disco2000

Meanwhile many other Cedar Fair parks get a Skeleton Crew type show...and that show does well elsewhere...still convinced if we changed out one act ours would have been a hit...

Or they were told to say there were none so that people would not go in asking if they could take any extras home Said extra's probably making their way to some gold tags...they make great holiday gifts...

The orange cup is good at all the parks. Since you have a gold pass, you bought the dining plan for KI only. With a platinum pass you can purchase an all park dining plan.

^^I agree, but most amusement parks deal with this situation all the time and have settled on having one price for admittance (yes there are exceptions like pay to ride and others but then do those parks compete in the same league as a KI?). I am not directing this to you or anyone on this forum, but unfortunately there are always those that have to complain if they don't ride coasters - I mean go look at the Dollywood FaceBook page and read the number of people complaining that their parents don't ride anything why do they have to pay full price. In the summer Dollywood has at least 11 different entertainment options, along with great food, unique shops, rides, fireworks, trams in parking lot, etc. Many people go to Dollywood just for the entertainment, yet people still complain about why they have to pay full price. Many will argue that Dollywood offers more to non-riders than Kings Island does. KI believes they offer enough with "more than 100 rides, shows and attractions offering the perfect combination of world-class thrills and family attractions. Guests can experience the park’s 15 thrill-inducing roller coasters, including Diamondback, the tallest and fastest roller coaster at Kings Island, and the world’s longest wooden roller coaster, The Beast! Families can spend the perfect day together in the 13-time, award-winning Planet Snoopy kids’ area, or step back in time to periods between 245 million and 65 million years ago in Dinosaurs Alive!" - taken from their webpage. This is one of those discussions that people have their opinion and will not be swayed. On one side you have those that think a flat admittance fee (or season pass price in this case) ensures that the park is able to continue providing new attractions every year even if that means some will not enjoy everything the park offers. Others think that if you cannot partake in every attraction then you should not have to pay as much. And yet large families think KI should have a family pass that is one price and is good whether the family is 3 people or 7 people! Fact of the matter is very few pass holders actually partake in every single attraction. Some don't go to Soak City, some do not do the shows, most do not do every ride. Some go and just people watch.

You may need a refresher on what employees can post on social media

Well you did ask earlier in this thread does upgrading from a gold to platinum count as a renewal, so I was letting you know that with a platinum a junior pass option does exist. In the past, the gold pass for early renewal was the same price regardless of age/height, but after the season ended and the price went up, that is when the junior gold pass option became available. Since they still offer a junior platinum, a junior gold pass may be available after this current price sees an increase after the season ends. Of course said junior price will be more expensive than the pass offering now...

...And many grandparents make that same argument that they don't ride a thing but want to spend time with their family...well if one doesn't like it, one can choose not to purchase....or if you are so hung up on getting a lower priced pass for the young one, then purchase a platinum pass that offers such a junior pass...and be thankful that Kings Island hasn't followed the Cedar Point model and that you can still get a gold pass that gives free parking and admission to Soak City - you can only get that with a platinum at Cedar Point. Cedar Point does not offer such an equivalent bargain. With their park only pass, you can spend $30 more than the gold pass and get less. Gold pass is still an excellent value...

Or it could have been closed to allow the parking lot to be used for the tennis tournament. Lot was full today for the tourney...their normal parking (golf course) was a little wet lol Or it was a staffing issue... Or it was the crypto threat..... Or any combination of above or other.....

^Stashua - I love your reports, but shouldn't these be in the trip reports section?

If you do, then I do too. I thought the same, and it wasn't until I went looking for what the dates were going to be that I realized Greg might not have been referring to this year. It made the most sense to me that they were trying to influence people to get their season passes early so they would be able to go to Winterfest. Since its not until next winter, there's no real incentive to renew or buy now, at least not because of this announcement. The only way that would work would be if CF changed their policy on new passes (I mean they could if they wanted). Policy right now is buy a pass for next season and get one visit this year - so if it were WinterFest 2016, would they change policy to say buy a pass now for next season and it is good rest of this year. Short of that, buying a pass now does get you into Winterfest 2017 at historically the cheapest pass price. Besides using folks logic above in prior posts, if it said WinterFest 2016, then that means it already happened in January 2016 . But in all fairness to those confused and in particular those at the announcement, it would be easy to assume it was for this season. Many people claim they did not hear Greg say for 2017, so...

But in your scenario, one would be buying at 2017 pass, which is valid for the 2017 season, which for KI is typically started in April of every year? It is better this way because if WinterFest were making a return in 2016, all those buying a 2017 Season Pass still wouldn't be able to get in during Winterfest 2016 because that would be for the 2016 season and their pass would be valid for 2017 and not 2016! Using your argument if they said Holidays 2017 to leave the grey areas out, someone would say why isn't it open for MLK Holiday in January? As I stated before, if you wanna keep the idiots away that want to argue nonsense, then change it to coming November 2017, but then again some moron will make claim that they are only available to go first part of November and didn't realize it wasn't opening until after Thanksgiving and demand their money back. Is it a cash grab when the announce a new ride for the following year and then put passes up for sale for said year? This is no different - they announced an attraction being added NEXT YEAR, whether it is Mystic Timbers that will probably be opening in April or WinterFest probably opening in November. New attractions for the following year drive season pass sales for the following year. It has been this way in the industry for a long time. Park announces new ride and then season passes go on sale. This forum is starting to sound like the FaceBook posters....and that is not a compliment!

When has winter ever started in January? The announcement was a capital expenditure for the 2017 season. Did the 2017 season start in April 2016 when they opened for the year? If you don't like it, don't buy a season pass for next year. The Ohio State University Buckeyes Football Team won the 2014 National Championship. Game was played January 12, 2015. Same analogy. They were not considered Champs in 2015 simply because the game was played in 2015, so don't expect Winter 2017 to mean January 2017! Most are going to understand that Winter 2017 means next year Nov/Dec 2017. So just like McDonald's needs to place on coffee cups "caution contents may be hot", I guess if enough people don't understand when Winter 2017 is, then KI will change it to say coming November 2017.

Winterfest 2017 included with pass and not an up charge will be huge. But at the same time, not increasing pass prices will certainly bring it's demise. I doubt it will run as long as the original Winterfest did. It costs a lot to put on Winterfest and if you are not increasing pass prices to account for these extra operating days, it is not a sustainable model.

^^except he isn't from Canada...

The law in Ohio is that parks are required to follow the guidelines of the ride manufacturer. My understanding is that without approval from PTC the park is not allowed to turn the trains around. The other option is to get new trains that the park can get approval to run backwards. According to the park, this is not true. Don has stated that the park chose to turn the backward side back to forward for "nostalgia". He even removed my comment on the park's Facebook page once when I told someone what you claim here (and what I, at the time, believed). Sometimes things are said for marketing purposes; other times for legal purposes. Just like keeping hands down for KI photo shoots are for "aesthetics" I am sure legal would not want out there that the reason they switched it was because they were violating ORC...

They are not from the Cincy area. AT ALL. Most are from Canada (many of them French speaking), with some from Las Vegas and elsewhere. Many went to a circus school (4 year program) to develop their craft. Most have travelled the world performing. Many of the trampoline performers in our Cirque shows were in Nationals for gymnastics and many were Olympic material. Amazing talent brought in to a regional park. Many will pay upwards of over $200 to watch one Cirque du Soleil show with many performers from our two seasons of Imagine. And ours is free with park admission.

Several of the performers from Imagine are/have performing/performed in a Cirque du Soleil show this year. Trevor's is a yet to be developed show...a name hasn't even been developed yet. We really have been blessed with amazing talent in these Cirque shows - every performer is Cirque du Soleil material (most have already performed on that stage in their career already) and guests get to watch it free with park admission.

kinda surprised the bird pic in The Beast photo made it out...

Ironically, over in the Mystic Timbers thread countless folks defending Mystic Timbers are saying don't judge the ride until you have ridden it...

This has been something that has really bothered me this season as well. We usually go after work so we get there at 4:30 and immediately use our dining plan. When we try to get our second meal for the trip home, almost every single place is already closed. Sometimes we get lucky and they have meals sitting on top of the warmers while they're breaking stuff down. And no doubt the dining plan comes into play as well with early closure of some food places, especially now with 8pm closes. Now I realize staffing issues plays a larger role and many of the food places off I-Street typically close an hour early even in the middle of the season and did so long before the dining plans even existed. The point I am making is that probably majority in park this time of year are pass holders and probably more patrons than not are using a dining plan - as has been posted on this forum before - they have your money so why cater to you, especially on a day like today? They certainly do not make any money with the lines of dining plan people at park close cashing out every season pass in their family to take home a whole pizza or more. With the addition of the dining plan, they have no incentive to try to staff food service on days like this, or even at park close. How many people at park close now are really in a food line paying cash or credit card for food - not many, most are dining plan. People paying will go to one of the many establishments outside the park at park close. As someone who gets to enter other Cedar Fair parks, from my experience, KI is the worse with the dining plans. Almost like KI doesn't support it and they hope that if it is a failure here that Cedar Fair will eliminate it. I do not see that happening.

They may tell you that is the reason....another being if their commercials had hands up, you can be sure an attorney would enter that as evidence in the future when some idiot does something stupid as a result of having hands up...argument being "well look the park allows hands up so my client assumed he wouldn't lose a hand..."

But, it was early and wasn't even a station wait at the time of the shoot. More guests were inconvenienced when they made Bert and crew get off the Diamondback train and send it out EMPTY - that's right nobody was on it, and waited for the train to cycle back into the station before allowing Bert and crew to re-enter their seats from the exit side. That particular train was decked out with many cameras to get lots of angles and ride shots and guests facial expressions on the ride so they had to ride that particular train. Cameras and crew were there and ready well before park opening. Bert on the other hand was a little late lol but the shoot wasn't even supposed to be until after park open anyway...

Princess Sparkles does her job well and should be supervisor already. Unlike network tv shoots, these internet sensation illegal on-ride videos creates tons of copy cats by the casual guests that will not have such camera secure..

No doubt that the no re-ride policy (even for a TV show) is what bumped the Bert the Conqueror episode from being a entire episode about Kings Island or at least the premier park of that particular episode. Instead Holiday World got top billing for the episode. Instead of putting on display Diamondback, we get a hey lets ride Vortex since we are close by lol Not surprising at all that Diamondback didn't get top billing and surprised it even made B-roll footage given the events that happened that day during filming at Diamondback...

Marigold - we are going on 5 days with no Jorge....