Cedar Point’s response was pretty abysmal which is starting to be a trend it seems. First Aid released the guest after cleaning his wounds… The next day he ended up in the ER and found out that he had a concussion.
If parks don’t start prosecuting people who aren’t responsible enough to properly secure their articles this problem is going to keep getting worse. There is very little incentive to follow rules when parks generally don’t seem to take action when the rules are broken… Charging people for lockers and removing platform bins make this problem worse (although not an excuse for Maverick which still does have bins). To be clear, this isn’t Cedar Point’s fault but they do have a responsibility to take action against those that broke the rules… Likely they’ll just remove the bins from Maverick and punish everyone following the rules while the culprit goes free.
Bottom line is if you start showing others that you’re in serious trouble if you don’t secure your articles then people will start taking this seriously. They have no reason to care otherwise.
My favorite part of Universal Orlando was that the small lockers were free for all of the rides with park admission so there was no incentive to hold onto loose articles on the ride. We don’t need the full double-sided locker experience like with Steel Vengeance or Velocicoaster, but there should be some free locker access for at least the major rides where there is a significant safety risk.
Honestly, with the way parks are pushing people to use their phones for many aspects of surviving in a theme park and the length of lines we face I think it’s unreasonable to require someone to wait in the line without their phone… And this is coming from someone that absolutely believes our reliance on phones is ridiculous.
But you did hit the nail on the head… However you do it, it has to be free. It’s ridiculous that parks charge you high rates for admission and then sill nickle and dime you once you’re in the park and it’s egregious when they put you in a position that you have to pay money in order to follow the rules that pertain to safety.
Yeah that’s true too. At least from a ticketing standpoint, Universal provides temporary locker passes in case your park ticket is on your phone (or in my case, my printed ticket got destroyed by Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls 😅).
The best setup is where the lockers are in the queue to minimize time away from phones if they are needed. That being said, I didn’t feel like I needed mine even in the longer line for the Hagrid coaster where lockers were before the queue line. Lockers also help speed up operations since you don’t have to wait for people to put items in bins.
Personally I’m usually ok without my phone when I’m by myself but often times when you’re at a park with a group/family there’s a lot of synchronizing that needs to happen… The group may split up so being able to tell someone “I’m close to the station” or whatever the case may be can help a ton when the other part of your group finishes their ride and wants to know if they should fit in another… There’s of course the conversations that comeup that require RCDB so that’s also an aspect 😂