PKI open year around?

[WooferBearATL]

I can assure ya that Carowinds was below 50 Degrees last Sunday and the steel was runnin.

[Captain Picard]

The way I understand it is the grease in the wheels is stiff. I don't know about you but I have been on coasters when it was much colder than 50. It was snowing at BGW on last years opening day and they was running their steel. I have seen parks use heaters to get them started.

Pki can't get theirs going on a warm day so a cold day would be no different.

[Gordon Bombay]

I believe it depends on the manufacturer, I know the rules for Arrow coasters, but for B&M it might be different because of the design on the track, the trains, and the type of steel used.

[Face/OffJZ]

Maybe open if it is like 40 degreese or higher so somewhat year round

[WooferBearATL]

Pki can't get theirs going on a warm day so a cold day would be no different.

Lord! He did not go there!

<G> Yes he did.

Man, you are about to be crusified on here. LOL!

[Face/OffJZ]

I went on Delirium in 40 degree weather at FF and it was still fun, but my eyes watered and i swear wen i got off, my tears were frozen

[Gordon Bombay]

Pki can't get theirs going on a warm day so a cold day would be no different.

Lord! He did not go there!

<G> Yes he did.

Man, you are about to be crusified on here. LOL!

Looks like he did, Ill go get the boards and nails....

Captain PIcard, exactly what coaster had excruciatingly horrible dowtime this year that PKI almost never had running? and dont say Italian Job, I was at the park so many times this summer working and I picked up a ton of shifts on that ride, for a new ride it had decent up time. I believe we had more days at Beast where we were closed for the whole day than Italian Job did.

[Captain Picard]

Pki can't get theirs going on a warm day so a cold day would be no different.

Lord! He did not go there!

<G> Yes he did.

Man, you are about to be crusified on here. LOL!

Looks like he did, Ill go get the boards and nails....

Captain PIcard, exactly what coaster had excruciatingly horrible dowtime this year that PKI almost never had running? and dont say Italian Job, I was at the park so many times this summer working and I picked up a ton of shifts on that ride, for a new ride it had decent up time. I believe we had more days at Beast where we were closed for the whole day than Italian Job did.

I was just pulling your chain.

[Gordon Bombay]

Now I gotta put the wood and nails back. SOrry, I wasnt trying to be rude to you, I just hate it when people complain about PKI's downtime, as far as coasters go, PKI did extremely well last year keep their coasters up a majority of the time, their machines they break and people dont understand that, they also dont read their tickets, season passes, and sign out front warning them that some rides may not open, it just annoys me.

[WooferBearATL]

Well not sure about coasters, but I know that Flight Commander ride is down a whole lot! <G>

[deidre1976]

Now I gotta put the wood and nails back. SOrry, I wasnt trying to be rude to you, I just hate it when people complain about PKI's downtime, as far as coasters go, PKI did extremely well last year keep their coasters up a majority of the time, their machines they break and people dont understand that, they also dont read their tickets, season passes, and sign out front warning them that some rides may not open, it just annoys me.

We pass holders know better, its the ones who pay general admission or only go once or twice a year. Pass holders are smarter than that!

[deidre1976]

Well not sure about coasters, but I know that Flight Commander ride is down a whole lot! <G>

That is what she said!.......SPLAT

[Outdoor Man]

wow deidre.... thats harsh...

[RollerNut]

To answer your questions, TG is open when it is below 50, and 35. As long as the train makes it around emtpy, the ride will run. We are only running one train, so the track has enough time to cool down. Tennesse Tornado at Dollywood is also open during December. So far, Winterfest hasn't been above 45.

[CoastersRZ]

Enough time to cool down? When it is cooler than 50 degrees out? Is the other train undergoing winter rehab?

[deidre1976]

wow deidre.... thats harsh...

This is a public service announcement PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND RIDE...

If she wasn't wasn't wasted she wouldn't have fallen.

[WooferBearATL]

If she wasn't wasn't wasted she wouldn't have fallen.

And A Follow Up PSA would be: Please Do Not Drink and Type.

[deidre1976]

If she wasn't wasn't wasted she wouldn't have fallen.

And A Follow Up PSA would be: Please Do Not Drink and Type.

opps!

[JPButler365]

No one is attending Winterfest so no one will go in the really cold months. Kings Island will not go to a year long schedule. They are already streaching themselves thin by bringing back Winterfest and it is losing money hand over fist at both parks according to my friends at the corporate office. The seasonal employees have run out of hours so the park is being run mainly by the full time employees and many of them are ****ed off about having to work during these winter months. The maximum number of hours a person can work is 1800 hours before the park has to consider the person full time and pay them benefits. This will never happen.

[WooferBearATL]

<G> JP, we should make wager on that.

I could easily see the park moving towards year round operation.

I think a strong sign of that is depending on success of International Restaurant - and I understand it's been bustling. Starbucks on International Street - it's all down the road I figure.

[CoastersRZ]

I highly doubt that seasonals are approaching the 1800 number. If you do a simple calculation that a seasonal could work for 90 days (the entire months of June, July and August, although the end of August the park isn`t open). Then the park is open weekends in April, May, September and October (as well as the first weekend in November. With roughly 8 operating days per month plus the two from November nets a total of 34 days. A total of 124 days. (Now I know that there are training days and dry run days, but I`ll leave those out of it.) Assuming each day is a twelve hour shift a seasonal worker would be at 1488 hours, still well short of the 1800. Not to mention the fact that it would be highly unlikely for a worker to work EVERY shift available to them. Moreover, I thought a stipulation of seasonal employment was that they were not allowed to be employeed for two months out of the year. (In PKI`s case, that would be January and February.)

Sorry, JPButler365, I highly doubt that your "friends" at the Paramount Park office would divulge financial information regarding an event at the parks to you. Yes, it is no secret that they have not attracted the attendance at the events that they had hoped, but it does not necessarily mean that they are loosing money.

No, I don`t see PKI going to year round operation. They had to start earlier on several off season maintenance projects because of WinterFest (namely Son of Beast). They already effectively cut two months off of their offseason by opening up the park to WinterFest. The off season is the busiest time of the year for most of the park`s maintenance staffs.

[TraderJake]

I highly doubt that seasonals are approaching the 1800 number.

Since someone commented on seasonal employment, I guess I'll touch that topic.

Seasonal Employees by law can only work 1820 hours or ten months of the year, whichever comes first. This is a big number and most employees will never hit either of those numbers. However, there is an extremely important group that does touch both of those numbers in several departments -- management.

If a employee worked every week of the ten month seasonal terms, they would only be able to work 45.5 hours. This to most people is a large number, but wait a second-- most managers work much more than 46 hours a week often pulling 50, 60, or in extremely rare cases 100 hour weeks. As such, towards the end of the season there are managers who are forced to quit for the remainder of the season because they have hit their hours. Currently this is not a problem though, because should someone hit their hours there would still be a multude of managers still with available hours. However, should the park switch to true yearly operation, many more managers would risk hitting their hours, and thus having to quit. If too many managers have to quit, then it becomes extremely difficult to run the departments.

To combat this managers in many departments are forced to take at least December and January off so that they remain seasonal (or January to March). But, in a year round operation persistent weeks off would be extremely disruptive to the operation. Who knows what might happen to your location while someone else is at the helm for a week or more? Most managers would rather not find out.

The truth is, a lot of management would have to be hired full time to sustain a year round park, and with full time status comes full time benefits. This includes overtime, and if managers work 60 hours a week it would really rack up. To keep managers and supervisors from working these long hours certain departments would have to either hire more managers or fundamentally change the operations of the department. Both of these cost a lot of money in the end, and I don't forsee the park committing to changing the operations of their departments, or adding more people to a management payroll.

[JPButler365]

When you have friends that work for a company at any level you talk to them about their jobs just like you would talk to them about your job. You do not need friends in management to know that no one is attending Winterfest at either park. The numbers just are not there. I went by the park tonight just like many other nights and there were more employee cars than guests cars. This is never a good sign. I know that many of you on this site work for the park and are sometimes blinded by the light. You know the truth. Talk to the VP in your departments. Talk to your immediate supervisors. There are hourly attendance figures that are given at the park. You can go into the executive offices and see the expected attendance number and what the actual attendance numbers were for that day. They may not give you the hard core details but they will tell you the numbers are not what was expected and they will give you the reasons as to why PKI will never go to a year long season.

[Gordon Bombay]

^Sounds like someones beeing talking to the Dippin Dots guy, I bet your "friends" who work in ecology, entertainment, or rides dont know jack s**t about the expected numbers, the full park is not open, so capacity rules and laws change, for all you know this could be what PKI expected, however the only obviius thing saying its not is the fact that ticket prices are dropping, however Winterfest is not on deaths door like you think. VP of departments? If you know ANYONE who works at the park then you know that there is nor president or vice president of the departments, their run by managers who go by the titel manager. Imediate supervisors? We assocaites take capacity for what our job is, if its rides we take the rides capacity, we dont take the parks capacity, and one attractions capacity does not determine the numbers of how well the park is doing. Im sorry, but if you really have any friends that work at the park they are severly misinforming you on how things work.

[CoastersRZ]

Yes, I second what Combat Stupendous said. Unless you know what type of attenadance the park was expecting, it is really quite hard to say how "on target" the park is for what the amount of people they expected to pull in. While crowds seem light, they might have expected light crowds.

[A_Titanic_Mess]

VP of departments? If you know ANYONE who works at the park then you know that there is nor president or vice president of the departments

There are absolutely VP's at PKI. There are about 6 VP's that report to Craig Ross, General Manager. But of course you would not know this CombatStupendous because you can't see the big picture outside of your seasonal summer job.

We assocaites take capacity for what our job is, if its rides we take the rides capacity, we dont take the parks capacity, and one attractions capacity does not determine the numbers of how well the park is doing

What??? Are you for real? The alpha is the end all to how well the park is doing at any given time. It is so important that it is updated hourly. This number helps determine staffing levels for all departments. It also is CRUCIAL to finanace and revenue generating departments. Much of the financial budget for revenue generating departments is based upon this number. The fact that you believe the park capacity to be so unimportant shows just how out of touch you are with how the park operates. That capacity number is leverage for Resale when negotiating with vendors for food, games, and merchandise. PKI budgets their season on expected attendance. Winterfest would be no different. They would have planned a budget of what they expect to make in revenue, and what the per capita spending would be based upon attendance and PARK CAPACITY.

Perhaps you should spend some quality time at PKIU this coming season to learn a little bit more about how the park operates.

[CoastersRZ]

Being a little harsh on the guy aren`t you? I agree with you though. The attendance numbers (whatever they are) are important to the park in terms of staffing levels. If they expect light crowds, then they will not open all the food stands because there simply won`t be crowds to eat at all of them and they would be wasting money by paying all those employees to staff those stands. However, when crowds are heavier, they can afford to open those stands as the increased revenue would more then compensate the added expense of those employees.

[WooferBearATL]

I used to have to do all of my scheduling based upon attendance projections. It would determine what carts would open, how many registers would open and how many runners.

Everything was based upon attendance models that were completed each February.

[gburn07]

As mentioned earlier, there are more than just attendance reasons if the park woudl be open year round. A lot of people have the summer off compared to Winter and, with the exception of die hard PKI lovers, how many 'go to one park a year' familes and such would want to make that one trip during the winter season?

[WooferBearATL]

You're missing the point.

You're thinking in terms of it being an amusment park year round. In off season the primary marketing is going to be towards the shops and restaurants. More of a destination type location.