Cedar Point 2011 - Worst. Opening Day. Ever.

I've been to my share of opening days. Its gotta be over a decades worth now. None have been this bad.

Ill try to keep it to bullet points here...


Opened the park and these rides were not operating:

Maxair
Ocean Motion (being installed still)
Blue Streak
Windseeker (delayed)
Gemini
Top Thrill Dragster
Mine Ride
Maverick
Wildcat

That left these rides open at 10AM (mind you...they let in Platinum Pass holders in @ 9)
Millenium Force
Raptor
Wicked Twister
Mantis
Iron Dragon
Paddlewheel Excursions
Magnum
Mean Streak

Thats unacceptable. Weve had a lot of rain, but these rides are not made of sugar. They will not melt and with the exception of Dragster, the others WILL run in the rain.

Anyways, we waited for Maverick to open up and it did...1.5hrs later. There was no sense of urgency at all. Lazily transfered trains back and forth (Seemed to be a lot of confusion between ride ops...that or bad communication) and this was the theme for other rides as well. We were around the 6th train and after the 7th train went through and stopped behind us, the ride broke down again. They transfered a train off and apparently after a few more cycles, was back up.

We walked the park and this is where I took pictures because, well, when all those rides are down, your options become limited. A VERY DENSE fog had rolled into the area and I felt it was time to take advantage of the unique situation.

Pictures on my Flickr (alternate Flickr)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61656639@N07/

We also found that the thrill ride Octopus (or Monster to some) had suffered a massive failure or some sort of fluid. Engineers were trying to clean it up. It did reopen later. Also, Gemini's blue train had vallied at some point between the drop and first hill. So that wasn't running (red side did open up a lot later)

Dragster didn't even show signs of life till 1:40pm. That crew seemed to not care in the least that it was down. Not that they could do anything but I didn't see any urgency to prepare the ride or get people involved.
Around this time Pinks, the new eatery from the westcoast was set to open. We approached and saw it was blocked off. Not opening for 2-3 hours because of a malfunction. Wait, this is a restaurant...not a ride. Apparently during their VIP party the sprinkler system went haywire.

At this time I noted at least 3-4 upper management personnel, all of whom I've seen before and they looked none to happy.


Maxair was the only ride to not open at all that also wasn't still being built but it took all rides till sometime around 2 to achieve open status. Im going back today (Sunday) and hoping the results are better. If it were me, id have told the entire maintenance crew to go take naps/sleep during the evening because they'd be pulling an all nighter. This was, or has to be, one of the worst opening days they have suffered in a long time. I don't even want to hear weather was an issue. It was foggy but 65degrees F and not a drop of rain till almost 5. It then sprinkled for an hour and again was dry. So weather had nothing to do with it. Winds were also very calm, maybe 10mph max but averaged 5mph max there too.


Probably wont be photos tomorrow but never know.


Just to be fair, I give CP a lot of crap. But I hold them to a very high standard, a standard THEY put on themselves. Sure, the golden ticket awards are more or less rigged and a sham, but don't pat yourselves on the back and fail to deliver. I still go there and love many of the rides and enjoy my time there thoroughly. But today...wow. Really sad. I've attended at least a decades worth of Opening Days so Im used to hiccups and burps along the ride. Today, was all out vomiting in terms of preparedness.

Heres a few teasers

Power Tower...where are you hiding at?


Happy Raptor riders


Raptor in the fog


Power Tower, seriously, the hiding isnt funny anymore


Even Dragster? WTF?


Last shot of Millenium Force riders

Wow, this makes me glad I was forced to delay my trip until Monday. Hopefully they can get it rolling by then.

Not that I do not appreciate the fact that you were looking forward to this since last november, but, you cannot blame anyone for what cannot be controlled. That being said, I did not read through the entire post. Us So Cal natives know that fog, wind, and even fire can destroy a perfectly planned trip, but, just be glad you got to be a part of something that some of us can only dream of.

[GavG]

That is really a poor show by any parks standards. I would of been frustrated with the ride ops lack of importance with getting there rides up and running.

Pictures with the fog look good though [:)]

Originally posted by spacemountainfan619

Not that I do not appreciate the fact that you were looking forward to this since last november, but, you cannot blame anyone for what cannot be controlled.

What are you talking about? Fog does not shut down Cedar Point rides, I have ridden in fog before. This was lack of being prepared, which if you read the whole thing youd have known. So yes, I will blame them for not being more proactive and taking such a lakidazical attitude towards opening day. If I were not a season pass holder I imagine this visit would tarnish and possibly make me not want to go back (imagine a first timer) Every day is important. Its also highly unlikely they all broke down at the same time like that, before the day even started.


Try the facebook, it should work.


Forgot to add, Power Tower took all day to open and only ONE single tower worked...

I would have loved riding MF in that Fog.

Incase anyone misses it, here the link for more photos (actually all)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61656639@N07/

The fog and the weather I can understand. I must say though, after being at so many parks and riding so many rides, CP's staff, (bunch of high school students) really lacks in the 'Git Er Done' mentality. Everyone at that park takes things all lazy and poop, like they, (the employees) are on vacation themselves. Probably the whole OHIO mentality. You guys have so many great rides, I just wish you would hire folks that are proud to buckle peeps in and send em on one of thee rides of their lives.

CP - Coasters - The best!
Teen Age Staff - The Worst!

Sounds like you had fun!

The Golden Ticket awards are a piece of poop. So are all roller coaster polls.

-There is no excuse for Viper being top 15 while Eagle isn't even on the list. Viper is fun, but I can name at least 20 coasters that I HAVE BEEN ON that are a hell of a lot better, while Eagle is one of the BEST coasters I've been on.

-Thunderbird and Evel Knievel are around 15 places apart. Clone recognition fail.

-6 voting catergories: 5 in the US, 1 for the rest of the world.

^ If you love Eagle so much go marry it. No one else here that has ridden it seems to have the love afire you have with it.

[TheArchitect]

Those are some epic photos, really sharp camera! Not a single blur on those Millennium Force pics. TopThrillDragster looked incredible with the tower vanishing into the fog, wish i could've seen that in real life. Sorry to hear about such a poop day though, hope today is better!

Originally posted by Tetsu

^ If you love Eagle so much go marry it. No one else here that has ridden it seems to have the love afire you have with it.

Ummm, no. All of the local coaster enthusiasts love American Eagle.

And as far as people from this site, Meta seemed to like it, and Dirk said it was the best ride in the park.

I'm glad to see that you're complaining (I'm not saying it's annoying, that's just what it is by definition). Seeing the complaints of lazy operators etc etc implies that this isn't the normal flow of work at CP, yes?

I'd just like to know because I'm going to CP for the first time, and I live in Texas, so it may be one of the only times. Ops run Six Flags Over Texas EXACTLY how you described CP in the topic. They put the dumbest ops on the New Texas Giant and take WAY too much time while there are 2 trains running and a huge line. Oh well, excited for CP

Cedar Point is a great park. You'll have a blast.

As for ride operators, I have never experienced efficient ride operators at any amusement park, besides Disney. The only ride I have ever been on with fast operators was Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. This is when they, "Broke a Record" for the amount of trains dispatched in an hour for that ride.

In fact I was at SFOT yesterday, and just as I was about to ride NTG they shut it down for 20 minutes. With nothing better to do, I waited. Two of the ops and a maintenance worker were chatting with their thumbs up their asses while a mechanic stood there scratching his head (literally). The only time he actually touched the controls was to lock the restraints and to dispatch.

They did NOTHING but waste my time, and that's not incredibly out of the ordinary either. They shut down Batman for an hour because a kid puked. Seriously?

Anyway, by Real's complaints it doesn't seem like CP ever has problems like that. I'm glad to see he holds them to such a high standard. It really says something about CP's (average) quality.

Maybe they reset the ride from the PLC room and had to wait for it to come back up? Maybe they had other guys out walking the ride checking prox sensors and he was waiting for a radio call? Think there is more to it than pressing a reset button.

But I doubt that they actually have problems four times a day, because that's how often NTG shuts down, and it's always less than half an hour. 4 times when I'm in line out of 5, the ride shuts down for at least 10 minutes. Just doesn't make any sense to me.

^Yep rides just don't have a lot of problems each day. Just look at Top Thrill Dragster! Really rides can have a lot of problems every day. Cheetah Hunt at Busch goes down every 45 minutes it seems. Their computers are extremely complex and its not as easy as hitting a reset button to fix them. Also parts themselves break and have issues. Rides can and will have issues and sometimes they have many problems though out the day. You just have to deal with it.

It was just an off day that I cited to be a cause of unpreparedness and lack of energy, which typically isnt CP operations. They may not be the best in the world but they do a pretty good job.

I was told by a past Maverick Op that they once hit something like 1100RPH on Maverick but only when everyone was busting their butts to the max and doing their best to deal with idiotic riders. She said a more normal number is like 800-900 and thats still being rather efficient.

This was just "one of those" days. I got some bad-ass photos of fog though.