Standing at the front gate now. It appears that they are letting people in, so this may be more of a deterrent.

Wow! I did not realize that the park still had (COVID) capacity limits. 

We were able to enter the park 15 minutes ago.

Wow! I did not realize that the park still had (COVID) capacity limits. 

I think this might be normal capacity, it was more packed than I can remember seeing it in recent memory. Nothing (including food stands) had a wait shorter than 15 minutes.

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45 minutes ago, MDMC01 said:

Wow! I did not realize that the park still had (COVID) capacity limits. 

I do not believe that is the case.  I believe it is more as Bodda mentioned - more of a deterrent to maybe keep some folks from showing up later as not many are having a Best Day experience right now.

Demand is SO HIGH. If these CF parks could staff and have a better operating calendar I think they'd see record attendance. 

18 minutes ago, JimParker85 said:

Demand is SO HIGH. If these CF parks could staff and have a better operating calendar I think they'd see record attendance. 

I think they would LOVE to staff. I don’t think it’s their choice to not now. It’s the inability to recruit staff. 

24 minutes ago, JimParker85 said:

Demand is SO HIGH. If these CF parks could staff and have a better operating calendar I think they'd see record attendance. 

Yep, I mentioned in another thread that I predict that while the parks may not see record attendance for the year due to reduced operating days, their per day average number metric will probably be the highest it has ever been.  A typical slow Tuesday average number may have an increase of more than 10,000 more guests than a typical Tuesday attendance pre-pandemic...  Too much pent up demand for the parks.

And I said the issues being experienced at CP for the last few years will end up driving the KI attendance up as well.  With all the reservations gone at CP this weekend, folks came here...

11 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

With all the reservations gone at CP this weekend, folks came here...

Good point, people wanted to go somewhere.

Agreed, but they will only put up with so many bad experiences before looking elsewhere to have a best day ever.

1 hour ago, MDMC01 said:

Wow! I did not realize that the park still had (COVID) capacity limits. 

I believe it's still half capacity, I haven't heard anything about them lifting their restrictions. If it's at full capacity, the park is absolutely insanely crowded today. It usually only reaches full capacity during Haunt, and even then it's rare!

1 hour ago, disco2000 said:

I do not believe that is the case.  I believe it is more as Bodda mentioned - more of a deterrent to maybe keep some folks from showing up later as not many are having a Best Day experience right now.

Ok, this makes sense!

33 minutes ago, Snowball said:

I believe it's still half capacity, I haven't heard anything about them lifting their restrictions. If it's at full capacity, the park is absolutely insanely crowded today. It usually only reaches full capacity during Haunt, and even then it's rare!

Also, good to know!

It just isn’t possible to have a “best day” when a park is this crowded.   Or even a good day.   It had to be miserable.  

54 minutes ago, super7 said:

It just isn’t possible to have a “best day” when a park is this crowded.   Or even a good day.   It had to be miserable.  

If this was 2019 the park would be in the second week of daily operations and the weekends would not be this mad. Imagine all the people who go midweek now have to be there on weekends or not go at all. I wonder if the waterpark opening up next weekend will help at all. Normally people can come and go as they please and when it gets hot the dry side has short lines. This summer with the waterpark reservations many in the dry park who might move over to the water side in the afternoon may not be able too. What happens when a sold out waterpark crowd pours into a sold out dry park at 8pm or whenever the waterpark closes?

What makes me kind of annoyed is that I have heard that Cedar Point is now pulling employees from other Cedar Fair parks. Kings Island should not have to sacrifice their employees for Cedar Point as it hurts the guest experience for Kings Island guests.

I must add though that the rides don’t really seem to be understaffed. There are just a few more food stands closed than there should be. The understaffing is not terrible, but I hope Kings Island can find a few more employees, particularly in food, to better staff the park. They just need to open up those closed food stands. I also think that Kings Island may now be adding more available positions now that they are realizing the incredibly high demand. Kings Island announced this year that they would hire over 4,000 associates when they usually hire 5,000. Kings Island might now be realizing they need those extra 1,000 associates.

33 minutes ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

What makes me kind of annoyed is that I have heard that Cedar Point is now pulling employees from other Cedar Fair parks. Kings Island should not have to sacrifice their employees for Cedar Point as it hurts the guest experience for Kings Island guests.

I must add though that the rides don’t really seem to be understaffed. There are just a few more food stands closed than there should be. The understaffing is not terrible, but I hope Kings Island can find a few more employees, particularly in food, to better staff the park. They just need to open up those closed food stands. I also think that Kings Island may now be adding more available positions now that they are realizing the incredibly high demand. Kings Island announced this year that they would hire over 4,000 associates when they usually hire 5,000. Kings Island might now be realizing they need those extra 1,000 associates.

From what I understand they are pulling

international  employees, not many of them at KI.