Factors that close rides

[Oldiesmann]

Biggest reason I'd like to see more people moved quicker or interval hit better is plain and simple. Kings Island does not have very high capacity rides other than a few like diamond back, beast, Vortex, and I believe Adventure Express...everything else has low capacity...just improving a few things here and there and shaving off a few seconds can improve ridership. Two good examples showing the difference. At power tower this year the maint. department has been messing with the turbo drop primary tube charge a bit this season and it fills quicker and starts the drop sooner and ends the ride sooner..these few seconds mean every hour a few more dispatched can be sent which means more riders. Stuff like this is a great move for the park. However for my old ride changes this year by the new paramount lady are crazy..for instance now our one load has to only clear from the front and not the back always means after checking his whole train he must come back up to the front of the station to give his clear and he's the first clear in the order...so these few seconds hinder the ride, amongst other policies they started this year but those are for another time I need sleep for an early wakeup and long day on the base tomorrow...

And the reason for the "load has to only clear from the front" policy? Safety. By requiring the person to come to the front, there's no chance that the others will misinterpret or misunderstand their signal. It also ensures they don't accidentally end up in the path of the moving train since there's not usually a lot of space between the gates and the track/train.

If you start with low capacity rides, then add policies that hinder reaching theoretical capacity, the lines move even slower and the ride moves less people. When you help these rides work their best, you get closer to theoretical, and more people ride. Plus the quicker they're out of the wishes, the more rides they get, the better guest experience, the more money guests have the potential to spend in the park on other stuff which brings the company revenue and helps with future plans, expansion, ect which I'm all for...

I'm sure the park is well aware of how various policies affect capacity. They have reasons for these policies, even if they don't make sense to the average guest. Their main goal is finding a way to ensure guests are as safe as possible without hindering capacity. Sometimes they may implement additional policies specifically to increase capacity or speed up operations (this is why you can't leave things in the station on Firehawk, why they assign rows on Diamondback [and sometimes other coasters], etc.).

[Creed Bratton]

So back to the original topic, what have you all seen a ride go down for?

When working on Crypt in 2010, we had to close the ride down several times one day because of a bird in the ride chamber. They would enter the ride chamber when the automatic doors would open for people to exit and they'd remain open for what seemed like 5 minutes. Trying to chase a bird out of an enclosed ride area is quite entertaining, but at least it was air conditioned.

[The Interpreter]

Lowes and Home Depot don't even try...in my experience. WalMart must, as food is sold therein.

[jcgoble3]

Lowes and Home Depot don't even try...in my experience. WalMart must, as food is sold therein.

The Xenia, Ohio, Walmart doesn't try either. I've see birds flying around on the grocery side before. They just put up netting around the leafy greens in the produce cooler to keep the birds away from them when that begins to become a problem. Just one reason I've stopped buying food there.