I went to Cedar Point tonight at about 5:30 without a reservation. I visited on Sunday the 12th and had… a pretty awful day. In my 2.5 hours, I managed to ride Raptor, Gatekeeper (twice,) Power Tower, Magnum, Top Thrill Dragster, and Steel Vengeance (twice.) The only ride I waited for was Power Tower and that was about 10 minutes. Steel Vengeance, of all rides, was actually a walk-on. That is super rare. Staffing is getting better as they’re bringing in lots of people from other Cedar Fair parks to fill the gaps. So in the next few weeks, expect to see things go a little more smoothly.
I think it’s a little useless to run 3-trains on their B&M’s because they double stack every time. With Covid, ride hosts must dismiss riders to the exit gates row by row (or two at once, etc) to keep the exits from getting clogged with no social distancing. This doesn’t take long, but it means that dispatches are a little slower, which I understand. Just seems a little silly to be running 3 when there’s zero chance of that train not stacking. Throughput would be the same with 2.
Here’s what’s blowing my mind though. Steel Vengeance is known for having some pretty horrible dispatch times. Last year, the pouches ensured you were probably always going to double stack. The pouches are gone this year and dispatch times are WAY up. Now remember, they’re only loading every other row so there IS less seats to check, but since they’re dismissing riders row by row to the exit and not opening the queue gates right away, this kind of evens it out anyway. I was shocked to see them running all three trains and only stacking one behind the station for a brief moment. They were typically sending a train in the station when the train ahead was entering the block brake or just shortly after. I’ve NEVER seen Steel Vengeance do that with all three trains. Not once. So mad props to the crew for being efficient as hell on one of the worst rides in the park to work.