MarketingExpress

Your screwed when you do and screwed if you don’t. If I remember right people used to complain when they wouldn’t get wet on this ride or just get a few drops on them and now we have someone complaining that they are getting wet. Water rides are designed to be exciting and to cool you off at the same time. If you don't want to get wet then go ride something else. 99.9% of water rides get you wet in some way. Heck, you get wet on Pirates of the Caribbean at the Magic Kingdom which aside from the theming is the same ride as the Enchanted Voyage. If you don’t want to get wet whether it is just a little bit or drenched then don’t ride a water ride go ride the Viking Fury, then you are sure to stay dry but you can still get the boat experience that you are probably looking for.

The first turn is already banked.

As someone who has been to pretty much every inch of the park countless times, I have to tell you that WWC is without a doubt one of the most unique areas in the park. To see the ride with water flowing through it on a hot summer afternoon like most of you have seen it is one thing, but to see it on a snowy January morning is completely different. The ride almost takes on the image of a completely different ride. But at the same time it is cool to get that "behind the scenes" look at one of your favorite rides and seeing the gigantic pumps that pump the water to bring the ride to life. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you stand above one of those pumps just as they start them and see all the water rushing towards you. It gives you a rush at first as you watch the water make it's way down the unique canyon sketched out of the landscape like it has always been there. This is what makes WWC so special.

That's not good business if you ask me. You shouldn't be selling new SOB merchandise when the ride isn't even opened yet. I think this might be one of the stupidest comments I have ever heard. Does this mean when Firehawk goes down, KI should stop selling Firehawk merchandise? Obviously you don't know anything about business if you believe in that.

What happened that they now need this type of security? Obviously the September 11, 2001 attacks had a key role in this. Lets all face it, if 8 guys were able to walk on to a plane, hijack it, and fly 3 planes into buildings to make their point then walking into a crowded amusement park with 25,000+ guests and lets say 3,500+ emplyees would be a piece of cake. Any employee up at the park could tell you that at one point or another you come across that guest who just fell off of their rocker because of something minor like their kid being just a bit to short to ride The Beast or their fries aren't hot enough. They get mad and go into a rage. It is usually in this rage when that person reacts in ways that they normally wouldn't. Well, without metal detectors in place, who's to say that someone in their rage remembers that they have a knife in their backback, or even worse a gun pulls it out and holds the crew hostage or hurts someone because some employee was doing their job. Now your other point that you made about them getting it in if they really want to. Ok, there are 2 ways to look at this. Some punk teenager who wants to sneak in a pocket knife to impress his friend and win a bet. Chances are the metal detector will pick that up and he can pick it up when he leaves. People who really want to get something into the park to cause bodily harm will not be stopped by a metal detector or the security at the front gate. The chances of that happening are probably .0001%. The point of the metal detectors is to catch people who are trying to sneak weapons or other items into the park that shouldn't be there. Metal detectors create a safer atmosphere both for guests and for employees alike.

Ok I tried to stay out of this conversation as long as I could, but I can't let false information continue. First off, anything that helps or assists someone else always gets abused by a few. Take for example handicapped parking spots. How many of you know someone who "borrowed" grandma's handicapped sticker just because they didn't want to walk an extra 100 feet to the front door at McDonald's? We all know someone who has abused something like the policy at KI. But, the fact of the matter is, think of how many people's days have been 10 times better because they were not in pain waiting in line, in the sun, or humidity and they were able to ride everything they wanted. While it can be an inconvenience to some waiting an additional 2 minutes to board the next cycle of your favorite ride. Have a little bit of consideration for those who are less fortunate. Most of you are focusing on the few bad apples that abuse the policy and not thinking about the people whom the policy is actually for. I have no problem giving up my seat for a disabled rider and their family so that they can enjoy the same rides that I enjoy. As for the quoted comment above: The elevator in the FOF line - doesn't work Last time I checked Vortex does have steps in it's queue AE/Beast queues are to narrow All of the above: What are you going to do with the motorized wheel chairs? They can not navigate the sharp turns of the queue lines. Believe me I have seen it attempted at AE, it doesn't work. Ok so you might say let the people in motorized wheelchairs through the exit. Then everyone will be getting motorized wheel chairs. The policy is fine the way it is. It is fair and convenient.

I find it funny that they are reporting that KI's attendance is down and the park has only been open for a little over a month. Must be a slow news day if Channel 9 is running this kind of story. Maybe they should wait until the end of the season to report a story like this.

When I started in food service I had a Supervisor (Mark Carroll - see I remember his name to this day!) that was so on top of the cleanliness that he had everyone hand dry the cracks on the floor at closing time. You could absolutely eat off the floors of the stands. So don't tell me that 16, 17 and 18 year olds can't clean. I never said that they can't clean, read my post. I said its not something they want to do (especially after working 8 hours or more)

I know it is the responsibility of rides to clean their own queues, but we do appreciate the few of you that care about the park and help us out especially on the very busy days when the lines look really bad. I wish more people(guests and employees) cared about how the park looked and put their trash in trash cans and not on the ground. It would make the park look so much better.

And I'm surprised the ride ops at TR:TR don't bother walking through the cave with a pan & broom and sweeping up all the trash that's accumulated over the years. Or why the ride ops at FOF don't do the same thing in the hangar, except get a couple of ladders and some Swiffer broom thingys and clean up the UFO. Or why the ride ops at Racer don't bother walking through Racer's brake station with chewing gum remover and scrapers in their hands either before the park opens or after the park closes. But I'm not saying that the ride ops suck for not doing that. All the ride ops are cool (props to Beast and Vortex crews); I'm just, you know, lost on the whole cleaning up bit. I would love to stay after the park closes and actually help clean up TR:TR and FOF considering I'm in Ecology, but I'm fearful that I might get in trouble or no one else wanting to help out. I'm almost tempted to walk into TR:TR's cave and sweep up myself once our crew gets assigned to the area, but I think I might get in trouble for that as well. Easier said than done. Cleaning (which is something 16, 17 18 year olds don't like to do) = Lots of time = $$ BTW Ecology sweeps up Que lines all the time

^Chances are that it wasn't a specific person who turned of the effects you are talking about. It was probably a glitch in the system, dont get all bent out of shape and think it was the ride ops turning off the theming.

Agreed.

Im just wondering what ride you are refering too here??

Like Dry run day there is a purpose to having the park open at 9am. Once again Paramount has either tried to re-invent the wheel or to cut costs as any cost to the park. The morning hours allow the merch workers to stock and for the food service folk to prep for the day. It's more of a quiet time and allows for an increase in the ambiance and feel of the park. I'll tell you - when I was a Ice Cream Shoppe, opening was staffed as such: One person on International Sipper, One person in Ice Cream Shoppe, One Morning Person and One Supervisor prior to 9am. Then at 10am Popcorn Cart opened, a cashier foreman came in and another register opened in Ice Cream Shoppe. Then at 11am the swing shifts came in and everything went full open. How exactly is this good from a business standpoint? No one said that you couldn't do your restocking and preparation in the morning. But it would make more sense to do it while your stand is closed, it would just be more efficient. You wouldn't need to pay someone to just stand at a register or stand in a store for an hour waiting on customers that will never come, or will rarely come. You need to think about this from a guest perspective also, do I really want to buy something right when I get to the park and have to carry it around all day, or spend money to rent out a locker? As for your question that you asked, your not going to like my answer but it is the truth. From a business perspective by not opening the gates till 10 you cut down on the costs, mostly labor costs. Think about all the people that need to be there for that extra hour. You need admissions people at the front gate, you need people in each Merch. stand, you need people out in the parking lot manning the auto gate and the trams. You will also need to have more security in the park to man every rope that is up, as well as patrol the parking lot for an extra hour, and International Street. While I am unsure if any of the food service places or carts are open, these are more people. If they did open, the food service associates would have to come in earlier to prep the food. Throw in the stroller rental, and wheel chair rental, plus Guest Relations personnel. So yes from a business perspective I believe that this was a good idea, mainly because we were spending more money on labor during this hour and other expenses than people were spending during the same amount of time.

Im just going to hit on two of your points that you expressed. I believe that they measured how much people were buying in the morning and during that first hour that the gates were open before the ropes were dropped. The results were that most people didn't start to shop in the merch shops until the afternoon. Also they weren't making any moeny by being open that first hour. Why have 100 employees at these stores for an hour earning an hours wage if you aren't selling anything. I personally like the idea of opening the gate at 10. I think it will cut down own a mass of people running through the park once the ropes were dropped and people tripping over each other. Not only is it a good idea froma business perspective, but also from a safety perspective.

Is everyone also forgeting that PKI was ranked the #1 seasonal theme park in the world in 2004? Obviously they did something right.

Totally uncalled for and not the place to do this.

Geez.... You guys are pretty critical. Makes me glad that we got most of Nick Universe open or all of you would be complaining about that too.

You also have to remember that you need plenty of room for these speed lines. If a ride was not already designed with this in mind, it would be very difficult to do on rides like FO and FOF. However The Beast has a large amount of que area so they were able to transition it into a speed lane. While it is a good idea to have this, a majority of guests are to lazy or do not want to go up to the tower to get tickets. If each ride that had these speed lanes had machines, then the park would need to pay per machine. They would either have to hire more people to do maintenance on these machines, or train existing maintenance staff members on how to maintain these machines. Also PKI is not what you would call "busy daily" its not like Disney where you have +40,000 everyday. There are days we have under 15, 000 and then there are days (mostly weekends) that we have way more than that. Having these machines in place would be a waste of an investment until we get a large enough crowd on a daily basis. I think we should continue on the same course we are on, but continue to add these speed lanes to future new attractions.

If you want to see some good examples of vandalism at the park just go to TRTR. This ride has a lot of movie themeing in it and most of it has been vandilized in some way. The rails in the Que before the entrance used to be real bamboo, but since so many morons sat on them and broke them we had to put in metal ones that kinda look like bambo. Even then, people will scratch off the paint on these rails so they look like crap now. Once you get inside the cave, the pits on either side of the line becomes peoples own personal trash can. This is also another form of vandalism. I don't really know why people do this stuff to our new rides. Maybe they get some kind of high out of it. But I bet that some of these people are the same people that complain that we never keep our themeing up to date. Well to answer that I would say to these people: DON'T VANDALIZE OUR THEMEING AND WE WILL NOT HAVE TO WORK SO HARD TO KEEP IT LOOKING NICE.

Thats a first.

I believe that if the animal habitat were to ever make a comeback it would only be if Bush Gardens bought the park. It seems to fit with their other parks.

Yes FoF does have one, but it doesn't do much good since a kid can easily slip out of it

Like they said.... 1) Auditions have been held for the year 2) 6 feet might be little too tall for any of the characters I would advise you to look into other positions (Escort, Usher) in the Entertainment department if thats where you want to really work.

ok I got it now