The Interpreter

And even more will no doubt change in a big way this season and in seasons to come. I agree, updating that book would be a GREAT idea.

Cedar Point doesn't open until next weekend. The following Friday, May 12, Geauga Lake opens. That park is NOT to be sneezed at. It has a large coaster collection, a good waterpark, a nice setting, and a few problems left over from its Burke & Story Six Flags Days, which it is working on. And the $24.95 ticket price is a good deal, too.

No, but they could have been open for a couple of weeks before the park opened, as they had been in the past. Whatever, this is a transition year, and what has happened has happened and no one can change that. Perhaps the next owner will be more customer service oriented than Paramount Parks aka CBS has been of late. Let me say this, though. It is NOT the employees working at the park's fault. People at KI are cheerful, professional and trying their best to do a great job in some very trying circumstances. Be nice to park employees. They deserve it!

What's the HELP program?

And the biggest problems with this have been with guests coming to the park from many hours away..on day trips. The park has not done a good job of letting guests know the park is no longer open before 10. Locals and season passholders are not the problem. It's the people coming from 2-4 hours away who are not amused. Those coming from further are usually also okay, as they have stayed the night before in a hotel. These daytrippers are a major source of park profit, as they buy one day tickets and often stay inside the park and buy food and stuff. Herding them into an entrance plaza for up to an hour before letting them in the park is just not a good thing, no matter how you try to pretty it up.

Indeed...and of ALL the giant boat ride/slides I have done, ONLY Congo does this. No other one at any other park!

You couldn't be more right! I am certain that Busch was pleased to sell the Ohio operation to Six Flags. It is very difficult to make a seasonal theme park with animals work. Great Adventure does a great job of it in New Jersey, but then that park is sandwiched between two huge metro areas and can draw visitors from both...NY and Philly...

YOU get over it. People have other choices, as well. I have plenty positive to say about PKI, but unless the negatives are also pointed out (and I do that both here and at GR), there will be little hope of the bad things changing. The park is NOT there just for season passholders...

Yes, there IS airtime on Congo. I'll vouch for that. He's not all wet. Or maybe he was, after that.

Yeah, SFWofA was SOOO successful, we all know what happened there....

And those lines would have already died down, had the park done the off season processing it had done in the past....

Excuse me, but on two separate occasions, I have watched guests ask to use the bathroom, and be told that they must wait until the park opens. I know what I saw. And I know how VERY unhappy the guests were. They both waited til the park opened, used the bathroom, went straight to Guest Relations, got their parking money back and left the park! I doubt either EVER goes back. Perhaps the "potty policy" changed after their complaints. Perhaps not.

Actually, I think marketing does. It's Admissions that apparently doesn't. And revenue seems to be driving the Paramount train, to the exclusion of customer service these days. $16 meals at Skyline, anyone? No off season pass processing? Not open the gates until the park is totally open for business? Oh, wait...most shops don't open til noon. And then they want to know if I would buy breakfast in the park? At 10? I don't eat breakfast that late, thanks. I used to buy breakfast in the park a lot. At that French bakery kind of place....you know....where Starbucks is now.

I'm sorry.

Call your local Meijer and ask first. I bet it is only the ones near the park. . . Meijer is great at customer service. I bet your local one could tell you (or find out) where the closest Meijer to you that sells KI tickets and passes is. Also, at least recently, Meijer has been selling a "buy three passes, get one free" deal.

Don't forget there is also the option of buying at Meijer, though the pass still must be processed at the park.

Not unlike not opening a massive theme park's gates until the park opens, because they think that is the most cost effective way to do it...

You might want to know that the park where it happened is owned and operated by the County. That changes a lot of things. Westchester County, New York, it is. This is also mentioned in passing in the article.

I don't. I don't put nuttin there. I gots lots of reasons for that, though!

Uhhhh, whatever ya say man. Obviously ya weren't around then. I am not so sure. If his profile is right, the man is 66 right now!

They are used frequently, mostly on busy days. This year, they haven't been used as much, if at all.

It's not a couple of minutes. The public largely doesn't know about this change. People are waiting up to an hour (and at PKD, even longer) to get in the park. They don't forget this the next time they decide whether or not to go to the park.

And all of those taxes become part of their costs...costs that are considered and passed on when they price admissions, food, games, etc. Again, businesses' customers are the ones who actually ultimately end up bearing any tax load...well, that and the employees. Theoretically, if employers didn't pay employment taxes, they would pay their employees more (or their CEO's). Anyway, enough of this! My point is that if an admissions tax is passed, it will undoubtedly be passed on to the consumer.

And with the fact that people were waiting at the entrance gates and were all allowed in at the same time. Granted, at PKI, people are slowed down as they enter by having to go through the metal detectors and then the ticket takers...at PKI I am a bit more concerned about the crowd having to wait in the hot sun with no restroom in a large crowd. Waiting to go to a place they are paying big money to go to, by the way. What on earth was wrong with letting them in a bit early into a larger, nicer area where they could wait? The shops wouldn't necessarily have to be open. (Although I still think money was made during that hour...Paramount's theory is apparently that those sales will still be made later in the day with less cost due to shorter hours....a theory I don't necessarily agree with...or worse, that they won't own the park long enough to worry about the long term effects of this policy--"We aren't going back to Kings Island, remember how long we waited to get in and how cranky you were while we did?)

Actually, PKI doesn't in reality pay taxes...the people who go there are the ones who pay. PKI merely passes along whatever taxes it has to pay.