Apollo's Chariot

[warfelg]

I feel for the parks ride ops and it's not really fair to put tons of blame on them for slow dispatches. The park asks ops to work long, hot days for embarrassingly low pay given the parks profits, and our reward system for hitting high numbers of dispatches is basically the equivalent of a pat on the back. 5 minute dispatches are bad, and I'm not saying they aren't, but if you want something to change the pressure should really be put on park and SEAS leadership to give ops a reason to be quick, not on the ride ops at Apollo or any other ride. Imo

Just me, but I think it's an all around issue.

BGW needs to pay and put the right people in lead positions for rides.
The Ride Ops need to not be so apathetic.
And I think the guests play into this issue because they can often not be ready or not paying attention or just being difficult.

I believe there's a lot of work to be done all around. These are just my personal takes:
BGW - Pay ride ops more, make being an ops lead an internship that's paid well, and invest in some older full time staff that's paid well.
Ride Ops - I'm not sure what to do here other than just have a better hiring process.
Guests - Honestly, I think making it SOP in the industry to have two sided lockers for the entrance and exit should be a thing, and make it so everything has to go in just a short walk before boarding.

 

[Coasternerd]

Back in my days of being an InvadR op I worked with a few friends of mine who also loved trying to move quickly if possible. We would often manual spiel, tag team loose articles checks (unload would pick up anything, load would grab stuff from load side and hand it over), and safely but quickly check harnesses. We would often hit about a 50 second dispatch time. It’s definitely the guests AND the staff. Because if people are listening (which happens a lot more with manual spieling), and ops aren’t moving at a glacial pace, it’s possible. The crew I worked with and I actually beat the maximum theoretical capacity a couple times.

 

[jscll]

Pedantry corner; technically you did not beat the theoretical capacity, you just proved that someone calculated the maximum number of dispatches an hour incorrectly.
The energy created from a fast crew is quite contagious to guests.

When I go to university in August I wanna apply to be a ride op so bad I will fix this if I have to do it by myself.

As a ride op, I have seen one motivated team lead whip an apathetic crew into shape. Unfortunately, as well as enthusiasm being contagious, so is lethargy.

 

[willrobs3]

The energy created from a fast crew is quite contagious to guests.

It really is. The whole station feeds off the vibe of the ops crew. Apollo's always seems to have a good crew, unlike Pantheon where everyone always seems to be miserable.

As a ride op, I have seen one motivated team lead whip an apathetic crew into shape. Unfortunately, as well as enthusiasm being contagious, so is letlethargy

This so true and goes for any team in any industry. Misery loves company and that one team member's negativity will spread like cancer. The unfortunate side is that the positivity takes time and has to be nurtured and grown - and as soon as you make progress an outside influence can tear that down in an instant. Like growing an apple tree, you spend years cultivating and doing everything right for a storm to come through and knock the tree over in a second.

 

[realrx]

Let’s take the time to appreciate Apollo's first drop. Genuinely though I put AC’s first drop up there with DBack & RB. It feels so sustained and for some reason it’s one of the only drops that still gives me the stomach feeling no matter all times I’ve ridden it. The view you get from the lift is top tier alone at night you can see the light pollution from the Hampton roads area it’s so sick. I’m really mad Busch decided to trim Apollo a bunch now, also anyone love the click sound it makes when it’s the valley’s?