Kings Island General Discussion 2024

[DispatchMaster]

19 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Regarding the Kroger " monopoly", that is nonsense.

I said "near-monopoly", which is another way to say "oligopoly", and I wholeheartedly stand by that. Just because there is some competition does not mean there is sufficient competition to discourage the practices we saw, and continue to see, since the pandemic. CPI for at-home food is up ~25% between 2019 and 2023. And Kroger's annual gross profit is up to $33.4 billion from $26.7 billion in 2019, which is, for those keeping score at home, ~25%. But yeah, I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right?

36 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Amazon, Walmart, Costco are all direct competitors.

It is unintentionally hilarious that your "evidence" that Kroger is not part of an oligopoly is to list the other members of that same oligopoly. 

I went to college in a small, remote town, and there were around 5 gas stations in the area, all owned by different people, so by your measure, a competitive market, right? But the strangest thing would happen when gas prices changed... they would always, without fail, change on the same day, to and from the same prices as one another, right down to the tenth of a cent! I mean, what are the odds, right? It's almost as though that town was at the mercy of a market in which control over an industry lies in the hands of a few large sellers who own a dominant share of the market. 

Kroger has always used the same argument when scooping up competitors - "this acquisition will allow us to provide lower prices to our customers", as if that is somehow a valid excuse for breaking the law. And yet, without fail, their gross profit has increased with each passing year. And, of course, they're using that same line in their defense of the case brought by the FTC regarding their "merger" with Alberstons. But I'm sure this time they're not lying, right? This time I'm sure they'll pass the savings along to us. And if not this time, then definitely next time, or maybe the time after that.

It is highly improbably that Kroger would be able to abuse their market dominance as they have if there were the same quantity and variety of grocery stores around town now as there were 40+ years ago.

[BeeastFarmer]

Equating gas prices to the grocery market is laughable. You can do better.  Small and large towns alike have the same issue. When I lived in Phoenix, Cirkle K would increase or decrease and the rest would follow.  In Scottsdale, prices were higher than Tempe because people had more money there.

Where I live, the majority of stations/brands rely on one refinery.  This refinery controls the market. The outliers are Sam's and Costco but they don't have the reach into distant towns.

The net profit margin for Kroger is 1.44%.  Using gross profit can be deceiving.  The only way for the company to make those meager margins is via economy of scale.  Being bigger drives down redundancies, gives opportunities for suppliers to enter the market and achieve their own economy of scale and gives the union a stronger bargaining position.  Other players in the market certainly cause erosion of profit, when you have Walmart as a competitor, and they can sell a bag of oranges for $1 cheaper than Kroger because they are bigger and don't have a union constraint to drive up expenses, Walmart wins. They can inflict the damage on Kroger that they have on many local businesses in our communities.  So,  a profitable Kroger benefits  our communities much more than a weak, impotent Kroger.  Many places, those are the only resources for food for miles.  

[DispatchMaster]

14 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Using gross profit can be deceiving.

OK, let's look at Kroger's net profit, which is up to $2.164 billion from $1.659 billion in 2020, an increase of 30%, which further supports the point that food CPI is largely being driven by a lack of competition, due to the oligopoly that exists in the majority of the US.

16 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

So,  a profitable Kroger benefits  our communities much more than a weak, impotent Kroger.  Many places, those are the only resources for food for miles. 

 How on Earth is a single supplier of any commodity beneficial to a community?!? That's some serious 1984-esque doublespeak there.

Being the "only resources for food for miles" means Kroger/Walmart can, for example, increase their prices without losing sales to the competition, since there is none or very little, which is exactly what we have seen, especially in the last 4 years.

Being the "only resources for food for miles" means Kroger/Walmart can, for example, force local suppliers to agree to unfavorable or untenable terms that those suppliers would be able to reject if there were other buyers for their products.

Being the "only resources for food for miles" means Kroger/Walmart can, for example, achieve economies of scale on certain products that allows them to sell other commodities at massive losses in order to drive competitors out of business. In fact, that is exactly what Amazon did to Diapers.com:

Quote

 

After Amazon failed in its first attempt to acquire Quidsi, the retailer decided to institute a price war. As the commercial battle escalated, baby product prices dropped by up to 30 percent at Amazon. To confirm that they now had a price war in their hands, executives at Quidsi did an experiment where they cut their prices. As expected, the prices on the Amazon website went lower again (Source).

As anticipated, anyone going into a price war with Amazon is likely to lose. For Diapers.com, the trade war not only hemorrhaged customers; it dried up investor funding.

 

It's hard to blame Amazon. After all, why compete on level ground with a competitor when you can abuse your market dominance to sell at a massive loss simply to destroy the competitor? The answer should be "because such anticompetitive practices will result in penalties for breaking antitrust laws", but those, as pointed out, are woefully unenforced.

Economics, at its most basic level, is not super complicated, and at every level there is one constant - competition is healthy for the consumer, and a lack of competition is, on balance, bad for the consumer.

[BeeastFarmer]

Net profit is up now from 2020 because people are not afraid to go to the grocery stores and therefore traffic has increased.  And while the panic buying may have been a good short term boost,  the long term disruption from the supply chain certainly had an impact on sales which leads to a lower profit. And the pandemic caused many retailers to rethink the way they do business .  Cutting hours, deferring maintenance are all common ways they are increasing their profits.  However, I am not sure what Kroger's profit looked like before 2020.

You proved my point about a single supplier. In areas where Kroger and Walmart are the only grocery options, a strong Kroger as a whole supports these Kroger stores where it's only them and Walmart. A week Kroger company would mean these Kroger stores would likely close, leaving Walmart as the sole source, to do what they will to the local community. This is a common situation in many rural communities, more urban areas do not have this problem.   If my post implied that a single source of goods was a combination of Kroger/Walmart, that was unintentional.  If you perceived it as such, it is not possible for two competitors to be a single entity unless they merge.

Speaking of merger, Kroger and Albertsons would divest a significant numbers of stores, several banners, many brand names, corporate HQ and manufacturing/distribution plants to the third party.  This third party is a wholesaler first and operator second. With 600 additional stores and associated assets, the competition is still there.  And they likely will lower prices themselves since they can provide their own wholesale groceries vs Kroger who pays more for their goods from wholesale distributors.

[DispatchMaster]

15 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

You proved my point about a single supplier. In areas where Kroger and Walmart are the only grocery options, a strong Kroger as a whole supports these Kroger stores where it's only them and Walmart. A week Kroger company would mean these Kroger stores would likely close, leaving Walmart as the sole source, to do what they will to the local community.

That a monopoly is worse than an oligopoly does not in any way, shape, or form mean that an oligopoly is good. The idea you're suggesting - that oligopolies are good for the consumer quite literally flies in the face of a century of economic data, so you have the burden of demonstrating your claim with data.

Are there some benefits to oligopolies? Sure, Walmart may be a great place to buy cheap lead-ridden plastic crap from China, but Walmart's existence also decimates the local economy by extracting a nontrivial amount of revenue from the area and diverting it to shareholders in NY, Dubai, China, etc. What you're implying is that, on balance, it's better for that revenue to sit in an investment account rather than circulate through the local economy. So, again, citation needed, since that is in absolute conflict with basic economics. 

Here are some research papers demonstrating the consensus of economists over the last half-century that antitrust laws are necessary to promote competition, and that competition is good for the consumer and economy as a whole:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1801612
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117401
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30042564
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2014.889963
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357526861_Consensus_among_economists_2020_A_sharpening_of_the_picture

18 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Then went with surgical precision into competing markets and extract out the stores that would not cause suspicion of a monopoly.

15 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Speaking of merger, Kroger and Albertsons would...

I don't think these arguments mean what you think they mean. You are listing the things Kroger is willing to do in order to appease regulators, since Kroger knows darn well that they are abusing their market dominance to further grow their dominance, which is precisely what antitrust laws are meant to prevent. And because they're running afoul of antitrust laws (ultimately to appease shareholders, which is a root cause of oligopolies, but I digress), they hire John Boehner, who will lobby Congress on their behalf. Why is Kroger spending money on lobbying and outside counsel if what they're doing is on the up and up?

[Tr0y]

Riding Banshee today and the Barney Fife of the crew comes up to me after I’m locked in the restraints asking to see if my sunglasses have a strap on or not.. wow.

[silver2005]

^You know that Banshee ops check for loose articles at the beginning of the queue just like Mystic Timbers and Orion, right?  Sounds like they're just doing their job.  

[LuvingKI]

1 hour ago, Tr0y said:

Riding Banshee today and the Barney Fife of the crew comes up to me after I’m locked in the restraints asking to see if my sunglasses have a strap on or not.. wow.

I've never been checked for sunglasses strap, I didn't even know you're supposed to have them on Banshee.

[Orion-XL200]

On 6/7/2024 at 8:18 PM, silver2005 said:

^You know that Banshee ops check for loose articles at the beginning of the queue just like Mystic Timbers and Orion, right?  Sounds like they're just doing their job.  

Beginning of the queue......so.....in theory, if he passed the beginning of the queue op with sunglasses, he would be good to go with them on the ride right? It hasn't been a requirement to have a glasses strap on in the past to ride while wearing sunglasses, wasn't a couple of weeks ago....so new policy or overzealous ride op. 

[silver2005]

5 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Beginning of the queue......so.....in theory, if he passed the beginning of the queue op with sunglasses, he would be good to go with them on the ride right? It hasn't been a requirement to have a glasses strap on in the past to ride while wearing sunglasses, wasn't a couple of weeks ago....so new policy or overzealous ride op. 

People can still use pockets to get things loose articles such as glasses into line, then wear them while boarding, which, ops should be rechecking for that if that's the case.  Its not like they do on Kingda Ka or other SIX rides where they even check your pockets.   I've had to be reminded by the line separators before about sunglasses on the rides that check at the queue entrance and I immediately obliged.  

[Orion-XL200]

8 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

People can still use pockets to get things loose articles such as glasses into line, then wear them while boarding, which, ops should be rechecking for that if that's the case.  Its not like they do on Kingda Ka or other SIX rides where they even check your pockets.   I've had to be reminded by the line separators before about sunglasses on the rides that check at the queue entrance and I immediately obliged.  

But it's not a thing at Banshee unless they literally just implemented it and failed to tell anyone but that 1 ride op.

[silver2005]

^Them being thorough about loose articles sounds like proper training, not the ride crew not telling them anything.  I fail to understand the problem with a ride op trying to be more thorough about guest safety.  

[Orion-XL200]

The problem is that @Tr0y had already passed a handful of operators, assumingly including the one who checked his restraint and a different overzealous ride op went out of their way to check for a strap even though he had already been locked in, etc. 

It's not really a loose article if it's not a requirement to have a glasses strap. If it's a singular ride op "trying to be more thorough about guest safety," the ride op needs to know the actual policies.

[Kenban]

As far as I can tell the offical written policy is 

Quote

Glasses must be secured.

Without explaining how.  That was copied directly from the accessibility guide on the Kings Island website because that’s the only place I could really find anything for the dry park.

But I did find a reference to straps being required on the slides in the water park.

Personally I thought that a glasses strap was required on rides like Banshee and just rarely enforced.  I say rarely because I have had ride ops check before, and have more than once been on a train where a guest lost their glasses on Banshee.

[disco2000]

On 6/3/2024 at 10:39 PM, Outdoor Man said:

"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....

 

You mean tables like this within a few steps of multiple trash cans!

[Tr0y]

Drop Tower was operating when I visited on Friday. Any idea on when it will reopen?

https://www.visitkingsisland.com/attractions-advisory

[WoodVengeance]

1 minute ago, Tr0y said:

Drop Tower was operating when I visited on Friday. Any idea on when it will reopen?

https://www.visitkingsisland.com/attractions-advisory

It must've just went down, because it was open when I was there yesterday.

[DispatchMaster]

As Kenban notes, it states explicitly in the Guest Assistance Guide, as far back as 2017, that glasses must be secured while riding. That it has not been previously or consistently enforced is not justification for being insulting toward a ride op, even if not to their face.

I mean, even if it's a new policy on Banshee in particular, it's a pretty embarrassing indictment of an enthusiast to be surprised at the request to have their sunglasses secured. Securing loose articles is Roller Coaster 101-level stuff.

13 hours ago, Orion-XL200 said:

...if he passed the beginning of the queue op with sunglasses, he would be good to go with them on the ride right?

You mean like flip flops?

[disco2000]

6 minutes ago, WoodVengeance said:

It must've just went down, because it was open when I was there yesterday.

Nope it is running today...it has been operating since Thursday despite showing this on the webpage...

[WoodVengeance]

8 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

Nope it is running today...it has been operating since Thursday despite showing this on the webpage...

Weird. So someone needs to update the webpage then.

[disco2000]

1 hour ago, WoodVengeance said:

Weird. So someone needs to update the webpage then.

Although it is down now due to wind, but that is a different kind of down that doesn't make the advisory list.

It was the same last year when Adventure Port was opened for weeks yet still showed TBD on the website...

But reading FB comments apparently most don't think a webpage exists since most of the questions are answered by looking at the KI webpage lol...

[Stoan]

3 hours ago, disco2000 said:

Although it is down now due to wind, but that is a different kind of down that doesn't make the advisory list.

It was the same last year when Adventure Port was opened for weeks yet still showed TBD on the website...

But reading FB comments apparently most don't think a webpage exists since most of the questions are answered by looking at the KI webpage lol...

I was just standing here thinking, has Drop Tower even managed a 50% uptime this year?

[Orion742]

1 hour ago, Stoan said:

I was just standing here thinking, has Drop Tower even managed a 50% uptime this year?

I do worry that its days are numbered. It’s a very popular ride whenever it’s running but I haven’t seen it running very often when I’m at the park. I wouldn’t be surprised if whenever Action Zone gets a refresh if they replace it with a Zamperla Drop Tower.

[disco2000]

31 minutes ago, Orion742 said:

I do worry that its days are numbered. It’s a very popular ride whenever it’s running but I haven’t seen it running very often when I’m at the park. I wouldn’t be surprised if whenever Action Zone gets a refresh if they replace it with a Zamperla Drop Tower.

Many of the days down have been due to wind/weather.  Its other downtime has been due to availability of parts from Intamin. 

Other than that, it goes down for a fault much less than most other rides. It is just this one can be seen from all over so people think it is down more than other rides.  The Beast faults all the time, but unless you are in line, you have no idea.

It has ran more this year than recent years at this time.

Given the issues with Zamperla at TT2, that relationship could get more tarnished and would make a replacement by them unlikely.

I think this ride is around longer than most people speculate.

[johnjniehaus]

Maybe this has been addressed already so I apologize if this is a double post but has the Eiffel Tower been closed the entire season so far? I've been to the park 5 or 6 times over the past two months and it's been closed every time. So if it's been closed the entire season, does anyone know why? Staffing, maintenance/waiting on parts, or is it just closed for the sake of being like Kings Dominion?

[DJSkyFoxx]

I went this past Saturday. Got there roughly around 5PM and Drop Tower was running with a load of riders. Got inside. Did a Banshee ride and headed over to Drop Tower just to see that it was down. It did not open the rest of the night as I was there well past close waiting to get a Beast night ride. I will also add that it was down when I went on Sunday 6/2 the entire time I was there.

Seems the ol' tower of drops is having a rough season. Hoping to be able to catch a few rides on it this year but I fear I keep catching it on bad days. 

[disco2000]

22 minutes ago, DJSkyFoxx said:

I went this past Saturday. Got there roughly around 5PM and Drop Tower was running with a load of riders. Got inside. Did a Banshee ride and headed over to Drop Tower just to see that it was down. It did not open the rest of the night as I was there well past close waiting to get a Beast night ride. I will also add that it was down when I went on Sunday 6/2 the entire time I was there.

Seems the ol' tower of drops is having a rough season. Hoping to be able to catch a few rides on it this year but I fear I keep catching it on bad days. 

It was closed due to wind and not mechanical both days. On Sunday it was open in the morning until the wind picked up and then reopened that evening when the wind died down.  Same with WindSeeker.

 

[DJSkyFoxx]

9 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

It was closed due to wind and not mechanical both days. On Sunday it was open in the morning until the wind picked up and then reopened that evening when the wind died down.  Same with WindSeeker.

 

10-4. I might add thought I did get to ride WindSeeker on 6/2 despite said wind while DT was down. I left around 5PM. 

[jbeast]

I finally got a ride on Drop Tower this past Sunday. Absolutely love that ride. Only problem now as I have grown since it first opened, they had to squish me in my seat. My shoulders and torso just don't fit easy anymore. Only time being 6' 4" is a bad thing...ha! So, got the ride in but it was a bit uncomfortable going up. That is the only ride at KI I have trouble fitting into for my size. 

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

3 hours ago, johnjniehaus said:

Maybe this has been addressed already so I apologize if this is a double post but has the Eiffel Tower been closed the entire season so far? I've been to the park 5 or 6 times over the past two months and it's been closed every time. So if it's been closed the entire season, does anyone know why? Staffing, maintenance/waiting on parts, or is it just closed for the sake of being like Kings Dominion?

It's been open some this season. Right now there is no ETA at this time as it is down for maintineance reasons.