I woke up at about 8am, got ready, called a cab, and arrived at Cedar Point at about 9am. They don't open to normal guests till 10am, so after I got my ticket and opted to pay more for their "fast lane" line-skipping kinda-unfair program, but I figured if I wanted to see everything in one day I should get it, even though I loathed the idea (yes, I am a hypocrite.) How it works is on most of the popular rides there's a separate entrance for "fast lane" people which pretty much gets you to the loading building of the rollercoasters. I think the longest I had to wait was 15 minutes to get on a ride versus 1.5 hour queue times I saw in the middle of the day.
But, after having a hard time figuring out what was where, I downloaded the Cedar Point app to view the park map. I was getting off the 5th ride of the day, the Maverick, when I went to pull out my phone to see where I wanted to go and it was GONE! I ran up the exit to the ride and asked the people working there if they had seen my phone. Nope! Great, that thing was probably my most important piece of equipment on this trip, the ability to pull it out and see where you are and what was around you was invaluable! I wasn't sure if I lost it on the ride or if it fell out of my seat as I was getting off, and I didn't know which was worse, someone random with my phone or it sitting somewhere I couldn't get to.
So I trudged back to the entrance of the park to the lost & found desk and told them about my missing phone. They had me fill out a form and told me to call tomorrow to see if it was found. This wasn't going to work at all.
Just then I remembered that I had installed a tracking program on it using Prey Project. I asked the lost & found lady if I could use her computer and got the typical "sorry we can't do that" response. Damn! So I went to the front of the park and called a cab via the courtesy phone and went back to Melanie and Bob's place. They had given me their garage access code if I needed to come or go when they weren't around.
So back at the host's place, I used their computer to track my phone. I got a location report back - right underneath a part of the roller coaster that you can't access! Well, at least now I know where it is. I printed two copies of the google maps picture showing the location of my phone and called up the cab service for a third trip - back to Cedar Point!
When I got back I took my location picture to lost & found and they were like "duuur, ok... can't do anything about it, go to park operations." So I go there and the guys there were a lot more helpful, they called the ride and told them about where to look, but said the area can only be searched either when the ride is down or closed for the night. They suggested I bring the phone location picture to the people at the ride so they would know where to look.
I know still had about 7 hours till the park closed and I wanted to give it to the people who would be at the ride during closing so I pretty much just decided to go on more rides, thought by about 8pm I was all rollercoastered out and decided to hang out near the ride till close.
It was at this time a man and woman sat down near me that I had seen like 4-5 times in the lines at at rides around the park. I struck up a conversation with them, Stefan and Christie, and they turned out to be very cool and enjoyed hearing about my travels thus far.
Eventually it was 10pm and I made my way up the exit ramp of the Maverick again and told the people working there about my phone and showed them my map. Waiting there was another guy who also lost his cell phone and a couple that had lost their camera. One of the ladies working there came over and said "does your phone look like this?" and pulled it out! I was very relieved that the screen wasn't cracked and it didn't look like it fell off a roller coaster at all. Apparently one of the maintenance people found it around 8:30pm and threw it in the box of found stuff.
I stuck around for a while and talked to the other guy who lost his phone. I ended up repeatedly calling it so it would be ringing and hopefully easier to find. Eventually I had to go as it was 11:30pm and the park was in the latter process of closing down. I kept calling his phone as I walked back to the entrance and it was surreal, most everyone had left, there were a few employees cleaning various things up and a few scraggling guests like myself, but for the most part the park was empty and dark.
I called up a cab and took ride #4 home. Melanie had left the front door unlocked for me so I took a quick shower and went to bed, such a looooooong day!
No comments:
Post a Comment