robintodd

Funny you should point that out. I filled out a survey and selected the water coaster even though I had never been to Holiday World nor ever ridden a water coaster. My reasoning was the wet side needed some attention since it had been a while since something new was added there and to give me the ability to ride one. I believe RR is a good choice given the space, and taking into consideration the number of riders it can accomodate. Again, I would argue that Soak City has no issue with attracting people to the wet side of the park. I've seen it absolutely packed and feel the needed the new shade/chairs than they did a larger water coaster.

If you haven't been told your work is appreciated. I thought about looking for a thread for the review. Thanks again for your work on keeping us inmates in line and the site organized. I know it's not easy.

I do agree as I was the president of a childrens sports league about too many emails/texts tend to have people turn them off or ignore them. I was always very selective on how many I sent out. Then again we only had about 1,000 kids in the league but your point does scale. I've always noticed extensions an there may be more this year but remember that it's not just CF running the show. There is a massive debt and I think the extensions are mostly show for the stockholders so the company can say "look we've done alot to try and increase our stock price." I've always wanted to see a world without the stock market. As I've said before the biggest problem with the stock market is that people who run a company don't base their decisions on the customer, the employees or a combination of both. They cater to the stock holders who may be neither a customer or employee and that is no way to run a business in my opinion because the only winners are the stock holders at the expense fo the customers and the employees.

Not sure how carrying your own raft makes the line faster. Everytime I've seen the line I've never seen someone climbing all the way up at once without stopping for the line before getting to the top. Also Tropical Plunge has tube slides that they have to carry up their own tube and I believe it's taller than River Racers. Again I don't believe that KI needs a "world class water coaster" to bring people to a water park that is so busy during peak season. I looked up some stats on chatgpt about how many people live withing a half our from a couple of parks and was actually surprised by the results: Holiday World: appoximately 50,000 to 100,000 Cedar Point: approximately 170,000 Kings Island: approximately 500,000 to 1 million. This is the reason KI has such great attendance and why an increase of $20 on a gold pass happens there rather than CP. In my opinion HW needs the big draws to get people to the park where KI doesn't have that problem. The more people, the more children which is why KI is more of a family park that the other two. The more people that live near a park, the higher the attendance, the higher the attendance the more people have likes/dislikes about the park but at the same time the less need for large scale additions to "draw" people to it. Just my two cents.

I've found that with the quality of the food I'm spending more at the park now than I ever have. I used to stop by outside the park before/after or leave in the middle of the day. Now with the meal plan I eat at the park and will sometimes add a side for extra. Also with knowing the quality of the food I'm more likely to pay for things like food & wine like my wife and I did last Saturday. There is also the word of mouth when it comes to the food. I imagine KI makes more profit off of their own offerings over Graders, LaRosas, Skyline, etc. I've also fallen victim to the "The dining plan is such a great value that I can afford to spend extra on Blue Ice Cream, fudge, extra sides, etc". We've seen prices go up on gold passes yet not much on the drink/food plan. If they were loosing money on the dining plan they would have upped the price on it as well. "giving away the gate" is one thing but giving away food is another. Trust me if there is one thing we have learned recently it's that the company at this time is driven more by profit than ever. I'm sure the dining plan, no matter how used, is profitable. Finally there is the perception of the lines for the food. People who don't visit the park often and don't have a season pass or dining plan look and go "wow, that place must be good with a line like that" not realizing how many people are in line with the plan. From what I've noticed about 30-40% of the people are pulling out a credit card as opposed to a season pass during the busy days.

The only think I could think of is by sending out the silver pass messages is that it spreads by word of mouth. I may already have a gold pass but if I get this email it may remind me to tell someone I know who doesn't have a pass but is thinking about it that they could get one. It may not be effecient, but considering they don't have phone/emails of those without passes I could see it as effective. I've been receiving emails like this ever since I've had a pass. I only get like 1 or 2 every year so it's never bothered me much at all. Finally there may be more expense in changing the algorithm (someone would have to go in and change the programming/logic) than to just let it be (all be it a small expense). So maybe it's just not in the budget or there are bigger problems that we don't know about to take care of.

My wife and I went last Saturday for the Food and Wine and had a FANTASTIC time. We are both wine drinkers and found the selections held a wide variety. We got the wine flight. As far as food goes the "new" tasting cards are an interesting idea. The way it works is if you purchase 5 food items you get a special dessert at the sweet spot for free. It just about figures out the same as the old tasting cards, kind of a 6 for the price of 5 deal. You can use the tasting card throughout the run of the event. The one advantage of this over the old way is that if you only want 3 and you have a friend who wants 2 you could give them your card to use and score the dessert. Anyway, the food was an improvement over last year especially in the variety of offerings. We had 6 of them and they were all good. I would suggest though that if the queso with the pork rinds would have been serverd with chips it would have made it a vegetarian offering of which they only had one, the fondue. I'm not a vegetarian but think the simple switching of something other than pork rinds may have made a couple more sales. The entertainment was good. Hi-Fi and River City always bring the goods. Having the horn section of River City play seperately in the new area was a treat. My wife and I split our time between two music offerings. While at the one in tower gardens she felt like she was in a wooded area in Paris. She should know we have been. I didn't find the other music to be distracting at all when sitting in each area. I think I would have liked to see a violin player walking around the main part of tower gardens or if he was there we missed him. The only thing I found odd was the games. I know people have kids, etc. but this is an event geared toward adults. I think maybe 2-3 craft vendors All in all the event is fantastic and something my wife and I will go back to over the next couple of weeks.

If they had went with a longer version the dispatch times would be even longer. Soak City is one of the busiest areas of the park in the summer, it could be argued that this new addition won't affect attendance of an already crowded area at all.

Not sure how this would have sped up the line from what I was watching. How fast the rafts make it up to the loading area is irrelivent. Again. Those on top can't go until those on the bottom have cleared the landing pool. if it takes 60 seconds for 1 raft to do a longer 2 push slide and it takes 30 seconds to do a 1 push then 1 raft could go every 60 seconds off the longer one and 2 every 30 seconds off the shorter/dual one making 4 rafts every 60 seconds quadrupling the capacity.

Haven't ridden it yet but I would like to applaud the idea after thinking about it. They could have put in a ride twice as long with 2 uphill pieces but that would have cut the ride wait time 75%. On water slides you have to wait until the people ahead are out of the pool. By haveing a shorter ride with two tubes at once they can put more people through per hour. In my opinion KI doesn't need what other parks do to get people through the gates. As has been said several times the waterpark is usually very crowded and that was without a water coaster. By putting in a smaller ride and redoing a kids area and expanded shade/seating (and the upgrade of the boathouse drink stand) I think after seeing it this was a very well-thought out addition.

So happy we are getting the funnel cake shrimp! Those are FANTASTIC at CP.

When KI is even mildly busy I find the WiFi to be unbearable. Hope this will address this. In comparison, CP has gotten better over the years.

Couldn't agree more. I listen to Tower Topics regularly and have to say how ironic it is that they sit there and critique the KI Media department while, indirectly, doing the job of the KI Media department. The one thing that I find unfortunate is they sit and say what the Media depertment SHOULD do in advance. To me this puts the Media department at a disadvantage. Either they do nothing and get critiqued for it, or they do something and then TT can take credit for "forcing their hand" and even leading them on how to do their job even if what they do was planned and coincidently or not was what was suggested. In my opinion it would be more fair to wait until after the event has happened and then after the fact critique the Media department. Obvisously whatever the Media department does or does not do is irrelivant to the numbers the investors are being presented.

Couldn't agree more. Two types of people, one group that complain the park is "giving away the gate" and is too crowded and another that says they should be marketing more/better to "get the word out" and some people are in both camps. From what was revealed at the investors meeting, "getting the word out" is a waste when word of mouth seems to be doing just fine. Kind of explains the resent personel decisions during the past 12 months. Also ironically things like podcasts, X accounts and facebook groups actually seem to be doing an equal or better job than employees in the past making their positions not as necessary. You can even see that this website is contributing to spreading word of mouth. I've been keeping an eye on pointbuzz.com (Cedar Point fansite) and they are not nearly and active as we are here. Just my 2 cents.

Went in March had a good time, my KI gold pass with passport worked fine. Got on all the major coasters except Judge Roy (closed) and Mr. Freeze (multiple downtime). Favorite coaster was surprisingly the Mine Train (not the mini). I found the theming and pace really nice and smooth, probably my favorite mine train ride i've been (AE is a little rough). Rodeo and the Boots are both themed well and were fun.

As I have stated before I think Gold Passes are way to cheap. I would gladly pay and additional $50 if it meant lowering the number of passes out there. I think the park will keep increasing the price until they see a drop in revenue from them. Our gold passes are $20 more expensive than a gold pass at Cedar Point when KI first offers the pass in October. The price for a gold pass is is now $145 at KI and $150 at CP. As far as Prestige goes I would get rid of it. In it's place I would offer add-on's to the gold pass. One for VIP ($80?), one for preffered parking ($80?), one for single use fast pass ($100?). This would total $260 and if someone wanted them all it would be $200 to just get all of them in a package (therefore replacing the Prestigue Pass). Of course the Passport would still be another add on (currently $85 at KI, $80 at CP). I would prefer this because I think it makes it simpler and the park would make more money. For example I would like the preffered parking but have no wish to have the single use Fast Lane or the VIP so they would get another $80 from me. However some may want the preffered parking and the VIP or the single use fast pass. At that point for an additional $20 they could get all three for $200. It just makes sense to have VIP, Parking and single use fastlane as addon's similar to the way the drink plan, dining plan and funpix are add-ons. Either way I think for those of us who live within a 45 minute drive to the park the season passes are a fantastic value. I consider myself fortunate to happen to live so close to not only and amusement park, but one of the best ones. In my opinion there are several people who take it for granted and even more that feel "entitled". No doubt Six Flags will keep adjusting the price and supply and demand will rule the day. Either way, as I said before the fact that Cedar Fair just gave us 2021 for free during the COVID Pandemic made me a season pass holder for life. It was a fantastic value and decision, one that they are slowly pulling out of and, in my opinion, they are still adding value each year while recooping the cost of that decision. Thanks KI, from a devoted fan.

For those that missed it the lights have been added to the towers along the i-street fountain (2 per tower).

They have been running 3 which is as many trains as they have. With the new tracking it seems The Beast has exploded in popularity again. I've seen full queue's 2 of the 3 times I've been to the park this year and the one time without a queue was after the rains on Friday. It was a walk on around 6:45. Word has gotten out and the public has spoken, seems like the retrack work on The Beast over the past 3 years is an absolute sucess! Good call KI.

Park looked great today. Food lines went quick and the only long line in the park was The Beast with a full queue. Love that touches on Stunt Coaster, nice refresh to tie it to Cinci. The number of trees cut down by The Vortex plot's fence is very obvious. Not sure why all the clearing but it seems to me like they are preparing for something. My thoughts are that next year the Family Fun Attraction will be in the old Xtreme Flyer spot along with a refresh to the area in general and constuction will begin early-mid next year for a large coaster in The Vortex plot for 2027. 2027 would be the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Screamin Demon, also the 40th anniversary of the opening of Vortex. Just sayin

So seeing this section today I also noticed how much the area just needs an upgrade. A spinning coaster at that location for family's would be a nice complment to The Bat as a tween step. Also it may bring more people to that area and renew The Bat's ridership.

In my mind this may have been something where they found out the only way to get the parts was to have them custom made and the cost was just too much. Could be the reason the new park map hasn't been released yet.

Fantastic change. This will probably be the one dining establishment that doesn't change it's name for Winterfest Nice to see the effort.

Also on the Camp Snoopy cam looks like they repaved the lot in front of the maintenance buildings.

Also looks like Monster won't be ready anytime soon. They seem to have put up a more permanant barrier:

Just saw Mystic running!!!