teacherkim

Been following for a while mostly to pass on info to my 12 year old son who is an ACE member and avid coaster fan. He will be allowed on when he turns 13. I grew up here, 48 yrs old, mom and teacher, remember the days when the mine train was the only coaster and there was a petting zoo at the park! Vividly remember SE opening and so will probably feel old when they place the plaque at the ACE con and I think about 40 years gone by but.....anyway The food issue has been the bulk of what I have talked about in every survey they have sent me in the last 5 years. Yes, having more/bigger capacity stands with more workers would alleviate some of the issues. Not sure I agree that more dining passes is the culprit, theoretically that should speed each transaction up. After all scanning a card is much faster than a cash or credit card transaction, which should offset to some extent more people overall buying food. I think the restrictive hours are a huge part of the problem and even discussed it with one of the corporate execs who contacted me after an end of the year advisory panel survey in which I criticised the situation. Restricting when people can eat their meals and snacks is just shooting themselves in the foot and creating more of a glut. I have been to many theme parks with kids and it's always an off food day. Meaning you not only don't eat the healthiest but you tend to eat at odd times and that's ok once in a while. I really believe if they lifted the time restrictions people would spread out when they eat. After all 9 hours is kind of a short time to fit in 2 meals and a snack if you think about. This was particularly bad at Frightfest (this was mostly what I talked to the exec about) Everyone knows that the haunted houses are going to start gearing up about 6:30 or so but you couldn't eat dinner until 6 so everyone in the park was trying to eat right at 6; making huge lines, bad quality food, and grumpy workers. Stupid. If they had just let people eat whenever OR had lots of seasonal snacks available that people could maybe trade in meals for and walk around with (think cups of chili, hot dog stand, etc) there wouldn't have been this HUGE glut right at 6 when dinner opened for the pass holders. As far as leaving the park to eat. Yes, it's cheaper but it's also a huge hassle if you have a large group and or several kids. We often have guests that are coming with us on the bring a friend discount days, they cannot afford to go on a more regular basis and going off property to eat takes a lot of time out of the parks. After all sometimes mom is willing to stand in line for food while kids go ride stuff and get in as much riding time as possible. Just my 2 cents since I have been going to the park roughly since it's opening