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Cedar Point | "GateKeeper" | B&M Wingrider

Exactly, I think it'll make a rather nice first impression for park go-ers. It should be real interesting to see (overtime) if people go left into Raptor or right towards GateKeeper. I'm thinking you'll see substantially lower wait times at Raptor as it falls into the Gemini, Corkscrew, Magnum category of has beens.
 
Raptor has always been a has been.. it just has good placement and sometimes terrible capacity depending on the weather. Any visitor who has been there a few times knows how to hit those Magnum/Gemini/Corkscrew wait times on Raptor.
 
Which is all reason why I predict GateKeeper will constantly have 2+ hour waits for its first season. Raptor has seen perpetual hour and a half waits in the morning as it is the first ride into the park - and now GateKeeper will be the second ride guests can hit going into the park.

It truly is fair to say that Raptor's popularity has been majorly effected by its placement. Ask the average park goer where it ranks in their CP lineup, and many will have it in the top three with MF and TTD. It is a roller coaster you cannot miss, and has been at the forefront of CP since 1994.

Platinum Pass ERT never sounded so good. :wink:

GateKeeper will have a Fast Lane pass as well. I asked how the logistics would work out (such as how TTD is essentially down to 1 train operation for GP, Fast Lane has a dedicated train in the loading station), but details are not available. I really, REALLY hope that Fast Lane loading will not result in fast laners loading on one side of the train while the GP loads on the other. This doubles the load time and would add even more of a wait.

Want to start placing bets on how long the line will extend opening day? I'm feeling to Matterhorn.
 
From Gatekeeper's facebook page:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRnc6f3E6MY[/youtube]
 
Hyde244 said:
GateKeeper will have a Fast Lane pass as well. I asked how the logistics would work out (such as how TTD is essentially down to 1 train operation for GP, Fast Lane has a dedicated train in the loading station), but details are not available. I really, REALLY hope that Fast Lane loading will not result in fast laners loading on one side of the train while the GP loads on the other. This doubles the load time and would add even more of a wait.
Click to expand...
If they copy the fast pass operation that Gardaland and Thorpe Park use, both the regular and fast pass queue lines will terminate in the same place. They'll let the normal queue line through first leaving about eight seats per ride for fast passers (depending on the length of the fast pass queue). The gate operator will tell fast passers which side to sit (ie: fill the empty seats).
 
^ Let us hope for that kind of setup.

This is the first ride to be built since Cedar Point introduced its Fast Lane program. While they have retrofitted previous ride queues with new lines for Fast Lane, admittedly not all of them have blended so well.

For instance, Maverick's station has been a headache with Fast Lane. The Fast Lane queue is actually the employee entrance, right next to the station elevator. For a while they rigidly stuck to assigning seat numbers, peppering in FLers. Then they swapped to a weird train by train load system, where they would flood the station with normal queue riders, stop that line, and then allow all FLers to jump in line, and so on.

I do hope that by being able to build the queue line from the ground up, they'll be able to implement Fast Lane well.
 
The flat spin is compete!

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The Great Ohio Coaster Club has also posted a photo update on their facebook page:

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More photos can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.468123199916987.111549.115430945186216&type=1
 
Fantastic pictures, the snow and the blue sky set off the colour perfectly.

This is turning out to be one stunning coaster.
 
Complete skyline from CP's facebook page (clicky to enlarge):

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From Cedar Point's facebook page:

Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet & VP of Planning and Design Rob Decker with a representative from the steel manufacturing plant, standing in one of the keyholes of the 100-foot-tall Gatekeeper towers that will loom above the park's main entrance.

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Batman clones and Top Gun were all that were selling. CP took it to the next level with Raptor, and look at the result.
Montu, Pyrenees, Alpengeist etc.

Same with Mantis (although short lived)
Chang and Riddler's Revenge.

Inverts were new and innovative, and something easy to sell. Most parks would just ask for a smaller (or at the time) "regular" sized versions. But when CP "took it to the next level", much larger inverts started popping up. Sure not ALL of them were large, but do you get the gist of what I'm saying?

Once GateKeeper is built, hopefully other parks will build even larger. Not saying bigger is better, it's just that I'd like too see how far these will go.
 
Hyde244 said:
Want to start placing bets on how long the line will extend opening day? I'm feeling to Matterhorn.
Click to expand...


I got $5 on all the way to the front gate unless they route the line away from the front.
 
The Halloween cam has been moved to a new location to be able to show front gate construction, where the keyhole towers will be erected.

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Of course, this area can be clearly seen on the Pagoda cam as well.

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Snoo said:
Cant wait to see it in person.
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The pictures probably don't do it justice. I would assume it would be much larger in person.

What's suposed to go up first? The keyhole or the track?
 
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