DragonLord

Security at PKI is just fine. I'm sure if I got to CP tomorrow that there will not be an officer at every major ride line every minute that the park is open. If you can't find an officer at PKI that walks the exits of the rides, you just aren't looking hard enough. If the guests would just follow the rules we wouldn't have problems to begin with. What I really hate are the guests that complain when they are pulled out of line for line jumping but would really b**ch if someone did it to them. There is no reasonable way to staff every major ride's que with an officer, or any employee for that matter, especially in the early and late operating days of the season because there just isn't enough staff to go around because of schools being in session and vacations. Belive it or not, there really aren't a lot of people that want to work at a theme park all summer long. Now if you, donotstandup, are willing to put in the hours to stand at a ride line all day long and make sure no one line jumps, please, be the first in line to be hired for that job. At least then one ride will have someone constantly watching.

Flight of Fear in the hanger, but they would need to be where they can see everything, like on a cat walk above everyone with easy access down to different parts of the que. Vortex! Vortex is horrible for line jumping b/c of the low fence, bathrooms, and the food cart at the end of the line. People will get out of line for all those reasons, and then some, and try to get back in line all the time. Then there are the groups which get in line when someone goes to the bathroom and then they jump the fence to get in... argh! I haven't heard many complaints about line jumping from Face/Off... TR? Where at? Outside wouldn't be a problem, inside would be. SOB needs something, but security can't get access to a big part of the que, the ramps going up to the station. That causes a communication break down between a complaintant and security b/c security can't talk to them or pull them from line to point out the jumpers in the station (if they made it that far).

Hold up! First off, security can not be eveywhere, it's impossible! If we were to place an officer at every ride line for the entire time the ride was opened, it would cost the park a ton of money. Second off, security does a lot of things in the park. Security officers are first responders to first aid calls. They are trained in CPR and can save your life if the need arises. Security does a lot of things in the park, from helping lost kids and parents reunite, responding to first aid calls, protecting park property and guests from unrulely guests and much, much more. In short Security does a lot of things that the average guest will not see. The metal dectors are far from stupid, they are helping make the park a resonably safe place for families to enjoy themselves. We have had far more compliments on them than we have complaints. Security officers do walk the exits of the line, and in most rides they can see the ride line itself. They do watch the lines when they get a chance, but can only do something if they see it themeselves or a guests calls out to them to let them know what is going on. If a ride op doesn't do anything about a line jumper when a guest(s) complains about them, you really do need to get their name and tell Guest Relations. If the employee isn't going to handle it, then they could at least call Security to do it.

How was Blue Man Group? I was really upset that I found out late about them coming to Riverbend. It would be great to see them! Maybe I can get a vacation to Las Vegas and see them play there? I think they have a perminate home at one of the hotels there...

I just changed my schedueling, so I should be working that night... I'll have to wait and see. I have some friends going, so I might just hang with them if I don't get to work.

Basketballs! Argh! I hate them with a passion. The park needs to wise up some with the basketballs and give them away deflated. The guests can have them inflated outside of the front gates after they have left the park and the park could charge say a penny per ball. Heck, a quarter, the kids will pay up! I have to remind kids every day that the park is not a basketball court, nor a football court, nor is it a good place to play hacky sack. If I ever get hit by a ball, I'm keeping it. No if's and's or butt's about it. It's going to go back to games. The other thing I hate about the basketballs is that parents are dumb enough to let their kids play around with them in all the dumb ways, like bouncing them real high, or hitting them up agains the buildings. Why are parents no a days so afraid to tell their kids no? Why do I get yelled at for telling a child not to do something that will get them hurt when the parent is standing right there not doing a thing?

There are no numbers that the employees are allowed to give out that a guest can use to get ahold of either security or our communications center directly. If you do have a problem in line and can not get an employee, the best thing to do is to call the general information line and talk with a person there. It might take some time to get a real person on the line, but I belive that those calls are going to the park and that they will be able to get ahold of someone for you. The best thing to do with line jumpers is remember the faces. If security does get called to it, they can't do anything if no one can point out the line jumpers. Line jumpers will be asked to leave the line and start at the end or to leave the ride altogether. If the situation looks like it will get worse, just stop and try to do your best to get an employee. You are no there to do a park employee's job, and your certainly not there to get hurt. Line Jumping consists of any reason a guest(s) gets out of line and attempts to get back into line where they were. Leaving a line for any reason and trying to get back into the line anyplace but the very end, is line jumping. Trying to (re)join a group that is somewhere other than the very in the of the line is line jumping. In other words, once your in line, stay in line. If you get out of line, start at the end again. If you get into line, start at the end of the line. It's not a hard thing to understand.

I hope you guys have fun at the park... and I have a few things to add: First, if you get to the park on Sunday, you can wait till after 5 to buy discount tickets into the park. If you like what is there, then you can use the money you spent towards that to a season pass for the rest of the week. You can also ask at Guest Relations under the front gate if there are any other deals you can have that would be cheaper than a season pass, but I doubt it. There are no more Gold Passes being sold, so you can't use the gold pass perks. Drink lots of water! Water is free if you ask for it, it's been posted already, but we do stress it. If you buy the big cups, you can have them refilled with water for no charge. If you have a cell phone, make sure that you keep it with you and turned on incase one of your kids gets seperated so that they can call you. Make sure your kids know that they can go to any of the employees or to a Security officer if they get lost so that we may help you get reunited as soon as possible. Make sure your kids know the cell phone number as well! Also, if you are staying at the Kings Island Resort, they have busses that run from the resort to the park every half hour or so, I belive. That will be the best way to get to the park so you don't have to pay for parking. Just make sure you know the bus scheduel. If you get a chance to go around the area, Lebanon, just North of Kings Island on 71 has some great antiques and the infamous Ice Cream Parlor and Golden Lamb. Both of them are great places to visit, but they are expensive. If the kids like trains, there is also the historic train station, and I belive they are still giving rides on the train. Avoid the park on Friday at all due cost! We are expecting record crowds that day, so please stay away if you can! Have fun!

Our thoughts and prayers will be with the Krekeler family. I wish more could have been done. "Oh I Have Slipped The Surly Bonds of Earth...Put Out My Hand And Touched the Face of God"

Good points, but the beer can cause just as much harm to the guets drinking it as it can to the guests around them and odds are before, during or after a ride. I get sick from smoke as well, so I know what you are talking about when it comes to someone smoking in line. How should the park handle smokers (or beer) in the line? If an employee doesn't see it, then we really can't do much about it. Most employees won't confront a guest about smoking, let alone having beer in line unless they are a supervisor, management, or security. Guests don't bother to tell another guest the rules (although I do when I am a guest) because they don't want a confrontation. The park could ban all smoking from the park, like they do for Water Works. We could also ban all beer and other alcholoic beverages from the park. Would the park lose money? Probably. Will the park let that happen? No. We could make "designated smoking areas" but then people would complain about that. Do they have to come to the park? No. Will they still come to the park? Probably. Would they ignor that as well? Yes. Will we kick them out of the park for not smoking in those areas? No. It's a long, complicated subject when it comes to beer and smoking in the park. There are no right or wrong answers, just very pationate opinions.

Drinking beer in line has worse consequences in the short term than a smoker in line. A smoker won't get kicked out of a line unless they are told twice to stop smoking or if they are just down right rude when asked to put it out.

Pride Night is great! Working it is a blast, I love the drag show in Festhaus, and the guests are wonderful! Hopefully I will get a chance to work it this year, but I have school starting up in September...

hmm... Only 2 beers per guest... well, they need to find a way to make that the limit for the entire day. Or maybe the employees need to make sure that boyfriend or hubby doesn't finish the beer for girl friend or wife? Lets see... 2 beers only at each stand... that's 2 at Stuntcrew, 2 at Festhaus (4 if they open pizza), 2 at Tuckers, 2 at Rivertown Pizza, 2 at Potatoe Works, 2 at Wings. Did I get them all? Assumeing that they only give a guest 2 beers at each place and not at Festhaus pizza, that's a total of 12 beers. Of course the park will look at it as $60 at $5 a beer. Maybe I'm going over board a little, but 12 beers is a lot. I'm sure that someone has had at least that much in park. Are you going to tell me that the people that poor the beer are going to remember every face and actually pay attention to the patios to make sure that the beers aren't given to someone else? Oh wait, I forgot Sharky's... there's two more to add on for a total of 14! Man, they will feel that in the morning! I feel sorry for the person sitting next to them on a ride... For fun we can add in Festhaus pizza and make the total 16. If the park wants to be serious about only 2 beer per person, they would have some sort of system to keep track of it in the park overall, like hand stamp for each beer that can't be washed off or something that can be check before they buy.

There are many reason why we only have beer in certain areas. The biggest is for safety of our guests. The bar tenders can watch who is drinking what and have the right to cut a guest off. There are no limits to how many beers a guest can buy at the park, but it is up to the staff to not serve anyone who has already had too much. We also do this so that we can see who is drinking the beer. Parents and older friends are not allowed to give beer or any other alcoholic beverage to a minor. That is not allowed on park property and you can be arrested for contributing the the deliquency of a minor. If you are walking around with beer, security can be called and you will be asked to throw it away or escourted by security to the nearest beer selling patio/building to finish it. If you don't want to walk somewhere to finish it, secuirty will make you throw it away. If you are in a line with beer, then you will be kicked out of the ride line. If a ride op sees you with beer at anytime, they do not have to let you ride the ride, they can kick you out of the ride. Usually they call security to do this, but it depends on how nice the guests is about following the rules. Another big thing is that there are signs posted everywhere where we sell beer that you can not take it out of the building or off the patio. I see it happen all too often when people take beer out of Festhaus or off of the patio's and they always say "I didn't know" like they are the dumbest people in the world. READ for crying out loud! One last thing... security is just being nice when they escourt you to a place where you can drink it, we have all the right in the world to make you throw away your beer.

Saturday was busy, and I'm suprised that you didn't mention our VIP that was had... Montel Williams was in the park that day as well... I'm sure some of the employees noticed his limo parked in the Admin lot by GR and IR backdoors. People really need to drink water when it's hot outside. I guess the guests don't know that they can ask for a glass of ice water and get it for free at the all food buildings. If you didn't know, now you do... if you do know, spread the word! People need to start drinking water!

The show was a blast from what I got to see from it! He is a great artiest and I can't wait to see him again. As of the back stage pass Shadow, they were given way, way before the show was even at the park. They were for contest winners and certain family/friends of the crew for the show and the like... they were NEVER sold at the park. Also too, Weird Al was supposed to come on at 8:30, the rain (what little we had) only pushed it back about 15 minutes. The cool thing was that the audience was great, we had no problems! This was the best concert I have ever worked at. Even the people that stuck around for the meet and great afterwards were really cool people and I feel sorry for the ones that really wanted to meet him. There were a lot of kids that wanted to meet him, and some adults as well... Unfortunitly, we had to kick out the people without backstage passes. I felt really bad about that b/c there was a 10 year old that loves Al so much that he is begining to learn the accordion. Don't feel bad if you didn't get to meet him... I just got home and I was backstage with Al and still didn't get to do anything but say "Good night" to him!

The blacktop path was only to the entrance of the trail. The trail itself is all dirt, it is in the woods after all. I do not remember the trail ever being on all blacktop... I have only been to the Maze of Madness and the Trail. I enjoyed both although I had to wait in a long line for each, hence the reason I only got to go in only two. One question about this year: are they going to charge for each house? How is the park going to make money this year on Fear Fest (other than cutting the hours) since they are letting season passes into Fear Fest?

StXBomber is right about the amount of copper. In the rails on the sides of the tower there is a verying amount of copper. I forget if it increases or decreases, but it creates a natural magnetic resistence with the gondola. The ride slows because of an increase in the magnetic force. Because it is a naturally occuring (mechanical?) magnetic force, the ride does not need power to stop the dropping gondola.

To make money you have to spend money. Bulid it and they will come. I'm sure there are other cheesy sayings that would fit into this...

Timberwolf's 10,000 seats is pretty dang big. You also have to keep in mind that we don't use it just for concerts. We hold the National Chearleading Competitions in Timberwolf, BET does a show every year, it's used as a staging area and meeting area for large groups every now and then, we hold band award ceramonies in it. It's a pretty usefull space in fact. I do agree with the fact that it needs to be rebuilt! We need brand new seats, something far more comfortable, a new stage would be awsome and would draw more concerts because it would be new with all the latests and greatest in techonlogy. Something has to happen with the light and sound stage in the center of the theater. The seats behind it are worthless, and I know we could do better. As of a show in it every day, I dont' like that idea because it would have to be scheduled around the things we host every year. Props and things would have to be moved and stored some where else, special lighting would have to be removed and then put back up. If would use it for some pretty good concerts every year, it would be worth it. As it is now, we have 7 days of concerts this year alone. It could be possible to have more than that, and I'm sure we could get some big names in as well. I mean, Paramount owns the park, it's owned by Viacom, who owns BET, VH1, CMT, and MTV! We should be able to get someone!

I agree! We have some pretty poor shows this year. I haven't heard any compliments from the TR stunt show either, at least not from employees who have seen it. The guests seem to like it though, at least better than our normal shows. The park really needs to beef up their shows for next year, bring in something that is new and exciting and has nothing to do with pop music or country music. When are they going to realize that if word gets out that we have great shows, people will spend all day in the park to wait for the show? Maybe we should have a long show, say an hour long? That's not too bad for most kids, but it would have to be a darn good show. Something cool for the kids like the Seasame Street gang does in the theaters would be cool. We have tons of Nick and HB characters to do something like that. Come on PKI, use your brain and come up with something better! We all know you can do it!

You won't see Jeff out in the park too often... he has an office in the Admin building and guests have no access to that. He does occassionally walk around the park and that's pretty cool. If a news crew or school news group or any VIPs are in the park, you can find Jeff with them. He's a really, really great guy and has unlimited knowledge of the park.

It sounds like it's time for Charles to write another book! Of course, we can all chip in and the proceeds from the book can go to the site.

Good point about it blowing open... I guess that's a possibility. It's still really freaky though!

Um... I know there are many reasons for someone to be on the roof, but this was during the off season and I knew for a fact that there was no one on the roof, besides, this was around 1am, we had no full timers in the park at that time. As of the cables, you won't be able to see them from the ride anyway, and don't even think about trying to walk back and look for them, you will be in a huge load of trouble!