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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

p. 2030 - Top Thrill 2 announced!

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16 hours ago, MartinU said:

I've wondered how much does it cost to dispatch a train. I'm not counting the man power, hourly wage, but the electrical and mechanical cost every time they dispatch a train on TTD or Maverick, or the late great WT? Anyone have an answer?

This is just a curiosity thing.  

I don't know if there are official numbers, but here's an interesting article about the launch. Maybe someone can elaborate!

https://www.powermotiontech.com/hydraulics/accumulators/article/21883506/want-thrills-go-with-hydraulics

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Just a quick TR from my trip to Cedar Point this past Tuesday and Wednesday...

I got to the park after checking in to my hotel at a little before 6:00, and the place was absolutely slammed (scroll back a couple of posts for the pictures of the queues I posted).  My night one rides were (all times are with FL+):

-Raptor, 7-minute wait for back row right wing.
-Millie, 34 minute wait for front row.
-Maverick, 8 minute wait for back row.
-Steel Vengeance, 25 minutes from entering the queue to getting my phone from the in-queue locker for back row.  In my video note, I think I say it best: "Such an incredible ride, but such a stupid, stupid system."

The new Farmhouse restaurant's patio provides a very nice cut through to Maverick's Fast Lane entrance.

The show at the end of the day at Celebration Plaza is like most CP shows...lots of song and dance (but live instruments, which was nice), and fireworks shot off right there.  They even have some bandstands set up to watch it, which was nice. That last bit kinda surprised me.  The screens are also super high-res.

IMG_20220727_213424673.thumb.jpg.0f08dc51abda2a7ae8852b25ba48831e.jpgIMG_20220727_213446042.thumb.jpg.6e12ccaf3fff15f57e38361c9b8ce11e.jpg

After those four rides, I left the park around 9:30, stopped by Thirsty Pony for a tasty adult beverage and some Mac & Cheese Bites, and then was off to bed.

I arrived back at the park for early entry opening and went right to Iron Dragon.  I'm glad this is on Early Entry, being not on FL at all.  My day 2 consisted of:

-Iron Dragon, 1 train wait for front row (Early Entry)
-Millie, 23 minutes for front row (Early Entry)
-Maverick, 12 minutes for front row
-Magnum, 5 minute wait for row 2
-Water park for like 4 hours; did every slide they have except the family tube one, capsule-drops, and mat racer, and probably a dozen laps of both their lazy rivers.  Also a few tasty adult beverages at the swim-up bar.
-Raptor, 1 train wait for a double ride in the back row, left wing.  I have never seen re-rides happen before at CP, but hooray for me!
-Blue Streak, 1 train wait for front row.  Easily the best ride I've had on this in a very long time.  It was absolutely flying with the heat, and even got some brief pops of ejector and floater air.
-Valravn, 1 train wait for front row, left wing.  I noted that it was a little vibrate-y.
-Corkscrew, 1 train wait for front row and then 5-10 minutes sitting on the brake run while they cleaned some sort of spill from the train in the station...I don't think it was vomit...eek.
-Gemini, half-train wait for row 2, red side, and we won!
-Maverick, 9 minute wait for back row.  This was also flying in the heat.
-Train ride north-to-south
-Didn't ride Rougarou because it's a POS and can die in a fire.
-Gatekeeper, 8 minutes back row left wing.
-Sky Ride, 6 minute wait, south-to-north.
-Maverick, 3 minutes for front row.
-Rode the train around a few laps waiting for it to get dark.
-Millie, 21 minutes for back row to close out the night.

Crowds on Wednesday were virtually non-existent; I think the threat of thunderstorms kept people away.

All in all, an awesome day and a half.  My ride counts were quite impressive:
-Maverick x4
-Millie x3
-Raptor x3
-Every other coaster x1 (except Rougarou for obvious reasons, and CCMR which was down every time I was in the area)

There is a new(?) mock-advertisement poster at Steel Vengeance.   It reads:  "We do what we do!  BLASTER! will save you time, energy, stress, money...for over 80 (60?) years."  Not sure if this is new or not, but its the first time I've seen it.

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One fun fact I learned on this trip:  Apparently, Cedar Fair is running a park-to-park throughput competition for the summer.  The park with the most efficient operations wins...something.  None of the employees I asked knew what the prize was.  This is why ride ops actually seemed to be hustling these past two days; in my experience CP ops can be a little lackadaisical.

One not-so-fun fact I learned on this trip:  So I have the season drink plan, using the paper cups.  I noticed that every single time I redeemed it, the clerk would ask me if I wanted to buy a plastic Souvenir Cup, and I would always politely say no.  Like, I have the paper cup plan for a reason.  But, after the 20th time, it did start to get annoying.  So when I finally encountered an employee at one of these places that spoke decent English (many, many did not), I asked what was up with that.  It was explained to me that the park has "secret shoppers" going around, making sure that every employee at a place that sells Souvenir Cups, asks the customer if they want to buy one, regardless of what the transaction is.  If the employee does not ask, they and their supervisor are sent home immediately and not paid for the rest of their shift.  Seriously, Cedar Point, how toxic can you be?  These are kids in their late-teens to early-20s, no longer making the $20 an hour you paid them last year, working long hours in the summer heat, and you're going to treat them like this?  Shame, shame on you.  Every time I redeemed my drink plan after that, I'd always say "No, I do not want to buy a Souvenir Cup." with a smile and a wink when I scanned my pass; I got quite a few laughs from the clerks.

So yeah, a good trip rides wise, but kinda depressing with that information about the Souvenir Cups.

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7 hours ago, AmyUD06 said:

Apparently, Cedar Fair is running a park-to-park throughput competition for the summer.

Nice hopefully the competition will last until the end of August so the strong operations can be maintained. Crazy to say this, but I heard many stories on the operations being a little sh*tty at cedar point this year.

 

7 hours ago, AmyUD06 said:

Seriously, Cedar Point, how toxic can you be

Also heard that cedar point's management attitude towards employees is abysmal this year and how that partly explains the faulty operations. 

 

7 hours ago, AmyUD06 said:

Such an incredible ride, but such a stupid, stupid system

so annoying indeed (especially for fast lane users...) 

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There maybe life for Dragster after all. I was speaking with a rider today here at Kings Island, and he said there are new markings for a different queue line. Also tonight the tower and platform were illuminated. Maybe the lawyers won't win and TTD will live again next season, or possibly later this year.

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I think CP rundown also posted you can see markers when you ride iron dragon near the TTD brake run. 

Not sure what any of this means. I assume that the marks are for marking utility lines. So i guess all we know is that something is going to happen.  

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For whatever reason as soon as they announced this would be closing for the season I immediately thought about a renovation to a LIM launch like Red Force has, I have no idea if that's the case or a possibility but seems like everything is moving to LIM launches so it would probably make sense from a reliability and maintenance standpoint (again something I know nothing about).

 

I'm not exactly tuned into the European coaster world but haven't really heard of regular extended downtime for that ride. If it's possible to convert it and it makes it more reliable seems like that would be a reasonable option considering how popular this attraction is.

 

Also what was the last hydraulic launch coater Intamin built? Was it Formula Rossa in 2010? Has there been another hydraulic launch coaster built since then? 

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If this were to happen, it'll be a costly investment. Train modifications, launch track modification and/or replacement, likely brake run changes, control system swap, etc. Maintenance wise, it would be better as less moving parts the better. If it ever were to switch to LSM you are removing a lot of parts that are a constant source of the downtime. Around 312 individual hydraulic pistons and brake fins (that all need monitored), the launch dog and cable system, and the actual hydraulic motors for the launch itself. That's the beauty of LSMs is that they are stationary and serve as brakes when not powered to launch.

That being said, LSMs are also not foolproof and have their own issues, especially if you were to take the risk to "push it to the limits" and create the fastest launched LSM coaster in the world. Would it be less maintenance? Quite possibly. Could it open up a whole new can of worms in terms of problems arising? Absolutely. Let alone the power draw that is required for each launch, which would be astronomical compared to the hydraulic motors. There are a multitude of factors that would need to be cost analyzed for this.

At the end of the day, can LSMs reliability even push 120mph+ in TTDs current space? Red Force gets to ~112mph in 100ft less of launch track, but how much further can you push it? So many questions.

Curious to see what will be done with it though. There are a hell of a lot of utility and survey markings around. Could be anything though. Even replacement of pavement / concrete would require an 811 survey to mark out everything. Wouldn't read too much into any markings, wait for work to actually start.

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10 minutes ago, coasterbill said:

^^ This is basically a Six Flags Diamond Membership

It's really interesting that Cedar Fair is moving towards knockoff Six Flags memberships just as Six Flags is getting rid of memberships.

Exactly what I thought.  And they are doing it right after Six Flags ditched their version.

It's a bit strange for sure.

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2 hours ago, _s3_ said:

At the end of the day, can LSMs reliability even push 120mph+ in TTDs current space? Red Force gets to ~112mph in 100ft less of launch track, but how much further can you push it? So many questions.
 

Red Force only gets to 112 but also only has 4 car trains with 12 riders vs 5 trains with 18 rides like Dragster. I'm no expert on this but seems like with a longer launch track and the smaller train it could be possible to use the existing track, but you're right in that it would still be a massive investment for the controls system, trains, and launch/braking hardware alone.  

Will be interesting to see what ends up happening with it for sure. 

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Re: TTD - For the thousandth time, the launch mechanism had nothing to do with last year's incident. They're not changing the launch mechanism.

Re: Prestige Passes - Why does the regular $300 Prestige Pass not include access to other parks, when the $250 Platinum from MiA does?  This leaves so many questions.  I find it hard to believe that after so many years of CF pricing its "All Park" pass the same depending on what park you buy it at that they're going to change it now.

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3 hours ago, _s3_ said:

At the end of the day, can LSMs reliability even push 120mph+ in TTDs current space? Red Force gets to ~112mph in 100ft less of launch track, but how much further can you push it? So many questions.

Absolutely.  There’s nothing preventing them from running the LSMs a quarter of the way (or more) up the tower. It wouldn’t be as powerful of a launch and would take away a lot of the point of the ride, but space constraints are not an issue. 

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8 minutes ago, AmyUD06 said:

Re: Prestige Passes - Why does the regular $300 Prestige Pass not include access to other parks, when the $250 Platinum from MiA does?  This leaves so many questions.  I find it hard to believe that after so many years of CF pricing its "All Park" pass the same depending on what park you buy it at that they're going to change it now.

These are new passes.  Traditional Gold and Plat will be on sale next week.

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Since we're all talking about things that don't make any sense and wouldn't fix anything that had anything to do with the accident, what about a twisted vertical lift hill all the way up the tower that just drops you over the other side.

... think about it.

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Only talking about it because of wayyy too many mentions / rumors about it. Nobody thinks of the larger implications and why it wouldn't happen.

That being said, the accident was caused by a faulty bolt on the flag plate failing and that issue could have been solved (along with moving and/or changing the queue) prior to this season. I likely feel that there is something larger at play with TTD being shelved for this season, but I highly doubt we'll see any operational changes to the ride itself.

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Those markings mean they are adding a Cracker Barrel to replace the grandstand. Actually nothing at all to do with TTD at all that’s just the “study area” outline Cracker Barrel uses for their new restaurants. It’s pretty basic stuff, nothing to worry about. Trust me, I am a marking specialist!

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hmmmm..... those markings at TTD.....

the safest guess is that they are simply re-configuring the line area (not sure why that necessitated an entire down season, but maybe they needed the findings to come out, consider a variety of options, and finally execute on a plan....)

I do suspect that they must have considered scrapping the ride because of the enormous costs and downtime on it.   But as much as a LSM or multiple launch like Pantheon would make sense if built TODAY, from a return of investment standpoint, it makes very little sense to invest in an entirely new launch system on this ride because of all the reasons others have mentioned (new trains, LSM system, control system, etc.... -- that's a many, many millions investment for a change that the general public wouldn't even notice and so how do you market that investment? )

Now, I have to confess that the irrational fanboy part of me was hoping they would simply repurpose the tophat to create a 400 foot-full circuit ride (somehow)

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17 hours ago, _s3_ said:

Only talking about it because of wayyy too many mentions / rumors about it.

There are are only way too many mentions/rumors about it because enthusiasts are basically f*ckin' crackheads.

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I get what you're saying but this isn't a Top Thrill Dragster fan-fiction thread. Most people (hopefully) are operating under the assumption that we're all living in reality. I assume that most of the insane ideas posted here that aren't framed as a crazy fantasy ideas are 100% serious, and even if they're not other people will assume they are and run with them because coaster enthusiasts are mostly insane.

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Likely they couldn't begin any changes to the ride due to possible pending litigation (probably including a NDA). They were probably already well into the operating season once that cleared up and they definitely aren't going to work on any queue/plaza modifications while the park is open 7 days a week. IMO, they are getting prepared to move/modify queue with fencing of some sort along the launch and brake areas to prevent this from happening again. 

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