disco2000

In the society we live, regardless of which approach KI took - either make an announcement and immediately close the park OR do as they did last night, people are going to complain about how it happened. For safety reasons, the park will not elaborate on the decision making process, but they took the information they had and determined a course of action to minimize injuries. The fact that everyone got out of the park safely means they did their job. Most probably left like oh well things happen no fireworks, some left furious that they sat there and waited, and some left without realizing anything was going on. Those that are observant though could have noticed the subtle differences occurring in the final two hours to know something was up... It's always easy to play armchair quarterback and say they should have done something different...

I can assure you the webcams were down and were not available in a Google search - it was coincidental that you found them as they were brought back online...

What is that saying...those who know...

Some shut down much earlier than that..."official" response is weather...

Excellent question Oldschool! In fact, many of these ride operators begin to recognize regulars that should know better and maybe the ride operators get a little short or more terse with those types, similar to how our parents were not polite when we did something stupid and they called us out on it - they know us and know we know better lol!

As Bodda said, the simple answer is YES. Now for the explanation... EVERY operator of treatment facilities has had violations. In the industry, the Department of Justice (DOJ) serving as an arm to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues hundreds of Consent Decrees yearly to entities operating treatment facilities. What is a Consent Decree? A Consent Decree is a fancy name for lawsuit. This consent decree calls out what an entity has to do and spend to get into compliance Every major city has a consent decree. Surrounding Kings Island we have Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Middletown, Lima, Milford, Louisville, Lexington, Clermont County, Northern Kentucky, etc. all have one. For the big cities it is in the BILLIONS of dollars for each city to get into compliance... In addition, hundreds of consent decrees are issued to mobile home parks, amusement parks, interstate rest areas, etc. which are entities other than sewer districts that operate treatment facilities. Even Amazon has a consent decree for violations. The kicker in all this is that the EPA goes after the "low hanging fruit" which are these treatment plants. The reality is that the pollution that leaves just your property from runoff after just one rain event is putting more pollution into the creeks than just about any treatment plant. The amount of pollutants from a home yard that leaves the yard as runoff and goes into the curb inlet and then the creeks/river is a lot. Between fertilizers put down, normal soil erosion, animal droppings, leave decay, etc. the pollutants that get into the creek from sources other than treatment plants is astronomical. Heck, one animal relieving itself near a creek puts more contamination into the creek that a treatment plant that processes hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day. Same goes for one septic tank. Wanna know why Missouri made the Worlds of Fun permit less restrictive...regulators are slowly realizing that these point sources (treatment plants) are not the problem. It is all the non-point sources like our yards, driveways, roads, parking lots, farms, etc. that is the problem. Treatment plants put out well less than 1% of the total contaminants in the waterways. One large farm puts out more pollution into to the waterways than the community treatment plant that the farm is in. Instead of spending $200 million on a treatment plant upgrade, if the community bought buffer zones along the creeks and waterways in their community it would be much more beneficial than spending that money at a treatment facility to try to get a marginal improvement on an already clear discharge. Some communities are doing just that with great results. So the media makes it to be a big deal when these treatment plant operators have a violation, but the fact of the matter is even with the violation it is usually insignificant in the big scheme of things. The fact of the matter is the discharge from most treatment plants is basically to drinking level quality. Heck in California where water is a premium, they just about do just that - it comes in as sewage and leaves as drinking water. It is being done in space on the International Space Station. In fact, some craft beer in California is starting to be made from effluent from a treatment plant...

What I was saying was maybe the employee tried during the day to be nice and polite to other guests that violated policy and were cussed out so they figured why be nice and tried the stern approach and maybe it was this calm couple that was the recipient of the employee trying a different approach because being polite with other guests simply resulted in being cussed out. I suspect it wasn't their first time at the park since they were so willing to discard the cup, but maybe they had such a bad day they decided they would never come back and was willing to dispose of cup. Now I agree that for the sake of speed and dispatch times, to make the individual get out and throw away the cup seems counter intuitive as that would most definitely slow dispatch times. We will never know the full story unfortunately, so people will post their viewpoints based on what they believe happened and how they interpret your posts. For all we know the line separator in the station could have told the couple they couldn't ride with the cup and they blew them off or went off on the separator so the ride operator decided to be a stern authoritative. We will never know. One of the reasons why I hate when the media shows a 15 second clip of some "issue" and it goes viral and what is being seen on that clip could be totally taken out of context without knowing what led up to the event that was captured. Anything less than that and we are assuming what happened and we know what happens when one assumes.

I tend to agree with Chad on this post. Granted we don't know all that was said, but someone being "rude" is subjective. Personally, as long as they didn't use profanity or make fun of the individual, I would tend to think they were simply doing their job. There are postings all over the park (including the video signs above you when you get your pass scanned - wonder how many have never noticed that!, at the ride itself, etc.) so there really isn't any excuse for a person to get that far in line. As Bodda points out, the employee could have been working a long day by that time and perhaps this person was the 40th person that day that had tried to sneak a cup through the line and on the ride and being human, most of us by that time would have not been as polite as we probably could be OR maybe they have tried the polite approach to only be cussed out (I have seen that happen all too often) so they decided to simply be stern in hopes it would come across authoritatively. There is a difference between stern and rude. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people try to sneak something past the greeter at the front of the ride. The majority of the time they are caught, but at night and if going in with a group, things like a cup can be missed. But again, that isn't the greeter's fault, that is the individual for not reading and following the rules. Maybe we should make it a requirement that all guests must pass a basic rules exam before entering the park LOL!!! But we live in a coddle society so someone probably expects the employee should say something like "Hi I'm Katie and I unfortunately regret to have to inform you that the policy on this ride is that you are not allowed to bring anything onto the ride. I am so sorry that you missed our postings and that the greeter at the front of the line missed it. I also apologize profusely that we do not have bins for you to put it in. Please accept my dearest sympathies in your situation but I will have to kindly ask you to leave the ride. As a token of my apologies, here is a FastLane pass so that you can enjoy the rides at the park without waiting. I am so sorry we made you stand in line and again please accept my heartfelt apologies." Personally, I was raised that if you did something wrong, don't expect a sugar coat or politeness when being corrected or being told of your infraction as they are there to enforce policy not be the make you feel good greeter. The part that frustrates me the most are seeing people with souvenir cups doing stuff like trying to take stuff through Banshee or Mystic lines and smoking where they shouldn't be - they are obviously pass holders and should know better.

Yes, you can see Gravity at 3,5,7 today... There will be no shows tomorrow...See you there...

She did and rode it according to the daughter...

They must have removed or moved it because it was working this morning but now it doesn't.

They probably have a surplus of cups they are trying to get rid of and are really pushing upsells to increase per cap spending...let's face it with all the plans they need to upsell to increase revenue and these kids just try to upsell everyone regardless of if they already have the cup...they are pushing FunPix print outs too... Ok back to this topic - it sounds like they allowed her to simply crawl back out and get on ride - does anyone else think that should be a temporary closure/e-stop as she did enter a confined space area...

I know someone at another CF park that bought two season passe just so that he could have two meal plans in his name/picture - yep they will sell you two passes. And for another reason....

The retrofit will be the elimination of the bins! The queue gates open in such a way to "force" you into your row, so she had to have fallen through by taking stuff over to the bins and on the way back to her seat she was probably talking with her daughters and not paying attention and simply walked behind the seats her daughters were going to and not realizing she was on the next car and fell through in between them...

It was before the ride...she was probably messing with her phone getting the video ready to record a POV But yeah, she was probably talking to her daughters and not paying attention where she was walking.

There are other devious ways the park is aware of but I will not share the ones I am aware of as it would probably create copycat situations making it worse...and their pass computer system has been discussed elsewhere within this forum and the needs for updating that could correct many of these issues being discussed... The picture popping up for the cashier has been there for years but most cashiers just selected that the picture matched the guest...

They have also ran a certain train empty instead of taking it offline so that they didn't have to wrap the belts around all of the lap bars of empty seats. That train would enter the station and they would say that train is going out empty and you will get on the next one. Leaving the train online allowed them to simply reopen it if they got busy. But yes either running a train empty or blocking of rows is a practice used on Timbers due to the seat belts not being retractable and they have to wrap them around the lap bar. Now why they weren't retractable...

Even after Twisted Timbers accident that started this thread they are still having people stuff their stuff down their shirt - stuff is still flying out for those with large shirt openings...

True but if management isn't making it a priority there is a reason - is it because it is statistically rare someone is injured so they don't enforce; is it they don't want to burden guest services with ticked off people who had their phones taken or being kicked out of park; they don't want the negative reviews, or some combination of these and others. Let's face the reality that more people would go in and complain to guest services about having their phone taken from them for the day or being kicked out of the park than those of us that log a complaint about someone with their phone out. Maybe our resident pollster should start a poll on here lol... I agree though - set the precedent early and go after banning folks that post illegal POV and the problem will be minimized before the industry has to take more extreme measures.

I have posted on this forum in the past that every time someone does something stupid on a ride that results in serious injury or death in the industry, the industry response is an additional measure on rides whether similar in nature or not (adding seatbelts to Diamondback after being in operation how many years, going from buzz bars to lap bars and seat belts, etc.), that it will get to the point that each coaster train will be fully enclosed so that someone can't fall out and if they have loose articles it only hits themselves. Imagine riding Diamondback without getting to feel the wind in your face....now this may be an extreme solution but each time an incident like stitches required for a flying cellphone gets us one step closer to having such overly restrictive ride experience it takes the whole joy out of the experience. If you see these things happen, bring it up to the ride ops - if they don't do anything go to guest services. If we just sit back and wait for industry knee jerk responses to accidents, I assure you that we will not like the over the top solution as it may ruin the ride experience...

In addition to Gold Pass being extended, they added another Bring a friend for Sunday, and added a Wednesday Friends day for rest of June and July...I am guessing attendance on Sunday was below their expectation...

Well once someone is over 48" they can start to ride more rides outside of Planet Snoopy without an adult and that is a distinction...

Exactly!!! What he says Gravity lacks, such as the lack of as daring acts as Cirque du Soleil, where present in Imagine and Origins, and much more so than what we have in Gravity. In fact, many of the performers from previous shows are performing their exact routine (or some variation) right now in Cirque du Soleil shows around the world. In fact, half of the Cirque du Soleil shows currently playing in Vegas have performers from our previous Imagine and Origins seasons... However, he is correct in that these shows are a mini version of a Cirque du Soleil show and KI patrons should recognize the talent and abilities of these true professionals, some of which sign short term Cirque du Soleil contracts so that they can do a regional show like this in the summer. We get to see roughly 25 minutes of a Cirque du Soleil show for the price of KI admission (or entry with a season pass). It is a great deal. They bring to KI a type of show that many patrons will not be able to afford to see as a Cirque du Soleil show.

Because Planet Snoopy has 6 rides that you have to be under 54" to ride - once she reaches 54", she can no longer ride those, but then can ride the 4 rides that you must be over 54" to ride...

^And it is parents like that why some parks or specific rides will not allow a too short person in line with their family. Because of a parent's lack of being a responsible adult now means that rule abiding families have to either split up and one stays behind while the others go in line or they just don't ride. Plus it should be a requirement that anyone shorter than 54" should be required to have a height wrist band so that ride-ops have an easier time assessing this.