PKI will own Columbus next year... and it could be worse

After PKI announced their new ride yesterday, I'm now convinced more than ever that PKI will continue to take market share from the Columbus market. It's the only real swing market the park has now that they own Geauga Lake.

PKI has the better kids area and better kids rides, no contest. It has more kid coasters, the Scooby dark ride, the water play area and of course, SpongeBob.

They continue to diversify attractions. Tomb Raider and Delirium were winners, they have The Beast, Drop Zone, the flyers, a heavily themed flume, and now, The Italian Job Stunt Track, which looks like an absolutely awesome family ride.

PKI certainly has better food. CP is trying with outlets like the donut joint and Famous Dave's, but I still think PKI has better food overall.

And here's the thing that surprises me... PKI has turned around their employee culture compared to 2000, while CP's is going, quite frankly, in the wrong direction. PKI's capacity still needs to improve on a lot of rides, but the attitudes are better than they've ever been.

PKI's overall package gets more appealing every year, while CP keeps going after rides to break records with rides that have horrible down time.

My concern at CP is as of late is that the emphasis on safety and capacity, both necessary and critical, is I think giving them an excuse in their own minds to justify the general negative vibe in the park. When you walk past MF or Dragster, it sounds like drill sergeants shouting at you. When you hear the words "no" and "must" enough times, it's not about having fun anymore.

Worse, I've expressed this concern to people at the park, and they kind of blow it off. "We have to react this way." Yes, you have to keep people safe, but no, you don't need to create an atmosphere of loathing, distrust and negativity, which is what I feel at the park. There is no justification for it, and there must be a way to accommodate safety and courtesy.

I've tried to blow this off the last two years or so as just a fluke, but I don't think it's getting better. I'm not suggesting it's down around Six Flags levels or anything, but the culture is on the decline. For the first time in six years, we're contemplating not staying at the park for closing weekend. Never thought I'd see the day.

I tend to gauge Stephanie's reaction too, because she sees things in more of a "general public," non-enthusiast fashion. She feels the negativity too, and has been pissed off by assholish employees a couple of times in the relative few hours she's even been in the park this year. Not good.

I'm not saying that the employees all suck, but the operational culture at the park isn't as good as it used to be. I feel the park might be getting too arrogant to even acknowledge the problem. It's a real bummer.

Am I the only fanboy that feels this way, or do you see where I'm coming from?

Jeff when i started to read your post i wanted to bash the hell out of you for what at frist seem like bashing CP. I was also woundering why you would make this site and then bad mouth CP. But as i read on i relized that there is a wierd maybe not so negative vibes in the park. I have only been to PKI once and when i went it was the greatest times.

This is just my thought on the matter but, I think that its like PKI is moving up a into World wide named park. (I would say CP Disney Universal Bush Gardens world wide named parks too). I know that they have been on the map for a while and beast kept them there for a while, but witht he diversity of rides they keep adding its landed them on the map in a whole new way.

But I also think that CP might have reached a leveling point. From here it will either just stay level for a bit and we will all start to get bugged by it, or it will all get fixed and the park will diversitize there rides.

So what I am saying is I agree with you jeff on your thoughts.

Magnum Jeff

I had more fun on my trip to Paramount's King's Island this year then I have yet at Cedar Point this year. Cedar Point has nearly NO exciting flat rides, sans Chaos (and perhaps you could call Power Tower a flat ride). Tomb Raider and Delerium were 2 of the better rides at the park!

Not to mention that King's Island has a better water park too, and it's FREE WITH ADMISSION. Soak City didn't even compare to Boomerang Bay!

Cedar Point needs to make some improvements.

So yeah, I see exactly what you are saying.

I guess I must be going to a different PKI than the rest of you. I've had consistently poor service each time I've been there. In fact the last time my wife was there my wife nearly got into a shouting match with a "supervisor" over some of Cedar Point's policies regarding Parent Swap. He basically called her a liar, even though we both worked at CP many years ago and knew the policies. I'm not going to get into the gritty details but needless to say an employee of any amusement park should not bad mouth any other park (while on the clock) it just isn't professional.

I won't deny that PKI does have some great attractions but I personally don't believe they are increasing their market share in Columbus. I live in Columbus and have lived here for nearly ten years and I would estimate that it is nearly a 4-1 ratio of people who prefer CP over PKI. Perhaps I'm way off base who knows, the biggest knock people here have against CP is the lake of a major interstate to get directly there. Not much to be done about that though. Thanks for listening to my rambling opinion.

I have never been to PKI, so I can't do any comparison between Cedar Point and PKI. I do have to agree that they do seem to have a negative vibe in the park in the name of safety.

I second that 0g. CP is starting to feel way too sanitary in the way it handles safety. I've felt the bad vibes too, everything from the auto spiels to the MF seatbelt fiasco. It doesn't feel fun when you have people lecturing you about what you "must" do, especially when it's some bland sounding recording. This is just speculation, but I'd bet that the demand for safety from higher up (and from the lawyers) is getting to the seasonals, and they're being forced to patrol way more things then they ever have before. That to me seems to be where a large portion of the negative vibes are coming from.

Last week I went to the park with my mom, who hasn't been there since early 2002. Even she noticed a lot of disappointing differences between this trip and her last one. The biggest thing she noticed was how the rides with auto spiels had no positive atmosphere in their stations anymore. She said that it felt "sad" to be there and not hear the ride ops doing their spiels. She also noticed the extreme drop in capacity at both MF and Gemini and complained about it. Gemini had a 30 minute wait that day. Her exact words were, "This is really sad how they're running this ride. It used to be so cool to just be able to walk on it and not wait." She was horrified to see how rudely they were handling people at the MF test seat. It got even worse while we waited for the front seat and she saw train after train take literally minutes to dispatch and she saw all the people who were forced off the train because they couldn't get their inch of slack. I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but do you know how depressing it is to watch person after person have to walk away in shame after waiting x number of hours to ride? The look on their faces as they're escorted off the ride says it all. I never thought I'd say it, but the MF station has become a very depressing place to be, and that's not what an amusement park is supposed to be.

It's been a few years since I've been to PKI, but I remember it being a great park. I remember that the capacity did suck on a lot of rides, but what they had there was quality. Not huge and record breaking like CP, but still fun. The Itallian Job ride looks awesome, and I'm definately going to try to get there next summer to ride it. CP definately lacks in a lot of areas, the biggest one being ride variety. I'd love to see some nice flat rides for a change, and maybe even a coaster or two that focuses on being really fun instead of shattering every record known to man. Of course, CP used to excel at making rides that had both of those qualities, but I think recently they've forgotten about the fun. I hate to say it, but the culture at CP is changing, and it's definately not for the best. They need to stop being so sterile and remember that their #1 focus is fun.

-Chris Woodard

I really don't see where you are coming from, Jeff. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the amusement industry, but I haven't seen much of a change in CP operations this year. CP's employees are still the most friendly and efficient I have seen this year compared to my trips to MiA, SFGAm, and IB. Is the park becoming a bit more sterile? Yes and no. No more do I see ride-ops yelling at people for standing on the yellow safety line; however, we do deal with air gates now. I think it's just a case of you lose some you win some. I do agree with everyone that MF's station walk of shame has gotten out of control. CP really has to watch their backs on the whole safety issue: they are the world's biggest amusement park after all. If anything were to happen, especially on an Intamin ride, I'm sure we can all imagine the media field day at CP.

The one thing I'm most surprised people keep saying is that CP's rides aren't fun anymore! Come on now everyone...you look at a train of riders after MF or TTD and tell me those guests didn't enjoy themselves. I'm certainly not popping Prozacs in line for MF also...There is no doubt that MF and TTD are huge successes for Cedar Point. Dragster always has a crowd and MF is quickly becoming a staple as many riders favorite. Is smaller sometimes better? Yes. However, I don't agree with the generalization that CP is settling for something less by building the tallest and fastest rides in the world.

This is a really interesting topic because I haven't felt any negativity at all in the park. My boss at work who isn't even a roller coaster fan thoroughly enjoyed himself at the park for his first visit. Dragster blew his mind. My girlfriend and her whole family also had a good time after their two year hiatus from the park. I would have said I'm blinded by my love for CP but those two examples are the best I have for proving that the park is still where it should be.

I also think CP has plenty of ride variety. They offer more different types of roller coasters than any other park in the world and have all sorts of attractions from flats to water rides to Snoopy on Ice. Maybe some other parks are offering a wider range of variety, but to say that CP DOESN'T offer variety is a bit of a stretch.

I'm gonna stop my wandering there and just remind everyone that CP is in a business of fun. It wouldn't be CP without fun and I highly doubt they will ever forget that. 420 feet? 310 feet? 120mph? It's all fun to me... *** Edited 8/14/2004 4:49:27 AM UTC by Craig the Coaster Freak***

It's not a change "this year," it's a change that has been happening over the past several years. Fun has less to do with rides and more to do with the people. No one said the rides weren't fun either, so don't imply something that wasn't said.

I don't doubt that lawyers and insurance companies are making things more difficult, but as I said before, as a guest that's not my problem. It's easy to blow it off when the complaint comes from a season pass holder because you're bound to experience something wrong eventually, but it's not isolated incidents anymore.

When I go to Disney or Universal, I see that for the most part people are treated as guests. At Cedar Point, you're treated more as an inconvenience lately. As I said, safety is not an excuse to treat people poorly or with general disregard.

The problem isn't limited to operations either. I haven't had good or friendly service at a quick-serve food stand yet this year. I don't expect sexual favors, but the least they could do is acknowledge me when I approach the window and pay attention. I don't think that's too much to ask.

It's weird, because for years I'd go to other parks and find them substandard because so much of my experience had to do with CP's high standards. Lately, it's the other parks that I'm comparing CP to in an unfavorable manner. I think that with all of the turn over, from GM on down and with the Geauga Lake acquisition, it's time to refocus and reinforce Dick Kinzel's philosophy that opening day to closing day must be the best day ever, as if it's the only day a guest will ever get to visit the park.

Anything less isn't Cedar Point.

I hate to agree, but I do. I don't know very much about CP's management, but I know that a lot of WoF fans hated Dan Keller back in the day. Is it possible that it is more than a coincidence that his arrival came at around the same time this slow decline did?

Yeah, this is all true. I live in Upper Arlington, OH which is 5 minutes from Columbus. Almost all the familys/friends of mine always go to Kings Island. I ask them why? And they say well its a lot closer, and they have better rides for kids.

I dunno...I'm seeing a slow decline at Cedar Point and a sharp decline at Kings Island.

I was at Kings Island a couple of weeks ago. The park was hammered with a ggiantic crowd. Dispatch intervals on The Beast were in excess of three minutes. Ride time on the Flying Scooter was shorter than a Scrambler ride at Cedar Point. The waterpark was packed, but only one train was running. When I asked about the train situation, the platform conductor said that their new policy is that they only run two trains on Saturdays in July. Personally, I hope he was lying to cover up a mechanical problem with one of the locomotives, as otherwise they're stooping to a Six Flags customer alienation tactic. Then there are the Racer and The Beast, both of which are darned near unrideable these days. Getting into the park has become a tremendous chore, as you have to wait in line for the magnetometers, push through the crowd of people buying tickets, and then wait in a long line of people trying to get through the gate because of the "sign this, now put your thumb here" delays caused by some of their new promotions. The food in the park is still pretty awful, though there has been some improvement.

Meanwhile up at Cedar Point, there is way too much shouting going on, the lawyers have taken the place over, and are trying their damnedest to suck the life out of the place. Cedar Point has always used live spiels to do what Kings Island has done with signs, and they have always been the kings of throughput. So what happened this year? Dispatch intervals on Millennium Force have gone down the donniker. Gemini has real problems this year...they have gone from the efficient operation of six trains to stacking consistently with four. Live spiels have been replaced with recordings written by attorneys who clearly have never seen the rides they are talking about. The whole situation with Intamin seat belts is beyond ridiculous but that one goes back to Intamin and to Cedar Point's legal department: if Intamin won't figure out whether there is a system problem and recognize that they have caused an operational problem, then Cedar Point needs to deal with it themselves...but they won't because they would be defying the manufacturer, who is the controlling legal authority.

Actually, after visiting Geauga Lake, I think Cedar Point this year is really hurting from the loss of a bunch of really good operations people, not to mention a couple of rides of questionable design. As big of a problem may be the number of trees that CP has chopped down, and the sheer volume of noise coming of such attractions as Dragster, Power Tower, Raptor and Mantis:TCFKAB.

I think when you get down to it, neither park has serious issues that can't be fixed. I do think that for 2005, Kings Island is going to have a pretty neat new ride, and I hope Cedar Point is going to counter with something that is *fun* first, even at the expense of being spectacular. Both parks have major operational issues. At Kings Island, a lot of it is mechanical: trains missing from rides, lap bars that are badly adjusted, and rides that are simply difficult to load and unload (Flight of Fear anyone?). Some of it goes back to staffing. Operators who move far too slowly, who hold elaborate conferences with one another before pushing the GO button, and rides that simply don't have enough people on the platform to make interval. At Cedar Point, though, the problem starts with the attorneys, extends into not-entirely-unjustified overt paranoia (implying that they are frightened of their own rides...) and trickles down to the front line attendants who can see through the paranoia, but aren't allowed to do anything about it...they have to enforce the policies no matter how insane they are, and the frustration shows in the shouting.

There is a lot of bad stuff going on in the industry right now. A couple of riders doing stupid things were bad enough, but combine that with fatal incidents caused by what appears to be an unacknowledged and unaddressed design problem, and we are in a very dark time for the industry at large right now. It doesn't have to be that way, and there are parks out there that have taken the attitude that if they do things right, everything will be fine. And that's true. But our favorite parks are not convinced of that and are trying to do everything they can think of that might prevent a loss, even if it won't help. Paranoia is taking over, and if left unchecked it is going to destroy this industry.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'll concede that CP is becoming a bit more sterile. However, I have been going to the park consistently for the past 5 years and I just don't feel the general change in negativity that others have mentioned. It may be a bit rash to say that CP is going to lose Columbus because of a few bad employees and a couple sweet rides at PKI. Hey, maybe I'm totally wrong and CP will lose some visitors, but I'm thinking of working at CP next year so hopefully I can bring some much needed enthusiasm and customer service to our favorite park!

I agree with most everything that Jeff said. The robot spiels suck. PKI has better food choices. The one thing I would like to see change about PKI is a hotel on premises. Something in the way of a Hotel Breakers.

I know the auto spiels suck, but I still have loads of fun and don't let that bother me. I haven't seen CP go down in quality really, I mean just a few days ago I spent a great deal of the day watching different shows. I think the shows were great and could bring in families to the park. I mean I never realized that the laser show at night was so cool. They had fireworks and different clips, and they do this everyday for most of the season. It seems like CP has been dedicating a lot of effort towards quality. IDK much about PKI, but CP is a real resort, they have the beach, nice hotels. Just walking around on the boardwalk listening to the music and looking at the lake is nice. So quality at CP, imo, is great, not just for rides but for the whole peninsula. As for the food, no comment;).

-Eagle- *** Edited 8/14/2004 5:32:39 PM UTC by sean_s_eagle***

As I've said before, one thing I don't like about this message board in general is this general conception I sense that if you say ANYTHING negative about CP, people tend to treat you as a troll or CP Basher. I brought up my own list of shortcomings and areas where I'd like to see CP improve in terms of more variety of rides (not just unthemed coasters), more theming and fun type items as opposed to just record breaking brides and got an earfull of CP bashing or I'm clueless type comments in return.

I see it all as one and the same. CP is pushing record breaking rides so hard they are ignoring other areas of the park. An amusement park (not just theme parks) have an atmosphere to them and part of that atmosphere comes from the rides themselves, from the types of available rides. When you remove all dark rides from the park and stick up an eyesore with a horrible paint scheme way up in the sky (TTD), it has an effect on the atmosphere of the park. (i.e. I loved the launch of TTD, but man, couldn't they have picked a better tower design and color than that??? Ugh. MF looks fine. TTD does not, IMO and Iron Dragon looked fine before, but now looks ridiculous, IMO). You can't virtually ignore flat rides year after year and just stick them hap-hazard here and there throughout the park and expect people to get excited by them. Where's the asthetics? Anyone ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon? Making a great park has to take aesthetics into account. Look at Knoebels or Busch Gardens and then look at modern day Cedar Point. No comparison. CP is looking more and more like a jungle gym of roller coasters, not a "park" atmosphere.

I don't think Busch Gardens would EVER ruin the landscape when putting in new rides. Their park is beautiful looking (yes they have room for trees, etc., but it's HOW they theme within what they have that matters). CP used to be a lot nicer looking, IMO and there's still something disconcerting about a giant blue rollercoaster track going right through the middle of Frontiertown. I wonder how many more years until they do away with it altogether to make room for more rides (and when I say rides, I mean roller coasters, of course). They've got a nice frontier theme going and you'd think the rides would have a frontier theme to them. The "mine" ride almost attempts to have one, but it could use some better theming and something like White Water Landing could use WAY better theming around it. The paddle boat ride used to be scenic, but now you see more coasters than indians....

I know, CP has made a conscious choice to be the top thrill park in the world. But like I said before, if you're not into roller coasters, CP has less to offer compared to other parsk. I hope now that Cedar Fair owns Geuaga Lake that they will NOT make GL into anotehr Cedar Point (and by that I mean wall-wall rollercoasters). Six Flags was going in that direction to some extent and I HATED that they removed some of my favorite flat rides in the process (namely the Rotor and Rocket [trabien?] Swing). One thing I always ride at PKI is the flying scooters. They rock. Why parks remove such classic rides is beyond me. So the capacity isn't terrific. Neither is the capacity on MF these days. Some things are worth the wait.

Now personally, I didn't think the employees were rude when I was at CP a couple of weeks back (but then I made it on both MF and TTD). But I did think doing things like shutting down Gemini in the sprinkling type rain (no thunder/lighting period) while running both MF and Magnum in it was totally inconsistent and a "tick you off" kind of thing. About half the rides in the park didn't seem to be running (it sprinkled most of the day, so everything didn't open up until around 7PM that Sunday when the rain totally abated). And yet I didn't see any logic to why they could run Magnum, but not Gemini, for instance or MF but not TTD. And MF's dispatch speed was about 1/2 of what it was when I went last year. It took almost 1.5 hours to get through the same length of line that took 40 minutes last season. The paranoia on that ride and even TTD to a lesser extent is palpatable. But even other rides were slowing down as they yanked and tugged on every seatbelt until you felt like your eyeballs might pop. I got zero air (I at least got some in the past) on MF this year. I enjoyed riding Blue Streak more than MF even this year (and certainly Gemini, Magnum and even Wicked Twister). I was kind of disappointed in that revelation, but I just got better sensations from them, even compared to MF's first drop.

I do like that PKI has La Rosa's Pizza there (one of my favorites in the Cinci area as I like their sauce), but they don't have a good selection of it like the actual restuarants in the area. (To be fair, I did have a pretty decent sausage & pineapple pizza this year at CP's Macaroni restuarant, though). I also miss the old Festhaus at PKI with authentic German food on one side (even though I usually got La Rosa's Pizza, which is still there) and I liked having ice skating in there much better than stupid Paramount tv shows and ads (pretty stupid for a Festhaus, IMO). So PKI is no Busch Gardens, IMO, but their new ride does looking interesting, epsecially in that it is THEMED, something that CP apparently knows NOTHING about these days, which is a shame since they could make some interesting Peanuts themed rides (not just kid's rides) not to mention a much needed dark ride or two.

Even so, I still gladly go to CP because they have several coasters I love. I just hope GL gets some nice new dark/flat/themed rides and attractions and returns some of the Sea World type animal shows next year. I bought Six Flags pases for the first time last year just because of the animal show combination with GL rides. With no animal shows this year, I didn't bother as my favorite flat rides are gone from GL and they don't have many coasters I really love like CP does.

Some of you people are saying that Cedar Point doesn't have very many things for young kids. Well, then I have no clue why they built Camp Snoopy, Kiddy Kingdom, or the Jr. Gemini Area. Hmmmmmmm...wonder why?

Oh yeah, I know it's no disney kids areas but you just can't say that Cedar Point doesn't have anything to offer for young children. *** Edited 8/14/2004 7:14:13 PM UTC by cotton_eye_joe92***

They're not singling out youngsters, but there are people who really are not into the coaster experience. They can ride s & p's untill closing but won't ride CCMR. Over the years many of what had been signature flat rides have been removed and never replaced. The variety of rides and attractions,which is crucial to a good operation, is disapperaing, and that's not good.

Every park in the world has it's "goods" and it's "bads" about itself in it's own way, CP has been in a "good" period since 2000 with it's coasters up through 2003. With the problems facing Intamin's coasters, TTD's downtime, and the lag of most things spoken of above, it's ended the "good" period of four years.

Now that CP has entered it's "bad" period, they have to slow down the coaster building and pay more attention to the people, and other happenings in the Amusement park industry. PKI has entered it's "good" period now, and like CP's it's going to end. After a few years though, most of the problems curently popping up at CP will be corrected, and we go back into an "good" period of some sort again.

No further comment...

*** Edited 8/14/2004 11:07:06 PM UTC by cp&le rr guy***

This has been coming for a long time, and some of the points brough up I feel are the main reasons why attendance has not ever exceeded the mark set in 1994, despite investing over 100 Million into the park since. Here are a few points I would kike to add on.

Family attractions- I’ve mentioned before, 1999's camp snoopy brought in as many people in the gate as 2003's Dragster (3.3 Million). It doesn’t mean they need more kids areas’, but more family rides. Sure I love rollercoasters as much as the next person, but I find attractions like the interactive dark rides add more to a parks lineup then having 20 coasters.

Loose article policy/lockers- The ultimate example of poor services/ripoff is Wicked Twister. They are not gaining any significant capacity by having people to shove out $1 to store their stuff before they get in line. There are shelves, and people end up throwing stuff on them anyway, so why make people do this is beyond me. I don’t usually carry anything with me, but I’d say a majority of people, especially families do. If you polled the I’m sure they would not say they are happy about paying a buck a ride.

IOA has the time based free locker system. As long as your stuff isn’t sitting in there for more than two hours, it’s free to use. Instead CP gives off a “were going to drain you for every last buck.” vibe..

Guest Of exceptional size issue-This is again really ahs to do with the choice of attractions. When they are investing everything into ride like TTD or WT, which only average people over 52" can ride you are excluding a lot of people. Yeah, the argument is made “they can do other things” but when most of your investment is going into the big thrill rides, what else is there to do?

Atmosphere.- Just a general example You go to PKI or Holiday World, asn you have ride ops slapin hands when trains are leaving the station. Leaves a more loose/fun feel to the park. Of course this is not allowed at CP. Yes, you can be safe without being anal.

Employee Friendliness-Go to Holiday World ;).

CP is still a well run park, they do a lot of things right. Also Some departments do a better job than others and are trying thier hardest to give the best experience, but a few trips to other parks and I can see how more “fun” things can really be. I’m not sure what percentage of people on this board have been to Holiday World, but one trip there and you will see the light. I was once who though “CP can do no wrong” but a trip there altered my views of tihngs.

Auto-spiels really don't bother me. Never really did. I admit they're sterile and written by lawyers, and half the time don't even fit with the context of the ride, but they don't bother me.

I wasn't aware they wouldn't let you bring stuff in to Wicked Twister. That's not a safety issue at all! They have one train, plenty of storage room, it's functionally equivalent to Raptor where you can bring loose stuff in.