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Apr 17, 2017
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I am in the process of finalizing my application to be a ride operator at Kings Dominion. While very excited for this position, I am not sure what attraction(s) I may be positioned to work at. How do parks like Kings Dominion determine this?
 
They'll probably start out by seeing which areas/rides are understaffed. I'd imagine that Kings Dominion will need staff everywhere so that doesn't necessarily narrow it down.
 
If you get something you don’t like, after x amount of hours you can transfer and are almost guaranteed to get it if you’re a good employee. You can also ask for a particular location if you have a reasoning (want to work on a B&M, Intamin, Etc)

One of the best rides to work* are Drop Tower, Dominator, and Canyon. Intimidator and Twisted, while good rides, put a strain on your body if I’m being honest with you. Feel free to reach out for help during the hiring process :)
 
I will preface this with the fact I have never worked at a CF park, only BGW, but I have known people who worked at KD/CP/KI before. From what I'm aware of, they assign you where staff is needed, you dont get to pick usually. Then you can train at almost any ride in the general vicinity after you have worked your assigned ride for a while. Busch does this differently. You generally get to pick what ride you work, provided there is a spot at the ride you want. Then you can generally train at any ride within the park ops area (1 of 4) you were originally hired in on. Sometimes they allow cross area training in special circumstances. For instance, I was lead at Mach (Area 3) one year, but had been lead at Alpie (Then Area 2) the previous year. They were severely short staffed at Alpie during a day Mach was down. I went over, did the minimum cycles, took the tests, and then jumped in to make sure the ride was staffed the rest of the day, else they would have shut down.
 
Having now worked one season at the park, are rehires sent to the same location as they were the previous season or is it still based on staffing levels?
 
KD will typically send rehires to the same area, if not the same location the following season. With that being said, staffing needs can effect this. Location Supervisors typically were the most likely to be moved around, but it isn't unheard of line workers switching locations, you'd have to talk to management to get it approved.
 
One of the best rides to work* are Drop Tower, Dominator, and Canyon. Intimidator and Twisted, while good rides, put a strain on your body if I’m being honest with you. Feel free to reach out for help during the hiring process :)

Of all the coasters I've worked Anaconda was the absolute worst. It already doesn't help that the station isn't flat, but the restraints stick so much you'll go insane. Snoopy vs Red Baron is the only ride that I think is worse. Little kids+water is not a fun mix, and so many parents try to ride it's ridiculous. I always got bored at Intimidator and Twisted after a while. Both were single ride locations when I was there and basically have only 3 different positions (Board, Floor, Greeter).
 
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At Great Adventure, it varied depending on when you were hired. If you were hired in preseason you tended to get put where you wanted, or at least in a similar location. Like for example, if you wanted El Toro but they couldn't give you that position, they'd typically try to put you in a similar environment like Kingda Ka or Nitro. However, Great Adventure usually employed a placement survey for rides employees that determined the environments that were the best fit for you so it wasn't like you could get assigned Seaport and turn around and ask to get sent to Batman or something. In the middle of the season it tended to prioritize where staffing was needed but outside of entire crews getting fired it was rare for new hires to be overly prioritized to certain rides, they still got sent around with some randomness off of the placement test I mentioned earlier.

Great Adventure was also fairly open to cross-training on different rides and sections if you were willing and if they had the ability to free you up to get trained, but when staffing started turning real bad in 2015 it basically became more of a luck thing to get cross-trained if you were a team member. If you were a returning team member you had the option to return to the ride you wanted or not, however if you had the availability it was fairly likely you'd get recertified on your previous ride(s) in the preseason if they were ready.

Ride Supervisors were a different story entirely, it was fairly common to be moved around as a supervisor during a season. For example when I was a supervisor in 2016 I was moved around between Superman, Bizarro, the Boardwalk, Log Flume, and Fantasy Forest. In 2017 I was moved around between Fantasy Forest, Green Lantern, Boardwalk, and Congo Rapids. I never quite understood why they did it but getting trained on over 50% of the park in the span of 4 years was a fun experience.
 
Having now worked one season at the park, are rehires sent to the same location as they were the previous season or is it still based on staffing levels?
Busch let any line position choose any location, provided there were spots available. For rides, Railroad Engineer always filled up first. Most coasters wouldn't fill until partly though the new hire season.
 
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Busch let any line position choose any location, provided there were spots available. For rides, Railroad Engineer always filled up first. Most coasters wouldn't fill until partly though the new hire season.
That's interesting. I had met someone who worked at Busch before transferring to KD and they said for the most part they assign line workers to a location, sometimes they would let them pick if staffing was an issue. Then again this person told me they mainly worked at Water Country so I don't know if they use the same system there. I also come back to this thread mainly in light of Logan Joiner talking about his ride operator experience at Kings Island. He said he got to train at several different locations, including Bat, Mystic Timbers, Diamondback, and Orion to name a few. I wonder if this means KI does things a little differently than KD but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same. Additionally, when would the water rides at Busch usually fill up?
 
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Of all the coasters I've worked Anaconda was the absolute worst. It already doesn't help that the station isn't flat, but the restraints stick so much you'll go insane. Snoopy vs Red Baron is the only ride that I think is worse. Little kids+water is not a fun mix, and so many parents try to ride it's ridiculous. I always got bored at Intimidator and Twisted after a while. Both were single ride locations when I was there and basically have only 3 different positions (Board, Floor, Greeter).
Ohhh Red Baron gave me some nerve-touching vibes. It was the only ride in Neptune where I had board and was also tricky to close each night because guests enter the ride directly from the park pathway, and there's no official way to cut the line at park close. Also, by area do you mean the park sections themselves (I-Street, Planet Snoopy, etc.) or the groups of locations according to the ops department (I-Street/Old Virginia, CAG, Safari Village)?
 
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They keep a spreadsheet with numbers on how many tragic accidents were caused by a given operator on a particular ride, and then they put them on the one they've killed the least people on.
 
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Ohhh Red Baron gave me some nerve-touching vibes. It was the only ride in Neptune where I had board and was also tricky to close each night because guests enter the ride directly from the park pathway, and there's no official way to cut the line at park close. Also, by area do you mean the park sections themselves (I-Street, Planet Snoopy, etc.) or the groups of locations according to the ops department (I-Street/Old Virginia, CAG, Safari Village)?
Ops areas, so ISOVa, PS, CAG, or SV.
 
That's interesting. I had met someone who worked at Busch before transferring to KD and they said for the most part they assign line workers to a location, sometimes they would let them pick if staffing was an issue. Then again this person told me they mainly worked at Water Country so I don't know if they use the same system there. I also come back to this thread mainly in light of Logan Joiner talking about his ride operator experience at Kings Island. He said he got to train at several different locations, including Bat, Mystic Timbers, Diamondback, and Orion to name a few. I wonder if this means KI does things a little differently than KD but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same. Additionally, when would the water rides at Busch usually fill up?
If you were late to the party, you didn't have much choice. That was usually post job fair. If you picked/were hired before the job fair, there were more options. Rehires would get first pick, as the rehire process started as early as October when I was there. When I was first hired, the only coasters available were LNM and AC (keep in mind this was 2010 and there were only 4 at the time). Every year after that (until I got promoted) I had my pick of wherever. Once promoted, I did not get a choice and was assigned to whatever location (or later on village) was needed, mostly based on which supervisors liked me. Once, as a lead, I did get my pick, but again, that's because the supervisor in charge of placement liked me and would place me wherever I wanted (within her area).
 
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