disco2000

What do people hate about the restraints? I find the Banshee ones so much better than head banging OTSR! I'll take a little tight on the chest and walking off without a headache than freedom in the chest and head banging LOL.

Let's hope that meant they actually cut the number of reservations? Or people said screw it and didn't go based on past experience?

Sadly we will probably see them still struggle to find workers...and now the days they will be open will be even more crowded... The "make me whole" line will be out to the causeway on Wednesdays

Yep, but the rain had pretty much ended by 1pm when they made the decision to close at 3pm, so many people had planned on heading up after 1pm after looking at the radar and seeing nothing else significant was coming...so yeah the folks that braved it early and walked around with the closed rides due to rain and lightening up until 1pm benefited, but anyone planning on going up later that day did not get that opportunity...

Up until recently I never recall the park closing early and have been at the park far worse days and they stayed open and certainly could have closed early due to the rain and so few guests than some recent years where the threat of rain had passed by 2pm yet they closed early with a decent crowd. I too have experienced traveling to another CF park to find they closed early despite the rain had passed. I totally get they are a business, but they had stayed open in the past with far fewer guests on rainy days...but back then people actually had to pay for meals if they stayed in the park and many would grab skyline or LaRosa's and wait it out in the FestHaus, whereas now the business model is different... KI used to tweet out "with rain in the forecast, today is a great day to get rides in with lower crowds" or something to that effect and then would later have to tweet out park is closing...so I doubt we will see any tweets like that anymore...

Many of the CF parks have had them for several years, but I do not see KI getting one. Kings Island is not hurting in that demographic, and the same cannot be said about the Planet Snoopy areas at the other CF parks that offer this pass. There are days at KI that waiting for a Planet Snoopy ride is longer than the wait at Banshee or Diamondback. The same cannot be said for Cedar Point, Kings Dominion, or Carowinds comparing their Planet Snoopy to their respective "big" rides. There are times you can literally see Planet Snoopy on a favorable weather weekend at CP go an hour between a kid riding a ride - it is unbelievable unless you experience it yourself. I doubt you would see it this year at KI because they would not want to refund all the passes bought that would now fall under that category. Given the attendance that KI gets in Planet Snoopy I doubt we will see it here anytime soon; however, if a study shows they would make up for the loss of passes currently being sold in the pre-K age range with new pass holders and their pre-K children, then it would happen. Or they simply decide to give away more of the gate to an already over-crowded Planet Snoppy... Another thing to keep in mind is that surprisingly a large percentage of gold pass holders to KI have no idea of a platinum pass or that other parks offer the pre-K pass. So with the exception of those on this forum, and those that travel and know of the other parks, the typical greater Cincinnati passholder family has no idea about the other parks. I am amazed talking to guests how many confirm that statement.

Every YouTuber is clearly an expert

Clearly they will discuss how they added 20 feet of footage to the lift hill this week to make it taller and clearly in giga status, and Intamin added the additional footage so that it meets giga by all definitions

Do we know if these have been filled reservations or actually removed?

I suspect he wanted to wait until after the Memorial Day Holiday, but based on my observations, masks have been non-existent in most places since his announcement as folks only read the headline and KI will be no exception this weekend indoors and this KI announcement implies without saying it that they will not be enforcing it the next two weeks...

So no masks indoors for the two weekends before the mask mandates expires is what I am reading...

Good thing we will all be wearing face masks this time around...oh wait

I would guess it will be busy - in addition to the pent up demand, a lot of schools will be out by then. Pent up demand will also make typically bad rush hour traffic even worse for people leaving the Cincinnati area. Plus the I71/I75 bridge is being repainted and will be down to a lane or two, so you would have to take the long way around through Indiana, but there is construction there too. Actually where isn't there construction. With FL you should be ok though, but watch the traffic backups and decide if you need to leave earlier.

They spent money on Vortex the year before that everyone said was a clue it wasn't going anywhere soon...I forget now if it was hydraulics or something else.

That sounds like a wonderful guest experience for a 20 year old ride

Last year CP had access passes for their main big attractions...and someone getting the access pass for the hours of 3-4pm for example were met with a 2 hour+ full queue upon arrival to the ride...that didn't exactly work for them either...granted it wasn't a true reservation system, but clearly they were giving out more access passes per hour than hourly ride capacity...

The reservations were obviously filled up with the "make me whole line" that were offered to come back free this weekend

Unfortunately when someone purchases a pass in one year for the following year (or a gift card or any advance payment), one is essentially purchasing it on good faith that the company will still be around when it is time to use such purchase, whether it be season passes or gift cards, or anything of value bought in advance. We are also assuming that we will be in good health and not dead in 6-9 months when the park will be open the following year. There is always a risk to purchasing for something in advance. Usually a purchase like this is a safe bet...but the park can significantly alter the experience at a later date without much recourse to those that pre-purchased. Maybe complaints change it back to what we expected (meal plan offerings for example), but maybe not. The park sold passes in 2019 at a discount for the 2020 season. We as consumers either decide to take advantage of that discounted offer and accept the risk or wait until the following year and pay whatever the going rate is at that time. Whenever something is paid for in advance, the risk always exists that something may happen to render that purchase useless. Whether it is an event like this, a company goes out of business, or someone is scammed by paying someone to build them a deck and then that person takes off and the money is never seen again and a deck isn't built. It's life...and sometimes life sucks...but for many years, we got a great deal out of purchasing the year before for the following year... If I added up the savings differential over the years I have had passes, the savings more than pays for what we paid for passes for 2020 and get to use in 2021...I know that isn't money in my pocket now, but that savings did allow us to spend it on other things throughout the years and this year by not having to renew. One thing this will do, at least for the short term, is modify people's spending habits and not buy a pass until the following year...or pay for anything in advance. It will be interesting to see what CF does to try to overcome this new consumer spending habit...sadly their model is to give away the gate even more when attendance or sales are a little soft. I know many people that never pay for anything in advance. My one friend would always tell me he took the $100 he was going to spend on a pass in August and invested it and the money made on that investment more than paid for the $140 pass in April. I suspect many of us will wait and renew next year instead of in August this year after we see the product being provided for the purchase of the season pass. And if a significant number of season pass holders do that, we may actually see lower prices in the spring as they will be desperate for sales…

Glad to see you missed all the .....

And sadly this is just rehashing of what they said they would do at the end of the 2019 season gold pass fiasco, 2020, and now present day...some variation of guest experience isn't what they were hoping so they are looking at improvements. 2019 they said improvements would be made to prevent long backups on the causeway...yet we still hear of issues and apparently it was a disaster trying to leave Saturday night... The "With new health guidelines coming out just this week" holds zero merit as they could have continued as originally planned being a private business, plus many of the restrictions are in place for a few more weeks... If anything, this shows how unprepared they were because the reservations opened up long before the new health guidelines were issued, so if anything the park should have been at a reduced capacity based on the reservation system...they are simply using the new health guidelines as a deflection from the real issue... The whole point of requiring reservations is to use that to control number of guests to available staffing... That would be like purchasing a movie ticket and showing up and being told they didn't have enough seats... Unfortunately the guest experience at CP has been declining the past few years. Steel Vengeance did not draw the crowds in like they expected, so they gave away the gate and are now suffering from that short-term decision. Sure the pandemic impacted it, but much of this is self-inflicted on their part... So the solution will end up being even more increased giving away the gate because if it is cheap to get in, then people just accept the long lines and subpar experience right...

CP had international workers in 2019 when they gave away their gate in gold passes.....ask any of us, or look at the newspaper articles, at how horrendous the experience was with everything open and too many people there..... As I mentioned, part of the issue is with all the add-ons, people are staying in the park instead of going to the parking lot or hotel to eat. Let's say that averaged 5,000 people at any given hour that would have left the park but instead are now in food lines to use a meal plan and the lines can't accommodate that additional demand....and this also keeps people in the park longer cause "gotta get my value out of the meal plan" when in the past they may have got in the rides they wanted and the left for the day...or the folks that just stop by after work to get their free meal on meal plan and leave...most people didn't do that pre meal plan... Demand went up but supply didn't...econ 101 says prices go up when demand exceeds supply and yet CP (or CF for that matter) have maintained or lowered gate and food costs...

Land being seeded and strawed is not necessarily an indicator of how long a plot of land will sit vacant. Per stormwater regulations, any disturbed land that will be left idle for more than 21 days needs to be seeded and strawed, even if they plan on doing construction 25 days later...contractors complain all the time about that timeframe on active sites and have been known to occasionally move some dirt around to "loophole" that regulation LOL.

As does Dominion...

This isn't the first year they have closed early due to weather...it has been going on for a few years...many times recently they tweet out that rainy days are good days to visit the park as crowds are low....only to tweet out a few hours later they are closing early....

What I think they fail to recognize is that with all the pass add-ons, FL, etc., while bringing them additional revenue, also means that there is more demand for everything in the park than there was previously, if that makes any sense... Basically, before meal plans, a large number of people would leave the park and/or pack food and eat in the parking lot. Now with the economical add-ons or the $30 daily meal plan for a meal every 90min means that if they let 65,000 in, a larger number of that 65,000 guests are staying within the park gates riding, eating, shopping, etc. than say 10 years ago when folks would go back to their hotel or eat in the parking lot...and the current model ends up degrading the overall experience for everyone. The days when they could overprice the food to help balance supply/demand is tossed out the window now...in the past they recognized the higher prices for food would drive folks out to the parking lot, and they were ok with that because they knew they couldn't keep up with the demand if they offered dollar meal prices...but the demand has increased exponentially with meal plan offers without substantial improvements to the ability to handle it.