Trolley/Sipper Cart crash

Share your memories of working at Marriott's GREAT AMERICA in Gurnee
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MGA1
Willard's Whizzer
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Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:19 am
Location: Orlando, FL

Trolley/Sipper Cart crash

Post by MGA1 »

During the 1978 summer, I worked on Logger's Run from Spring opening weekend. When the park went to 7-day operation, we got several new crew members at Logger's Run. Our crew was mostly hs/college age males with 2 female leads (hi Sheila & Cathy). One of our new summer crew members was Mary, an absolutely beautiful girl with the sweetest personality....think Jessica Simpson looks & personality with strawberry blond hair & that was Mary.

Of course every male on the Logger's Crew was smitten with Mary. Unfortunately, the summer crew didn't get as thorough training on the ride as the Spring opening crew & Mary had some difficulty working the chutes at Logger's Run. At that time, both sides of the chutes were used & the operator had to watch (and be prepared to manually intervene) to prevent logs from moving into both the left and right chute at the same time. The ride would shut down automatically if both chutes were occupied. We were trained how to manually override the chutes controls to prevent the ride from shutting down but Mary was never quite able to get the chutes restarted before the entire ride went down. I know she tried her hardest & we all tried to help her. She was retrained & still didn't get it. Most of us ( the guys) really liked Mary and wanted her on our crew. We even started to cover for her by having her bump around us in rotation at chutes so she'd never have to work at chutes. However, the leads and our supervisors didn't like that.

The supervisors (Jeff L. , Brian F., Russ S.) were all total horn dogs as well and didn't want to fire Mary, so they transferred her to the easiest ride in the park....the Trolley. Plus that put Mary in those very sexy and short Orleans Place dresses. The Trolley was the easiest ride to operate because it had one lever control...forward and stop. Mary only lasted about 1 week on the Trolley before she managed to crash the Trolley into one of food's Juice Sipper carts that was crossing the tracks near Rue Le Dodge. She was fired for that one and we never saw Mary again :( BTW, I DO remember her last name....just didn't want list it here.
"...and enjoy the rest of your day here at Marriott's GRRRREAT America"
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GreatAmerica4ever
Yankee Clipper
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Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:14 pm
Location: Cudahy, WI

Post by GreatAmerica4ever »

MGA1,

I am loving your stories!!!! Keep them up!!!! I especially love all these Marriott stories and background items us regular folk wouldn't know about! ;)
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PGA ROCKS
Tidal Wave
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Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:04 pm

Post by PGA ROCKS »

Yeah, these stories are great! I work at the Santa Clara park, and I could fill a book with the stuff I've seen.
I miss Tidal Wave
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