Like Snapper said, most of the employees were very friendly.....both at PKD and at Carowinds. There was one example at PKD that stood out to all of us. Rebel Yell. Two people working the ride. One driving.....the other checking bars and hitting the co-dispatch. Somehow, they managed to get the train out of the station within about 1-2 minutes. Thats with only two people working. Racer always seems to have 3 people per side, yet I somehow always end up sitting on that darn brake run for at least 5 minutes while they poke around a dispatching the train. Go figure.
- Todd
I'd normally let this slide but I don't think I can let my ride be bad mouthed like this. First, the name of the ride is RACER, meaning that we spend a good portion of the day racing the forwards and backwards trains. This means that we have to coordinate dispatching. We could run the ride a lot faster if we didn't do this but that isn't the point of the ride is it? The most enjoyable part is having both trains leave station at the same time and hoping that the side you're riding wins. If you add on top of that the fact that there is a new height requirement this year, we have to take the time to measure a kid almost every train on at least one of the sides and that is something that just takes a little time. As for having three associates on one side of the station, I don't know what ride you were at because I've been there almost every shift this year and there has never been three associates checking bars one one side of the train at a time. Even if there were three, it wouldn't speed up anything because only one person can check bars on the load side of the train and we don't crosscheck meaning that an associate can only check bars on his or her side of the train. Then there are the seatbelts that can also slow thing down. My whole point is that on some rides, things take time while others go much quicker and I don't think you were making a fair comparison.