Kings Island (KI) Discussion Thread

[prozach626]

Damn. It's discouraging to hear FL+ lines were so long, compared to normal.

[DILinator]

I'm heading down this Friday night, so I'm hoping things are more reasonable on a Friday night, as they've been in years past. Everything is a bit different now though, so who knows. I guess we'll see! It's my girlfriend's first ever time at KI, let alone Haunt, so I hope it's a great experience for her, as it's always been for me!

[prozach626]

Do they still have food trucks in front of the tower, at night? They did last time we were there.

[Zand]

The absolute best spot in the world to be 5 minutes before park close.

[PKI Jizzman]

I saw some pictures from Saturday. Holy shit. Hey I did try to warn people! That's unheard of for it to be *that* busy that FL is that bad. Wow wow wow. Just the perfect recipe of weather, no other big events, and everyone within a 100 mile radius of KI has a pass.

 

[Zand]

22 hours ago, prozach626 said:

Do they still have food trucks in front of the tower, at night? They did last time we were there.

They have 4 of them there. Of course I totally forgot about them Saturday night when searching for food. Instead I walked by Miami River Brewhouse which had a line past Mystic Timbers, then by Hanks which had a line across the midway, then tried Panda Express but there was a line AROUND the outside of Festhaus to get in, and finally settled on Chicken Shack which also had a big line but I was done soul searching lol.

Anyway, Sunday report which ended up being the day of the woodies. No, I didnt fly out to Dennis Hof's mansion, but I did take the side trip out to Strickers Grove which was really cool and I recommend to anyone who is in thr area on a day they are open. I didn't experience any wild ejector on Tornado, but its still a solid smaller wooden coaster that looks great. Teddy Bear was adorable and ran really well. I would've loved to have reridden Tornado a few times but Strickers drew a huge crowd sunday, with most rides having lines of 20-30 minutes! I didn't end up checking out any flats but they have a pretty solid lineup of old school flats. But $15 for rides, mini golf, free soda, cotton candy, popcorn, and slushies was really awesome. The grill food was great and inexpensive as well. Like I said, check it out if you're ever at KI and they're open. It's only 30 minutes away and worth the admission just for the 2 classic coasters alone.

Anyway, we had such a great time at Strickers that it was almost 5 by the time we got back to KI. The park was busy again Sunday, and my main goal was to close the day out on Beast and just hit whatever I came to before that. After grabbing a beer at the Festhaus and watching a couple shows, we got in line for Mystic Timbers. Only 35 minutes, but wouldve been shorter if it werent for the lousy grouper who was very slow loading rows and routinely sending 2-3 rows out empty. Encountered a few of these this weekend and I know a lot of these people are new, but damn. Anyway, the ride was great until the ride broke down while we were stuck in the shed. Lights came on and the ride ops came around to "keep everyone company". It was quite hot in there and it was nice when we finally pulled out.

After the shed experience we grabbed a couple beers at the Brewhouse and sat on the deck in the Adirondack chairs, such an awesome spot! By then it was pushing 6:30 so I went to check out the Diamondback line which was over an hour. Checked the app and saw Orion had just reopened from a breakdown so went over there to check that out. Only 6 switchbacks were full so I got in even though I didnt have long before I had to head to Beast. After 20 minutes we had made it through 2 switchbacks. I was thinking to myself that if we were at Great Adventure that line would never stop moving, but here they were stacking the 3rd train like it was going out of style. At 7:30 I finally gave up and headed for Beast.

Turned out to be a great idea as even though the app said an hour wait, it ended up being 15 minutes and I got 2 rides! The 2nd was in a wheel seat near the back and damn was that brutal. Night and day compared to the middle seats. But still an awesome way to wrap up the weekend. 

Unfortunately the trip was over as for some reason KI closed at 8 the day before a holiday (GADV was open till midnight and even Cedar Point, who couldn't even stay open earlier in the summer, was open till 10). Despite the crowds it was a terrific weekend and looking forward to returning hopefully next year.

 

Here's a few Saturday crowd pics.

[PKI Jizzman]

Glad you found the front of Diamondback! My favorite seat is row 2 in those long B&M trains. Fun hang time at the drop and then the air up and over the hills is better than the pull in the back in my opinion. 

I also got stuck in the shed for 30 minutes and it sucked, but they did walk me thru FL as a reward when it was fixed, did they get you back? 

I'll never willingly ride Beast on a wheel seat COVID protocols forced me to last year and it was so bad I felt ill. One of the worst rides I've ever had on it. Front seat or nothing!

[bert425]

^ I liked Row 2 better. . but yeah, I loved our front seat ride!

[Zand]

No presents from being stuck on Mystic Timbers...was kinda hoping for a one use Fastlane but no dice. Guess 15 minutes wasn't quite enough lol.

Two of my Beast rides were middle rows (8 and 14 I think) and they were great rides, no discomfort at all. Then I ended up in row 15 (last row available for that load...guess I should've held out for the front) on the last ride and every turn felt like it was going to jar my bones apart. The first half was so bad that I was dreading being alive the whole drop into the helix but that section ended up not being so bad lol. The general public still loves the ride and it still draws big lines so who knows if it will get any work. But a nice retracking would be great and really make it rerideable in any row.

The one missing piece for Kings Island is for RMC to show up and build Grandson of Beast

[AmyUD06]

One hour after opening. On a Friday. Where the forecast was for constant rain and thunderstorms all night (until like 3 hours before opening when it changed). Yowch. As always, glad for the all season FL+ and Fright Lane for tonight.

 

[Zand]

You'll have to let me know how crowds are tomorrow. If it's anything like last Saturday, you should see if your FL+ comes with a fullback to help you get from ride to ride.

This is from 8:45 last Saturday...

[AmyUD06]

@Zandwow. Yeah my plan for tonight was to take care of the Haunt stuff, which I did successfully, and grab some night rides on Beast and whatever else I felt like (which turned out to be Bat and Banshee). My goal for tomorrow day is to hit all the rides I want, then at night grab whatever more night rides that I can. I just left the park to go back to my hotel (10:00 PM), since I've been up since 6:30 AM and am tired from the 9 hour drive. 

[DILinator]

We bailed on going down due to the weather forecast. It's way too far to risk having extended shutdowns due to rain and thunderstorms. Those line times are disheartening, all things considered, but it's just the way it is right now, and I'm old enough to remember when waiting in line was just a part of the amusement park experience, and people didn't freak out over it. We're going to try again next Friday, and hope for better weather! Can't miss Haunt at Kings Island, no matter what!

[PKI Jizzman]

I hope Orion eventually opened!

[AmyUD06]

Behind these two license plates in line to get in. They claim to not work for the company, but fingers crossed, right? Just not for Beast! 

[AmyUD06]

For those who wanted an update on crowds, this is 2:30.  I can also tell you that Invertigo's is back to the fried chicken place so take the times with a grain of salt. Most food lines are also backed out of their buildings and many food places are closed (including Tom & Chee unfortunately). It is busy, but a lot of families with kids...Flying Ace is posting 60 minutes and Woodstock Express 30.

Edit: and at 5:00 below. Most of these are probably generously low. Several lines are spreading out from the designated queues onto the midways.

And this is Mystic's FL line.

Honestly debating calling it a day and heading out.

 

[AmyUD06]

So after getting a ride each on Beast and Mystic, I decided to call it a day.  Yeah, it sucks to sacrifice more night rides, but even with FL dealing with the crowds isn't worth it.  I accomplished everything I wanted to on this trip.

For those curious about operational status, every adult ride except the water riders, Windseeker, and Drop Tower were operating (the latter two closed due to high winds).  Invertigo was broken for about an hour at opening, opened during the day, and broke down again as I was leaving (with a train full of riders stuck on the initial spike).  Food service was VERY busy, with many places closed (Tom + Chee, the Auntie Anne's in Rivertown, and some others).

As I was leaving at around 6:30, there were still hundreds if not thousands of people pouring in the main gate and cars backed all the way to Kings Mills Road.  If you're at the park, or headed there tonight, may the odds forever be in your favor.

Full report coming soon.

[prozach626]

We were also at the park on Saturday. I've never been to any park that crowded, before. This is a long disorganized TR. The whole day was kind of a blur.

We got to the park at 1230. Which were about consistent with a nice weather summer Saturday.

-We hit Diamondback first, after about a 15-20 minute somewhat crowded FL queue. Middle of the train/outer car. Phenomenal. I don't think I've ever had that much floater before, to the point where I prefer the middle row, now. There's no shaking there, either.

-Row 2 on Mystic Timbers was next. FL was bottom of the stairs. 10 minute wait. MT is consistently great. The radio in the station is working again.

-We were the only people in Beast FL line. We were assigned the middle row of the back car. The Beast rode pretty rough for us in the summer, but this time we had one of the smoothest rides we'd ever had on it.

-We walked around for about an hour looking for some hot cider Emily got on our last Haunt visit, to no avail. We went to Orion, and had a about a 15 minute wait. The ride host accommodated our front-row request, and it hauled ass from start to finish. 10/10 for the front row.

-We were actually on the winning train for Racer, which never happens. The retracked portions were smoother than I ever remember any wooden coaster being. I felt like we were gliding over the repaired areas. Did I hear this is a pre-fab track?

Here's where things went to shit:

We left the park and got our re-entry ticket, with re-entry after 7pm not allowed. It was only about 3:30, so we checked into our hotel. I took my 30 minutes necessary mid-park day powernap, and we left for BC Roosters. It's a tradition for us, but despite getting there before 5, there was a 45 minute wait. WTF staffing. We were really bummed, but we went to Frickers nearby. ehhh... It was kind of acceptable, but Roosters is seriously always one of the highlights of the trip. To put it in terms we can all understand; it's the Thirsty-Pony of KI.

When we got back to Kings Island, I was one of those cars 240 was talking about. We entered the parking booth line at 6pm, and it was backed out onto the roadway. By the time we got in, parked, and got to the front gates, it was after our 7pm re-entry time by a few minutes. But, despite the tension, we had no issues getting in.

We claimed our Fright Lane passes, hit the walkways, and realized the place was FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFking packed. Like... Mardi Gras crowd level packed. It took us a half hour to get two beers at the Bier Garden. Emily forgot her ID, or we would have gotten two each, and sipped them slowly, to avoid another wait. 

Everything was a wait. Wait to get beer. Wait to go to the bathroom. Wait to get a beer again. Walk around elbow-elbow. Smell peoples' vapes and cigarettes. Have kids, patrons, and even an unapologetic scare actor bump into you and spill your beer here, there, everywhere, all throughout the night.

It was hard to enjoy the atmosphere when you can't see anything past the crowd. Eventually, we realized the beer venders near the back of the park had no waits. However, the problem was we'd had several beers and no additional food. We circled the park, only to find that every food line looked 45 minutes to an hour, with many places closed. There were only 3-4 food trucks this time around, to help with the chaos. However, after waiting in line for one that had a noticeably short line, I saw a small sign that said "cash only" in a cashless park............... So much for that. By the grace of God, after lapping the park, La Rosa's had zero line.

The haunted houses were OK. It was kind of a blur by that point. But, seeing how every haunted house probably had at least over an hour wait, the Fright Lane paid off huge. I was surprised to see there was no line to even redeem ours, so I guess it must not be very popular. The passes allowed us zero wait for the houses. We used our extra pass on Slaughterhouse. We usually love Kill Mart, but for some reason it seemed really underwhelming this year. Did they change anything up, or get rid of props? Anyway... the actors consistently scared the shit out of my 34-year-old wife, who is a mother, and and an administrator in her company... It pleases me to finally see some vulnerability in something so trivial...

We took advantage of night rides, but we didn't have a chance to do that much, since despite the FL lanes not being terrible, you had to wait for everything else and walk at a snail's pace moving around the park. Walking the pathways was like moving through jello. 

-We got another ride on Diamondback, magic row 2. It was another great lap, but not as good as our first. I swear, this is now a middle-train ride for me. I didn't even know there was such a thing.

-We got another row 2 ride on Mystic Timbers, which is an excellent night ride.

-We managed to get our obligatory lameness antique car ride in. It's harder to appreciate it at night, when you can't see anything.

-Our Orion experience was kind of frustrating, after a 20-30 minute FL wait. The grouper really sucked at her job. The two people in front of us, and Emily and I, asked for the front. She said that would be OK, but we would have to hold up for a few minutes. No big deal. However, apparently this threw a huge wrench in her thought process, combined with some priority riders boarding at the exit.

The grouper was trying to scramble to fill the rows and left several rows empty on two trains, despite an hour plus standby queue line, and probably 30 minute FL queue. After waiting for several minutes, she told us we'd have to go in row two... Why not just tell us this from the start?

The people in front of us were pretty butt hurt. I was only mildly irritated she told us we could have it, then after waiting awkwardly through several cycles and watching her fall apart, she told us no... It's hard to put the awkwardness into text, but more or less, just tell us no right away, next time. I'm always fine with that. She made it weird...

Regardless, I can't understand how vastly different the ride feels in row 2 than it does row 1. It goes from being the absolute clear winner, and probably top 10 material (If I had one), to maybe top 3 or 4 at the park. I don't get it. For us, it's equivalent to the difference between a front row ride vs a row 2 ride on Banshee. Oddly enough, I didn't feel that way last time.

-It was about 11:40 when we went to get our night ride on The Beast to close out our kinda fun day. We were the only people in the FL queue and we were directed to the only available row, which happened to be a wheel seat in one of the last cars. It beat the absolute ever living shit out of us, start to finish, and was the most miserable ride on any coaster I can remember having since T3.

All of the day's frustrations culminated with that ride to completely demoralize us. As a non-enthusiast, Emily was done..... BUT, as much as I wanted to walk all the way to the car bitching about how f***ed everything had been, and how it all came to a head on the ride that just tried to kill us, I couldn't do it. We entered an empty FL queue, and got assigned row 1 on Emily's favorite coaster at the park: Mystic Timbers. We had a dynamite ride to help us not let the dumpster fire ride on The Beast completely shit on our day.

MT definitely ended up being the favorite throughout the day. I'm really not kidding when I say our ride on The Beast was so bad, Emily feels sore today.

I think I covered most everything, as far as what we did/rode. The night kind of all blended together, because of the insanity of the crowds, having a few beers, and not being able to find food.

Because of time, we missed our obligatory rides on Adventure Express, Bumper Cars, Backlot Stunt Coaster (noooo!), Boo Blasters, the train, and even Banshee (WTF!!). Other fun, but lesser valued rides like Delirium, The Bat, Drop Zone, and Boo Blasters weren't even a consideration. That's quite a void from what we're used to, Haunt or no Haunt. (honorable mention: Race for Your Life Charlie Brown: closed for the season)

Other notes:

It's important for newcomers to know consistent thing about the Haunt is your FL+ is garbage from about 4-7pm. However, once it gets dark, The Haunt kicks in full swing and the lines die down, because people go to the haunted houses.

One thing I noticed this trip was for most of our rides, there was at least one delay for ride operators having to try to force the restraints down on overweight riders, sometimes resulting in walks-of-shame. This would cause stacking every time. It gets worse every year, and I could hear other people getting frustrated with it, as well.

The weather was great for a Haunt. At night it was in the mid-low 40's. Despite seeing people in sweaters and shorts, I was rocking a North Face jacket, three thermal tops, a thermal bottom, tennis shoes with thick wool boot socks, gloves, and a winter skull cap... I like heat. I don't like cold. I came to play.

All-in-all, I honestly can't say for certain I wouldn't have done something else this weekend. I don't dig those kinds of crowds, anymore. What we experienced is exactly what I interpreted as hearing in the CP thread for years, which is why I never considered a CP halloween event. I overheard groups of guests talking on the way out about how crowded the park was, how they weren't able to get food, how they were only able to do a couple things, etc. There were a lot of conversations like this throughout the night.

I really hope this isn't the permanent standard, or we'll likely dip out on park Halloween events indefinitely.

[AmyUD06]

@prozach626Yeah, definitely glad I left when I did and was able to get my night ride on Beast on Friday.  I'm surprised you didn't ask for Row 1 on that; the grouper was very good at honoring my front-row requests on both days.

Anyway, guess it's my fault for not advertising that I'd be there, but I totally would have stuck around to grab a drink with you and the wifey.

[PKI Jizzman]

It seems like every park in America has been absolutely packed this month. I never thought it was possible for KI to have these crazy FL waits. I intended to buy FL and do one long Saturday at KI before it closes for the season but maybe I'll just settle with going on a Friday or Sunday at opening. 

There's a clear lack of good workers across the board, and it seems like the incentive pay is bringing in folks who want to do the bare minimum and never considered working at a theme park previously. That's been noticed at Worlds of Fun, KI, CP, SDC, Carowinds, BGT, and SWO from my experience this year. 

Glad you made it out to KI @prozach626 !

[AmyUD06]

33 minutes ago, PKI Jizzman said:

It seems like every park in America has been absolutely packed this month. I never thought it was possible for KI to have these crazy FL waits. I intended to buy FL and do one long Saturday at KI before it closes for the season but maybe I'll just settle with going on a Friday or Sunday at opening. 

There's a clear lack of good workers across the board, and it seems like the incentive pay is bringing in folks who want to do the bare minimum and never considered working at a theme park previously. That's been noticed at Worlds of Fun, KI, CP, SDC, Carowinds, BGT, and SWO from my experience this year. 

Glad you made it out to KI @prozach626 !

Friday would probably be the better option, but Saturday with FL wasn't too bad at all, at least before 6:30.  I didn't wait more than 20-25 minutes for anything except the front row of Beast, and most rides were walks-ons or one or two train waits (one cycle or less for flat rides).

I have to imagine that, as @prozach626 said, at night once everyone starts diverting to the Haunt mazes, lines would die down some.  Except Beast, whose line will only grow as the night goes on because its Beast at night.

As for the staff, all that I encountered this weekend were top-notch.  Every rides employee was hurrying their asses of.   Beast went from triple-stacked due some station holdups to dispatching the next train before the next one in line hit the final brake run in like 5 cycles.  Food service was hurting from a lack of employees, not necessarily low quality of the of the ones they had.

[Zand]

16 hours ago, prozach626 said:

We were also at the park on Saturday. I've never been to any park that crowded, before. This is a long disorganized TR. The whole day was kind of a blur.

I feel like we had identical experiences one week apart but you touched on a few things I meant to but didn't remember to while writing my report.

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-We were the only people in Beast FL line. We were assigned the middle row of the back car. The Beast rode pretty rough for us in the summer, but this time we had one of the smoothest rides we'd ever had on it.

-It was about 11:40 when we went to get our night ride on The Beast to close out our kinda fun day. We were the only people in the FL queue and we were directed to the only available row, which happened to be a wheel seat in one of the last cars. It beat the absolute ever living shit out of us, start to finish, and was the most miserable ride on any coaster I can remember having since T3.

It can't be stated enough how much of a difference it is between a wheel seat and middle seat. The total difference in tone for these two reports is spot on.

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Everything was a wait. Wait to get beer. Wait to go to the bathroom. Wait to get a beer again. Walk around elbow-elbow. Smell peoples' vapes and cigarettes. Have kids, patrons, and even an unapologetic scare actor bump into you and spill your beer here, there, everywhere, all throughout the night.

We took advantage of night rides, but we didn't have a chance to do that much, since despite the FL lanes not being terrible, you had to wait for everything else and walk at a snail's pace moving around the park. Walking the pathways was like moving through jello. 

This was the biggest eye opener for me. I expected lines to be 2+ hours and FP+ to have some lines built up, but I truly could not believe just how many people in general were walking around at any given time. I'm a fast walker (which annoys the shit out of my 5'0" wife lol) and it drove me nuts how many groups have to walk 10 wide down a path, but it almost became moot when there were so many people that it was just one big mass of people on any given midway. The worst spots were the stretch from Hank's pretty much all the way down to the Diner (especially when they had a giant maze line set up right in the middle of the midway where the games are) and then that hanging pumpkin section between Troika and Beast.

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However, the problem was we'd had several beers and no additional food. We circled the park, only to find that every food line looked 45 minutes to an hour, with many places closed. There were only 3-4 food trucks this time around, to help with the chaos. However, after waiting in line for one that had a noticeably short line, I saw a small sign that said "cash only" in a cashless park............... So much for that.

I hate to say it and it's too late now obviously, but maybe the parks shouldn't have given up on reservations this year. Not for Covid reasons, but just for guest experience reasons. When you have all these food places closed (as well as drink stations closed, and the few that were open had mile long lines) it creates a really negative experience for people. I kind of expected it going in, but I feel like a lot of people would never go back because they think they'll have to wait over an hour for food and 30 minutes just to get a drink on a hot day.

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The grouper really sucked at her job. The two people in front of us, and Emily and I, asked for the front. She said that would be OK, but we would have to hold up for a few minutes. No big deal. However, apparently this threw a huge wrench in her thought process, combined with some priority riders boarding at the exit.

The grouper was trying to scramble to fill the rows and left several rows empty on two trains, despite an hour plus standby queue line, and probably 30 minute FL queue. After waiting for several minutes, she told us we'd have to go in row two... Why not just tell us this from the start?

I know many of these people were just hired recently and are probably doing their best with how little I'm sure they were trained, but it was pretty ridiculous a few times. I actually asked for the back row on Orion on one of my rides, but the grouper insisted I join a group of 3 in row 5. When it became clear that she was never going to get the last two rows filled before the gates opened, I tried walking back there and she actually came over and told me to go sit in row 5 to keep the train as full as possible. I figured maybe there were exit passes going to the back two rows, but nope they went empty.

I don't understand why some groupers are so against letting people request rows, especially the front/back on coasters that have giant extra spaces to accommodate longer lines for those rows. Since the groupers suck so bad at actually filling a train, just let people pick their rows and when all the rows fill up, stop letting people in. If a row is empty, call two people forward that want to ride the next train. It's such a simple concept. The worst is the grouper that had a Cedar Fair Supervisor jacket on that was working Diamondback...I asked to wait for the front and she was like "Do you really need to go to the front that bad?" I had to try really hard to not just say f*ck off, but was just like "I mean...I would prefer to, yes.". There were literally two pairs of people in a line with the space to hold 15 pairs of people.

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It's important for newcomers to know consistent thing about the Haunt is your FL+ is garbage from about 4-7pm. However, once it gets dark, The Haunt kicks in full swing and the lines die down, because people go to the haunted houses.

Ehh...I kind of disagree with that. They kind of level off at 7:00 but so many people are flooding into the park at that time that they don't really get any shorter either. Orion, Diamondback, Beast, and Flight of Fear were all full for FL+ at 9:30 last Saturday (and all had 2-3+ hr standby lines). Maybe by 10:30-11:00 you'll start catching some short lines but it takes a while.

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One thing I noticed this trip was for most of our rides, there was at least one delay for ride operators having to try to force the restraints down on overweight riders, sometimes resulting in walks-of-shame. This would cause stacking every time. It gets worse every year, and I could hear other people getting frustrated with it, as well.

Whether for walks of shame of general slowness, the stacking got kind of insane. Orion, Mystic Timbers, and Banshee shouldn't be running 3 trains anyway, but there wasn't a single time where the third train didn't sit for almost a minute, just to pull forward and sit again for 3 more minutes. Even Diamondback with its longer ride time was stacking quite a bit. If the Nitro ops at Great Adventure ever let the third train stack that much, they'd be relegated to Bugs Bunny Land. I will say the Beast crew was hauling ass each time I rode it, usually they were waiting for the train to clear the lift to send the next one. The same grouper was there both nights I was there (tall, younger, and quite the booming voice) and did an excellent job both honoring requests and getting every train out full.

[prozach626]

Yeah, the stacking is pretty bad. I think back to Scarowinds during Fury's first year. 3 trains. No stacking. That just wasn't the case, anywhere. We really did see several instances where it was due to an overweight rider, and the crew would spend several minutes between trying to jam the restraints, and eventually releasing the restraints for that car, then securing them again.

 

I guess the FL was hit or miss. We luck out with MT, where we've never been past the bottom of the stairs. We also managed to time The Beast just right, where we were the only ones in FL.

 

As far as the employee telling you no, there really is a power trip for a very few amount of people. We've all seen them. "I NEED to see your ID." "No running!" The new: "Put your mask back on!" There really are some people who just enjoy telling people what to do, or telling people no, even when it doesn't make sense.

[Zand]

You definitely lucked out with Beast. When I got to it at 9:30ish last Saturday, the FL line was all the way back onto the exit ramp before the split. The line crawled too (probably due to a bit more priority being put into moving the ~3 hr standby line) and took 35 minutes or so. But then again, I got walk ons for Banshee, Windseeker, and Mystic Timbers right before and after that so guess you just have to hit it right (and hope the grouper is moving the FL line along if you don't). 

I'm glad dealing with the mask BS is over in the parks (except in California maybe? lol) and was happy to have mine put away the whole trip to Ohio minus the airport/flight. I keep one in my pocket as I usually put it on out of respect if someone wants to speak to me and they have one on, but didn't have to worry about that in Ohio like I occasionally do here in MA. I did get pissed off at one security guy at Hershey last year. Was sitting on a bench by myself with a drink next to me and he went out of his way to come yell at me because I wasn't putting it up between sips. Meanwhile hordes of people were walking by with theirs down. Definitely don't miss the 2020 hysteria. 

[PKI Jizzman]

"When it became clear that she was never going to get the last two rows filled before the gates opened, I tried walking back there and she actually came over and told me to go sit in row 5 to keep the train as full as possible. I figured maybe there were exit passes going to the back two rows, but nope they went empty."

That's so frustrating and it's happened to me specifically at Cedar Fair parks this year. The worst example was at CGA requesting the back row on Flight Deck and Railblazer which is 8 single people per train. My group was put in the front row and the back 3 rows went empty. It's so stupid it's almost funny.