I know that ops sometimes take a beating for slow loading times, bad judgement, etc. I saw a few examples of great op behavior yesterday (6-7-04) that I think deserve some recognition. First of all, I saw ops turn away riders on Iron Wolf and Raging Bull. In both cases, the rider was too large for the restraint to function at a satisfactory safety level. I believe it was because the seatbelt would not connect on IW, and because the lap bar would not depress far enough on Bull. Both ops handled the situation professionaly, and both riders exited without incident.
The second example was the crew on Vu. We all know that Vu can have a very slow loading time because of the need to check belts and then the OTSR. The ops did a great job of announcing, time and time again, to leave the OTSR up until after the seatbelts were checked. These consistent reminders seemed to greatly limit the number of times people messed with the OTSR early, thus, speeding up the process dramatically.
I know that most ops do a great job, so examples like these are just a few of many that were probably taking place throughout the park all day long. But I believe that credit is due where it is deserved, and these people all performed their duties in fine fashion yesterday.
I'm gonna twist ya, and I'm gonna flip ya. Every time you squeal, I'm just gonna go faster and harder.
Yeah, this year the ride ops have been awesome. When Ragin Cajun was down for over an hour + 1/2 the other day, one of the ride ops actually came down and just talked to us for awhile, letting us know that there working on the issue and everything, asking if were ok, etc. Really nice people working at the park this year!!
Yeah, I've actually noticed this year that ride ops seem just a little more friendly. They'll actually talk to you and ask how your day is going. It's really nice to hear that kind of stuff.
Rejecting riders who are too big is their job. I've seen them handle this all season as well as last season. I don't think they have been rejecting anyone on the accounts of the recent problems in the amusement industry. They cannot dispatch the train if the person is too big so no matter what they cannot ride.
About the dejavu OTSR thing. Don't complain. Every other ride you get on you pull your restraint down as soon as you get on. I'm sure that some coaster enthusaist has pulled their restraint down at sometime. They don't hurt anyone by doing it-all it does is delay loading by 20 some odd seconds for the rideop to signal to open the restraints and the op to press the button.
This a little stupid and off-topic, but I give credit to the map designers. In 2004, Triple lost an arm. (according to the SF website map, not the park, it might be different, I'm not sure) For so many years it had four.
However, now they have IW black. It's not only ours, but every park seems to not know what color roller coasters are.
About the ops, some of them are nuts (On SUF, crazy working the ride), they love to have races (who can harness the people in the fastest), and lastly they love to stall.