disco2000

It shows on park WiFi as now through 8/19....um correct that now through 8/26....guess CF attendance continues to underperform?...

Regardless of the promotion title, the price being shown is the same online at $39.99 whether you are in the park (as I am now) or Columbus or elsewhere...However the Everyone Pays Kids Price promotion is valid thru 9/3 whereas the other $39.99 offer is valid thru 8/19...

Not all year...but the switch over happened within the past two weeks.

I guess you should point this out to AECOM shareholders that they are producing a fake document. If you are so confident these numbers are bull**** then point that out to AECOM attorneys...I am sure they would love to hear your reasoning and methodology to discredit their report...I suspect what you will find is a slander lawsuit... This isn't like the Golden Ticket or some fan vote where it is arbitrary in awards and many have assumed/speculated/believe/know that those awards are "bought" or ballots are stuffed. AECOM is a multi-billion dollar respected global engineering firm that is publicly traded and what would be their incentive to produce a fake document - this annual report equates to less than 0.00001% of their revenue. Obviously you are not aware of generally accepted industry practices on how to determine these numbers. It is not a rocket scientist, but you are close - it is typically engineers that do this type of work. There are standardized practices in how to do this sort of thing. I would share those techniques but obviously your mind is made up. It is how engineering companies determine how many vehicles travel a road or bridge per day, traffic counts, estimates of spectators at free events, census counts, Nielson ratings, etc. Do they count every car that goes through a traffic light for a traffic study - No - but there are tried and true practices to estimate these numbers and conform to generally accepted engineering practices. Same with estimating number of people that go to an amusement park, shop at Meijer, etc. Are the numbers perfect - no - even if an individual park released annual numbers I assure you there are dozens of different methodologies you can use to develop the "number" and they used the methodology that provides the number in the best light possible. I believe that most (if not all) of the entities in these rankings are members of TEA. You mention two facts - how do you know those facts are not true - maybe these members sign confidentiality clauses with AECOM to provide per park numbers - they may - you don't know whether they do or not and a GM of an individual park probably wouldn't be privy to knowing about that clause either. I know it happens in other industries when compiling rankings. The companies listed in the Cincinnati Enquirer Top 100 Privately Owned Companies based on revenue do just that... How else is a company ranked 12th and for revenue it says DND (Did Not Disclose) - well they DND for paper publishing purposes but provided the number confidentially to the accounting firm putting together the list for the Enquirer in order to be compiled in the rankings. Maybe the companies provide a methodology for AECOM to use to determine how to split the attendance per their individual parks (ie pie chart representations from company annual report) instead of providing the actual numbers, because as an example, maybe the interpretation of the pie chart allows Magic Kingdom to be the top visited Disney park for marketing and investing purposes. Since you are alluding that I have half a brain and you have a full brain, you are then obviously aware of the different methodology techniques available to Disney to count visitors to their Lake Buena Vista parks and can utilize the methodology that puts their crown jewel Magic Kingdom at the top of their attendance should they feel the need to do so. I assure you that these publicly traded companies have an interest in these numbers being fairly accurate utilizing their counting methodology (or at least representative at selling the product they want sold) because these numbers are used by analysts in the evaluation of the profitability of each company. Are these numbers perfect, probably not, but these respective companies believe they are representative of selling their product in the best light possible and is probably a better number than you could come up with. Each company has their own methodology in counting attendance to present it the best way possible to shareholders while not lying (and it may be hard to believe but it is not as simple as a head count or gate click)...so even if each company did provide individual park numbers, there is still a variable associated with it. That much I will agree with you on. But to arbitrarily discount generally accepted engineering/industry practices with no real evidence supporting your statement I believe crosses the line.

I have spoke to upper management on many occasions and I am very well aware of industry standards and speculations. For example, from what I have seen, I believe KI had better attendance in 2017 than Cedar Point did (and some prior years btw). So yea, KI GM probably is upset their park isn't shown higher and simply says the order is wrong and lets you infer from that as you choose... You mention "using TEA’s own numbers they claim the smallest 7 Cedar Fair parks only have a combined attendance of 10 million and had a combined attendance growth of 426k or 4.5%. In a year when none of those parks opened a coaster, does that seem reasonable at all?" Yes possibly. As I referenced, at Coasterstock this year KI mentioned that 2017 attendance was its largest since the 1998 season. What did KI install in 1998 - Hanna-Barbara Land got a makeover and rides were added to that area - no major coaster. Look at all the major additions since 1998 that could not top that year's attendance - Drop Tower, Invertigo, Son of Beast, Tomb Raider, Delirium, Back Lot, Firehawk, Diamondback, WindSeeker, Banshee. One could argue that adding family attractions drives attendance since the two highest years in 20 years were kiddie/family additions (many people consider Mystic Timbers as a family attraction)...Think about that if our next attraction is more family related and not a giga... As I mentioned, if the numbers are that wrong or not selling the story Cedar Fair wants sold, being a publicly traded entity, they would dispute the numbers if it wasn't portraying their product in the way they want as anything less than that would devalue their stock price and investor potential... So if the individual park numbers are wrong but company-wide they are accurate, then the wrong numbers for the individual parks is casting what Cedar Fair believes to be a good sell to investors. For example, if the Cedar Point numbers are actually lower and its ranking within the Cedar Fair family of parks is lower, they probably don't want to bring that to light as that could be perceived negative to shareholders. Or if one of the smaller parks is estimated higher than actual, that would be a good sell to investors on why they are making an investment to that particular park.

Exactly, and when schools try to do something about it and put out levy's specifically to raise money for school safety improvements only, the community goes nuts over no new taxes and the levy fails...Our society talks a good talk but doesn't wanna pay for it...

Since nobody has asked it and some is being discussed in other threads elsewhere, here goes: What is the year and attendance number for the record year? What are the yearly attendance numbers for the last 5 years? What are the yearly KI gold pass sales numbers for the last 5 years? How many season long meal plans have been sold each year since inception? How does CF allocate funds per park for platinum passes? For example, does the park that issued the pass get all the revenue or is it split evenly amongst all the parks or the parks visited? Is it an advantage for KI to have people get their platinum passes issued from KI as their "home park"? Does KI capture data of people that went from gold pass to platinum the following year and if so, what is that annual number of people that upgrade? Is there a capacity number that KI will close the gates and not allow additional entries? What percentage of daily entry into park leave park and re-enter with the stamp? What is the record for most visits by an individual (season pass holder) over a season? Given past history, I suspect none of these will be publicly answered lol

From my experience, I was not surprised to hear that 2017 was a new "modern" record as the highest attendance since 1998. I do not think the park is as crowded this year consistently like it was last year. AECOM is a well respected publicly traded consulting firm that did $18Billion in revenue last year and utilizes generally accepted industry practices in how TEA estimates are determined. Until a park announces an official number that can dispute or corroborate these numbers, we are all simply guessing. I would think if they were that off and that low, CF would make an announcement to counter as an arbitrarily low attendance number predicted by AECOM/TEA could negatively impact the stock value of the publicly traded Cedar Fair (NYSE: FUN). Just look at all the other "news" recently that has impacted other publicly traded companies - perception is reality to many investors so why would CF allow people to believe their attendance numbers are that low if they are not? Now if the numbers in TEA are too high...well that is artificially good for CF in terms of potential investors...just saying...

Exactly!!! We have seen people get flamed for things much less than this and surprised this thread hasn't been locked given all the future talk in the Rumors section of this forum. This thread says nothing that isn't already known. Of course KI has things to look forward to remaining of 2018 - Haunt and Winterfest to name a few and of course they have plans for 2019 that will be shared at a later date. Most businesses operate on at least a 5 year plan, so plans are somewhat known for the rolling 5 years and get tweaked and modified as the years move on.

Don't they always lol

I find it interesting you say this when earlier you were worried about someone with a phone out on a ride - statistically phones are dropped and stuff flies out of peoples pockets all the time on rides without injuring someone and maybe that is why the park doesn't enforce it as much because statistically someone being injured doesn't happen much...just look at the Diamondback bin of lost phones or all the phones and stuff retrieved from ride lock out zones every night without someone being injured... Just because statistically the odds are low doesn't mean one shouldn't prepare...

Or the dude that lit up a cigarette going up the Diamondback lift hill on Saturday - they stopped for that and that should be immediate toss and ban but I bet the ride came back into the station without any security called...

Double posting means you have posted twice in a row without someone else posting between your posts...like you just did again lol

A few other things to keep in mind: At Coasterstock it was mentioned that KI had its largest attendance since 1998 - since official attendance numbers are not disclosed, how much of that company-wide drop could be attributed to KI if we went back to "normal" attendance this year? Remember a couple years ago with the water main break issue at CP and they were able to justify that the lost attendance from that closed weekend was the reason for the down number that year - if I recall correctly I thought the estimate of lost attendance for the closure was within the one thousands of the company wide down attendance number. Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point has had its problems and it has been widely reported about refunds and other stuff going on with people that made plans to go to a destination park because of new ride and then canceled due to its problems. Others may have decided to skip this year and go next year hoping it is resolved. Twisted Timbers at Kings Dominion has experienced its own similar Steel Vengeance issues and not running at capacity for most of the season. To some extent that will impact attendance there as well for same reason listed above. Weather has had an impact - the region/country has had an exceptional above average temperature and that keeps people away as well.

In the society we live, regardless of which approach KI took - either make an announcement and immediately close the park OR do as they did last night, people are going to complain about how it happened. For safety reasons, the park will not elaborate on the decision making process, but they took the information they had and determined a course of action to minimize injuries. The fact that everyone got out of the park safely means they did their job. Most probably left like oh well things happen no fireworks, some left furious that they sat there and waited, and some left without realizing anything was going on. Those that are observant though could have noticed the subtle differences occurring in the final two hours to know something was up... It's always easy to play armchair quarterback and say they should have done something different...

I can assure you the webcams were down and were not available in a Google search - it was coincidental that you found them as they were brought back online...

What is that saying...those who know...

Some shut down much earlier than that..."official" response is weather...

Excellent question Oldschool! In fact, many of these ride operators begin to recognize regulars that should know better and maybe the ride operators get a little short or more terse with those types, similar to how our parents were not polite when we did something stupid and they called us out on it - they know us and know we know better lol!

As Bodda said, the simple answer is YES. Now for the explanation... EVERY operator of treatment facilities has had violations. In the industry, the Department of Justice (DOJ) serving as an arm to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues hundreds of Consent Decrees yearly to entities operating treatment facilities. What is a Consent Decree? A Consent Decree is a fancy name for lawsuit. This consent decree calls out what an entity has to do and spend to get into compliance Every major city has a consent decree. Surrounding Kings Island we have Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Middletown, Lima, Milford, Louisville, Lexington, Clermont County, Northern Kentucky, etc. all have one. For the big cities it is in the BILLIONS of dollars for each city to get into compliance... In addition, hundreds of consent decrees are issued to mobile home parks, amusement parks, interstate rest areas, etc. which are entities other than sewer districts that operate treatment facilities. Even Amazon has a consent decree for violations. The kicker in all this is that the EPA goes after the "low hanging fruit" which are these treatment plants. The reality is that the pollution that leaves just your property from runoff after just one rain event is putting more pollution into the creeks than just about any treatment plant. The amount of pollutants from a home yard that leaves the yard as runoff and goes into the curb inlet and then the creeks/river is a lot. Between fertilizers put down, normal soil erosion, animal droppings, leave decay, etc. the pollutants that get into the creek from sources other than treatment plants is astronomical. Heck, one animal relieving itself near a creek puts more contamination into the creek that a treatment plant that processes hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day. Same goes for one septic tank. Wanna know why Missouri made the Worlds of Fun permit less restrictive...regulators are slowly realizing that these point sources (treatment plants) are not the problem. It is all the non-point sources like our yards, driveways, roads, parking lots, farms, etc. that is the problem. Treatment plants put out well less than 1% of the total contaminants in the waterways. One large farm puts out more pollution into to the waterways than the community treatment plant that the farm is in. Instead of spending $200 million on a treatment plant upgrade, if the community bought buffer zones along the creeks and waterways in their community it would be much more beneficial than spending that money at a treatment facility to try to get a marginal improvement on an already clear discharge. Some communities are doing just that with great results. So the media makes it to be a big deal when these treatment plant operators have a violation, but the fact of the matter is even with the violation it is usually insignificant in the big scheme of things. The fact of the matter is the discharge from most treatment plants is basically to drinking level quality. Heck in California where water is a premium, they just about do just that - it comes in as sewage and leaves as drinking water. It is being done in space on the International Space Station. In fact, some craft beer in California is starting to be made from effluent from a treatment plant...

What I was saying was maybe the employee tried during the day to be nice and polite to other guests that violated policy and were cussed out so they figured why be nice and tried the stern approach and maybe it was this calm couple that was the recipient of the employee trying a different approach because being polite with other guests simply resulted in being cussed out. I suspect it wasn't their first time at the park since they were so willing to discard the cup, but maybe they had such a bad day they decided they would never come back and was willing to dispose of cup. Now I agree that for the sake of speed and dispatch times, to make the individual get out and throw away the cup seems counter intuitive as that would most definitely slow dispatch times. We will never know the full story unfortunately, so people will post their viewpoints based on what they believe happened and how they interpret your posts. For all we know the line separator in the station could have told the couple they couldn't ride with the cup and they blew them off or went off on the separator so the ride operator decided to be a stern authoritative. We will never know. One of the reasons why I hate when the media shows a 15 second clip of some "issue" and it goes viral and what is being seen on that clip could be totally taken out of context without knowing what led up to the event that was captured. Anything less than that and we are assuming what happened and we know what happens when one assumes.

I tend to agree with Chad on this post. Granted we don't know all that was said, but someone being "rude" is subjective. Personally, as long as they didn't use profanity or make fun of the individual, I would tend to think they were simply doing their job. There are postings all over the park (including the video signs above you when you get your pass scanned - wonder how many have never noticed that!, at the ride itself, etc.) so there really isn't any excuse for a person to get that far in line. As Bodda points out, the employee could have been working a long day by that time and perhaps this person was the 40th person that day that had tried to sneak a cup through the line and on the ride and being human, most of us by that time would have not been as polite as we probably could be OR maybe they have tried the polite approach to only be cussed out (I have seen that happen all too often) so they decided to simply be stern in hopes it would come across authoritatively. There is a difference between stern and rude. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people try to sneak something past the greeter at the front of the ride. The majority of the time they are caught, but at night and if going in with a group, things like a cup can be missed. But again, that isn't the greeter's fault, that is the individual for not reading and following the rules. Maybe we should make it a requirement that all guests must pass a basic rules exam before entering the park LOL!!! But we live in a coddle society so someone probably expects the employee should say something like "Hi I'm Katie and I unfortunately regret to have to inform you that the policy on this ride is that you are not allowed to bring anything onto the ride. I am so sorry that you missed our postings and that the greeter at the front of the line missed it. I also apologize profusely that we do not have bins for you to put it in. Please accept my dearest sympathies in your situation but I will have to kindly ask you to leave the ride. As a token of my apologies, here is a FastLane pass so that you can enjoy the rides at the park without waiting. I am so sorry we made you stand in line and again please accept my heartfelt apologies." Personally, I was raised that if you did something wrong, don't expect a sugar coat or politeness when being corrected or being told of your infraction as they are there to enforce policy not be the make you feel good greeter. The part that frustrates me the most are seeing people with souvenir cups doing stuff like trying to take stuff through Banshee or Mystic lines and smoking where they shouldn't be - they are obviously pass holders and should know better.

Yes, you can see Gravity at 3,5,7 today... There will be no shows tomorrow...See you there...

She did and rode it according to the daughter...

They must have removed or moved it because it was working this morning but now it doesn't.