Worst incident you have experienced at a park

[parkjunkie]

I don't know if this has been a topic or not, couldn't find it, so if it has, sorry.

 

Anyway, I was wondering what some of the worst things you may have seen or experienced while visiting a park. This could be anything: a horribly bad experience with an employee, witnessing a fight or a crime, being a victim of a crime, witnessing or being a victim of an accident or injury, absolutely horrible customer service... anything. I know I have seen quite a few things myself, some of them pretty rough, but Ive also been in the industry for 15+ years.

 

 

 

I have 2, they both happened at different Six Flags parks.

 

The first was an employee vs guest fight. We were near the front gate when we heard someone yelling. A guest was yelling very loud, right in an employees face, the person was irate and started poking the employee. Another employee was on the radio calling for security. People started leaving the area with their kids because it was getting bad and the guests langauage was horrid. The guest got the employee cornered against a gate and was acting as if he was going to hit the employee. 2 guys walked up and tried settling the guy down, but that just made it worse. Suddenly, the guy punched the employee, and the employee defended himself by tackling the guest. After a short wrestling match, the guest was on top of the employee just pummeling the employee's head. The 2 guys that originally tried stepping in, me, and one other guy subdued the guy until security could get there. During those 30 seconds of waiting, the guy who we were holding down bit one of the other guys very hard, hard enough that the guy had to go to the hospital later for stitches. Anwyay, when security got there, they couldn't do too much since they didnt have handcuffs. They told us to let the guy up, where we were all hesitant in doing so. They eventually made us let him go, so they could hold him until the police got there. While waitng for the police, the guest went crazy on the original two guys. When security stepped in, the guy tackled an officer and we again had to help restrain him. Eventually the police got there and arrested the guy. It was pretty scary. The employee and the guy who got bit both went to the hospital.

 

But I think my worst had to be witnessing a massive brawl of at least 100 people at a Six Flags park years ago. People who were running away not even part of the comotion were getting sucker punched and beaten. Quite a few people were hurt, some moderately. There were torn clothes on the ground, shoes laying around, quite a few puddles of blood. A ton of people were arrested, I saw at least 30 people in handcuffs and zip ties, and as security and police were escorting people out of the park, another brawl broke out between the entrance and the parking lot. It was so violent and chaotic, they closed the park 3 hours early. The police closed all intersections between the park exit and highway to force every car leaving directly onto the highway so that none of it would start up again at the gas stations or stores across or down the street.

[prozach626]

Here's mine from last summer at SFGam, posted in August:

 

So I went to the park yesterday and had the worst single most customer service experience I've ever had at a park. It was possibly the worst customer service I've ever had anywhere. My friend and I went to buy a couple beers. I look young for 29, so I always have my ID out and I took my sunglasses off as a courtesy. I handed the girl at the counter my Illinois Driver's License and politely asked for two Miller Lites. (I am always polite to servers) She kept looking at my ID and looking at me. After several seconds passed, I kind of raised my eyebrows in question and she flat out rudely told me "This doesn't look like you." Keep in mind I have my hair the exact same length in my ID and the picture was taken last year. I said "Excuse me?" She said again, "I don't think this is you." I was pretty pissed off at this point and told her "Well it's been me for 29 years." I spouted off my birthday and my address and she still just looked at me like she was going to deny me beer. She was trying to make it obvious to her co worker that at this point she just wanted to tell me no. After that, she was trying to be spiteful and she was on an evident power trip. She went over to another server and overly convincingly tried to say "I don't think this is him." I could tell she really wanted the other girl to say it wasn't me so she could deny me a beer. At that point, I was prepared to make a scene. I told her if she didn't think that was me than she needed to call the police, since I used my credit card under that name to buy our tickets, our parking, and our flash pass, because as a police officer I know that Unlawful Use of a Debit Card is a felony. The other employee looked at me for two seconds and said "Yeah, that's him... same eyes." I was extremely pissed at this point as the the worst staff ever continued to be a smart A$$ throughout the rest of the transaction and she held a smart A$$ grin on her face. When we went back for a second beer... HOURS LATER MIND YOU... I even tried to be nice and joke with her. I went out of my way to apologize to her if I did anything to upset her. I joked with her and asked her if she was going to give me a hard time. She smiled and laughed and told me she just didn't want to get in trouble. In reality she just wanted to go on a power trip. I played it off like nothing ever happened, smiled, thanked her for the beers, and told her that I understood, despite the fact that she never once apologized. At that time I still didn't know they had anywhere else that sold beer, so a while later I reluctantly walked back to the beer lady for my third and final beer throughout the entire day. Again, I smiled, greeted her, and asked her for two more beers (one each...) for my friend and I. She grinned and with a huge smartass tone looked at me and said "Well..... I'm sorry... I've served you two beers already (within FOUR hours) and I don't think I should serve you anymore..." With two hours left at the park I was determined to not let it ruined my time, so I went to JB after discovering its existence for my third and final beer, where the bar tender greeted us with kindness and served our beer.

 

I'm tempted to call and complain, but I didn't get her name. I can describe her pretty well if that would help. Would it be worth it to complain or would it even go anywhere? I can see her giving some BS account of the story and make it out like I was being the a$$hole, but I played it over and over again in my head. My friend said I was being nothing but nice... I even apologized to her... for HER actions.

[Midgetman82]

Normally the worst experience I get are when I hit a park on a peak day. SFMM on a Saturday during summer break, 2009, and Kings Island this year on opening day. Barely got any rides in on those days.

 

Apart from that, I guess I should bring up some of the stuff that occurred within the first day of Kentucky Kingdom's opening. Between morning and noon, everything was running fairly smoothly. But by afternoon, many of the local kids started coming into the park and making scenes all over the place. The biggest issue was line jumpers. They were everywhere, and happened right in front of me many times. The queue for Deep Water Dive, Lightning Run, FearFall, etc.

 

I was in line for a Dippin' Dots stand later in the day and there were two parties in front of me to order their treats. A woman with her two kids sits on a bench nearby, hands their kids some money, and the two kids (I kid you not) scooted their way in front of the party that was in front of me. The mother of the party in front of me began slowly looking around, obviously to see if anyone had seen what the two had very obviously done. By the time she reached me, I told her "yeah, I saw it..." She told me she was about ready to raise hell about it. I mentioned that I'm typically a patient person and would rather not raise commotion since I'd eventually get my ice cream anyways (Not saying I'd let anybody in front of me, I have my limits). Of course she said that she still had a problem with it. Eventually, though, nothing happened and everybody got their ice cream.

 

Since then the park brought in police officers to roam the park along with park ambassadors, and the final movement was installing some security cameras and putting up signs stating that they're in use. I've also seen jumpers try to cut in line for Lightning Run, and shortly after get told to leave by park ambassadors.

[raether]

I have two and both while working the same ride...

Worked at "The Edge" in 1987 at PGA..

 

Incident 1- While working the one Saturday the park was busy and the The Edge was having frequent "Over Speeds" which was a cabin traveling too fast and the brakes would lock up and the cabin would not reach the Revering wheel. In each case it was cabin 4 and the ride mechanics would have to come and open the brakes and the ride ops would push the cabin to the reversing wheel. So after about 6 of these in the morning the mechanics decided to try a fix and adjusted something on the brake fin for cabin 4. So after the adjustment me and 3 burly mechanics went for a test and sure enough the 800 plus lbs caused another over speed. The cabin's brake fin was now replaced and we were down about an hour. After the ride opened cabin 4 had an Under Speed, this is where the cabin exits the brakes but does not have enough speed to reach the reverser and is sitting between the brakes and the reversing wheel. We get up on the brake run and push the cabin home- meanwhile the next cabin has been at the top of the ride waiting to drop. As the ride restarts and the next cabin drops there is large bang....... the cabin stops dead about 30 feet in the brakes and the top wheels leave the C shaped track causing it to sit upright and the track warped in the process. 4 riders were transported to local hospital with whiplash type symptoms and The Edge was down for over a month..

 

Cause - Cabin 4 left a 4 inch piece of brake fin in the brakes causing the under speed, when the next cabin came down it hit the obstruction and stopped almost immediately.. As result all the FreeFall rides brake fins where shortened by one section, this was implemented on all operating models that I am aware of. ( I think they were all down while the issue was investigated and happened 2 years after the accident at the Gurnee Edge ride shut it down permanently.)

 

Incident 2- this was a direct injury to me working on The Edge.

while checking cabin restraints I was working both sides of the platform. So I would enter the cabin from the load side check all 4 and signal clear to dispatch from the unload side and cross over while checking the next cabin. On my signal the operator would dispatch. With 3 loading positions sometimes position 2 would be ready before position 1 and the operator could dispatch 2 and as soon as position 1 was clear both 2 and 1 would leave at the same time. After clearing load 1, I was entering the cabin at load 2 when both load 1 and 2 dispatched. Not expecting 2 to leave and I was entering the cabin I lost my balance and fell into the track. I had a cuts on my leg and large scrapes and bruises. The ride was immediately e-stopped and was called down code 1 - ride downtime with injury. Security and managers were running from all directions to the ride and ran right past me sitting on the on the employee access stairs to the station. I was taken to first aid and patched up. I was asked ( interrogated ) for about hour, and big words like liability and fault were thrown around. I was still in shock and was really mad to be treated the way I was. So again the ride was down for about a month as the operator didn't issue a dispatch command for load 2. What happened was the operator did command load two to dispatch but canceled the command by hitting the clear dispatch 1,2,3 button that clears all holding dispatches. The Op also hit the unlock restrains button and the restrains in Load 2 would remain open for 10 seconds. In this case as soon as the restraints locked the cabin dispatched. It was found to be a programing error in the panel which interpreted the wrong command and sent the cabin.

 

No I didn't Sue..... LOL ... but I was treated differently by my managers after that and still don't care for CGA and have only been there once as a guest in the past 15 years.

[CanobieFan]

My first and only trip to Lake Compounce. Almost ruined my entire vacation.

 

For Boulder Dash, I waited out the front. The wait was an hour with a half station wait. It was literally the most asinine thing EVER.

 

I'm waiting with a bunch of people, and this group of two: (Dad and Son) kept coming up the disability ramp. 8 times in a half hour. Being an enthusiast I knew not to b!tch, but I sat there. Then everyone started complaining.

 

Finally when they came up for their 9th ride, I shrieked.

 

I said to the employee "This isn't fair! They're abusing the system!"

"Oh well. Not our problem." Said the employee. "We don't make the rules, our boss does."

 

I stood and watched them go twice more, giving me a dirty look going around the second time.

 

That point me and people behind me are pissed. I'm complaining along with some friends I made in line.

 

Finally a guy turned around and said "We get your mad. Can you please shut up!?"

 

I said "Okay. Sorry Sir."

 

I give the others a glare and they all shrug in disgust of the comment said towards me.

 

They came up again.

 

At this point, I'm pissed, I want to RAGE, but the person behind me screamed:

 

"CALL THE MANAGER!"

 

I was like "oh dear god..."

 

The manager came, glancing at me quickly, then the guy behind me saved the day.

 

"HE'S BEEN WAITING HERE FOR AN HOUR NOW WHERE HE SHOULD'VE WAITED TWENTY MINUTES. LET HIM ON. THESE PEOPLE ARE ABUSING THE SYSTEM!"

 

The manager was pissed. She made them get off. The father and son were very upset and asked why they couldn't stay on again.

 

I got in. I at least deserved 2 rides for my asinine waiting.

 

The ride ended and they said "Alright. Your done. OUT!"

 

I was very very upset. I walked out disgusted. Then my parents were looking for me. They thought I got lost somewhere. I went to security. No help.

 

I run around the park, and finally bump into them and I wanted to take one more Wildcat ride (I like it better then BD...) and I had to leave.

 

You don't want to know how angry I was.

[Woodie Warrior]

I would say my entire visit to Kentucky Kingdom. The guests at that park are the most obnoxious people I've ever been around. Smoking all over the place (including the queue lines) and lots of interesting conversations to be heard.

[GwaziBSRider1]

Six Flags over Texas last December. The ride ops were incredibly rude, to the point where I was raging at their actions. Long story short: I was threatened to be kicked out of the park without any wrong doing (I know I should go into depth, but I really don't feel like bringing back my anger). I immediately went to Guest Relations, asked for the manager, acted as politely as possible (trust me, it was difficult), and was awarded a line jump of NTaG. I fired off a very long e-mail to Corporate, too, but of course I got no response. My visit there was horrific in other ways, too. All of which were the fault of the park. I really don't have a desire to return to the park now.

 

Probably the second worst would be getting sick at CoasterMania 2008 and being forced to miss Jr. Gemini ERT. I'm still very bitter about it...

[prozach626]

I would say my entire visit to Kentucky Kingdom. The guests at that park are the most obnoxious people I've ever been around. Smoking all over the place (including the queue lines) and lots of interesting conversations to be heard.

 

Sounds like it's time to raise admission prices to keep a certain population out. Just sayin.

[Brassinthegrass]

I have two

 

When I was in high school friend of mine and I went to Six Flags great adventure and experience a park wide power outage during a torrential thunderstorm in which we were stuck on Superman: Ultimate Flight's lift hill for about ten minutes while they figured out if the had to turn on the generator to get us off the lift hill. I have to say, hearing everyone freaking out around us was kind of odd.. I knew we were safe since the ride operator was talking with us the entire time through the speakers on the lift...

 

Then second was my own stupidity... Here is what happened at Quassy Park this past July:

 

 

Rode Wooden Worrior four times, grabbed a hot dog and was walking back to my car and realized I lost my keys to my brand new 2015 Honda Fit... Three hours later and having the park engineers look under WW for them with no luck, my father drives 2 hours up to bring me my keys so I can journey on up to lake George for a camping trip.

 

Morals of the story: never forget how amazing your parents can be, no matter what age AND use the carabiner you put on your keys, the ONE time you don't will turn a $14 dollar trip into an extra tank of gas, two12 packs of Sam Adams, and at least a year of ridicule from the immediate family.

[YOLO]

This guy (about 300 pounds) hears me and my mom talking about Ms. Lillian's, which is a restaurant in Dollywood with DELICIOUS chicken. We where sitting on a bench in front of the line for Tennessee Tornado, and he said "WHO SAY MS. LILLIANS AINT GOT DA BEST CHICKEN IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!"...Then he sat down on the bench, and things got creepy. He started talking about how he "supposedly" works at Victoria's Pizza, near the County Fair section of the park, and how much he loves Daredevil Falls, and he wanted to ride DF with us...We said "We are going to ride Wild Eagle first, is that okay?" He responded "Sure." He couldn't fit on Wild Eagle so for a little while we where in the clear zone. We rode Wild Eagle, got off, and we somehow sneaked past him, in fact we didn't even see him. It was a miracle! We then went to go ride Blazing Fury.

 

So we got in line for Blazing Fury, 2 rows of people are in front of us, and I look over to the right, and thought I saw him, but I thought it was just in my head. I took a double take to make sure, and there he was. A BIG, NASTY, TRASHY, REDNECK, STALKING, WEIRD, PIZZA MUNCHING SLOB, STANDING IN LINE FOR THE FRONT ROW...oh my god. Luckily, we where farther in line than he was, and we got on the train 2 trains before him. we kind of turned our heads to where he couldn't see them and crouched down in the seats. We rode BF, got off, and we didn't trust our eyes anymore. We wanted to make 100% sure he was gone, and we hid under the benches towards Daredevil Falls, after about 2 minutes, he walked past, didn't see us, and probably went on Daredevil Falls alone, or struck another victim, and possibly succeeded.

[mike541x]

Then second was my own stupidity... Here is what happened at Quassy Park this past July:

 

 

Rode Wooden Worrior four times, grabbed a hot dog and was walking back to my car and realized I lost my keys to my brand new 2015 Honda Fit... Three hours later and having the park engineers look under WW for them with no luck, my father drives 2 hours up to bring me my keys so I can journey on up to lake George for a camping trip.

 

Morals of the story: never forget how amazing your parents can be, no matter what age AND use the carabiner you put on your keys, the ONE time you don't will turn a $14 dollar trip into an extra tank of gas, two12 packs of Sam Adams, and at least a year of ridicule from the immediate family.

 

Something very similar happened to me at BGW earlier this year. Just before we went on the Le Scoot (log flume), I put my car key in my pocket that had a zipper. After that we rode Griffon then headed over to Apollo's Chariot where I then noticed in line that the zipper to the pocket was open and the key was long gone. Thankfully my parents were near the resort we stayed at and had a spare so they dropped it off. The next day when we went back to the park, we decided to go to lost and found just in case and amazingly they had it!

[Cullvion]

In 2010, my family and I were at Cedar Point. Our first ride was Millennium Force. On the drop, I saw something fall from the corner of my eye, when I got off the ride, my mom realized that her wallet was missing. At the time, we didn't exactly get that you had to rent a locker for your belongings while in line. ALL of our money was in there, our identifications, camera, licenses. We only bought some fries with the little money my dad had, it was pretty pathetic. That and the fact that I got sick the next day made for a miserable ride home. Luckily, they did find the wallet the next day, but there was no camera, and no sign of it anywhere.

[thrillrider]

The worst thing that I ever did was ride an slc.

[XII]

Worst park experiences from a guests POV:

 

Mt. Olympus. Just...just Mt. Olympus

 

The operations for the Texas Sky Screamer @ SFOT. Worst operations ever. I waited in line for 30 minutes and the thing only cycled 3 freaking times in 30 minutes. Within that time frame, the line was overflowing and I barely moved at all. It was 10:00 PM, the park was closed, and everyone in line was bugging the sh*t out of me. After 30 minutes of standing in a non-moving line in 80 degree, humid buggy weather with Texans who don't understand the basic concept of volume control, I decided that it wasn't worth it since we would've gotten on the ride at midnight if the line kept moving at its current pace and just left the park (Thanks for not having Texas SkyScreamer on Gold Flashpass).

 

Worst park experiences from an employees POV:

 

There are a lot of horror stories I've collected from working at SFMM. The worst one, I probably shouldn't share, so here's the 2nd worst one.

 

Some guest was angry at a co-worker for some stupid reason. I'm not sure why he was mad and I quite frankly don't care as he then went on and assaulted my co-worker. Luckily, my co-worker wasn't seriously injured and the jackass was kicked out of the park and I'm assuming banned for life almost immediately.

[runbch]

Then second was my own stupidity... Here is what happened at Quassy Park this past July:

 

 

Rode Wooden Worrior four times, grabbed a hot dog and was walking back to my car and realized I lost my keys to my brand new 2015 Honda Fit... Three hours later and having the park engineers look under WW for them with no luck, my father drives 2 hours up to bring me my keys so I can journey on up to lake George for a camping trip.

 

Morals of the story: never forget how amazing your parents can be, no matter what age AND use the carabiner you put on your keys, the ONE time you don't will turn a $14 dollar trip into an extra tank of gas, two12 packs of Sam Adams, and at least a year of ridicule from the immediate family.

 

Something very similar happened to me at BGW earlier this year. Just before we went on the Le Scoot (log flume), I put my car key in my pocket that had a zipper. After that we rode Griffon then headed over to Apollo's Chariot where I then noticed in line that the zipper to the pocket was open and the key was long gone. Thankfully my parents were near the resort we stayed at and had a spare so they dropped it off. The next day when we went back to the park, we decided to go to lost and found just in case and amazingly they had it!

I've lost and found the same phone twice. Once at Six Flags Saint Louis and the second time at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. Think I finally learned my lesson.

[GwaziBSRider1]

I lost my phone on Alpengeist last May, and they never did find it. I had almost lost my glasses on it once, and it almost took my phone a few years prior. Third time's the charm, I guess. I've certainly learned my lesson about loose articles on Alpengeist.

[fraroc]

My first and only trip to Lake Compounce. Almost ruined my entire vacation.

 

For Boulder Dash, I waited out the front. The wait was an hour with a half station wait. It was literally the most asinine thing EVER.

 

I'm waiting with a bunch of people, and this group of two: (Dad and Son) kept coming up the disability ramp. 8 times in a half hour. Being an enthusiast I knew not to b!tch, but I sat there. Then everyone started complaining.

 

Finally when they came up for their 9th ride, I shrieked.

 

I said to the employee "This isn't fair! They're abusing the system!"

"Oh well. Not our problem." Said the employee. "We don't make the rules, our boss does."

 

I stood and watched them go twice more, giving me a dirty look going around the second time.

 

That point me and people behind me are pissed. I'm complaining along with some friends I made in line.

 

Finally a guy turned around and said "We get your mad. Can you please shut up!?"

 

I said "Okay. Sorry Sir."

 

I give the others a glare and they all shrug in disgust of the comment said towards me.

 

They came up again.

 

At this point, I'm pissed, I want to RAGE, but the person behind me screamed:

 

"CALL THE MANAGER!"

 

I was like "oh dear god..."

 

The manager came, glancing at me quickly, then the guy behind me saved the day.

 

"HE'S BEEN WAITING HERE FOR AN HOUR NOW WHERE HE SHOULD'VE WAITED TWENTY MINUTES. LET HIM ON. THESE PEOPLE ARE ABUSING THE SYSTEM!"

 

The manager was pissed. She made them get off. The father and son were very upset and asked why they couldn't stay on again.

 

I got in. I at least deserved 2 rides for my asinine waiting.

 

The ride ended and they said "Alright. Your done. OUT!"

 

I was very very upset. I walked out disgusted. Then my parents were looking for me. They thought I got lost somewhere. I went to security. No help.

 

I run around the park, and finally bump into them and I wanted to take one more Wildcat ride (I like it better then BD...) and I had to leave.

 

You don't want to know how angry I was.

 

So you basically called out someone who was abusing the handicapped line in order to avoid waiting on the regular line on Boulder Dash, yet the ride ops got mad at YOU? That's screwed up...

[parkjunkie]

Worst park experiences from a guests POV:

 

Mt. Olympus. Just...just Mt. Olympus

 

I can't agree anymore. I have had a couple bad experiences there, and 1 REALLY bad one

[StuckInSD]

Just about every really bad experience I've had has been self-inflicted, so I'll just mention the one that wasn't my fault. Unless y'all are interested... but anyways.

 

My group and I were waiting in line for Pirates of the Caribbean and it was on a particularly bad day (right in-between Christmas and New Years of all things). 45 minutes passed and we were finally next. Unfortunately, this boat was "flooded", so they had to send it off empty. That sucked, but at least we could get on the next one. Of course, the boat they were unloading had a wheelchair guy on it, so that took a couple more seconds than usual, no biggie. But then the boat that was right behind the one we were gonna get on, some kid lost his glasses in the drink. Of course, the folks were Chinese, so there was already a little bit of miscommunication. At that point, three ride ops and a fourth guy with a peg leg were looking all around their boat with flashlights, looking for the kid's glasses. Let's not forget that there was a massive line, and the boats were piling up, when all of this was happening. Eventually, they just didn't have time and had to continue the cycle. I have no idea if those kid's glasses were ever found.

 

That's not nearly as bad as what I've read on here, but that's the worst that's happened to me when it wasn't my fault in the first place.

[ajfelice]

This isn't a situation at a particular ride or attraction, but this "incident" was perhaps the most irritating thing a park has ever done that has affected me. First of all, I get that Kennywood has an asinine policy of closing the park early when a "storm" passes through. Looking at the forecast for a large group outing of 30 people or more, we all understood that there would be light rain in the morning and it would pass by 1:00 or 2:00pm.

 

We arrive to the park and it is raining lightly with no torrential downpours and no thunder or lightning. While not jammed packed, Kennywood had at least 80% if its rides operating and most were running at capacity and had short lines, so it wasn't a dead day by any means as it was mid-July. As the first couple hours of the day pass, the weather clears up as scheduled and the park was buzzing. Almost as the sun starts to shine, Kennywood announces that they will be closing at 2:00pm due to inclement weather. Several of their more attentive ride operators told us that the inclement weather was approaching and the closure serves as a precaution. Okay, fine if this is true. The handy dandy smartphone told otherwise through a variety of weather sources that all indicated that the rain has passed with only minimal chances for the evening. So as the sun is coming out, Kennywood is closing for the day at 2:00pm.

 

Putting the amount of people in the park into perspective, we decided to have a parking lot party due to the gridlock traffic leaving the park as the sun continued to shine even brighter. If we had some beer for our party, we would have been pretty buzzed by the time the traffic become manageable. Unsuspecting patrons were trying to file in as thousands were attempting to leave which created an absolute mess.

 

We spent the day in Pittsburgh as no one was ready to make the 2.5 hour trek home that early, and guess what? The inclement weather never arrived just as every weather radar indicated it wouldn't. We left the area at about 7:00pm and the skies still were bright, and while there were a few passing clouds it never rained or looked close to raining.

 

The obvious reason for closure was the fact attendance wasn't where management wanted it to be. It wasn't dead, but it wasn't what a mid-July day should be. The fact of the matter is that these days happen, and sensible solution would be to adjust staffing and resources to minimize losses before opting to close the park entirely. I really do not care if Kennywood issues rain checks or goes by a policy of "no set closing," as I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of rain checks are not redeemed as many people cannot just rearrange schedules to travel the distance to make a return visit in hopes that a light drizzle doesn't close the park again.

 

Our annual department outing will most likely be moved to Darien Lake of all places next summer as they do not close the entire park for a few early rain showers. Call us stupid for having confident expectations for Kennywood to understand that passing light showers in the morning do not justify a 2:00pm closing, but if it were to be thunderstorms on and off all day (which it wasn't) we would have cancelled our outing going off of past precedent set by the park.

 

At least everyone in our group who work for another park now understand the value of keeping a park open as long as possible even when the weather conditions and attendance aren't optimal. I guess that was one positive outcome of the experience.

[tarheel1231]

I have had lots of bad experiences in the Intimidator line during SCarowinds.

 

Incident 1: there's a couple a few feet in front of us and the guy starts diggin' for gold. He just keeps doing it and doing it. When he finished, he started making out with his girlfriend. Now I can't remember if he ate it or not, but it was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever seen. It's kind of funny, but too gross to be hilarious.

 

Incident 2: I remember some guy who was on the train on the break run, and he flicked everyone in line off. I don't think enough people noticed it, but it was pretty rude.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Incident 3: I was in Bondi Beach in Boomerang Bay and the waves started coming. As I made my way to the side of the pool, this teenage girl (who had floaties on) started to drown me! She couldn't swim well, so she grabbed onto my head and used me like I was a life buoy. I was under water for a good 3-4 seconds.

[SFOG1991]

This isn't a situation at a particular ride or attraction, but this "incident" was perhaps the most irritating thing a park has ever done that has affected me. First of all, I get that Kennywood has an asinine policy of closing the park early when a "storm" passes through. Looking at the forecast for a large group outing of 30 people or more, we all understood that there would be light rain in the morning and it would pass by 1:00 or 2:00pm.

 

We arrive to the park and it is raining lightly with no torrential downpours and no thunder or lightning. While not jammed packed, Kennywood had at least 80% if its rides operating and most were running at capacity and had short lines, so it wasn't a dead day by any means as it was mid-July. As the first couple hours of the day pass, the weather clears up as scheduled and the park was buzzing. Almost as the sun starts to shine, Kennywood announces that they will be closing at 2:00pm due to inclement weather. Several of their more attentive ride operators told us that the inclement weather was approaching and the closure serves as a precaution. Okay, fine if this is true. The handy dandy smartphone told otherwise through a variety of weather sources that all indicated that the rain has passed with only minimal chances for the evening. So as the sun is coming out, Kennywood is closing for the day at 2:00pm.

 

Putting the amount of people in the park into perspective, we decided to have a parking lot party due to the gridlock traffic leaving the park as the sun continued to shine even brighter. If we had some beer for our party, we would have been pretty buzzed by the time the traffic become manageable. Unsuspecting patrons were trying to file in as thousands were attempting to leave which created an absolute mess.

 

We spent the day in Pittsburgh as no one was ready to make the 2.5 hour trek home that early, and guess what? The inclement weather never arrived just as every weather radar indicated it wouldn't. We left the area at about 7:00pm and the skies still were bright, and while there were a few passing clouds it never rained or looked close to raining.

 

The obvious reason for closure was the fact attendance wasn't where management wanted it to be. It wasn't dead, but it wasn't what a mid-July day should be. The fact of the matter is that these days happen, and sensible solution would be to adjust staffing and resources to minimize losses before opting to close the park entirely. I really do not care if Kennywood issues rain checks or goes by a policy of "no set closing," as I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of rain checks are not redeemed as many people cannot just rearrange schedules to travel the distance to make a return visit in hopes that a light drizzle doesn't close the park again.

 

Our annual department outing will most likely be moved to Darien Lake of all places next summer as they do not close the entire park for a few early rain showers. Call us stupid for having confident expectations for Kennywood to understand that passing light showers in the morning do not justify a 2:00pm closing, but if it were to be thunderstorms on and off all day (which it wasn't) we would have cancelled our outing going off of past precedent set by the park.

 

At least everyone in our group who work for another park now understand the value of keeping a park open as long as possible even when the weather conditions and attendance aren't optimal. I guess that was one positive outcome of the experience.

 

I have had the exact same experience while visiting from Atlanta. There was steady rain all morning (not dangerous) and it passed. We arrived at the park around 4pm. The sun was out and it was very nice weather, but when we arrived at the gate they had closed for the day, and would be officially closing the rides at 4:30pm. The weather was perfectly fine but you could clearly see Phantom's Revenge running half empty.

 

I love Kennywood but their customer service and overall operations are TERRIBLE.

 

On another visit, the park was packed and Racer was only running 2 trains (which is basically 1 train operation since it is a racing coaster. I was slightly annoyed but what really annoyed me was the fact that they had only one employee who had to open the gates for everyone leaving, then would wait until the train was empty before walking over and opening the gate to let new riders in. He would count them all then he had to check every seat belt for both trains. He did all this VERY slowly as well. I was both annoyed by him and feeling bad for him because they easily need at least 2 people doing that job.

 

I also hate that Kennywood schedules their fast pass of sorts so you can only do a few rides once at the EXACT time they tell you, and they still make you wait forever before telling you where you have to sit.

 

I am also not a fan of them making up closing times or the fact that they close some rides as much as 2 hours before park closing. This caused me to miss out on The Whip and The Exterminator.

 

Also, people smoke in lines at this park soooo much, even in indoor queues like the indoor part of the Black Widow queue.

 

 

 

I love Kennywood, but wow they had terrible operations and no commitment to their customers.

[SFOG1991]

When I visited Six Flags Over Texas there were a few incidents.

 

First, there was this young girl, maybe 12 years old, who was blatantly cutting in line and screaming cussing at me for telling her "no you can not cut me". An employee witnessed the entire thing so I requested security. He had absolutely no back bone and simply asked the girl to not cut. I made a stink about it and after not letting it go I finally got him to make her leave the line, at which point she refused and continued to cuss. She eventually left and was screaming at me from outside the queue and the employee continued to ignore my requests and her breaking of park policies.

 

Second, at the end of the night there was a 2 hour line for NTaG and instead of closing the line 2 hours early, or running the ride 2 hours late, instead they simply kicked everyone who wasn't in the station out after they had waited nearly 2 hours.

 

In comparison, I will give credit to Lake Winnie, where I also experienced line cutters (a mother and her children... which is disgusting seeing that she is raising her kids to do terrible things and have no respect). I told a ride operator once she and her kids were already on the ride, and a few people backed me up. She proceeded to hold the ride and tell them to leave. The woman refused to leave so the employee called security. Even then, the woman refused to leave. I assumed they would give up and let her ride but instead they had the sheriff who was on-site make her leave, and when she refused he had her forcibly removed from the park and possibly arrested/ticketed for not cooperating (It seemed like that was what was happening). After all of this, the employee thanked me for helping the park with their commitment to their policy and apologized to me for having to experience such a thing. TAKE NOTE SFOT!!!

[fraroc]

Now that I think about it....I think I should finally share this. I've gone on three Kings Dominion trips, and the very Kings Dominion trip, I witnessed a little girl get verbally and possibly physically abused by her father. All I remember was that it was in the parking lot, there was a family of four getting in their car probably ready to go home, the little girl was crying for some reason and her dad began to scream at her, and when I say scream, I mean full-on Drill Instructor scream at the little girl, probably no older than six years old. Something about "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH IT!!! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME! STOP CRYING RIGHT NOW!!" I was so heartbroken that I just couldn't bear to watch. I cringed and that's when the little girl started screaming like a banshee....I think at that moment, the dad hit her. Despite the fact that KD is one of my favorite parks, It seems that every time I go, I can't help but think of that poor little girl....Looking back, I really wish I had CPS' number.

[TOPGUN1993]

There was that one time at the Kennywood Skycoaster. This story may get slightly confusing.

 

Myself and 2 other friends flew first (Red suit- Black suit- Red Suit)

 

Next up was my 3 other friends (Red suit - Black Suit- Red suit)

 

Black suits are for taller people and Kennywood only had 1 black suit, so they unsuited and suited my friend up on the plat form after we flew.

 

So far so good?

 

My 3 friend are attached to the cables and they flip them forward (we call this proning)

 

The employees forgot to attach the side clips between each suits and couldn't attach them once they "proned" so they just went ahead and raised the floor. Causing my 3 friends to be smacked by the platform thus laying horizontal on the platform. #beachedwhales

 

The employees told them to stand up, but keep in-mind all 3 still had there foot bars on and 1 of the side clips was attached at this point. Making standing back up nearly impossible. After a struggle of climbing up the walls of the platform they got up.

 

They attached all 4 side clips and then immediately "proned" the flight, hooked everything up really fast and started to go down on platform.

 

They now forgot all 3's footbars ENTIRELY and wouldn't of noticed had we not said anything.

 

At this point everyone had enough and told them to get us off this ride as we don't trust them.

 

"GET US OFF" - we said

The workers gave us a puzzled look, but we weren't joking.

 

I asked the worker if he passed his Site controller test, he said he did but the other guy didn't. 2 of the 3 working flight line were supervisors...... SUPERVISORS

 

We had the park page an rides manager and told him the story, he seemed slightly surprised but I doubt anything was changed.

 

All 6 of us are very familiar with skycoaster operation. All Skycoasters operate under the same guidelines from Skycoaster INC.

 

321fly

Edited November 14, 2014 by TOPGUN1993