Yamez

Hey all! Its rare that I visit this thread, but I have a couple questions for you Disney vets out there. My family and I are going to do the parks on the week of July 4th. Long story short its the only time everyone could get time off - so we're kind of stuck there. We'll be staying at the Port New Orleans Riverside, the specific dates are June 30th (check in) - July 7th (check out). I figure crowds are going to be huge, but I have a couple quick questions on some of the newer things going on in the parks: How do people feel about the dining plans? We're kind of up in the air on those, though the Disney representative assured us that we can add a dining plan to a resort package without the tickets after we make our reservation. Everything I've read has said the opposite - you must purchase tickets through Disney to purchase a dining plan. Anyone know whats with the conflicting answers? The next question I have is regarding the Hub expansion and construction. I know there is no official completion date, but just a general guess for those of you that live in the area and frequent MK, do you personally think they'll have it done by that weekend? Would really love to see the park mostly done with their construction when we go as its the first time visit for all of the kids. And finally, there doesn't seem to be a huge price differential between buying your tickets from Disney or getting them discounted from agencies like AAA or my union perks. Would you recommend buying your tickets from Disney and just putting them on the resort package, or is there some place you would suggest looking at ticket prices? Other than that, if you guys have any experiences to suggest for the little ones that'd be great! We've got three girls and a boy all going for their first time - the girls are 13, 8, 1 (21 months), while the little boy is going to be 7. We have a princess makeover for the 8 year old scheduled, and they're going to do some of the neat dinner shows. Past that though I'm just looking for things to suggest to the group to make it as fun of an experience as possible for the kids.

Yeah, fun fact - I was running to the safety brakes in 2009 and fell on the grated walkway that follows the track to the lift. Tore up my leg and arm that I fell on a bit. I'm sure I wasn't the only one this happened to in the past, but I'm sure it was a reason for them moving to a system that is done through the controls/automatically. The ride system was upgraded in the following off season and the ride policy was immediately updated to say that employees must WALK to the safety brakes. The park needed to protect their employees as well as protect themselves from legal action.

I always look for the nearest open funnel cake stand. Always want one for the walk back to the car!

I'm sorry to see that this happened again to you. That said, I'm really happy to see that you're doing whats necessary to remove yourself from that situation. Stay strong friend. In other news, this is still my favorite project on the boards. Its also probably the one I comment the most on, keep it up! It looks fantastic.

There used to be lights and fog in the last tunnel. But I'm not sure that qualifies as "themeing". Maverick only had maybe 10% of the themeing it was supposed to have, and I'm not sure what upkeep you want to do with the fake rocks. They're just kinda...there. CP just doesn't do themeing. I kind of wish people would just accept that and enjoy the park as it is. If you want great themeing go to a Busch park, Disney, or Universal. Cedar Fair seems to do just fine with minimum amounts as is, I wouldn't think they'd be so inclined to add more. All that said, if they do add a dark ride it would be interesting to see how well it holds up over time. The old Scooby Doo rides at the Paramount parks pretty much fell off the wagon in the upkeep department, as did the old Italian Job coasters. I would be incredibly (and pleasantly) surprised if any dark ride built at CP had themeing that lasted more than ~5 years.

TPR videos are pretty much the only thing I watch on youtube, outside of the random cat video of course. I find a lot of the videos are just total garbage, so I don't make it a point to really bother with the site outside of the websites that I frequent.

Not sure if anyone saw this, it was posted yesterday: https://www.cedarpoint.com/blog-article/online-fun/Hotel-Breakers-Progress Looks like its going to be an entirely new hotel by the time they're done with it!

^ No, but I'll be visiting on Saturday with the family. Which maze/scarezone are you working? I'll try and drop by.

Great work! Just curious, about how much would you gauge your overall progress % wise?

Just wondering- given the cable issues that Skyhawk has had in the past, have the other rides of this type had similar issues? Is this the largest ride of its type, or are there larger?

If you're having issues viewing the stream I recommend changing the stream quality to low instead of high. Smoothed out the stream for me.

Can we please put a stop to all these "I heard an employee say" rumor mill things? This is coming from someone who worked at the park, we only get similar rumors that the general public gets. The only insider information you'll ever get is from someone higher up in the chain. So unless the person you talked to was in a suit and manages the park itself, odds are there is little truth to any of these rumors. And I assure you, there are very few entry level employees that get the chance to talk to the higher ups about new additions to the park. Those that do usually know better than to open their mouth about anything they are told.

For those of you planning to visit on or before the 15th that don't have season passes, the park is doing a really nice deal on tickets. 20 bucks off admission and a free soak city ticket. https://www.cedarpoint.com/what-s-new/park-update

Dale is a fantastic guy, and a great ride op. I hope he sticks around for some time, I don't think the park would be quite the same if he wasn't there smiling and hyping up the crowds.

Getting ready to start Transistor today, super excited. Played the demo at PAX East earlier this year and it was a ton of fun. Also, anyone else here a DotA fan? The International prize pool is over 6 million dollars in 10 days. Absolutely insane.

That is correct, and it was also the turning point as to Cedar Points rain policy being absolutely draconian. You can see that some of the employees in the picture you linked are in rain gear (the black and blue jacket looking thing the guy on the catwalk is wearing). Edit: To the guy above me, some of us really enjoy having the crap beat out of us if its for airtime. Head banging, not so much. But airtime? If my thighs are on fire after the ride I'd be satisfied so long as the airtime is fantastic.

It was not operator error, you're correct. The train wasn't ever going to set up because at the time of the accident Magnum was in two train operation. The ride was slowed by the safety brakes (tunnel brakes), crusied over the midway like it usually did. The brakes either had low air pressure or it was drizzling outside (I cannot remember which) and the train slipped past - but was still slowed - the ready brakes (outside the station) and had a low speed collision with the train in the station. The operator at the time actually made a smart call when he saw the train was slipping past the ready brakes and attempted to dispatch the train, which helped lessen the impact. We got to hear all about it when training on the ride from our supervisors. That and one of our supervisors was the operator in question. Good guy though.

It used to, yes. This year when they gave Magnum a new control booth they eliminated the manual controls though, now the operator booth only dispatches the trains, locks and unlocks restraints, and opens the gates. The brakes at the end of the ride near the tunnel used to be manually operated as well, there was a switch we had to pull to release the train whenever they were stopped there, this was known as 'setting up'. It was one of the most irritating things about the ride because we'd have to call the ride down for however long it took (usually about 20 seconds) for someone to run down there and release the train. Its all done automatically now though, which might contribute to slower dispatch times as there isn't as much urgency for the crew to get the trains out as quickly as possible.

Beautiful. And that turn over the lake just before the flatspin? Perfect. Seriously, major kudos!

I wish they would. If they put some serious effort into the park I'd be happy to go back and give it another go.

Oh. My. God.

I think they're just a good tourist attraction to have around. They don't seem to be too expensive to operate. That aside, I went down to National Harbor today to get some tea from my favorite tea shop and took a quick picture of how its progressing. There's still a ton of construction going on around the docks for a new restaurant and the renovations to the docks themselves, but the wheel is almost ready! The wheel itself, almost complete! General dock construction and overview. The only thing I didn't really take a picture of was the big restaurant going in next to the wheel itself. Wasn't much to show other than some walls and lots of bags of cement. It was a gorgeous day to go and walk down by the water though!

Interactive coasters? I could dig that. I would love for the US parks to start thinking outside the box for their newer attractions!

Yes, just watched the season finale! That felt just about perfect for the ending of the show. I keep forgetting this thread exists only to come back to it months later