Kings Island General Discussion 2024

[IBEW_Sparky]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:35 PM, Klabergian Empire said:

Current ride operator here!

To address the subject of line jumpers:

As you probably already know, line jumping is strictly prohibited at Kings Island. ANYONE who sees line jumping should speak with a ride operator as soon as possible about it. Almost every coaster at Kings Island has a distributer (who tells you what row to go to) and that is usually the first person you can go to when reporting line jumpers. Another way to report line jumpers is to text (513) 434-6337 which will go directly to KI security.

Something else I should mention. When guests are reporting line jumpers, there needs to be two or more different parties that saw the suspected line jumping. Only when two or more different parties witness line jumping can the ride operator tell the line jumpers to go to the end of the line and wait their turn.

However, if a ride operator sees line jumping for themselves, they will tell the line jumpers to go to the back of the line and wait their turn.

Failure by line jumpers to comply in either situation will result in either a ride supervisor to tell them to go to the back of the line or KI security being called.

That is how our line jumping policy was explained to me during training.

And thats why it fails, repeatedly.  If its verified… ESPECIALLY if a ride op or other associate sees it… the people caught need an escort to the parking lot, the back of the line is a joke.  I know, as an associate at your level its not an issue you can do anything about, but that IS the issue and no member of Management at CF wants to address it because they are too worried about bad PR from a group of people who dont offer any positive contribution to the park

[disco2000]

People talk about our reduced hours...meanwhile over at Six Flags over Texas they decided to close on Tuesdays in the summer, along with 7 and 8pm closes (a park that usually pulls 3million in attendance):

 

 

[Timchat2]

On a similar note, it appears that some live shows at Six Flags Great America and Six Flags Fiesta Texas will only have performances on the weekends, unless these are just the schedules for the early weekends of the summer.

The Six Flags live entertainment lineups are already pretty lean, so it will be interesting to see if this is a way to save on performer hours at the parks that still have shows.

[BeeastFarmer]

If anyone here likes the Blue Ice Cream beer, id suggest Mike's Hard Lemonade Wild Berry.  It's pretty tasty.

[BeeastFarmer]

I wonder how much The landscape budget has been cut this year? Where are the flower carts in front of the royal fountain? Why are the flowers so sparse in front of the royal fountain? Why is the mulch so thin and the bare beds throughout the park have lots of weeds? 

This is not to diminish the work that the landscape team does, but it appears to me that their budget for plants, material, and personnel has been cut to the bone.

[disco2000]

3 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

I wonder how much The landscape budget has been cut this year? Where are the flower carts in front of the royal fountain? Why are the flowers so sparse in front of the royal fountain? Why is the mulch so thin and the bare beds throughout the park have lots of weeds? 

This is not to diminish the work that the landscape team does, but it appears to me that their budget for plants, material, and personnel has been cut to the bone.

It doesn't help that kids and their parents have no respect for the landscaping.  So much gets destroyed to go get that picture by the sign or decoration.

At least it isn't getting torn up this year  with the hide a front of the line pass lol. passes 

[BeeastFarmer]

9 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

It doesn't help that kids and their parents have no respect for the landscaping.  So much gets destroyed to go get that picture by the sign or decoration.

At least it isn't getting torn up this year  with the hide a front of the line pass lol. passes 

For 52 years they have dealt with it.  And if you look at the current flowerbed at the front of the fountain, the flowers are close to the seat wall.  If they were that concerned about the plants being violated, they could have planted them in the back.

[Joshua]

On 5/19/2024 at 8:35 PM, Taylor.B03 said:

It's almost like... get this... the chaperone policy does... NOTHING!!! Wow, nobody saw that coming... Let corporate keep their touting about this very unfair and flawed policy. 

The two kids, sure, they didn't have chaperones. But the two separate couples were adults. 

I think the system for reporting, laid out several posts above, is flawed. No employee is paying attention to the line itself, where the line-jumping is most likely to occur, so good luck with violators being spotted that way. And the biggest reaction you get out of most is a hands-up "Really?" before moving on about their day. So back up is not likely. To tell you the truth, I don't think most folks even know how and where to report someone beyond leaving the line and going straight to guest services, which no one is going to do. Sure, there is a number to text, but how many in that line actually know it or would think to look one up? Most people came to have a fun time and don't want to let some jerks spoil their day. Even if they do, what are they going to say, "the lady in the red shirt just cut us in line?" There are probably a dozen ladies in red shirts in that one line alone.  The more I think about, it is a lot more trouble than its worth. Then again, those jerks are making me wait even longer in a line in the scorching hot heat without little shade and the fans turned off...

[SpectralBeacon]

5 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

I wonder how much The landscape budget has been cut this year? Where are the flower carts in front of the royal fountain? Why are the flowers so sparse in front of the royal fountain? Why is the mulch so thin and the bare beds throughout the park have lots of weeds? 

This is not to diminish the work that the landscape team does, but it appears to me that their budget for plants, material, and personnel has been cut to the bone.

The landscaping team is running with a pretty small team, combined with limited time in the morning before the park needs cleared along with prepping for the food and wine festival and planting in the waterpark. (We just carved out time last week to do the carousel planter, and the main bed is coming up)

[chad_1138]

As of 808 PM, The Racer is only running red. 

[FUN&ONLY!]

3 hours ago, chad_1138 said:

As of 808 PM, The Racer is only running red. 

Did Blue Racer run at all today?

[disco2000]

6 minutes ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

Did Blue Racer run at all today?

I never saw it run.

[chad_1138]

35 minutes ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

Did Blue Racer run at all today?

 

28 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

I never saw it run.

We got in line around 750 and they both were running.  Got in the station a bit after 8 and they shut down the Blue side and the workers left.  Looks like more early ride shut downs this year.

[Orion742]

16 hours ago, chad_1138 said:

As of 808 PM, The Racer is only running red. 

I’ve barely seen blue racer run on weekdays. It’s closed almost every Friday unless it’s crowded enough that they have to run both sides.

[Taylor.B03]

Blue was open maybe from Noon or 1pm up until 8pm. When I was in line for Orion, it was around 7:55, both were still operational. When I was walking out of Area 72 only red was running. 8pm was the observed stop time for blue last year.

[StormChaser97]

Picture perfect day at the park today! Just gorgeous. If the weather could be like this everyday of the season, I would be a pretty content coaster nerd. 

[jcoop22]

My 3 year old had his first ride on a “big” rollercoaster on Sunday. Same coaster as my first, Woodstock Express.

[IndyGuy4KI]

2 hours ago, jcoop22 said:

My 3 year old had his first ride on a “big” rollercoaster on Sunday. Same coaster as my first, Woodstock Express.

Those are some of the best days, sharing a ride with your child that is now tall enough. I take it he liked it?

 

[jcoop22]

3 hours ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

Those are some of the best days, sharing a ride with your child that is now tall enough. I take it he liked it?

 

Loved it. He’s 41” now. Going back tonight for a few hours.

[IndyGuy4KI]

8 minutes ago, jcoop22 said:

Loved it. He’s 41” now. Going back tonight for a few hours.

What did he think of Soap Box Racers?

[medford]

@jcoop22 easily my favorite memories at the park is watching my kids experience the new thrill as they grow up in the park.  Watching my 2 youngest bump into each other on the beatle bugs, my oldest challenge The Beast and Vortex when he was 5, the look on my youngest face when he got to the top of millennium force for the first time then watching him transition to hands up the entire 2nd half of the ride (I don't think I ever took my eyes off of him even though it was my first ride as well cause the change in emotions was too priceless).  Enjoy these moments they will stick with you far longer than I could have ever imagined.

[Outdoor Man]

"Mike Baxter with Outdoor Man" with thoughts from an evening at the park. Parks get a black eye sometimes for overlooked, obvious shortfalls- sometimes for good reason, but there also needs to be a set of unwritten rules that should be understood by park guests.  For instance:

• CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF: when eating in the Coney area, Festhaus, Juke Box, etc... don't leave your leftover ketchup, BBQ sauce, cheese, etc... laying and/or smeared on the tables. It's gross. 
• DON'T SIT ON THE TABLES: people place their food there and don't want to thing about your posterior sitting where their arms rest while tilting a burger bit in their mouth. That's gross too.
• Speaking of gross: GUYS- if you enter the restroom and see a bank of unused urinals, but insist on peeing in the toilet, hit the hole. and, if you miss- CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF.
• FLUSH THE %^& TOILET when you're done.
• When using the urinal, the target in front of you is rather large, and there's really no reason you should miss and contribute to the puddle under it. 
• KEEP YOUR PHONE SECURE WHILE ON A RIDE: the video footage that you get while riding that roller coaster will be so bumpy you won't be able to see it anyway and won't be worth the lawsuit filed against you (or your family's umbrella policy) when it inevitably hits someone after you drop it.
• Stop throwing pocket items onto the shade tarps. Sure, the first person or two to have done it may have been funny (not really though). But now, you're just #4,543 to have done this tired ritual. 

In general- CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF. 

But, more- PARENT'S edition:

• PARENT YOUR CHILDREN. I agree with the park, Kings Island is not your daycare and support the most of the curfew measure, though I'll contend that a lot of the problems are with the 16-18 year old crowd. 
• KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF THE LANDSCAPING. I'm amazed at the amount of parents that think that their kids climbing all over the floral date landscaping is somehow okay. 
• NOT ALWAYS THE KID: Adults- stay out of the landscaping
• DON"T VERBALLY ASSAULT YOUR KID IN FRONT OF EVERYONE (or ever): Yes, they can be annoying. But it's awkward to be in line behind the person dropping all types of f-bombs to their <10 year old while in line for the ride. And to the guy I exchanged word with in line tonight- I'm not the only bystander to notice your tirade. As the spouse of an elementary teacher, some kids get it honestly....

 

[DispatchMaster]

8 hours ago, Outdoor Man said:

CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF: when eating in the Coney area, Festhaus, Juke Box, etc... don't leave your leftover ketchup, BBQ sauce, cheese, etc... laying and/or smeared on the tables. It's gross. 

Agreed, but given that we live in a society where folks do this in movie theaters and store parking lots (with carts), and justify it with the colossally-stupid idea that they're "creating jobs", it is the unfortunate reality. I hate to be all "get off my lawn", but it seems the golden rule isn't taught nearly as much these days as it was when I was raised.

[Tr0y]

2 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

Agreed, but given that we live in a society where folks do this in movie theaters and store parking lots (with carts), and justify it with the colossally-stupid idea that they're "creating jobs", it is the unfortunate reality. I hate to be all "get off my lawn", but it seems the golden rule isn't taught nearly as much these days as it was when I was raised.

That comment about “creating jobs” part is not entirely wrong tho. There are jobs because of people leaving trash or carts behind.
 

How many cart attendants have you seen at Aldi?

 

[DJSkyFoxx]

Non-KI related but related to the above comments about courtesy and respect for others and property. I made a trip back home to Indy to visit not too long ago and took a walk on the canal walk. When Indy hosted the Super Bowl ( which still feels wild to say that ) folks were commissioned to paint murals down there to spruce it up and add something special for the expectant crowds. Needless to say, when I took a walk down there recently I was incredibly disheartened to see that people had defaced one of the large underpass murals to the point of it looking downright unrecognizable. And my favorite underpass mural had a cage placed over it so no one could do the same to it and so no one could steal any more of the mirrored pieces that make up the scales of the dragon. 

For these murals having been there for so long, 2012 I believe, and here we are in 2024. What happened? Are kids and people just so far gone from decency and respect that no one cares for anything or anyone anymore? It just saddens me greatly. 

So again, the Indy canal walk is not KI, but it all ties back to the lack of respect for property and other folks. I fear that the level of decency in humans is all but a rare trait these days. People cry and whine about not having nice things but when given nice things and then they trash them...its just this very spoiled mentality of "oh they'll replace it. It's not my job to care. It's their job to fix it or pick it up. Me Me Me"

[DispatchMaster]

  

14 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

That comment about “creating jobs” part is not entirely wrong tho.

It may be true, but it is also, more importantly, myopic and self-defeating. That so-called "job creation" increases labor costs for the business, which ultimately makes their goods more expensive. And I'd be willing to bet a healthy majority of the cart-abandoner are the first to whine about things costing more.

The reality is that people who don't clean up after themselves, be it in theaters, store parking lots, tables at an amusement park, etc., are not exercising benevolent philanthropy. They're just a combination of lazy and entitled.

[DJSkyFoxx]

5 minutes ago, DispatchMaster said:

  

It may be true, but it is also, more importantly, myopic and self-defeating. That so-called "job creation" increases labor costs for the business, which ultimately makes their goods more expensive. And I'd be willing to bet a healthy majority of the cart-abandoner are the first to whine about things costing more.

The reality is that people who don't clean up after themselves, be it in theaters, store parking lots, tables at an amusement park, etc., are not exercising benevolent philanthropy. They're just a combination of lazy and entitled.

THIS. Another thought has always crossed my mind as well- I've always put carts back whether it be in a cart corral or smaller stores that have them inside. I always think to myself "I would hate if this hit someone's car and scratched it up. I wouldn't want that to happen to me". And really just the simple gesture of putting things where they belong. Very pre-school 101 there. And cleaning up after oneself-that's also very pre-school 101. You make the mess, you clean it up. Even while out to eat at a sit-down establishment I was taught from an early age how to consolidate dishware to make it easier for wait staff to grab things and make it less of a pain for them to get the table ready for the next person. All of these things I still practice today because it literally is the easiest thing to not be a jerk.

[Tr0y]

4 minutes ago, DispatchMaster said:

  

It may be true, but it is also, more importantly, myopic and self-defeating. That so-called "job creation" increases labor costs for the business, which ultimately makes their goods more expensive. And I'd be willing to bet a healthy majority of the cart-abandoner are the first to whine about things costing more.

The reality is that people who don't clean up after themselves, be it in theaters, store parking lots, tables at an amusement park, etc., are not exercising benevolent philanthropy. They're just a combination of lazy and entitled.

Have you noticed any savings with the advent of self checkout? All I have noticed is Kroger posting record profits year over year.

In my opinion, supply and demand is what drives prices.

[DispatchMaster]

17 minutes ago, DJSkyFoxx said:

Even while out to eat at a sit-down establishment I was taught from an early age how to consolidate dishware to make it easier for wait staff to grab things and make it less of a pain for them to get the table ready for the next person.

Indeed, as this is especially true as a parent to youngish kids. We do our best to make the table a little bit less of a disaster. It's not hard.

14 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

Have you noticed any savings with the advent of self checkout? All I have noticed is Kroger posting record profits year over year.

In my opinion, supply and demand is what drives prices.

Right, but there is a dangerously-limited supply, given that Kroger, as you allude to, is abusing their near-monopoly position to make food less affordable.

Furthermore, that Kroger is abusing their anti-competitive position in the marketplace does not mean that added labor costs doesn't also drive up prices.

Thankfully, the FTC is doing their part to push back on this, though I'd argue it's too little, too late. The US has, for so long, neglected to enforce antitrust laws that Kroger can simply point to Amazon and Walmart, et al., and ask why Kroger is being singled out. And if that doesn't work, I'm sure SCOTUS' will strike down any FTC victory, probably based on the fact that the Constitution doesn't literally say "Kroger should not be allowed to merge with Albertson's".

[BeeastFarmer]

People have been corrupt since the beginning of time, except for one, but he was a hybrid.  

When smoking was much more prevalent, cigarette butts were tossed around, and still are.  People used to toss their garbage out the car window and still do.  People used to burn their garbage and still do (my neighbor).  People used to have their own dumpyards on their farm.  All of what you see today is nothing new, but what is new in my observation is the mentality of "me, me, me.". I probably see this because I didn't see it when I was younger.  I will often ask shoppers if they need help corralling the cart, and when someone is young(er) I will throw in some snark.  When I used to be a Yellowstone local, I'd loudly say to my friend " can you believe someone would disrespect the world's first national park by littering?". If they didn't pick it up, I would and say " man can you believe people are so lazy?" One thing we had to do at summer camp was have a meal ticket to gain admission to the dining hall.  It was a piece of trash we picked up.  It never dawned on me as a younger person that people in a camp shouldn't litter in the first place.

Regarding the Kroger " monopoly", that is nonsense. Amazon, Walmart, Costco are all direct competitors. However, they probably should have approached the merger in pieces and parts. Kroger has no foothold in the Northeast...they should have bought that part of Albertsons Companies. Then went with surgical precision into competing markets and extract out the stores that would not cause suspicion of a monopoly.  The climate in those markets would remain competitive and the chips would eventually fall where they may.  It could be a withering Albertsons Companies that dies a slow death and is sold off piecemeal to local and regional chains, and Kroger gains a few stores.  Or a leaner, tougher Albertsons Companies could be a tough competitor that is more locally controlled, rather than someone in Boise telling someone in DC what to do and how to sell.