Which parks/rides have the worst operations?

Of all the annoying things that can happen at amusement parks, slow operations are particularly irritating. Bad operations can be found anywhere, but it seems to happen at some parks/rides more than others. In this thread, tell us where you think the worst park/ride operations are.

-Six Flags Great America had decent operations in 2013, but it seems like they took a nosedive in 2014. Even though they were running the maximum amount of trains, you'd think they were running only one train based on how often/much the line moved. There was one time when Goliath's line was at a standstill for 10 minutes straight.
-Diamondback at Kings Island had some very slow operations when I rode it back in June, which is surprising considering that most B&M hypers are people eaters. They were double-stacking trains about 75% of the time, and the other 25% they were dispatching shortly before the other train pulled into the brake run. Maybe it's due to the unnecessary seatbelts.
-The lines at Adventureland (Iowa) were pretty long because the park's coasters can only operate one train at a time. The one-train operations are partially forgivable because the ride ops were friendly and working as fast as they could, but it would be nice if they could have the ability to run more trains.

[Paradox]

SFMM can't operate a coaster efficiently for sh*t.

Twisted Colossus barely duels now because it takes the entire blue side and lift of the green side to load a single train.

This is gonna make sound spoiled as hell but Gatekeepers crew is horrible, their incapable of not double stacking. There one of the worst crews in the park and on the singular most popular ride. Its just pathetic next to crews on the rest of the crews in the park. You'll see both Magnum and Millenniums crews having trains loaded and having to wait to dispatch.

^GateKeeper is absolutely not the most popular ride. And I have been there a number of times, even this season, where only one train was stacking, not two trains double stacking.

Take a look at the numbers(From 2014). Its the highest ridden ride in the entire park over the last two years, and the only one to have topped 2 million riders(2013).

Last year the crew was much much more efficient, often managing to not have any stacking. But this years they've been absolutely pathetic. It's an extremely rare sight to see them running it without double stacking. Trust me, its my home park.

CoasterGuy2000 wrote:

This is gonna make sound spoiled as hell but Gatekeepers crew is horrible, their incapable of not double stacking. There one of the worst crews in the park and on the singular most popular ride. Its just pathetic next to crews on the rest of the crews in the park. You'll see both Magnum and Millenniums crews having trains loaded and having to wait to dispatch.

That's odd. When I rode Gatekeeper two months ago, it had one of the fastest crews in the park with very little stacking.

I though the worst operations at Cedar Point were on Maverick. It was not uncommon for me to see four trains stacked in the brake run while the two trains in the station weren't ready yet.

At Gadv it's actually very surprising if I catch a ride op crew not stacking. I got used to it

It's my home park too, and I stand corrected apparently on the GateKeeper popularity thing. Even though I still don't quite believe it. I haven't talked to one local that brings it up, MF Mav and TTD are still the talk of the town. Maybe this year's numbers will be lower because of their apparently slow operations and it being two years old. But again, I didn't experience slow operations when I was there, so I dunno!

^Those three are definitely the most heard of and often regarded as the best at the park. Gatekeeper I think is just a ride that almost every can ride and reride due to it not being intense.

^^^Maverick is less of the crews fault and more of strange ride design. The way that coaster runs it is physically impossible to not stack at least two trains there when all six are being used. The Two trains in the station can't be dispatched till the second train hits the mid course launch. Once that happens the first train is already on the break run waiting with two trains in between. No Matter how fast a dispatch is there is always gonna be at least 3 trains briefly. 4 is pretty bad but with all those trains being loaded theirs a higher likely hood of a guest goofing up and stalling dispatch.

I might just be the unluckiest human being ever with gatekeeper than. Because in the 6ish hours I've spent waiting in that line(It's really underrated, i'll ride it like 3 or 4 times a visit) this year, its been double stacking for almost all of it.

I wouldn't say that Hershey has the worst operations as far as rides go (great bear and Fahrenheit tend to stack a lot though), however some of the food places are not up to par with what they should be. I was at one of the ice cream stands and saw an employee getting food with no gloves on, some of the other shops we went in to the employees seemed to be brand new and in training, which I thought to be odd this far into the season.

[Coasterkidmwm]

tiepilot35 wrote:

^GateKeeper is absolutely not the most popular ride. And I have been there a number of times, even this season, where only one train was stacking, not two trains double stacking.

Bruh you gotta learn to check your facts. Gatekeeper was the most popular ride of 2014, and it's on pace to do it again this year so far.

https://www.cedarpoint.com/blog-article ... he-Numbers

Also just an FYI the choo choo and Skyride had more riders than Maverick and Top Thrill Dragster, although Dragster lost a fair amount when it was shut down for an entire week.

Towards the end of the 2014 season, Wild Thing at Valleyfair had some pretty slow operations. To me, it looked like the ride ops just weren't motivated at all. I know I really shouldn't complain since Valleyfair doesn't get crowded that often, but the fact that they were consistently stacking is a little ridiculous considering that Wild Thing is a fairly long ride.

a ride isn't exactly more popular if it gets more riders in a year... capacity is a HUGE factor in that. Gatekeeper is high on the list cause it's a 3-train Wingrider, Maverick is so low because it's made of 3 car trains and breaks down a lot. Every time I've been there, Maverick's line is WAY longer than Gatekeeper's.

Jonny Richey wrote:

Every time I've been there, Maverick's line is WAY longer than Gatekeeper's.

Which...also depends on capacity...

Not doubting you, but ridership and line length do depend greatly on capacity. If you want to find out what ride is most popular/most liked, you hear it from the people themselves, maybe on social media if you're strong enough to filter all the GP "nonsense" comments

At Valleyfair last weekend, the operations on Renegade and Corkscrew were both very slow. Trains were stacking, and the ride ops were pulling almost four minute dispatch times, which just isn't acceptable when the lines are long as they were.

[Coasterkidmwm]

CoasterGuy2000 wrote:

This is gonna make sound spoiled as hell but Gatekeepers crew is horrible, their incapable of not double stacking. There one of the worst crews in the park and on the singular most popular ride. Its just pathetic next to crews on the rest of the crews in the park. You'll see both Magnum and Millenniums crews having trains loaded and having to wait to dispatch.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to work that ride? The dispatch interval is very unforgiving because the lift is so fast and the ride does nothing after the block brake.

Holiday World seems to do fine with theirs.

Coasterkidmwm wrote:

CoasterGuy2000 wrote:

This is gonna make sound spoiled as hell but Gatekeepers crew is horrible, their incapable of not double stacking. There one of the worst crews in the park and on the singular most popular ride. Its just pathetic next to crews on the rest of the crews in the park. You'll see both Magnum and Millenniums crews having trains loaded and having to wait to dispatch.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to work that ride? The dispatch interval is very unforgiving because the lift is so fast and the ride does nothing after the block brake.

I am no longer in rides; however I worked on Gatekeeper in May of 2013. Interval is extremely difficult to achieve. Once the train parks in the station you have literally a few seconds.

^^ Did you check out Blase and TTD's Mid States Tour Trip Report? They were in fact, talking about the terrible ride operations at HW. They loved the ride "experience" though.

I did, and when I was there for HWN earlier this year I experienced nothing like that. It stacked for like 20 seconds (basically sat waiting for the other one to roll out on to the pre launch block) and the crews checked the train and sent them out extremely quickly. From what I've experienced on my two visits, especially my most recent one, I'd say they're the most efficient park I've ever been to.

I meant to make the point a while back that Jonny Richey and Coaster Hero touched on. I think it has everything to do with capacity and up-time and nothing to do with "popularity." GateKeeper is a B&M with a relatively fast dispatch rate. Millennium Force is an Intamin that breaks down I assume daily, or at least every few days. It isn't like MF's line is empty for hours at time while GateKeeper's is full of people. The simple fact that MF goes down and doesn't get to cycle riders to add to the total headcount means it has a lower number at the end of the season. If MF could dispatch exactly as fast and stay open for exactly as long as GK, it would have roughly 36/32, or 12.5% more total riders since its train is longer by that much.

What you can draw from these numbers is that GateKeeper had the most total riders in 2014, not that it is the most popular ride in the park. If someone could get me hard numbers that show MF had more train dispatches than GK did, then it would disprove what I'm arguing because that would show that MF ran more times but had fewer guests riding on it. But I would bet money that [GK total train cycles] > [MF total train cycles] :: [GK total riders] > [MF total riders].

MF is actually very reliable, its probably one of the most continually operated rides in the park. It doesn't shut down unless there's lightning, which means everything else is also closed. Gatekeeper on the other hand does go down almost daily. Also the capacities are pretty similar due to Gatekeeper being nearly impossible to run at perfect dispatches, and Millennium rumored to exceed the released capacity.

[TTD03]

Its funny, Dorney is a small crappy Cedar Fair parks. But operations are typically on par. Steel Force, Hydra, Talon almost never stacks.

[Paradox]

Thanks to the great state of New Jersey KK's has double the wait time that it should and on top of that the staff are really slow with loading and it breaks down a lot.

Wicked Cyclone's operations were actually quite fast considering the fact that the ride absolutely hauls it through the course.

I think SFMM made a mistake making TC into one ride. It never duels because operations are sooooooo slow. I was able to get one ride with a duel and it was actually more fun with the other train flying by you, but the dueling only lasted for the blue side because by the time the train went all the way up the green lift, the other train still hadn't dispatched.

CoasterGuy2000, I don't know where you're getting those assertions. I would also need to see an official down-time record to have my theory proven or disproven. You saying MF is one of the most continually operated rides in the park is extremely hard for me to believe. But I am also making blanket assertions myself about their down-time so that's why I think the numbers would be interesting. Every time I have been there since GK opened, GK has never gone down and MF has always gone down. coasterdave may have more input on this.