Poor Experience at Kings Island 7/29/08

My wife and I have been fans of Kings Island for quite some time--in fact, my

wife has been to the park for the past 15 years every year with friends and

family. We've started to take our kids as of the past few years, and last year

was the first year that our oldest was able to ride the "big" roller coasters.

To say the least, we've started to make some great family memories there.

Which is why this year's trip (July 29th) was even more disappointing than we

could have ever imagined. We had not written previously because we have been on

vacation away from home the entire time. But we felt it necessary to discuss

these issues with you.

First of all, the customer service at the park is a vast difference from what we

have seen in the past at Kings Island. Many of the workers were not friendly,

some rude, and my oldest son even was upset by how one of the ride operators

spoke to him. It is acceptable--and this is stretching it--to have perhaps one

experience where you felt the person or persons could have been a little more helpful or friendlier throughout the day at all of the

venues and rides, but this was a common theme. Hardly anyone smiled, most people

were bossy and just not customer-oriented. An example--when we went to wait in

line for Firehawk, a person at the beginning of the line was there to, we

assume, making sure that people were tall enough to go on. Our youngest is not

yet tall enough to go on Firehawk, so we asked if we would be able to have him

wait in line with us, we would ride, and he could stand off to the side and wait

until we got back, to which the teen just kind of shrugged us off and said

"yeah, it's fine". We waited for almost an hour to get to the ride--and then

when we got there, one of the workers told us that he could not wait there, that

he would have to be accompanied by an adult. This was the first time this had

happened throughout the day at any ride like this, as we know most rides have a

separate area (i.e. the cage in the Vortex and the waiting area for Flight of

Fear). My wife then basically had to get off and stand with our youngest while

myself and my oldest son rode. However, there was another boy waiting there a

little older than our son, and there was no adult. My wife questioned why there

was no one with him, and one of the other workers said "Well, can you just stay

with him?" To which my wife basically stated that she didn't know who he was and

that it was irresponsible for them to even ask that of her. It took her saying

that then for another worker to ask the boy who he was with, and then another

person had to get off of the ride to stand with

him. The only silver lining was that my wife asked then because of the

inconvenience if she could be in the front car for the ride after us, to which

they told her that if they had less than four riders, she could. It's safe to

say that this was a very poor experience just in this situation alone.

Secondly, we must go on record that we understand that the changes made with the

transferring of ownership was understandable in terms of the name changes for the rides, etc., but one item that we

were considerably disappointed was the Crypt, which we had previously known as

Tomb Raider. The line was not organized well, inside of the "Crypt" it was very,

very dark--too dark for the theme, in our opinion--and the ride itself was a

joke. To go from the stylings that Tomb Raider brought with the "theatrics"

involved to basically going to a big open warehouse with a ride that flipped you

a bunch of times, why even bother with it? I certainly hope there are some major

changes to this ride to make it as entertaining as Tomb Raider was. This was my

oldest's favorite from last year, and now he has said he doesn't care if he ever

rides it again....

Lastly, our favorite roller coaster is the Beast--in fact, we waited all day

long and organized our trip through the park so that our youngest--who is

finally tall enough to be on many of the 48" coasters--could ride it at night

and it be the "climax" of his day at Kings Island. However, when we went to the beginning of the line at 8:45--1 hr and 15 minutes before

the park closed at 10--we were greeted by a worker who said that the Beast was

closed for the day, that they were cycling the last people through the ride and

then it would be done. My wife was obviously upset--this has been her favorite

ride ever since she started going there--but the teen just basically cut her

off, stating "I'm sorry for the issues,maam, but it is closed." Several people

walking up were told the same thing, and they were too upset by this move.

This type of thing is unacceptable, in our eyes. We paid a lot of money to be in

the park, and the posted hours are the posted hours. I know that one of the

things we loved about being able to stay all day is that even if you are in a

long line, you are queued if you are in line before the park closes. This was

not even close to the time, and it was one--if not the most--popular rides in

the park. I cannot understand any justification of this, and again--the service

was abhorrent.

We just can't help but get the feeling that the correlation of the changeover in

ownership and these issues occurring is just too coincidental. Perhaps the

company philosophy is different in terms of how to handle things at Kings

Island, but we've been to Cedar Point and did not feel this was the way this

company operated, but that was several years ago. Perhaps it is merely bad luck

on our part, but I doubt it.

We are considering, sadly, canceling our forthcoming trips to there in light of

all this. This was, hands down, one of the worst experiences we've ever had in a

theme park, and no one should ever walk away from a place that is supposed to

bring a lot of fun into someone's life feeling this way. I believe we, as loyal

customers of this park, deserve more.

Comment On This

Its all corporate now. Most employees are paid minimum wage, so they dont really care about service.

Lawsuits have also created a lack of monies to keep everyone and everything clean.

Everything is so legal, and libel, that soon these places will become a memory. They can no longer keep people happy while keeping the place in check.

I used to go to Kings Island many years ago, then they implemented a smoking ban, so I quit going.