Kings Island (KI) Discussion Thread

[Carrie]

3 hours ago, coasterbill said:

So like I said... the bar for “least screwed up Cedar Fair park” isn’t the highest...

 

 

How sad!!!!  WTH is wrong with people today!?   Happier living off the system? I outright told my daughter (she is 16) today that if she wants her hair dyed and to stay in TaeKwanDo, she better find a job.   There is no reason why she cannot start helping herself.   Hell, for $20/hr, free meals, free board, free entry to CP, *I* will go work there!!!  I have no shame!   That's great money!!   And FREEEEEE RIDES!!!  Hell yes!

[teacherkim]

7 minutes ago, Carrie said:

How sad!!!!  WTH is wrong with people today!?   Happier living off the system? I outright told my daughter (she is 16) today that if she wants her hair dyed and to stay in TaeKwanDo, she better find a job.   There is no reason why she cannot start helping herself.   Hell, for $20/hr, free meals, free board, free entry to CP, *I* will go work there!!!  I have no shame!   That's great money!!   And FREEEEEE RIDES!!!  Hell yes!

When my son started working at SFSTL just before his 16th birthday, I was actually questioned by another parent as to why I was "making" him work. She couldn't seem to comprehend that while we were of course willing to pay for all his essential needs and hobbies; if he wanted to build his $5000 dream computer he had to earn the money himself. I recently saw an interview with a child psychologist that opined the increase of summer school and internships to pad college resumes over traditional teen summer jobs was detrimental to the young'uns as those jobs provided skills that they cannot get at school. Maybe a contributing factor to why so many teens just cannot handle growing up and mental health issues for them are on the rise? 

[bert425]

My Brother worked at Astroworld at 17, and he did it because he wanted to, not because my Parents made him.

 

I wanted to, but was only 15, and I think you had to be 17 at the time to be hired. .and by the time I hit that age?  I saw how many hours my Brother worked and realized it was more fun to hang out at the park every day over summer and mess with him (he worked at the hot dog place in Coney Island), than it was to actually, you know. . . work there

[Carrie]

But hanging out at a park won't teach you how to be financially responsible...LOL.   There were things I wanted to do (take private clarinet lessons from a professor at MSU) but my parents weren't going to pay for them (it was not cheap), so at 15yo, I worked at our Dairy Queen.  I took my private lessons and paid for them myself.  Later on, I purchased a stereo system for my room.  Quite honestly, the experience was priceless...learning how to work with money, deal with crappy customers. Get along with supervisors and coworkers, etc.  I don't think parents are doing their kids a favor by handing things to them.  After awhile, nothing will excite them or make them happy and in the real world, they will not be able to figure out why they NOW have to pay to live.  Talk about mental health LOL.  Hell, in my 20s, I worked two jobs and went to school. One job at one point was a paid internship so that one  did contribute to the entire college experience/resume, etc. I really had no choice.  I didn't qualify for a hell of a lot of financial aid and my parents couldn't foot the bill so if I wanted it, it was on me.  Hello, real world.   And, let's be honest....when I was 16, I made a whopping 3.35/hr at McDonald's!  LOL Good times (it was a social job for me..made lots of friends and had fun). 

[dankeykang]

All the kids these days probably think they can just become one of those Instagram influencers or something, instead of getting a "real" job...

8 hours ago, prozach626 said:

Anyone think this will extend to the 26th?

It's certainly not an impossibility.  However, this article suggests that Cedar Point might be back to a "normal" schedule pretty soon; I would hope Kings Island follows a similar trend.  Having to reduce hours a second time would not be a good look.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

I get why they're doing it, and I'm glad they're at least open, but this park of all parks to close before sunset is brutal. I'd much rather they be open 2 to 11 than 11 to 8.

 

Maybe they'll get some takers at $18/hr.

[coasterbill]

Credit to @onlinehyde on Twitter for this, as I have better things to do than watch the Goldman Sachs Travel and Leisure Conference webcast without actually being a shareholder and there’s no transcript to skim, but there was an investor conference yesterday. Cedar Fair shared that they anticipate burning average of 60 million in cash a month during Q2. As a reference, Six Flags expects to be cash flow positive for Q2. Busch / SeaWorld is already cash flow positive this year. They’re looking to “improve efficiencies” (see: cut budget). The fact that they made another budget move on the same day that they said they were going to do exactly that must be a coincidence, right?

Saying “kids these days don’t want to work... please ignore the fact that Six Flags is paying people half of what we’re paying them, staffing their parks just fine chain-wide, not cutting hours, operating 7 days a week and in many cases extending hours to capitalize on pent-up demand” is easier than saying “We’re absolutely clueless as to what we’re doing so now we have to pay people $15 an hour to work at Kings Island and we’re closing early for budget since we’re losing tons of money thanks to our poor decision-making”.

Based on the comments here, I guess it’s working.

PS: I’ve also seen the over-dramatic Facebook comments. Those people are ridiculous but that doesn’t mean Cedar Fair isn’t also a train wreck. Those two things can both be true. 

[AmyUD06]

This is neither here nor there, but I think a large part of CF's staffing woes come from how many employees they dedicate to each ride.  For example, at Millennium Force on the Sunday I was there, here's how many employees were working just that one ride:

-Two greeters
-One at the FL merge
-One grouper in the load station
-Four checking restraints in the load station
-One actual panel operator
-Two in the unload station

That's 10 employees for one ride.

Meanwhile, when I was at SFGAdv back in early May, El Toro had the following:

-Two contracted, outside-company employed, security officers as greeters (don't count)
-One at the Flash Pass merge
-One actual panel operator
-Two checking restraints

That's 4 actual park employees for one ride.

The trend continued at both CP and KI for all rides....there was always almost "too many" employee's stationed at each ride.

That said, based on my experiences at both CP and KI, the rides departments are not where they are having staffing problems...it's food service.  Which, by the way, Six Flags is also suffering horribly with.

[Zand]

^ Now do Steel Vengeance. 2 greeters at front of line. 1 greeter at the FL/Standby merge. 1 greeter at locker split. 1 employee helping with lockers. 2 employees after lockers checking metal detectors. 1 grouper who can't count to 12 at the top of the stairs. 1 ride op. 4 restraint checkers. 

Uhh...yeah. You don't need 13 employees to run a roller coaster unless you're Cedar Fair.

That said, Kings Island usually had a maximum of 7 on one ride. 4 checking restraints, 1 ride op, 1 grouper (who also controlled fast lane because *gasp* all the lines merge at the station at King's Island), and 1 greeter. Dont remember any coasters that had more than that.

[disownedpear]

It seems they refuse to run a ride with under a certain number of employees even if they physically can, unlike SF. For example, Jokers Jinx at SFA is supposed to have a crew of 6, 1 load/flashpass, 1 load, 1 op, 2 unload and 1 security officer. However they are fully willing to run it with a crew of 3, being op, load/flashpass and unload. I don't remember Kings Island running any of their major coasters with three people.

[AmyUD06]

Haha I didn't use SV as my example because of the lockers, but yeah.  And when I was there there were two at the lockers, one on each side, and a dedicated spiel-er in the station.

[coasterbill]

I agree with this entirely. Last year at Kings Island we counted 12 people on the Orion platform (on a day where Windseeker was closed for staffing, which isn't a big deal but still... lol). Let's be generous and assume that some of them were training and some of them were supervisors who were just popping by to chat with the people in the booth. Still, whatever... Nitro needs 3 people on the platform and one of those people groups and does Flash Pass merge (though not scanning) before checking 18 seats (because it has one more row than Orion has) and shockingly they don't double stack most days.

On slow days they won't have a greeter at all and they'll use the exit ramp for Flash Pass so they still only need 3 ops.

And I also agree that Six Flags has major food staffing problems, but they usually just make a bunch of places Mobile Order only so that they have to pay less people and food gets out just as fast (or slow lol). On really bad days they bring in some food trucks and then call it a day.

[JJLehto]

Yeah I wont go any farther bc goodness this is NOT the topic I want this to go off into but all the "damn kids today!" "more ok to mooch than work!!!"  reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllly asking for an "OK Boomer" sorry to say it yall. And this is from someone who has been working full time at various jobs for a decade and only stopped to do a Masters Degree so dont even imply I'm some lazy ass who defends lazy asses. Bill also makes a few good points as does the # of staff per ride thing. 

On orion there WERE multiple people doing restraint checks. Compare to Kennywood 2 days before when there was ONE person doing both trains. Which: sucks, and I get KI is prob proud of their ops as they should be but like clearly they can deal w it and we'd all rather more days/hours. So yeah idk gotta be a reason they are having these issues so bad while Six Flags, or Dollywood for that matter, are doing much better. Wouldnt surprise me if Bill is right and its larger financial issues and they are blaming the workers, would make sense actually given they also leave their staff to deal w the OTT outraged mobs lol  Things still aint normal yall, kinda recovering from a year when the world largely shut down. Let's give it time.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

I've seen one person run Thunderation solo, checking every restraint then running up to the control panel. They had someone else come in every so often to give the main op a bathroom break. It can be done.

[Comeagain?]

I have been the one person running a coaster by themselves. It's not easy, but definitely doable on an early season weekday at a park.

[prozach626]

13 hours ago, Mike240SX said:

That said, based on my experiences at both CP and KI, the rides departments are not where they are having staffing problems...it's food service.  Which, by the way, Six Flags is also suffering horribly with.

So what has been the excuse every year prior to this one?

[CoasterGuy06]

 

1 hour ago, Comeagain? said:

I have been the one person running a coaster by themselves. It's not easy, but definitely doable on an early season weekday at a park.

Same. And the coaster had foot pedals for the restraints that were on the opposite side of the train as the control panel. In my time there we also had several flat rides where we required two operators when I started but over time they made modifications to the rides/queues so they could be operated by a single person. 

[southpuddle]

Had a wonderful day yesterday at the park - much better than I had anticipated considering the weather forecast. It rained off and on, but nothing closed due to weather as far as I could tell and everything was full or near full capacity despite the nonexistent crowds. A stark contrast to what would have happened at CP given the same conditions. Not sure why two parks owned by the same chain in the same state would have such wildly different rain policies. At one point Orion was running in a downpour, cranking out all three trains, which was awesome to see. Orion was awesome  - tons of fun and butter smooth. That speed hill was the highlight for me - darn near ejector! Can’t wait to return when Vortex’s replacement opens, whatever and whenever that may be.  

[teacherkim]

I don't think "kids today" are any more or less motivated than teens have always been. They are just being given the opportunity to not work way more than before. It is partly because the system encourages helicopter parenting. My last 10 years as a teacher I had to notify parents of every single bad grade a student had, never giving them a chance to problem solve and fix the situation on their own and colleges no longer value what they consider menial work and instead want to see a million clubs and internships on that application. But, agreed, this is off topic and going down an unsolvable rabbit hole.

SFSTL is still very understaffed. Joel has been working open to close most days and last week had to work two kid's rides at once. He had a sign to post at one ride stating ride operator would return shortly, would run a couple cycles at the other ride, and then switch. I think the reason food service has been a problem for so long is that it is essentially a job at a fast food restaurant that for most people is way further away from their house than a normal fast food restaurant. The parks have been counting on the benefits of free entry and the novelty of being at the park to have an edge over McDonald's and the like but that just isn't cutting it.  

[JJLehto]

19 hours ago, ytterbiumanalyst said:

I've seen one person run Thunderation solo, checking every restraint then running up to the control panel. They had someone else come in every so often to give the main op a bathroom break. It can be done.

Of course! Sounds dreadful and huge kudos to that person but what a nightmare that is. Better for the park to do what they can to try and lure more people to work. Which is also why I've taken the chance when I can to drop a thanks to the ops, (esp for Coastermania since that's so long after normal close for now) I do appreciate those who are here busting it for us. Esp at KI where the ops were indeed still busting their asses. I wonder if its like a KI pride thing, never seen any CF or SF (or a few others for that matter) park that over time, even on a not crowded weekday, move to try to move people like they do. 

Last thing I'll say on the matter is we have a cult of work, one that is deep seeded so I get the knee jerk, but we work to live not live to work (least that's how I am) and we will bust ourselves....but not just for the sake of it. That's why it's work, not charity and they're employers not overlords. I don't chagrin a single person who isn't coming back yet....esp with all the horror stories I hear about people at parks and things I've seen, can't blame anyone who may be thinking ya know **** this no, I'm not doing it. But I'm supremely grateful for those who are here working for us to enjoy some rides. Truly I am. For that, I'll be done with the matter as well. 

[PKI Jizzman]

Weather looking perfect this week, curious to see how weekday crowds are. Looking forward to visiting the waterpark for the first time in ages, and hoping they open more slides since @Mike240SX 's visit.

[MrFurious]

After spending two days at CP (Sunday and Monday of this week... with Monday being HORRID with crowds and rides not operating, and staffing issues), we drove to Mason for a Tuesday visit to K.I.  our first ever. 

Having PTSD from previous days, seeing amazing forecast, and seeing early car lines trying to get in before opening... we panicked and purchased FL+.

 

BEST DECISION EVER.  We've never been "pay extra to skip the line people" but outside of drop tower, we NEVER waited more than 10 minutes. Got 24 coaster rides in. Never checked online for times. Grabbed our funpix after every ride. Ate a nice off-peak lunch at Miami River by diamond back. Had some nice beer. And closed down the park. 

The ops were SPECTACULAR. The rides were consistently running. The crowd was fun and engaged. It was our family's best amusement park experience of all time. 

 

We'll be back!

 

 

[VegasBaby]

43 minutes ago, MrFurious said:

After spending two days at CP (Sunday and Monday of this week... with Monday being HORRID with crowds and rides not operating, and staffing issues), we drove to Mason for a Tuesday visit to K.I.  our first ever. 

Having PTSD from previous days, seeing amazing forecast, and seeing early car lines trying to get in before opening... we panicked and purchased FL+.

 

BEST DECISION EVER.  We've never been "pay extra to skip the line people" but outside of drop tower, we NEVER waited more than 10 minutes. Got 24 coaster rides in. Never checked online for times. Grabbed our funpix after every ride. Ate a nice off-peak lunch at Miami River by diamond back. Had some nice beer. And closed down the park. 

The ops were SPECTACULAR. The rides were consistently running. The crowd was fun and engaged. It was our family's best amusement park experience of all time. 

 

We'll be back!

 

 

KI is probably the best CF park for FL+, you never wait more than 5-10 minutes and the lines drop you right into the stations.  We had a similar experience back in October, and that was with the park still doing social distancing on the coasters.  

[PKI Jizzman]

First time this year there I've visited and there's not a massive line of cars to get in. Will today finally be a normal weekday experience?!

 

Edit: they do still play the pledge of allegiance over the speakers before park opening haha does any other park do this?

[coasternut]

^ It's the national anthem. Yes, Cedar Point does this. Sea World San Antonio does it too.