disco2000

I also believe the "no loose article" policy is resulting in the unintended consequences phenomenon. In addition to the reasons above, there are numbers of people that based on comments they read on social media have decided to not visit the parks due to the locker rental policy... Here is a fun fact showing the phenomenon of unintended consequences of implementing something intended to fix a problem. In Ohio there have been more deaths/accidents attributed to texting while driving since the law went into effect banning driving while texting. Why is that - before the law, people would text with both arms on top of the steering wheel texting up there where they had peripheral vision around them - so they were still distracted driving but had some benefit of peripheral vision. Now that the law is in effect, people are now texting with the phone in their lap so other drivers and police cannot see their phone. Once they did that the peripheral vision is now no longer the road...Something to think about!

Well I was being a little sarcastic (I think), but not too far off. Earlier in the day while waiting for a break at the front of the line to ask questions I heard the security guard there at the time tell a group of teen girls "go hang your bags on the fence nobody will steal them while I'm here". When nobody was at the entrance I mentioned to the security guard and the ride op that their sister park KI would never allow that and in fact I have seen several times at KI where kids have tried to hide their bags and then watch security take them up to lost and found lol. They just shook their heads that KI would do that. Nobody I talked to saw the problem with that. One of them told me just their presence was a deterrent from someone stealing a bag. What ride does KI have a security guard at the entrance all day on a typical weekday? Granted I wasn't at the ride all day, but at the times I rode or went by, it was the guard telling people to hang them on the fence not the ride op. The poor kid working the lockers looked like the Maytag repair man lol (see if anyone gets that).

While at Kings Dominion to see friends thought I would share a big difference between KI and KD regarding bags. Take a look at this picture - although they have lockers, KD is encouraging folks to just put their bags on the entry fence and they are nice enough to provide a security guard to watch over the bags lol. Would never see this at KI...When I asked a security guard they were like its just simple southern hospitality. It has been that way all year with bags BTW... Since the cell phone incident they are watching more - if you go into line with one out they will generally stop you. If you are on the top platform past separator and pull phone out they will come to you and make you put it in a zippered pocket or leave line...not real consistent yet in enforcement but better than nothing and probably a sign of things to come...

I hate the "screaming that she rode it earlier part" every time I hear it. It never works.... Just because you were speeding on the I71 and didn't get caught doesn't mean you won't get caught next time lol. I bet that mindset works well when an officer pulls her over - well I sped here last time and didn't get a ticket...

But to be devil's advocate and to remain considerate of all guests...where is the line drawn...and at what point...would two people of same sex doing the same thing not bring out a complaint to a park employee nearby or guest services from someone thinking that was wrong? It has and has got heated. And please let's not let this get political because that is not my intent at all. I am just bringing up actual situations that have happened to try to justify employee response and park procedure. Now granted, which ones are enforced and which ones aren't are always a topic of debate on these forums...

That was simply coincidence LOL as tomorrow (WED) is a no show day and the theatre staff before they leave for the day changes the show times if needed for the next day (this prevents someone from having to go in on WED just to change the sign lol)... So when you leave the park Friday night you will notice the Saturday 4 show times are already listed...and Saturday night the times are changed for the next day so that someone doesn't have to be there before park open to change on Sunday...

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!