Is this normal?

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

This Thursday I was at Kemah for their Rock the Boardwalk event, not really caring about the crap band playing by the Boardwalk in, myself and my little brother went to go ride rides. Of course I have to hit up BB once or twice. However, after my first neck-jarring ride that night, I was greeted by a pungent, foul smell on the brake run. I looked over the side of my car, and I counted at least 5 piles of vomit that had not appeared to be cleaned up. Despite this I did ride 2 more times that day, albeit on the opposite side of the train. On both of those rides it did not appear as though an op had attempted to clean up any of it. In fact, the only time the ops tried to clean up any vomit that I saw, was when someone vomited all over the front seat of the ride. Now I can understand maybe the ops not seeing the vomit on the brake run for a while, but these piles were there until the ride closed at 9 PM. The smell could not be smelled in the station, but after a short walk out on to the brake run the cloud would hit you like a ton of bricks.

 

Is something like this normal at other parks? Or is this just a testament to Kemah's bad Ride Ops? I've had some really bad ones while I was there, but this crew was by far the worst.

[beatle11]

That just sounds like bad ops to me.

[TheStig]

Depending on the parks policy the operators may not be allowed to go in to the ride track until the ride is closed for the day. Even though there are piles of vomit, you can't go out there if lock out tag out procedures aren't followed for the attraction.

[Myself]

Sounds like they need to hire more handymen or organize them better to me.

[chemical_echo]

If it was on the brake run then chances are the ride needs to be shut off and locked out before an op can walk back there to clean it.

Rather than close the ride for 30-60 min to clean the ride during an annual event (I've never been, so I can't say if it's busy or not) they probably figured they'd clean it at the end of the day.

 

If you noticed it, chances are others noticed it, and chances are at least one person complained. It may look gross, but the smell won't kill you.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

^Rock the Boardwalk isn't an annual event, it takes place every Thursday night in the summer. And the park itself was actually pretty dead all day. All of the rides were either walk ons or had a wait time of one cycle.

[Skycoastin Steve]

Depending on the parks policy the operators may not be allowed to go in to the ride track until the ride is closed for the day. Even though there are piles of vomit, you can't go out there if lock out tag out procedures aren't followed for the attraction.

 

If it was on the brake run then chances are the ride needs to be shut off and locked out before an op can walk back there to clean it.

Rather than close the ride for 30-60 min to clean the ride during an annual event (I've never been, so I can't say if it's busy or not) they probably figured they'd clean it at the end of the day.

 

If you noticed it, chances are others noticed it, and chances are at least one person complained. It may look gross, but the smell won't kill you.

 

What they both said. They aren't going to shut the ride down to clean puke off part of the ride that's in a lockout area. That would be even worse operations than "letting it sit there."

[bill_s]

I think the quantity of the vomit was the unusual thing, not the operations.

[texcoaster]

The thing about Bullet that makes it a bit unusual is that the "park" is mostly a bunch of restaurants with a few flat rides and a badass coaster. Bullet is the only coaster I know of where people stow their doggie bags from the meal they just ate in the cubbies... or wait in the queue while finishing their beer or margarita or whatever. Big meal + alcohol + coaster less than 20 ft from the restaurant exit = somebody is gonna puke on the brake run a few times per day.

 

Since the ride is mostly occupied by ride ticket holders rather than POP wristband wearers, if they shut it down for 30-60 minutes every time it gets messy, they lose revenue. I've seen a LOT of folks stumble out of Salt Grass, hear the coaster running, and say to the rest of their party, "C'mon, it won't take long, let's ride this before we go."