KI 8/17/07

[PKIVortex]

So today I went to KI for the 13th time of the season ouch lucky # 13. Here is the list of rides that I did today.

Son of Beast x3, rode twice in the front 1-1 and once in the back 6-1 much better then my ride on 8/4/07.

Top Gun, Short but sweet like always.

Drop Zone x2, today Drop Zone was the non gyro drop. I hear lots of people joking about getting there feet cut off while getting on the ride. Some people have a sick sense of humor.

Face/Off x2, Intense as always.

Congo Falls, I got more wet on the drop today then I have in a long time. I noticed that one of the boats where already gone from the ride, and one was out of the water, they were only running 3 boats today.

Delirium, still love this ride, definity my favorite non coaster ride.

Adventure Express x2, Same ol Express here.

Racer Backwards x4, love the backwards far more then the forwards, it's still running well to me.

Racer Forwards x2, Forwards needs some TLC hopefully this winter it will receive some.

Flight of Fear , A great coaster, but they seem to have issues with the videos from time to time, our train's video's didn't work for some reason.

Firehawk, I got expressed to the station when I still had 2 more ques to go through, way to go Firehawk crew.

Vortex x3, The crew still needs work. Stacking almost every train. What is even the point of running 3 trains??? The brakes that stop you after the final helix hurt like heck.

The Beast x2, rode once during the day and once at night.

Okay here are a few negatives from today. Now I may just have been spoiled by just spending 3 days at Dollywood this past Monday through Wednesday, but KI really needs to step up a little. But I went over to the ice cream stand in nick u, and they were just 2 employees standing and talking to each other, while the other employee was taking orders. What really made me mad was, finally after about 5 minutes they asked someone behind me in line if they could help them. I was like okay, I was standing here longer then them, why didn't you ask me if I needed any help. Then he goes and tells me that I could have asked him to help me. I said that's your job to service the Guest, that's why your behind the counter. You get paid to help us, not to talk. He was arguing with me as well. Some of these employees especially in Food need to learn how to treat Guests, and not argue back at them. I swear the service at KI has gone way way down. Of course what can you expect when they are a bunch of 16 or 17 year olds. Both of the employees had a blue on there name tag, which I was told means they are under 18.

The other issue I had as I was the last train on The Beast for the evening, the guy checking bars, was going so fast, that he actually missed my bar, he didn't check it. It may have looked like he did from the drive booth, but he didn't even touch my bar what so ever. So the driver was telling me he did check it, that's not something I would lie about. So the guy did come back and check my bar, but actually touching it. So I don't know why I felt this way about KI today, but I was actually unhappy how things were going.

Also when I first tried to ride SOB for the 3rd time tonight, they shut it down, and they said it was going to be closed for a long delay, the operator was telling people 1 1/2 hours. So everyone else left, so I did as well. Can you believe that after I went and rode AE and Backwards Racer it was reopened. So it was only closed for about 20 minutes. I would have waited that one out. When I worked at the park were never ever gave a time a ride could reopen or be down for.

So I rode a lot of rides today yes, but I think the employees are getting sick of there jobs for the year already, or KI needs to retrain everyone, that they can either make someone have a good day or a bad day, it takes just one person doing something they shouldn't be.

[The Interpreter]

Similar things were also seen in the Six Flags Over Texas trip report posted here.

I think part of this is the August effect. At every major park I have been to in both early season and late in the summer, and to some extent the minor parks, I've seen this. Many of the good employees have left to go back to college. Others have worked all summer, and the excitement of the new season and wonderful guests has left the park. And then add to it the heat, monotony, the less than wonderful guests and, in too many cases, the less than wonderful supervisors.

Not saying this is acceptable, but I've seen it many times.

That all being said, the foods department at Kings Island has had service problems since the first day of the first weekend this year. If the pricing alone didn't already make me very unhappy with Kings Island food service, the poor quality of both the service AND the food would.

[PKIVortex]

Not to mention as well, they even got my order wrong. I ordered a blue berry cone, and he even asked me again what I wanted before he made it, and he still brought me a twist, blue berry/vanialla, if I already wasn't mad I would have said something again, but I didn't want to start anymore issues.

P.S. Dollywood trip report coming soon. My computer has been acting funny and this is the first time I was able to log on line since late Friday night.