Horrible Park Operations

[Moose]

I would think the policies are part of overall operations. It's not just the ride op's lack of enthusiasm that leads to bad operations.

[GayCoasterGuy]

^It also has to do with training. They are trained poorly (very low efficiency standards) and have no one "to look up to." I'm hard-wired to look for this, having being programmed by the best of Cedar Point 1991-1993. Safety was #1 and efficiency/capacity was #2 (all while being super-courteous). It was a blessing having done that job, but the drawback is that I see how inefficient some parks are. I just try to focus on my friend - I wish there was an "un-program" button sometimes!

[larrygator]

In no particular order:

Fuji Q

All Happy Valley Parks

Space World

La Ronde

SFA

Mt. Olympus

Gardaland

Hersheypark

Movieland Studios

Walibi Belgium

Disneyland Paris

[Gilly]

^ what is wrong with Gardaland? I agree with you on Disneyland Paris, though.

Personally I would also add Deja Vu when in SFMM. Some people were just allowed to stay on the train, wheraeas there were about 100 people in the queue, plus the train left the station almost half empty. I consider myself lucky not queueing more than 10 minutes for it. Also the rapids had weird operation there (mainly due to weird loading/unloading platform and the fact they had seatbelts)

[larrygator]

Their red light/green light system did not work very well. Teenagers would frequently spin the turnstyles a few extra times causing a lot of rides to be dispatched at less than optimal capacity.

[beatle11]

Operations at Six Flags America are awful. One train operation on everything, and they were slow as molasses. The even sadder thing is, if operations were SFA's only problem, that would be a substantial improvement.

[azza29]

10 minute cycles on Arkham Asylum at Dreamworld.

 

I'm not sure if you mean Arkham Asylum at Movie World or Cyclone at Dreamworld, as operations on both rides are equally terrible.

 

Gold Coast parks definitely know how to turn a short queue into a long wait.

 

Cyclone's unique "the theming broke so we swapped the exit and entry" approach has always confused me. And since both exit and entry intersect they have to have a ride op let you through one group at a time - awful station design.

[Barge84]

I was less than impressed with Hershey Park's ride ops when I was there for the New Hotness Tour this summer.

 

--Thad

[Trevannosaurus Rex]

My one and only trip to Holiday Park years back, had horrible, horrible operations on GeForce. They took ages to load the train and check everyone's pockets. Which is frustrating, but understandable.

But when the line dropped below half an hour, they took the second train off, which took half an hour! They added the second train back later in the day!

[Inukaza]

Personally, I thought Universal Studios was pretty bad, particularly Dragons Challenge, Do-right, and Hulk had horrid operations last time I was there.

 

Granted, I literally just got a job today working as a attractions attendant on Dragons Challenge. I can't wait to make a difference!

[australianalex]

10 minute cycles on Arkham Asylum at Dreamworld.

 

I'm not sure if you mean Arkham Asylum at Movie World or Cyclone at Dreamworld, as operations on both rides are equally terrible.

 

Gold Coast parks definitely know how to turn a short queue into a long wait.

 

Cyclone's unique "the theming broke so we swapped the exit and entry" approach has always confused me. And since both exit and entry intersect they have to have a ride op let you through one group at a time - awful station design.

Oops, yes I meant Movieworld. Though I probably should've mentioned Dreamworld as all of their coasters are low capacity, plus Cyclone takes about 5 minutes to inch its way back into the station, are all Arrow loopers like that?

Movieworld's operations are fairly good on the most part. I've seen them run three trains on Superman Escape which was very good. I also appreciate that they got an El Loco with increased capacity.

[azza29]

Movieworld's operations are fairly good on the most part. I've seen them run three trains on Superman Escape which was very good. I also appreciate that they got an El Loco with increased capacity.

 

They've certainly improved in the past few years, and the new additions/refurbs have helped to spread the crowds better. Here's hoping the next step is a "people-eating" dark ride to replace Looney Tunes.

[Noporian]

I think every single park have terrible ops that has a thing that goes: pay to enter, be the whole day for free

 

or

 

pay for every single ride separately.

 

We here are used to either paying rides separately or then buying a bracelet that works for all the rides during the day.

 

But then there is grönalund. As it is a great park it still sucks that you have to pay 9kroner for entrance first.

 

And then linnanmäki nearly made it so that people could not bring any of their own stuff in to the park

[jray21]

Mt. Olympus has one of the worst park operations I have seen in the US. But the worst overall, from my experience, is Movieland Studios in Italy. The Tomb Raider Top Spin took 45 minutes to just do three cycles! That's right, 15 minute cycle time! The entire park had the most incredibly slow service I have ever seen. But it is a really good messed up park.

[Aceattack52]

Oh yes, I have had plenty of experiences with poor park operations...

Carowinds:

Hurler- On my first trip to Carowinds, I made a clockwise trip trough the park and eventually made my way over to Hurler. When I walked into the station, things were calm, quiet, and there were only about 50 people in there. Each stall had only about four or five people, so I figured this would be a five to ten minute wait, max. As it turns out they were only running one train, which was OK, there weren't that many people looking to ride-it ended up taking 25 minutes before I was able to ride. Carowinds running only one train was not the culprit; it was this kid that looked like he was 20-but that was only a facade for a 90 year only man. This kid was so freaking slow. He didn't look tired or under the influence of anything, he was just slow. This kid was working the controls up front, so all he had to do was press some buttons, talk into the microphone and so on. Apparently that was FAR too much for him to handle. When a full train arrived in the station, he would turn on the PA and ask "Did everyone have a fun ride?" If there was little or no answer, he would repeat it. Only once he received a satisfactory answer would he unlock the retrains and let everyone leave. He did the same thing when the train was going to leave. "Are you ready to ride?!?" Again, when, and only when, he received a satisfactory answer would he dispatch the train. The other thing he would do is not pay attention, he had a magazine up there! If you're saying to yourself that this isn't so bad and that you've seen worse, you haven't heard the whole story. The other thing this kid would do it allow everyone to be seated and locked in, then let the two attendants come by and check everyone's restraints. After that, if anyone seated looked even close to being under the height limit, he would say "height check, (X) and (Y) row." That means the person is question (who was usually within the height constraints) would have to get up and be checked, and then everyone in the car would have to be locked back in again. Couldn't you do that before people get into their seat?

Thunder Road- This was probably the most frustrating experience with a ride op. This girl was probably 17 or so and was working the control panel up front, sitting on a stool. There were two attendants working the restraints, but there were nine ride ops in the station. Lets see, one and two, that's three, oh yeah there were SIX OTHER RIDE OPS talking to this girl behind the controls. Needless to say, nothing got done. When a train arrived in the station, she would be talking and people would have to wait one, two, even three minutes, for her to press the "release restraints" button. The same goes for opening the air gates. The train would be empty, but no one able to get in it. I have no problem with anyone talking on the job, just as long as it doesn't interferer with your job performance, like what occurred in this instance.

Hershey Park:

SooperDooperLooper- This was a very odd experience I had. SooperDooperLooper is a pretty good ride, so I visited it frequently during the course of the day. At the beginning of the day, they were running both trains. A few hours after they opened, they brought the second train out of service, but the wait was nearing an hour at that time; the line was out the entrance. Later in the day, around six o'clock, I returned. At that time, they brought the second train back into service. At that time, the line was down to five minutes or so. The peak operating hours were over at that point. Sure it could have been some kind of maintenance issue, but it seemed unlikely since they brought that train back into the circuit again later in the day.

Six Flags Over Georgia:

Superman: Ultimate Flight- This story is not very uncommon, I have seen it happen on multiple time. During peak operating hours on a weekend, Superman is guaranteed to be packed. I have seen the line coming out of the entrance onto the midway plenty of times. There is a sign that says "90 minutes from this point." That sign is about 40 feet in from the entrance, which means that a line extending all the way onto the midway could mean a two hour wait. (Oh yes, you read that right) Superman has two stations and three trains available for use, but even in these circumstances, I have never seen that third train running or both stations open at the same time. I asked Ms. Ashcraft when they open the second station, and she said "when we are expecting a high level of attendance or when there are many people looking to ride the coaster." I can't imagine when they open that second station, then. If a two hour line won't do it, what will?

[GayCoasterGuy]

Ressurection of an official complaint thread! I guess I'll put in my 2 cents and add Mt. Olympus. I'm sure that park isn't on anyone's list (not).

 

After working at CP for 2 years on a manual wooden coaster (Blue Streak 92/93) doing over 1,200 people an hour, it's hard to not see fault in operations... It's a blessing to have worked on one of the last manual coasters (a great one at the time, too), but the downside is that I'm cursed with seeing how poor operations can be. Wouldn't take it back though - like most things in life there is an upside and a downside

[coasterlover420]

After working at CP for 2 years on a manual wooden coaster (Blue Streak 92/93) doing over 1,200 people an hour, it's hard to not see fault in operations... It's a blessing to have worked on one of the last manual coasters (a great one at the time, too), but the downside is that I'm cursed with seeing how poor operations can be. Wouldn't take it back though - like most things in life there is an upside and a downside

Operations: Cp > all parks

 

It is tough going to other parks with exceedingly lower capacity after working at Cedar Point. All you see is everything better they can do. Oh well. I never complain about waiting in line when the result is riding a coaster

[jray21]

I would say Disney (not DLP) has the best operations, and Mt. Olympus has by far the worst I've ever experienced.

[GayCoasterGuy]

^I wouldn't say all parks, but maybe all big corporate American parks. The operations at CP are great, but still slower than say... 20 years ago. In addition to things being a bit slower, many rides now have seat belts, so that adds even more time.

[3Mutts]

The worst I've seen is La Rondes, we waited for hours just to ride that piece of crap called La Cobra due to theses terrible operations. Mount Olympus is another one up there.

[_koppen]

Tusenfryd

 

Nothing else even comes close when it comes to operations, or their audience.

[DougMJr]

Last time I went to Martin's Fantasy Island they were having a bad day. There was like, 10 minute turn-arounds on Mind-Warp!

[ajfelice]

The past couple years I have witnessed a steady decline at Kennywood in terms of operations. Operators seem to be getting increasingly sluggish these past few seasons. Flat ride operations in particular are pretty poor. Black Widow and Swing Shot crews really needed a fire lit up their butts to get moving. The slugglish operations prevented re-rides on a not so busy Mondays for my past three visits. Their coaster operations were still decent, particularly Thunderbolt. As someone with a good amount of operating experience on many rides, I understand the tired factor (I worked 10 hour shifts with one break), but all I ask is for is an effort to be swift. Swift doesn't mean sprinting, but simply moving quickly and making a serious effort to move people through.

 

This year I'll find out about the horror of the lap bar police at Martin's Fantasy Island.

[Noporian]

Well, my homepark has some horrid park operations, including one Maurer Söhne spinner that they sometimes just randomly only load the cars to have three people. Then this one other ride which is a ride that has auto-close systems in, they instead of autoclosing and then locking them, they actually go around the whole ride closing the restraints, then around the ride just to check the locks again!

[Vtafro]

SFGAdv had some interesting quirks on opening day.

 

Batman with one train, actually asked everyone to get off the train and wait in the queue. Not sure if thats what the need to do or if they could have just let us wait while in the train for more riders. We were told due to the weather the train needed more riders to cycle.

 

More importantly the scrambler(deja-vu) had the slowest operator i have ever seen. If most people didn't let themselves out of there 'cars' and buckle themselves in. The 5 minutes between ride stop and ride start would have easily been 10.

 

Otherwise everything was pretty good.