Kings Island Eliminates Park Ambassadors

BrettV:

But I also feel like they are letting a lot of the little things go, and there are plenty of rumors floating around that Live-E at CP is being cut even more than it was last year.

Even more cuts would be unfortunate. While we loved the scope of live entertainment brought on with the 150th celebration I had a feeling it wouldn't last. I just didn't expect things to drop off so quickly.

Richard Zimmerman = a Dick by another name

At least Dick valued ride throughput. He didn't pay them well, but he wanted adequate crews.

Surprises around every corner, including authentic props used in the filming of the motion picture , will make guests feel like adventurous tomb raiders from the moment they approach the attraction," said Richard Zimmerman, Paramount's Kings Dominion's executive vice president and general manager

I wonder if CF's treatment of the TR rides really started this all...

It's not even Zimmerman, it's Tim Fisher. And yes, Cedar Point will be bare bones this year due to additional staffing cuts. Really sad state of affairs compared to the trajectory of the park 5-6 years ago.

The two areas that continue to improve is food & beverage and the immersive placemaking/enhanced theming that started with Ouimet and has accelerated.

More like both together again... both were forged under Redstone at Viacom then Paramount Parks.

I find it interesting he was seemingly moved around PP for being an ass, and causing issues with longtime staff from various scuttlebutt I've seen on old forums, then elevated to a senior position right before Kinzel sent him packing.

Cedar Fair and Six Flags are bad investments currently. They have no plan to increase attendance. Only maintain margins through cost cutting. Which will continue to decrease attendance.

It’s run by execs more concerned with filling their own pockets with bonuses than actually growing revenue

Get ready for $50 Cedar Fair season passes and $15 sodas! Zero customer service

Chicago07:

The two areas that continue to improve is food & beverage and the immersive placemaking/enhanced theming that started with Ouimet and has accelerated.

I can agree on the food. Farm House and Grand Pavilion are great although if I'm being completely honest, the quality toward the end of the season last year was not the same as it was on opening day.

I'm not sure I agree about the second part. They axed Adventure Island, they neutered Snake River Expidition, there is no show in Lusty Lil's, Aldrich Teater was empty during Halloweekends I believe, etc. The boardwalk was nicely done with the signage and landscaping, but they got a Zamperla mouse and moved two rides from elsewhere to make it happen. It's not like they built Big Bear Mountain or Hagrid's.

I also fear for the next few years.

What did they do to Snake River Expedition? I don't think I got on it last year.

All of the live entertainment performers (in the preshow as well as island and boat) were removed and the attraction storyline was changed. The preshow became just a video and the live spiel on the boats came from the ride operator.

So you now just float around the island for 5 minutes. Amazing.

Speaking of Kings Island - what work are they doing on International Street? I took a look at the webcams this morning and there is a pile of scaffold parts staged at the front of the fountain. Also looks like something is going on in the fountain pool as well.

Gonch is having the fountains removed.

Lighty The Lightpost is sad.

Shades:
Speaking of Kings Island

Maybe it’s just remnants of Winterfest. During that time the fountain is covered and an ice rink is there and the scaffolding is there to hold up… stuff.
For sure they aren’t removing large, beautiful trees as they already did that and there are none left.

That makes sense. I forgot about Winterfest

TimChat2:

The preshow became just a video and the live spiel on the boats came from the ride operator.

That's too bad. I really liked what they did to the Snake River Expedition.

When I worked on the ride before that, we had to rely on hosts having both the skill to drive the boat, and the talent to have a decent personality while remembering at the speil. It was difficult to find people who could do both drive and perform well. Training new boat captains took a very long time. They had to be "certified" by management before they could take a boat on their own. Some captains were really good at one thing, but not another. It was rare a captain was very good at both.

This is probably why the original ride closed in the first place. Separating both the acting and driving duties probably helped with the ride experience and staffing, but with the new ride, it was probably costly having so many people to run the ride.

I can remember a couple of two week wonders who could talk up a storm, but put the boat on a sand bar. I think that they skipped the verbal warning on that and went straight to being written up.....

Reminds me of the time a new safari driver took a wrong turn on the backstage roads that we used to get the trucks onto the ride path each morning and wound up over by Everest