malem

Paramount Parks had an interest in GWL Mason. It was sold to Great Wolf Resorts by Cedar Fair.

^ By design, a WiFi hotspot covers a much smaller area than a cell tower. A park-wide network would involve a large number of strategically placed & configured access points.

This seems to have been added to the website recently, so there's not an older version readily available for comparison. I posted it here since it's more verbose and more recently updated than what's printed on the back of season passes. Some people read the fine print.

Kings Island has updated the terms and conditions regarding the use of season passes and posted them to its website. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/legal/season-pass

Soak City's WiFi probably isn't set up to handle the massive crowds lounging with mobile devices by the wave pool. The password would keep it uncongested for cabana guests, even if a few former cabana guests sneak in as well. With the proliferation of mobile devices and limited data plans, park-wide WiFi seems long overdue. Encouraging mobile data use at the park is free advertising on social networks, and park guests could be encouraged to download KI's Accesso mobile app for push notifications of park promotions.

You're aware that this is a 2-day event, right? If you joined the event at lunch (on Sunday), you would have missed hours of ERT, guest speakers & dinner the previous day.

The PDF with operating hours is linked from Cedar Point's website on the Dining Plans page. Information there doesn't necessarily apply to Kings Island. Kings Island's dining plan page says that operating hours vary by location.

^^ Kings Island has yet to announce hours of operation for its dining locations or dining plans. They may or may not follow Cedar Point's lead. Cedar Point's dining plan hours may or may not be final. It is worth noting that many participating Cedar Point food locations close prior to park closing. Nine hours per day seems like a reasonable amount of time for guests to redeem lunch and dinner. If you based your dining plan purchase on the ability to enter at 4:00pm and eat twice, and the final operating hours don't permit you to do that, speak to Guest Services before using your plan. This thread has proven that KI does listen and respond to guest feedback. If dining at 9:00pm with your meal plan is important to you, fill out the contact form on visitkingsisland.com and explain why. In other news, according to Gary Gochenour via Twitter, Kings Island will offer gluten free options with their 2015 meal plans - including pizza, chicken tenders, and corn dogs. https://twitter.com/garygochenour/status/563153169589739520

That line was added when the PDF was updated. Common sense would imply that different hours apply when the park closes at 8pm. Old version: New version:

^

It's great that they listened to guests and corrected the situation. If they decide to use designated meal times for 2016 meal plans, hopefully they'll take the feedback from this experiment into consideration. It should be noted that Cedar Point seems to have retained one additional time restriction; meal plan serving times run from 11:00am until 2 hours prior to park closing. (Updated dining guide PDF) Presumably this doesn't apply when CP closes at 8:00pm. Specific operating hours aren't guaranteed, so this seems fair at first glance.

^ As you walk in the front door, interview rooms are to your left. Hopefully no one here does anything that necessitates being taken to one. I was also in the security office to fill out a witness report.

We'll see what happens as the season draws nearer for Cedar Fair's seasonal parks. I suppose that I should have contacted someone at the park before noting the website change here, seeing that it would (if accurate) be likely to upset many existing dining plan customers. The new rules were posted on all Cedar Fair park websites, and CPFoodBlog.com mentioned the dining plan changes on Twitter, so I assumed that the website was correct. We've seen plenty of website errors in the past, so that may have been a bad assumption.

If you're hungry outside meal times, the park would love to sell you a funnel cake, fresh-cut fries, Graeter's ice cream, or a slice of fudge. Since this change is being made after the meal plan operated for a month at Knott's Berry Farm, perhaps there were problems with it cannibalizing snack sales. Goble and disco2000 make excellent points about eating at non-standard times and avoiding peak crowds. Long lines and understaffed locations were problems at times last season. If a line is long, I like being able to skip it and return later. Many people need to plan their meal times around factors other than traditional meal times. Ideally, they would program their POS & ticketing systems to allow existing customers to redeem meals their two meals under either set of rules. That would make the system more complex and confusing, however, so that doesn't seem likely for FUN. More realistically, I'd like to see the new rules sent to existing customers via e-mail and snail mail, along with an apology for any inconvenience and instructions for obtaining a refund if they no longer want the plan. As some customers would be getting less for their money now, loading some freebies onto affected season passes (eg. free RPW fries & a free funnel cake) would be nice.

^ The EnterTRAINment Junction and Cincinnati Cyclones deals were good through Jan 31, 2015.

Another potential issue: if I visit on a Friday during Haunt, presumably I can only redeem dinner. Existing customers were promised both meals each time they visit the park, provided they wait out the required interval between meals. The way I see it, more restrictions on the dining plan make sense in a way. The stated purpose is (and always has been) to provide lunch & dinner each visit for one price, not to eliminate all in-park food spending. Showing up at 6pm and expecting both "lunch" and "dinner" isn't exactly right. Some guests had trouble keeping track of the 2-hour interval last year; I could see the 4-hour interval causing even more problems. Standard serving times are easy to remember and easy to communicate. I just wish that they had either finalized redemption rules when dining plans went on sale or refrained from mentioning them at all. Now that the change has been made, hopefully they work out the potential issues before Opening Day and handle it well from a customer service perspective.

By the way, I wonder what happens if I get in line at a participating food location at 7:50pm, but the wait to get food and pay is 20 minutes.

It has been clear since 2015 passes went on sale that drinks are not included with the all-season dining plan. This was the case for 2014 as well, though some customers ended up receiving free drinks.

^ Those dinner hours can't work if the park doesn't open until 5:00pm or if it closes at 7:00pm. I would hope that I could eat later than 8:00pm when the park closes at midnight or 1:00am. Hopefully they get the customer service right to prevent misunderstandings for existing dining plan customers. (Effectively communicating the change, permitting refunds on unused passes sold under the "old" rules)

Dining plan information has been updated for 2015 on Kings Island's website. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/things-to-do/dining-plans?mobile=0 The big change from the fall announcement (when 2015 plans went on sale) is that there are now set times for redeeming lunch and dinner. Originally, there was to be a 4-hour wait time between meals, with no other time restrictions. This approach is simpler for guests using the meal plans as intended, though I'm personally not a fan of having to eat within those hours. I can see some customers being upset that the rules changed after purchasing the plan. EDIT: The original redemption rules for the 2015 season have been restored to the park's website. Several potential issues with the rule change were pointed out in this thread, and KI responded to feedback from concerned guests who had already purchased the plans.

Revenue from pay-per-click ads would be affected only if you would have otherwise clicked them. CPM revenue would be affected, as advertisers are paying to be seen by a human 1,000 times. CPM rates, however, tend to be low for sites that get much of their traffic from repeat visitors. I use the NoScript add-on for Firefox, so I didn't notice the change. This doesn't block ads per se, but all JavaScript is rejected except from whitelisted domains.

I'm sure that Terp greatly appreciates the absence of one prominent name on that piece of track.

I just checked the website, and season pass processing hours have been announced: https://www.visitkingsisland.com/hours-directions/season-pass-processing On those dates, you can enter through the south parking tolls and walk directly to the season pass center during those hours. Don't forget your printed voucher and photo ID for each passholder. In the past, answers from the park have varied as to whether renewing a gold pass as platinum qualifies for renewal pricing. If renewal pricing is offered on 2016 platinum passes, you'd want to ask the park when those passes are on sale. The cheapest time to buy or renew is in the fall, before the park closes for the year.

Pet care standards have changed a lot since KI's pet boarding location was constructed.

Most guests probably don't visit Kings Island to look at landscaping, just as they don't go there to listen to music over the PA system. That doesn't make either less important. I actually know someone who chose to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios instead of either Universal park while in the Orlando area for the first time. The reason: it looked "nicer" in photographs. My example probably isn't typical, but aesthetics are definitely an attraction - whether people realize it or not. The fact that most don't pay attention to such details is one reason why articles like this one are interesting. Is it fair to compare the landscaped grounds to The Beast or Banshee? Perhaps not. But those rides wouldn't exist if Kings Island weren't a pleasant place to visit. In hindsight, Swan Lake and the landscaping around the antique cars are certainly seen as attractions around here.