BGW should install a red and green light at the top of the spike…..showing when the ride is open or down. Then again maintenance would get tired of replacing the red bulb…….
Project 2022: Pantheon
- Thread starter Shane
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To save even more on energy costs, just light it up for the 15 minutes per day it is actually running.
So with this stormy couple of days it kind of dawned on me that pantheon is going to be down on average like every other day, with VAs propensity to have thunderstorms every afternoon when it’s hot and humid. Those of course bring with them wind gusts before any rain/lightning show up, and of course will mean that Pantheon could be shut down for awhile, a lot of the time.
Finally got on Pantheon this past Thursday and it was everything I had hoped it'd be & more. Incredibly smooth, well paced, great airtime, and it personally didn't feel too short. When it was first unveiled, I pretty much wrote off the swing launch section as uninteresting, but after riding it, I've done a full 180 on that. Best section of the ride IMO. That sensation of launching backward, hitting that hill and your body ejecting upwards AND forwards simultaneously was WILD. Drop was also fantastic in the back row, outer bank was a little better than I expected. Park was only open for 6 hours, but I don't think it broke down at all while I was there (aside from the delayed opening). Overall, very satisfied with Pantheon. Love that the park finally has a unanimous best coaster now 
It's probably the ride to rope-drop for a while, but add to that the fact that wind is usually lowest in the morning.
Yesterday Pantheon was down basically all day (ops had said that it ran for less than an hour at open) along with what seemed like half the park. I understand things break but I was seriously upset at the way BGW handled things. I entered the park between 1pm and 2pm using my free ticket that BGW gave me so I could ride Pantheon since the 2 years I had a pass they didn't open it..... on the board out front they listed Verbolten and Mach Tower as being temporarily closed but nothing else. There were ops at the bridge entrance saying that it was in an extended shut down but I waited for a while anyway and I heard them tell numerous people that when they say there is an extended shutdown that means hours or possibly the day but if they say temporary shutdown that usually means something that'll be about a half hour or so. Left the area at some point and returned around 6:45 to watch a cycle run and to hear the ops change the message from extended shut down to temporary shut down..... even the way they started talking to people really started to sound different as if they believed it was going to open..... somewhere right around 7pm the ride ran perfect cycles and all of the maintenance guys left and then.... nothing. Literally everyone just stood around kind of talking to each other except for saying "temporary shut down".... at about 7:30 they all of a sudden made an announcement that it would not open and all the ops literally just walked away. It really seemed like the problem was resolved and ready to operate but that there was a point that they wouldn't have to open the ride because it was too close to closing time so they basically just ran our the clock rather than open it for the last hour.
Above all, I was mostly pissed about them not listing Pantheon on the board out front. At first I thought that maybe it went down as I entered the park but when I heard the ops telling everyone that it had been down since around 11am it was clear that it had been down for hours before..... I honestly had a back up plan to go to KD instead if Pnatheon was listed as being down because I didn't want to use my ticket and not get to ride. Worse yet, with other attractions being down and lines being long as a result of all the down rides I really didn't get to do much at all.
My secondary complaint is I was pretty hungry but basically NOTHING was open except for the food and wine stands which were nice but absolutely not a meal despite being priced like an expensive meal. I understand that people enjoy the options available at F&W and I can honestly see the benefit of it but closing all of your other food stands isn't really acceptable because there are people that just actually need a meal.
For my "free" day at BGW to ride Pantheon I spent about $35 in gas as well as $30 to park, $10 for a locker that I ended up using once since everything was closed, and $40 in "snacks" at the festival to try to keep me going until I left the park. I got to ride Apollo's Chariot once, Invadr once, and Rhine River Cruise once......
..... and I've still yet to ride Pantheon.
Above all, I was mostly pissed about them not listing Pantheon on the board out front. At first I thought that maybe it went down as I entered the park but when I heard the ops telling everyone that it had been down since around 11am it was clear that it had been down for hours before..... I honestly had a back up plan to go to KD instead if Pnatheon was listed as being down because I didn't want to use my ticket and not get to ride. Worse yet, with other attractions being down and lines being long as a result of all the down rides I really didn't get to do much at all.
My secondary complaint is I was pretty hungry but basically NOTHING was open except for the food and wine stands which were nice but absolutely not a meal despite being priced like an expensive meal. I understand that people enjoy the options available at F&W and I can honestly see the benefit of it but closing all of your other food stands isn't really acceptable because there are people that just actually need a meal.
For my "free" day at BGW to ride Pantheon I spent about $35 in gas as well as $30 to park, $10 for a locker that I ended up using once since everything was closed, and $40 in "snacks" at the festival to try to keep me going until I left the park. I got to ride Apollo's Chariot once, Invadr once, and Rhine River Cruise once......
..... and I've still yet to ride Pantheon.
That does stink....did you stop at GR and mention you were there on your ticket to get in to ride Pantheon buy it was closed the whole day? They possibly would have done something. As far as Verbolten It was down the whole time I was there Friday and then Saturday night it was down and the area was deserted and you say Sunday...so basically the whole weekend. As far as the food, its redicilious how they are running it. You are correct bascially all the snack stands are closed and Marco Polos is closed which is completely dumb given the fact they have a theater with a active show that is designed to sit in and eat....you cant even get a drink anywhere in that area unless you go to a food booth which close a hour before park closing. When you walk around it feel like 50% of the park is closed on any given day and theres always a excuse that people try and use to give the a pass on why. If you pay to get in a park you should get the full experience, we are local and go to the park very often but we never go without a plan to eat before we get there or to eat when we leave. Any food or snacks we get is just a bonus although here during F&W we basically get get our free members samples and thats it.
I would consider messaging the park and talk to them about the ticket you used and the fact it was closed the entire day you were there.....it may or may not get you somewhere.....but again I guess it all depends on if you want to go through the cost of getting there again for a wildcard chance in riding.
I did stop at GR..... it became an ordeal because they had no idea such tickets existed.... they kept telling me I had a comp ticket (which is what the actual ticket was).... I ended up having to pull up the email they sent me back in March before they finally understood that I wasn't making up the whole Pantheon thing up. They had someone on the phone.... the guy said they were going to give me another ticket to use through May 26th and had me fill out a form but then once he finished everything up he said that they'll review it and let me know their decission by email and it might take a few days. Hopefully I'll get good news.
Knowing Busch youll get the email on May 27th.
I'm surprised they didn't just give you another comp ticket that expired a year later. I've had luck with comp tickets at the FL parks. Went with out of town family on a day it rained like a monsoon the whole time, asked for comp tix to replace the bring a friend Tix I used and a ride remit for the 90 mins we had waited for infinity falls. Showed them the bring a friend tickets and they didn't give me any flack.
It seems that depending on the day they might be more or less lenient.
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@CoasterTalkBob, I sympathize with your recent experience, as I too went to the park yesterday (Sunday) and redeemed my free comp ticket to ride Pantheon.
I arrived at the park just after 10, and was fortunately able to get a single ride on Pantheon (at around 11:10), just before it closed. Throughout the day I kept returning to Pantheon, hoping for a re-ride. But alas, it was not meant to be.
Otherwise park ops were really suffering yesterday - where Verbolten was down; Griffon was down; Finnegan's Flyer was down; Mach Tower was down; Alpengeist was up at one point. But by the time I got the chance to ride it, went down. And lines just to get water or a soft drink were 15 to 25 minute waits at most places.
But on the positive side... That single ride on Pantheon was so awesome, that it just about made up for all the other negatives of the day.
So if the park is able to get a new comp ticket issued to you... coming from a fellow BGW fan who is taking a year off from his membership - due to frustrations with all the shenanigans surrounding the ride's opening - I would strongly recommend that you take the risk in giving Pantheon another shot -- as it really is an incredible coaster, deserving all the praise it's been receiving... that is, when it's actually up and running
This is kind of what one of my biggest frustrations is with this ordeal.... even at this point I'm stupidly busy at work and need to plan a day sooner rather than later since my weekends are consumed.....
The thing with BGW is that they are so used to people just spending money again anyway that they don't feel any kind of a need to do much to win back a guest that is upset. In Florida people will go to another park but their mentality up here is that no one wants to go to KD (which isn't the case) and no matter how upset someone is they're going to spend the money anyway. I'm not but they don't know that......
As much as I have been looking forward to riding Pantheon I am starting to not care anymore. I've been so excited about that coaster for so long but I'm just..... I dunno.... it's not worth it. Even if everyone told me that it's Velocicoaster level I don't know that I even care to go back to the park to ride it. I've been frustrated with BGW for a while but after Sunday I don't care to ever step foot in the park again. It wasn't SFWoA level but it was the closest I ever got (and after WoA I didn't visit another SF park for more than 15 years)@CoasterTalkBob, I sympathize with your recent experience, as I too went to the park yesterday (Sunday) and redeemed my free comp ticket to ride Pantheon.
I arrived at the park just after 10, and was fortunately able to get a single ride on Pantheon (at around 11:10), just before it closed. Throughout the day I kept returning to Pantheon, hoping for a re-ride. But alas, it was not meant to be.
Otherwise park ops were really suffering yesterday - where Verbolten was down; Griffon was down; Finnegan's Flyer was down; Mach Tower was down; Alpengeist was up at one point. But by the time I got the chance to ride it, went down. And lines just to get water or a soft drink were 15 to 25 minute waits at most places.
But on the positive side... That single ride on Pantheon was so awesome, that it just about made up for all the other negatives of the day.
So if the park is able to get a new comp ticket issued to you... coming from a fellow BGW fan who is taking a year off from his membership - due to frustrations with all the shenanigans surrounding the ride's opening - I would strongly recommend that you take the risk in giving Pantheon another shot -- as it really is an incredible coaster, deserving all the praise it's been receiving... that is, when it's actually up and running
Its definately not VC level....Ive taken numerous trips to UOR to ride VC and only rode Pantheon a few times during previews. VC is a themed experience...Pantheon is a ride.
I never said I thought that it was. Just saying that even VC being in BGW probably isn't enough to draw me back to that park.
This may be more for the Pantheon thread:
How much of this down-time is self-inflicted by the park, how much is weather, and how much is the general teething issues all new coasters (especially Intamins) have in their first operating season?
Just thinking, it sounds like staffing is available (though it's unclear if staff spieling at the bridge are trained ops or not - perhaps the person trained for the board called out?), weather is what it is, and just because they've test cycled before opening to the public doesn't mean all the kinks have been worked out.
How much of this down-time is self-inflicted by the park, how much is weather, and how much is the general teething issues all new coasters (especially Intamins) have in their first operating season?
Just thinking, it sounds like staffing is available (though it's unclear if staff spieling at the bridge are trained ops or not - perhaps the person trained for the board called out?), weather is what it is, and just because they've test cycled before opening to the public doesn't mean all the kinks have been worked out.
I personally think this is Intamin teething issues combined with the fact that the ride sat idle for too long. If you let a car sit for a year or two you're almost certainly going to have issues with it when you start driving it again.
I also was thinking -- and I don't know if this is the case -- that maybe since SEAS left the ride sit for so long the time period that Intamin would have on-site assistance for the opening of a ride had expired so the park shot themselves in the foot and now they are trying to figure things out over the phone -- and this coaster has technology that isn't like anything else BGW has worked with before. It's my understanding that when you get a ride from Intamin they'll have someone on site for a determined amount of time at opening specifically so they can work with the park on issues that occur but, of course, that's built into a schedule. With the way BGW/SEAS kept delaying the coaster without being up front about it it could just be that Intamin doesn't have people available at this point as they are needed on other projects.
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