Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

[jonskinny12]

 

Should I even mention the fact that NOT ONCE did the "transferring fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo" work at Cedar Point no matter how many times I pressed the "End Rental" button? Every single time I went to go rent another fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo it would tell me "You've already rented a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo" and I'd have to go through the process to cancel it out.

 

Has anyone else had experiences with the new “moveable fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo” system? I was lookin into it for my CP trip at the end of August. But based on that it doesn’t work right, I am thinking about steering clear of it. I’m having some wishful thinking hoping maybe this was an isolated event and it typically works, so I am curious if others’ experiences with this system.

It worked, but I had to go through the process at each new kiosk to cancel out the fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo at the previous location because the "end rental" button never worked. It's still a deal if you plan on renting more than 5 fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo at $2 each. If not, just rent one at each individual ride.

 

I had a similar experience. I can't remember exactly which option I chose back in early June but I remember the whole system sucked and was confusing and the kiosks barely worked. It took some trial and error for me to figure it out.

 

The question of whether or not you can buy Fast Lane before the park opens has come up a few times. I just wanted to mention that I bought it before the park opened for early entry at the Marina Gate ticket booth one day. I can't speak for the other gates though. Another day I bought it at the Steel Vengeance gift shop shortly after the park opened to everyone. Even if FL+ can sell out, I would assume that buying it at the ticket office before the park opens would be early enough even on the busiest days, and that way you still get your platinum pass discount.

[Honorarius]

I am hoping the bugs are gone by the time we go in three weeks but it is whatever if they are still there.

 

Is the floating fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo something that Cedar Point is really doing? where I can just take my stuff and drop it in one next to each ride all day for one payment. If it is can I sign up at any of the rides that require storage or will I need to do this at the entrance of the park?

 

Using the floating lockers today because we are weak and can't resist souvenirs... The lockers are easy to use, and 10 bucks a day ain't that bad for access to a locker when/where I need... You can get the moveable locker at any bank of ride lockers... They're a decent size I think, but we travel light (couple hats and a souvenir cup)... If you are a backpacker, YMMV...

 

Still before they keep making new rules, I'd like to see better enforcement for the rules they already have...

[B&MIntaminGCI]

Since we're talking about spiders and phones, we should just have the spiders watch our phones by placing them in the webs. Kills two birds with one stone

 

(PS be nice to the spiders because without them the bugs would be even worse )

[Nrthwnd]

Japanese Proverb: A Spider On The Wall, Signifies Success.* (also a lyric from Sondheim's "Pacific Overtures").

 

Now you may continue.

 

* The lyric also continues..."Whose Success, I Cannot Guess."

[X2coasterfreak]

The Electric EEl in SWSD tells you to take stuff out of your pockets but I rarely do and no one really checks.

Ugh, you're an awful human that is adding to this mess and not helping it.

 

While I think the policy is horrible and stupid, you know what I do? I RESPECT IT!!! And I hope that a better solution is presented in the future.

 

But by saying "They tell me to take my stuff out of my pocket, but I'm an entitled Californian so I don't bother to listen to them and I do whatever I want to" just makes you one of the worst people on the planet and I hate you because of stupid people JUST LIKE YOU is why we have these obnoxious rules in the first place.

 

Get off our forum. You're not welcome here.

 

As a ride op on Electric Eel, it is absolutely ridiculous not to empty your pockets of your loose articles. We have a dedicated operator position that collects phones, wallets, keys etc. into a bin that is placed outside the station for easy retrieval after the ride (which may be a good idea to implement on Steel Vengeance). It literally takes less than two seconds to pull your things out and hand them over. It is a simple system that only slows down dispatch times when people flat out refuse to give up their articles (which happens far too often). It's completely asinine to me why someone would rather risk having their items fall and injure another guest or operator and risk damage to their belongings than place their items into a bin for a 45 second ride.

[bert425]

^Yeah, the amount of bugs in webs I saw led me to be very frightened about the size of the spiders that must be around!

 

I noticed some GIANT spiders in the Steel Vengeance station at night. . and unsurprisingly, that station had the least amount of bugs I noticed at CP.

 

(it was so drastically reduced from just across the tracks at Maverick, that I even noted the difference to one of the SV operators)

[thrillseeker4552]

As a ride op on Electric Eel, it is absolutely ridiculous not to empty your pockets of your loose articles. We have a dedicated operator position that collects phones, wallets, keys etc. into a bin that is placed outside the station for easy retrieval after the ride (which may be a good idea to implement on Steel Vengeance). It literally takes less than two seconds to pull your things out and hand them over. It is a simple system that only slows down dispatch times when people flat out refuse to give up their articles (which happens far too often). It's completely asinine to me why someone would rather risk having their items fall and injure another guest or operator and risk damage to their belongings than place their items into a bin for a 45 second ride.

 

I rode Electric Eel for the first time two weeks ago, and I loved this system. It was very convenient to toss my phone and hat into that bin and easily retrieve them afterwards, outside the station gate. It seemed to work really efficiently. I suppose the only downside to this system is the need to staff another operator specifically dedicated to doing this.

[robbalvey]

I suppose the only downside to this system is the need to staff another operator specifically dedicated to doing this.

Much cheaper to pay an additional staff member than additional liability insurance, medical bills, lawyers, etc, not to mention any PR damage control if any incident did occur.

[Airboss]

The only issue with a bin system is that your stuff can be stolen. I'm on a Fan Forum for Six Flags Great America (Great America has bins on *every* *single* *ride*) and I've seen tons of posts about items that were left in the bins/cup holders being stolen. I don't know about you, but I trust my cargo shorts' pockets more than a bin that anyone getting off the ride could access. I'm fine putting a bag with a water bottle in a bin, but I'd NEVER put my phone in a bin.

 

As Robb mentioned, it is absolutely possible to have a high throughput even with bins. As mentioned above, every ride here at Great America has bins, but operations are absolutely fantastic. Obviously not Cedar Point level, but lines move very quick here. It's clear to me that rides can dispatch quickly with bins, as long as the park and its employees are quick. Confused guests are rarely the reason for a slow dispatch here.

 

I'd just prefer if we didn't have to put our phones, or anything that could fit in a secure pocket, in a bin if we don't want to.

[robbalvey]

The only issue with a bin system is that your stuff can be stolen.

I agree with this. But then that's why there should also be optional lockers. Giving your guests a CHOICE is the best possible solution! Making demands of them is not.

 

"You are not allowed to bring your phone under any circumstance on this ride. You can either leave it in the bin at your own risk or you can purchase a locker."

 

That is a solution that I am 110% totally on board with!

[chickenbowl]

"You are not allowed to bring your phone under any circumstance on this ride. You can either leave it in the bin at your own risk or you can purchase a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo."

 

That is a solution that I am 110% totally on board with!

 

Agreed. And that is exactly what Electric Eel's system is. Lockers for big items (bags, etc) and a basket for smaller personal items. That employee who does the basket is also doing other important things too, not just the basket.

[coasternut]

I just wanted to add that only on Diamondback at Kings Island, the crew normally takes the bags / stuff from guests waiting to board. They put them in the bin for us! Always a great hustling crew on that ride. Great throughput and no locker issues. There are lockers available if you are worried about your stuff.

[GCI Wooden]

I didn't even think about lockers being in short supply or inefficient to operate when this was announced, so that's just another blemish on the guest experience. Hoping that they can figure this out soon and get everything to work smoothly.

 

Interestingly enough there were practically no bugs when we were there in late June this year. It was pretty dense when I was there that same week a couple years back, so I wonder if something just went awry with their typical season.

[coasterBro]

I think theft from bins is probably much worse when you have one giant place where an entire train's loose articles go and a mob of people trying to drop off their loose articles to board colliding with a giant mob of people trying to pick up their loose articles to exit. This is also probably a huge contributor to the 'bins ruin ops' argument.

 

I think that systems where there are small bins dedicated for each row right next to the train help with both things (thinking of the coasters at SWO). The people exiting grab their stuff as they walk out before boarding riders even get there, and the risk of theft drops because you a) have fewer people walking by any given bin of stuff & b) make it harder to hide in a giant throng of people. If you coupled this with a well-staffed platform, my guess is potential thieves wouldn't want to risk it.

 

A guest should never have to get through the gates, cross through the train, walk 2/3 of the length of the train to even get to where the bins are, fight through a throng of exiting riders, drop off their stuff, walk all the way back to their seat, and then start trying to get secured. This is exacerbated when the rides have seatbelts + lapbars and the park requires checking all the seatbelts before lowering lapbars, since the person who often has to walk the farthest to drop off their stuff is usually in the front or back row, which is also often where the ops start checking from, which means they can't even begin checking restraints till that worst-case scenario guest gets all their stuff in the bin. And heaven help everyone if they have something still on them that needs to be secured (hat, glasses, etc.) but the op won't take and makes the guest go put away themselves.

 

 

My preferred scenario is lockers before you get in line for larger items, and then small bins right next to each row for anything smaller (hat, sunglasses, water bottle, phone, etc.). I don't really have any issue with systems that have lockers (or a staffed position like for Formula Rossa) at the station where you empty everything out of your pockets and get it secured just before being grouped, and then pick it back up right as you exit, though of course it requires forethought in station and queue design.

[DavidB]

I imagine the bug season was pushed back by the extended winter or late spring start the entire country experienced this year. Nature was pushed back a month or so.

 

Edit: which may or may not have something to do with attendance, though I think the weather had broken in time for the start of CP's season

[DorneyKid14]

I think theft from bins is probably much worse when you have one giant place where an entire train's loose articles go and a mob of people trying to drop off their loose articles to board colliding with a giant mob of people trying to pick up their loose articles to exit. This is also probably a huge contributor to the 'bins ruin ops' argument.

 

I like how hershey has the bins on the same side as the gate for on coming riders, mainly at skyrush. Simply state over the mircophone 'next riders, please place all articles in the bin to your right or left. When the gates open, please proceed to the seat' and so on. That way, the on coming riders go right onto the train while the exiting riders grab their stuff, and go.

[Garet]

I will never take lotte world wheeling those bins over as you board Atlantis for granted ever again. I know people will say that a giant train on steel vengeance is completely different from a 8 seater aqua trax but if one of the worlds busiest park can run a ride with the capacity essentially of a wild mouse as it’s signature coaster while personally taking your stuff and keep the line flowing I don’t buy this taking stuff makes the lines much longer.

[AtariAge]

I saw small cubbies for shoes at Valravn, why can't they have these for phones also? (And I actually DID see some phones in those cubbies.)

 

Yep, I saw phones in these cubbies as well, even though they were clearly labeled for shoes only. And Valravn had quite impressive dispatch times -- with few exceptions, I saw them consistently launching trains in less than 60 seconds. Ride ops were doing a great job filling each train and getting people to hustle into and out of the station.

 

The most efficient "bins" I've seen are those that let you put your items in a cubby at some point in the queue near the station, and then when you get off the ride you can grab your items from the opposite side. Saw this several times in Germany last year. A slightly different variation is where you have access to the bins in the station before you board -- Skyrush at Hershey works this way, since you board and exit the train on the same side of the station. Except for the conflicts between people boarding and exiting, that seemed to work well.

 

As long as you allow people to bring items into the station that need to go into a bin, you're always going to have the 5% (and this number is probably low) who are going to slow things down no matter how much you try to educate them. But that doesn't mean you can't try. And a good crew can make a world of difference.

 

..Al

[Phant0mF1re]

So we did actually see multiple people get caught with their phones in line on Steel Vengeance last week...but the thing that seemed weird to me was that they would let the person get right back in line where they were after they went and got rid of their phone. I don't see how that's much of a deterrent if you let them get right back where they were with their friends (and potentially being closer now after a ~10 minute locker excursion.) I thought the original plan was to make them get back in the end of the line. But whatever, there should be bins.

[PKI Jizzman]

Cedar Point has done a great job with improving the food/bev stands over the recent years, which was department of the park that needed improvement the most in my opinion. While no one is happy with the locker/phone situation, the big issue that I noticed over 3 days at the park are the bathrooms.

 

Dear lord they're stinky, messy, old, don't have paper towels, no hot/cold water option, and some don't even have doors to keep in air conditioning in or keep the bugs out (!!!!). It's not just a "needs cleaning more often" issue. I really hope they concentrate on this part of the park soon. I'm not sure if this hasn't been addressed yet because of the plumbing beneath + sand and how difficult that might be I have no idea about the level of difficulty there. Of all the parks on the trip and the parks I've visited in recent memory, I can't think of a worse example. They're on Ukrainian Village grungy dive bar levels.

 

Hoping it wasn't as bad in the women's restroom!

 

Other than that it was a fantastic visit to CP that I'll go into detail about later!

[Samuel]

Dear lord they're stinky, messy, old, don't have paper towels, no hot/cold water option, and some don't even have doors to keep in air conditioning in or keep the bugs out (!!!!). It's not just a "needs cleaning more often" issue. I really hope they concentrate on this part of the park soon. I'm not sure if this hasn't been addressed yet because of the plumbing beneath + sand and how difficult that might be I have no idea about the level of difficulty there. Of all the parks on the trip and the parks I've visited in recent memory, I can't think of a worse example. They're on Ukrainian Village grungy dive bar levels.

 

Hoping it wasn't as bad in the women's restroom!

 

I made a topic a while back about parks having very outdated restrooms, and I agree. It's a quality of life improvement that should get some attention after decades. Those little kiosk-style ones by Magnum, Power Tower, and Gemini have been there forever and are often slammed. One or two regular stalls and one handicap stall (men's) in a sardine can room just doesn't cut it for modern park traffic. The people staffed to them are in there and do what they can, but it's an uphill battle against heat, drips, flies, smells; yuck. I'm to the point where I tend to stick with the larger and less-trafficked bathroom near the Snoopy Boutique on the main midway.

 

I remember walking into a SFMM restroom that was large, clean, and air conditioned -- and this a compliment -- that was a legit highlight of the day!

[joelwee]

I remember walking into a SFMM restroom that was large, clean, and air conditioned -- and this a compliment -- that was a legit highlight of the day!

Many of SFMM's restrooms are filthy and outdated - in some cases, worse than CP's - but they have been upgrading them one by one. I didn't think CP's restrooms were that bad, save for the crazy amount of bugs stuck to the flush valves and faucets.

[AtariAge]

So we did actually see multiple people get caught with their phones in line on Steel Vengeance last week...but the thing that seemed weird to me was that they would let the person get right back in line where they were after they went and got rid of their phone. I don't see how that's much of a deterrent if you let them get right back where they were with their friends (and potentially being closer now after a ~10 minute fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo excursion.) I thought the original plan was to make them get back in the end of the line. But whatever, there should be bins.

 

We saw someone get kicked off a Steel Vengeance train with restraints already locked because he had a phone in his pocket. This happened right behind us, ride op was about to lower his restraint, saw phone, made him get out of the train. When our train came back, he was still sitting behind the exit gates, so we're not sure if he was waiting for someone else or they were going to let him back on at some point. Also saw multiple people with phones in the queue one evening, even using them where ride ops could certainly see them.

 

On this same trip we also saw them a Maverick train backed off the lift hill, a ride op walked over to the train and then took a phone from someone in the very first row. Also had a ride op for one of the woodies on the trip yell at kids (teenagers) for touching the railings while the train was ascending the lift hill. I did laugh at one of them yelling out, "The government is watching us!"

 

..Al

[AtariAge]

Changing direction for a minute...what's going on with the bugs at Cedar Point!!??!

 

I thought in the past the muffleheads were gone by June?? This trip the first week of August had the WORST case of bugs I've ever dealt with at the park. Is this a global warming thing or what? It's one thing hitting them at 70-100mph on various rides, but there were also normal guests complaining about their $400+/night hotel room balconies being unusable due to so many bugs on everything that they couldn't even see through the screen.

 

I could not believe how many bugs were out there in the early evening. When I lived near CP in 2007 (and was at the park at least once a week!), bugs were only bad on a few of the rides (Millennium Force, TTD, Magnum), and not near the swarms we were seeing on this trip. Hell, I was getting attacked by swarms of bugs just walking through queues! They were everywhere, clinging to everything.

[rjr19]

So we did actually see multiple people get caught with their phones in line on Steel Vengeance last week...but the thing that seemed weird to me was that they would let the person get right back in line where they were after they went and got rid of their phone. I don't see how that's much of a deterrent if you let them get right back where they were with their friends (and potentially being closer now after a ~10 minute fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo excursion.) I thought the original plan was to make them get back in the end of the line. But whatever, there should be bins.

 

We saw someone get kicked off a Steel Vengeance train with restraints already locked because he had a phone in his pocket. This happened right behind us, ride op was about to lower his restraint, saw phone, made him get out of the train. When our train came back, he was still sitting behind the exit gates, so we're not sure if he was waiting for someone else or they were going to let him back on at some point. Also saw multiple people with phones in the queue one evening, even using them where ride ops could certainly see them.

 

On this same trip we also saw them a Maverick train backed off the lift hill, a ride op walked over to the train and then took a phone from someone in the very first row. Also had a ride op for one of the woodies on the trip yell at kids (teenagers) for touching the railings while the train was ascending the lift hill. I did laugh at one of them yelling out, "The government is watching us!"

 

..Al

 

Just curious, does Ohio have stricter laws about roller coasters or something? I understand safety is a huge concern and honestly support CP’s method of stopping a lift over a phone or camera, but I have never seen any other park actually stop a lift over it. Most just seem to let the ride run it’s cycle and just say “oh well”. At my home park, Darien Lake, a ride op on Ride of Steel caught someone with a phone out once the train left the station, and simply said “We aren’t responsible for it if it breaks!”, and let the train go up.