an innocent guy got absolutely pummeled, now this where it sounds like both parties were somewhat at fault. I would expect this more at VF where security is about half 18-20 year old girls, but at CP where most security is actually police, with real guns I would expect a better response.
  19. Cedar Fair didn't own Camp Snoopy when it added Timberland Twister. They were long gone at that point. Camp Snoopy just had the rights to Peanuts then. True but not true at the same time. Cedar Fair NEVER owned Camp Snoopy, but they actively managed the park until march of 2005. As you know, Twister opened in April of 2004.
  20. I will bet money that those cockroaches were captured in the chicken dinner resturant, or any of KBF's other "fine" eating establishments. Heath inspections you can find online will verify this.
  21. I love White Castle... it doesn't effect me like everyone else seems to claim. Although, I limit myself to 5 burgers, not 10 or more like everyone seemed to eat. My favorite part of the WC experience is the burps. You can relive the experience and flavor with every one for a few hours... We have quite a few in Minneapolis/St. Paul and they do tend to be in sketchy areas. Panda on the other hand... I work in a mall with 2 (yes, two) Panda Expresses, and I say that it is like an abusive relationship. It is disgusting every time I get it, but I still go back for more. If you get the Orange Chicken, eat each piece whole, if you cut it open, you'll find the meat to eww ratio is very low...
  22. Nice estimate there Nicky, but there was nowhere near that amount of people in the park. If there was, that would equate to less than 1 ride given on that day per person. Also, from what I have heard, and posted time and time again, POS WILL NOT, again, WILL NOT be repainted. This could always change, but at this time, it is not being done. The "Orange Streak" is the train, not the track. Another note about POS, as you mentioned, it is nearly impossible to scan people in fast enough to fill trains. This was the first time we'd operated 2 trains on the ride in over 6 months, and without the dedicated, seasoned 2 train crew, we could not manage to consistently avoid stacking (with some exceptions). Also, due to staffing situations at the park, there is a tendency to use temps or inexperienced operators who only can scan tickets at the large rides. This compounds the inherent problems with our scanners and causes the half-full trains you witnessed. Believe me, it was painful at times for me to watch the times we stacked, or the trains with 8 people as we had a full queue, but it was beyond control. Though I believe the issue has been intensified by the new scanners, there were times with our old system where it was hard to scan people in fast enough on 2 train days. 900 pph was about the limit for scanning on the old scanners. If you actually scan every single wristband on the new scanners, I'd give it a cap of about 700 pph, and that is assuming you have no guest concerns. Hopefully this makes sense... it is 3am on St. Patricks Day.
  23. The Orange Streak will not. Repeat, WILL NOT be repainted anytime in the coming future. The park invested money in repaining a number of columns in the last month, and they were all painted the current color of the ride.
  24. Looks like you nearly missed me a few times while you were taking your photos. Throughout the evening I was at Twister, Tree Top Tumbler, and Ripsaw. I hope you enjoyed your visit despite the long lines and understaffing we had last night.
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