WOF cancels grand opening with less than 24hr notice

[Coastercrush]

https://www.worldsoffun.com/rides-experiences/zambezi-zinger

[BoddaH1994]

Yeah, I saw someone on Twitter that was pretty upset since they had already booked a hotel and stuff. I totally understand that. On the other hand, I’m sure the park didn’t make this decision lightly. They knew the blowback that there were going to have, but they made the decision anyway. This tells me they had no choice. Sucky situation all around. 

[SonofBaconator]

17 minutes ago, BoddaH1994 said:

Yeah, I saw someone on Twitter that was pretty upset since they had already booked a hotel and stuff. I totally understand that. On the other hand, I’m sure the park didn’t make this decision lightly. They knew the blowback that there were going to have, but they made the decision anyway. This tells me they had no choice. Sucky situation all around. 

I initially thought that not having a media day for Adventure Port was the wrong move but the more I thought of it, the more I figured it was the right thing to do. If things aren’t completed by opening day, it’s probably best not to have any dates set and opt for soft opens.

[BoddaH1994]

17 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

I initially thought that not having a media day for Adventure Port was the wrong move but the more I thought of it, the more I figured it was the right thing to do. If things aren’t completed by opening day, it’s probably best not to have any dates set and opt for soft opens.

They’ll have a media day when it’s all ready, I imagine. It just won’t hit the same way since thousands will have already seen it. It’ll be an early morning thing, before the park opens. (My guess)

[Kenban]

This caused me to cancel my trip.  At this time not sure what I will do, might reschedule, might make totally new plans.

I will be at Holiwood Nights next weekend.  I had planned on turning it into a longer road trip and making my way out to WoF in part due to the 50th anniversary and also to ride this coaster.  It was going to be a few other parks as well on the way there and on my way back home.  I was already tempted to delay or cancel after I found out that the fireworks do not start until later in the summer, delaying the opening of the ride was the push I needed to just cancel anything past Holiday World.

Rumor is they need a part, not sure what they need.  They were able to complete a decent amount of testing and even released a POV, so it was operating a few weeks ago.

[BoddaH1994]

10 hours ago, Kenban said:

This caused me to cancel my trip.  At this time not sure what I will do, might reschedule, might make totally new plans.

I will be at Holiwood Nights next weekend.  I had planned on turning it into a longer road trip and making my way out to WoF in part due to the 50th anniversary and also to ride this coaster.  It was going to be a few other parks as well on the way there and on my way back home.  I was already tempted to delay or cancel after I found out that the fireworks do not start until later in the summer, delaying the opening of the ride was the push I needed to just cancel anything past Holiday World.

Rumor is they need a part, not sure what they need.  They were able to complete a decent amount of testing and even released a POV, so it was operating a few weeks ago.

But testing and POV doesn’t mean it’s guest-ready. They could have been running the whole thing in manual mode for all we know, which wouldn’t be appropriate for guests.

Im not sure if I buy the part thing or not. It’s just that you’d think they’d have that figured out earlier on. I think they found something wrong, or something that they wish to correct before putting guests on it.  But hey - would you rather see them wait until it’s 100% ready or just put guests on it and find out what happens? 

[Kenban]

1 hour ago, BoddaH1994 said:

 

Im not sure if I buy the part thing or not. It’s just that you’d think they’d have that figured out earlier on. I think they found something wrong, or something that they wish to correct before putting guests on it.  But hey - would you rather see them wait until it’s 100% ready or just put guests on it and find out what happens? 

I did not find out until after I wrote that.  It was actually confirmed to be missing parts by a pair of GCI employees over the weekend at an ACE event at WoF.  It’s something unique to the Infinity Flyers, and they are waiting for the parts to arrive from somewhere in Europe.  Except for these missing parts, the ride is complete and ready to open.

My understanding is it is related to the electronics for the restraints.

[Tr0y]

Jeez…What is going on with Cedar Fair and the delayed openings? It’s not like the supply chain, and labor shortage issues just showed up being that this is year 3 since the Covid Lockdowns. From what I’ve read beyond the Zambezi Zinger, Worlds Of Fun like Kings Island, too was off to a rough start with a lot of rides not being opened and the park in general not appearing to be ready for opening day. Canada’s Wonderland new rides were not ready for opening day as well. Maybe CF should increase the lead times on new additions by starting these projects sooner the season prior.

[teenageninja]

8 hours ago, Tr0y said:

Jeez…What is going on with Cedar Fair and the delayed openings? It’s not like the supply chain, and labor shortage issues just showed up being that this is year 3 since the Covid Lockdowns. From what I’ve read beyond the Zambezi Zinger, Worlds Of Fun like Kings Island, too was off to a rough start with a lot of rides not being opened and the park in general not appearing to be ready for opening day. Canada’s Wonderland new rides were not ready for opening day as well. Maybe CF should increase the lead times on new additions by starting these projects sooner the season prior.

The lengthening of the operating season certainly doesn't help.  The park used to start the seasonal refurbishments in November, not January.  

I would say the supply chain issues for consumers have been mostly fixed, but I work in manufacturing and getting material for custom parts/ low volume parts is still difficult.

[BoddaH1994]

9 hours ago, Kenban said:

I did not find out until after I wrote that.  It was actually confirmed to be missing parts by a pair of GCI employees over the weekend at an ACE event at WoF.  It’s something unique to the Infinity Flyers, and they are waiting for the parts to arrive from somewhere in Europe.  Except for these missing parts, the ride is complete and ready to open.

My understanding is it is related to the electronics for the restraints.

It still doesn’t app up. How do they go from, “We open tomorrow!” to “We need a critical part that’s in Europe.” Maybe @teenageninja can shed a little more light on the supply chain side of things (I don’t know what I don’t know) but it just doesn’t make sense.

1 hour ago, teenageninja said:

The lengthening of the operating season certainly doesn't help.  The park used to start the seasonal refurbishments in November, not January.  

I would say the supply chain issues for consumers have been mostly fixed, but I work in manufacturing and getting material for custom parts/ low volume parts is still difficult.

Normally I’d agree, but they’ve done WF for like five or six seasons now and it hasn’t been a problem. Cedar Point’s opening weekend seems to be typically tougher than KI’s but KI almost always has everything going (outside of extraneous situations) - and that’s with that extra shoulder season. That shows that something was different this year. Supply chain? Probably. But why didn’t it hit that hard last year or in 2021? Could have just been a series of bad luck. 

[teenageninja]

If the component is Infinity Flyer related, I'm guessing something was damaged during testing, maybe a minor bump?  Hard to really say.  Seems like an unforeseen circumstance.

As for the difference between this past year and this year for having things ready, could it be manpower related?  Did they scale back working hours in the off-season?  Did they get a late start after Winterfest?  

I know in manufacturing, basically everyone is hiring, and everyone is running overtime to try and keep up with demand.  

Probably a combination of a few different things to be truthful.

[Kenban]

The company I work for is still getting quotes of 2+ years on what used to be off the shelf electronic components.  When you’re dealing with long lead times it’s really common for the supplier to get the estimate wrong.  A couple of extra weeks or months is really common.  My gut says the supplier is giving delivery dates and just not delivering.  I have been in the middle of this before.  You place an order and are told it will be delivered by X day.  Which you use to tell your customers when they should expect their orders.  The problems occur when you don’t get your parts on time, suddenly your production is backed up and cannot deliver to your customers by the dates you already promised, which just snow balls down the chain.

I do blame Worlds of Fun for not cancelling the opening earlier.  I cannot imagine GCI was not communicating to the park about this issue.  Likely they were planning to use overnight shipping to get the items as quickly as is possible, and relying on bad information, but they held out hope for way too long.

The impression I have is the parts have always been missing, and that nothing broke, it’s not important to test the ride, and I read where the park was even able to train ride ops.  My understanding is that GCI employees have been riding it as well.

All of my guesses deal with locking/unlocking restraints, restraint position sensors, or communication between the train and the station when parked in the station.  Something that you can work around or disable without too much hassle but you need working for operating with park guests.