IBEW_Sparky Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I am going to make this a very quick, simple, and to the point Cliff-notes TR outlining my day... or should I say hour and 30 minutes at Kings Island. I arrived at roughly 1230pm to be greeted by 8 school busses and a dozen or more charter busses... ahh wonderful. I did not let this dissuade me as it was very much the same last Friday and I had no problems with the exception of longer wait times. I went and upgraded my pass to Platinum due to an impending trip to CP on Tuesday... this is $60 I truly regret deeply and wish I had not done before entering the park. I decided my first ride was to be FOF, but after walking over and seeing the outside queue area 90% full, I decided against it and figured I would hit it later when the crowds died down a bit. A quick glance towards Firehawk's queue indicated an estimated hour wait (usual for FH) and I chose to walk over towards Rivertown. At this point, IM still cool as I expected a bigger crowd with the busses... no probs. I took a nice stroll... or shall I say mobile obstacle course avoiding the large groups of basketball bouncing schoolkids (ahh todays youth... wonderful) to BLSC. I will say I saw one single positive while walking over there... there was a young man carrying a DEFLATED basketball... kudos to his maturity in taking that as a prize as opposed to an inflated one. I rode BLSC (20 min wait) and this turned out to be my one ride for the day. I left BLSC and walked to The Beast to discover a 45 to 50 minute wait..."no probs" I think to myself "I can hit this this evening too....time to head to the people eater". I walk over to DB and FOOLISHLY go into the SRL even though the normal queue was only about 20 minutes max. Here, I get in line behind 4 12-14y/o individuals who are very obviously together. Now, for those of you who are under the mistaken impression that "Its no big deal for a group to get into the SRL as long as they dont mind not riding together", you are incredibly mistaken on that thought. I listened to one of these wonderful kids call one of their friends and say "come to the single rider line". At this point I had 4 or 5 people behind me in the SRL. I was very shortly afterward nudged by a kid who said "excuse me, I need to get back in line with my Friends". I said I dont think so and blocked him. he went to the other side of me and I blocked again. The third time he tried, he pushed between me and the wood railing on the left side of the SRL. I looked at the 5 people behind me in disbelief that they did not say a single word to this ...... kid and knew that I would not have the 2nd witness I would need to get a D..n thing done about it. Now seeing red and literally ready to go ballistic on anyone, I went directly to Guest Relations where an incredibly nice lady listened to me, and called a Supervisor immediately. Once the Supervisor of Ride Operations at Rivertown arrived (Jeremy, a VERY nice, professional, understanding young Man) I gave him a very detailed report of the incident and my thoughts about what is becoming an incessant and detrimental problem. We spoke for a bit, and after politely declining an offer of an escort to the front of DB's line (I am not one who wants something for nothing, I just wanted to make my voice heard) I walked out of the park while trying to calm myself before getting in my car, and drove back to Indianapolis. Summary: Time spent in park... 1 hour, 30 minutes Rides ridden... BLSC Odds of me returning to KI... absolutely zero To those of you who call Kings Island your home park... the time is NOW for you to all take a stand and not allow it to become the second coming of Six Flags Ohio... we all know how that one turned out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Touchdown Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Really because one obnoxious kid cut in front of you? I dont really see how this is the park's fault, in fact it looks like the park did everything they could to fix the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PKIDelirium Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOPGUN1993 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Calm down there buddy......Yeah I realize linejumping is bad but to go to this level? Focusing on the positives is always good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBEW_Sparky Posted May 30, 2009 Author Share Posted May 30, 2009 Why?? Really?? I will tell you exactly why. I did NOT become a passholder to spend my day at the park being a babysitter or Security Officer, THATS why. I was under the impression that a day at an amusement park was supposed to be a good time, where one could relax and enjoy the rides/attractions without having to constantly deal with this type of incident. If you have read any portion of these boards since opening day, you will (hopefully) be able to see that this is not in any way an isolated incident. Why in God's name should I voluntarily subject myself to this type of garbage? You are totally correct in your one statement that the park did as much as they possibly could in this situation, hence my praise of GR and of Jeremy. However, until the statement "linejumpers will be removed from the line and possibly from the park" is changed to "linejumpers will have their butts tossed out of the park PERIOD with no exceptions" this will continue and will get worse, far worse... especially on DB. If the time comes when I hear reports from Friends that the park has taken an iron fist approach to this problem... I will consider returning to the park a postitive experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Touchdown Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Hate to tell you but its the same all over, you even see it at Disney World now. I think it is sadly a reflection on our culture. I try to prevent it, and the parks try to prevent it but unless an employee sees it or the jumper confesses their hands are tied. If the ride op had seen it and not done anything about it then I would see your point. Also, Ill be darned if Im going to let one line jumper ruin my day at park. Screw that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Force Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 If KI was more strict with dealing with line jumpers, we wouldn't have this problem. I agree with IBEW_Sparky in the fact that it should be stated that all line jumpers will be kicked out of the park. If that is publically displayed, you can bet you won't see nearly as many kids jumping, if any at all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Interpreter Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 The park shouldn't display any rules unless it is going to enforce them. See, for example, the rules about smoking only in designated areas...and the apparent lack of enforcement thereof. Posting without enforcement only makes the 'rules' a mockery of good order. It's consistent enforcement that works, not just posting signs... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin_M17 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 While I agree that line jumping is a problem that's getting way too far out of hand, I believe that this thread defines the word "overreaction". Sure, the kid should've been ejected from the park and it's pretty sad that the people behind you did nothing about the problem, but one incident is no reason to claim that your entire day was ruined and leave the park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KI-ORIG-EMP Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Was it all the school and tour buses in the parking lot or the one bad apple that was cutting in line your problem? I would had prevented all my heart that kid from cutting in line, no matter how mad he might had been. Just like you did. All parks have their share of line jumpers but it is no reason not to come back. As for crowds, you picked a day that had all those busses full of school kids while the days earlier in the week did not. Kids will be kids, no matter where they might be. It sounds like they were there for school related events, just like math and science days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TopThrill Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Yes I will have to agree with that, the park needs to make a big statement about line jumping. Not just say if you line jump, you got the go the the back of the line, or if line jump again you'll be forced to leave the park. It should always be, if you line jump for any reason, then you'll be forced to leave the park. No back talk, no BS, get out of the park. I don't see if they don't do anything like that, then people will keep line jumping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avatar Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 IBEW_Sparky sorry to hear about your frustrating day at Kings Island today. With the many trips most of us take we are bound to have one not up to our liking, I hope you back off from not going to the park in the near future as you are one that respect the rules and the park needs more guest like you to set a great example Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
violakat03 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 There is one problem with the theory stayed earlier that stating that line jumpers will be removed will stop it from happening. There ARE signs. At the beginning of all lines and often times stand alone signs throughout the queue. It is also in every map brochure. People choose to ignore these warnings, just like they ignore the no smoking warnings. Until people start seeing and hearing about these rules being strictly enforced, they will continue to ignore all signage pertaining to the park's rules. Posted from the backless BlackBerry mobile device. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Interpreter Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Agreed totally...also known as an unenforced rule is not a rule at all...and word gets around... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdrptrks Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 While I agree that line jumping is a problem that's getting way too far out of hand, I believe that this thread defines the word "overreaction". Sure, the kid should've been ejected from the park and it's pretty sad that the people behind you did nothing about the problem, but one incident is no reason to claim that your entire day was ruined and leave the park. I was at the park today. Yes, there were lots of kids, and I personally saw 6 or 7 line jumpers, 2 or 3 smokers walking around, an offensive shirt, and multiple people using vulgar language, not to mention that Delirium, my all time favorite flat ride at any park, broke down before I got to ride it, but I still enjoyed my visit. It is your fault that you let a line jumper ruin your day. Seriously, you took over 2 hours to drive to KI and you left over 8 hours before closing because of a 5 minute or less delay caused by a line jumper? I understand your frustration, but leaving because of this is overreacting. If you would have arrived in time for ERT and the first hour of operation you would have found the lines to be much more reasonable. I literally walked on to The Beast at about 10:20am today. (However, they have now trimmed it so much that I actually got off thinking that it was boring.) Also, Boomerang Bay was not very crowded today and the water was fairly warm. All the slides that were open had a wait of 5 minutes or less (except for Tazmanian Typhoon, I would guess it was around a 15 minute wait). Next time you should make the best of the situation and just realize that you will still get to ride the ride, even if it takes a few minutes longer. Now if someone had cut in front of you and forced you exit the queue without riding the ride that would be a cause for your level of irritation. EDIT: My experience with Cedar Point is that there is less line jumping and it is dealt with better, so don't expect the line jumping at Cedar Point to be as bad as it is at Kings Island. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BavarianBeatle Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 The posting of rules that are not enforced is worse than no rule at all! The unenforced policy then becomes a joke to the rulebreakers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windshawne Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I am going to make this a very quick, simple, and to the point Cliff-notes TR outlining my day... or should I say hour and 30 minutes at Kings Island. I arrived at roughly 1230pm to be greeted by 8 school busses and a dozen or more charter busses... ahh wonderful. I did not let this dissuade me as it was very much the same last Friday and I had no problems with the exception of longer wait times. I went and upgraded my pass to Platinum due to an impending trip to CP on Tuesday... this is $60 I truly regret deeply and wish I had not done before entering the park. I decided my first ride was to be FOF, but after walking over and seeing the outside queue area 90% full, I decided against it and figured I would hit it later when the crowds died down a bit. A quick glance towards Firehawk's queue indicated an estimated hour wait (usual for FH) and I chose to walk over towards Rivertown. At this point, IM still cool as I expected a bigger crowd with the busses... no probs. I took a nice stroll... or shall I say mobile obstacle course avoiding the large groups of basketball bouncing schoolkids (ahh todays youth... wonderful) to BLSC. I will say I saw one single positive while walking over there... there was a young man carrying a DEFLATED basketball... kudos to his maturity in taking that as a prize as opposed to an inflated one. I rode BLSC (20 min wait) and this turned out to be my one ride for the day. I left BLSC and walked to The Beast to discover a 45 to 50 minute wait..."no probs" I think to myself "I can hit this this evening too....time to head to the people eater". I walk over to DB and FOOLISHLY go into the SRL even though the normal queue was only about 20 minutes max. Here, I get in line behind 4 12-14y/o individuals who are very obviously together. Now, for those of you who are under the mistaken impression that "Its no big deal for a group to get into the SRL as long as they dont mind not riding together", you are incredibly mistaken on that thought. I listened to one of these wonderful kids call one of their friends and say "come to the single rider line". At this point I had 4 or 5 people behind me in the SRL. I was very shortly afterward nudged by a kid who said "excuse me, I need to get back in line with my Friends". I said I dont think so and blocked him. he went to the other side of me and I blocked again. The third time he tried, he pushed between me and the wood railing on the left side of the SRL. I looked at the 5 people behind me in disbelief that they did not say a single word to this ...... kid and knew that I would not have the 2nd witness I would need to get a D..n thing done about it. Now seeing red and literally ready to go ballistic on anyone, I went directly to Guest Relations where an incredibly nice lady listened to me, and called a Supervisor immediately. Once the Supervisor of Ride Operations at Rivertown arrived (Jeremy, a VERY nice, professional, understanding young Man) I gave him a very detailed report of the incident and my thoughts about what is becoming an incessant and detrimental problem. We spoke for a bit, and after politely declining an offer of an escort to the front of DB's line (I am not one who wants something for nothing, I just wanted to make my voice heard) I walked out of the park while trying to calm myself before getting in my car, and drove back to Indianapolis. Summary: Time spent in park... 1 hour, 30 minutes Rides ridden... BLSC Odds of me returning to KI... absolutely zero To those of you who call Kings Island your home park... the time is NOW for you to all take a stand and not allow it to become the second coming of Six Flags Ohio... we all know how that one turned out! Well said, and I agree wholeheartedly. I am tired and that is all I'm going to say about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westcoaster Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 sadly Cedar Point is a better managed , policed, and better overall place than Kings Island, sadly as that is. But as a family we have a better experience at the point, or 2nd in the fair parks, Knotts........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corn4ahead Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 hey buddy, theres no need to get upset. Its not just a problem at KI, so dont go blaming them and its just the time of yr for school kids as there are many field trips. Dont let one bad experience discourage you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ki Man Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 So, you went on a day where the chances of kids ages 10-15 are calling for 100% ....what do you expect? There's going to be lines on a Friday, especially when school coming to an end, and a trip to the park is an annual event for some schools. There's going to be lots of kids in lines until about 4PM. It's a Kings Island on a Friday...expect lines! As for the line jumping, tell them no. 9/10 times they will have their friends come back behind you. Don't try to be physical and block them...say something! And why would you get out of line after waiting? Just to runnnn all the way over to guest relations to hope they'd kick him out right then and there? I don't think all that work would ammount to that. This TR is going to be flamed to bits. If your chances of returning are zero, that's sad to hear. Oh, and Kings Island is NOT a "Six Flags Ohio." That's an insult, dude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom76257 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Sparky - I agree that linejumping sucks and that the little brat that did it should have been thrown out of the park, but to go home two hours away because of something that took two seconds is a little much. I seriously hope you reconsider your decision on not coming to the park anymore because of a few bad apples. Some people are ignorant, but if we let it get the best of us then we have already lost the battle. Just take 10 deep breaths next time and then enjoy a ride on Diamondback. Ask people in the regular line if they'll back you up. I'm sure someome would have spoken up if you asked them nicely. All I'm trying to say is don't let one little brat ruin your day at a great park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dvo Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Yeah that really stinks about the line jumping. But at the same time, one extra person might make you wait one more train at most. Of course the other annoyances probably had you in a bad state of mind. I hope this doesn't make you think KI is a bad park. Almost all parks have similar stuff going on every day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erosarrow05 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I wonder for every dissatisfied patron how many satisfied patrons exist. I cant help but thinking there could have been better ways, aside from 'blocking a 12-14 year old boy" three times and subsequently become disgruntled afterwards, to handle this. If it was a big issue to me, which it would not have been, you could have said to the young man, there is a sign out front that says 'line jumping is not permitted'. And if he stayed, you could have informed the people behind you that you were going to notify the greeter at the entrance of the ride. I can't say I would have felt obligated, or safe for that matter 'blocking another guest' or essentially taking the enforcement of rules into my hands. Maybe that comes down to one of those "What would you do" questions... I just don't see the problem to the degree that certain others do. To me, this is one of those complaints that comes up every now and again, is discussed and then fizzles off when the next new thing to complain about rolls around... Like smoking, inconsistent height measuring, food quality, price of admission, ride additions etc. etc... I have to agree with whomever said these "problems" are everywhere, because its true, and certainly not limited to amusement parks. My personal opinion is that line jumping happens to be the band wagon everyone is jumping on at this point. The only other thing I find myself asking is... If it is such a problem, and 'word is out', why hasn't local media made it headline news... (and we know the rain is breaking news in Cincinnati, so line jumping would be front page headlines for weeks I'm sure...) Or at least, why hasn't a park spokesperson made a little post here about addressing the issue? I can only think because the 'line jumping epidemic of 2009' is probably no different or severe than that in years past... At the end of the day, you can't please everyone... Could you imagine Madea, Miss Mable Simmons herself in IBEW_Sparky's situation today... I bet it would have gone something like this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
droid72 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 In my opinion, it's because so many people have entitlement issues these days. Plus, everyone is so scared to offend someone in a crowd setting, we tolerate intolerant behavior. That's why no one jumped in to help. They were scared of getting sucked into an unpredictable situation and didn't feel like being inconvenienced. That's my take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erosarrow05 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 you make a very valid point... especially about unpredictable situations... you never know what could happen... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flightoffear1996 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I had a line jumper on me just the other day. I tried to stop him but he continued on his way. Its almost always the 12-14 year old kids that I see doing it. If we could get rid of them the park would be a great place! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KIfan1980 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 Its sad that this has turned into a flame Sparky forum. Whether you would have acted the same way is NOT the point. The point is that Kings Island has become a place where rules are not enforced. And for those that think its the same everywhere - you are just plain wrong. Kings Island needs to wake up and do something about line jumping before real problems occur (this kind of thing can easily escalate into violence) which will cause many more people to avoid future trips to the park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Maple The Tree King Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 What boggles me is how poorly the single rider line at Kings Island is set up and why they constructed it in that way. You would think the park would have learned a thing or two by now or done their homework before investing in this attraction. I don't think that is so much due to the fact that the employees are not enforcing these so much as it is the poor design of the rides queue. If you visit a park like Disney or Universal, typically the single rider or fast pass lanes do not come anywhere close to or near the regular queue line as to prevent line jumping. I remember a few seasons back wen Gold Passholders were treated to the perk of "Walk on Weekends." At rides like The Beast, where the walk on line and regular queue line ran parallel, line jumping was a common ocurrance. I still don't understand why Kings Island didn't set up a walk on line like Maverick's where all guests wait in the same queue but don't have the option to join the single rider line until just before entering the station. People aren't complaining about line jumping just to be on a "bandwagon," they're complaining because due to the design of the Diamondback queue it's become a very common ocurrance at a very popular new ride. It's the same thing with the "Walk on Weekends" lines a few seasons back, either do it right or don't do it at all. Sparky, I realize you are very heated and you make some valid points. However, I would suggest returning to Kings Island at some point down the road. As the Guest Relations office and that employee Jeremey you mentioned showed; KI has many good employees who will go out of their way to help you. These first few weekends of regular operation are always terrible. As a passholder, I stopped coming at this time. Many rides are not open and schoolchildren run around unsupervised, just not worth the hassle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
standbyme Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 In my opinion, it's because so many people have entitlement issues these days. Plus, everyone is so scared to offend someone in a crowd setting, we tolerate intolerant behavior. That's why no one jumped in to help. They were scared of getting sucked into an unpredictable situation and didn't feel like being inconvenienced. You summed up my thoughts exactly. I hate line jumping...but I just try to overlook it for 2 reasons...Number 1: In the grand scheme of things I figure that one or two extra people in front of me is not that big of a deal...and Number 2: After witnessing a line jumper confrontation a few years ago where it looked like a knife was about to be pulled out, it made me realize that it REALLY wasn't worth the possible consequences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dvo Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 ^^That's just it, though. KI has no experience with a single rider line. I talked to an area supervisor on opening day, and he told us that this is a completely new thing to them and even went as far to ask us if we had any suggestions. Could it be improved? Yes. But I think it's a great first attempt at a single rider line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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