Knotts Berry Farms recent closing????

I have read a report that Knotts closed on 02-26-03 due to weather/rain even though the person who posted the story said it was not raining and only partly cloudy at the time the park was supposed to open. They assumed it was due to the small amlunt of people expected at the park that day.

Is this common at that park or any other park for that matter??? Maybe imlucky but i have never went to a park first thing in the day and have it closed all day due to weather. Now i can see it when you have hurricane season in some area's of they country but otherwise it seemed odd What are your thoughts/experiences on something like this??.

Darien Lake did this on what was supposed to be their closing day last season and it pissed me off royally since I drove about an hour from Rochester. It was simply cold. No snow, no rain - nothing. The sign at the parking gate said, "Park Closed Due to Inclement Weather." It was a little chilly (probably low 40's) but for this area of the country, that is considered summer! :) It was no worse than closing weekend at CP in 2001 during which that park was open with virtually every single ride running. Closing day no less when probably all the park's "fans" would have been out. A great way to treat your loyal season passholders.

I don't know about Knotts, but I'd be kind of disappointed if they did that when I went to the park.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

Last fall I went to GAdv. on a Fri. evening for fright fest. It was raining like crazy and there were at most 50 cars in the parking lot. Clearly they were losing money in keeping the park open, so they closed at 7p instead of 10p. They refunded everyone in the park.

It was kind of a pisser, but I got 3 of the most insane rides I've had on Nitro (the last one with ski goggles).

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It was like that when I got here."
"faster, cheaper, and more often" that's somebody's new sig -UpsideDawnGrrrl

I have personnally been at PKI on a very rainy night, and there were hardly any people in the park. They closed early. Just put a message up on the park TV's. Anyways, it happens. It's very expensive to run a park, and obviously a business can't survive if they are operating at a loss.

ERic

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"I'm hoping to see if any dead people will be my friends." - SS

KBF is being a big, steaming pile of cr*p right now. They see a sprinkle of rain adn just SHUT THE PARK DOWN for the day. It's happened 4 times in the past 3 weeks, 2 day it rianed for maybe 10 minutes, and they closed it all day long anyway. Its pathetic, I know it drives away crowds but rain is NOT an excuse to boot people out of the park.

These parks are a business, not a charity. No one owes you a $20 million gigacoaster, nor is any park obligated to remain open and pay a hundred people to twiddle their thumbs so you can have the park to yourself. Either buy a couple thousand hotdogs, bring three hundred friends or use your cheaply-purchased, heavily-used season pass some other time.

-'Playa

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The CPlaya 100--6 days, 9 parks, 47 coasters, 2037 miles and a winner.....LoCoSuMo.
*** This post was edited by CoastaPlaya 2/28/2003 12:51:14 AM ***

lol Playa.

They are a business. What surprised me was 'Last Blast' at SFGAm. The whole weekend was almost a ghost town. Willing to bet that the peeps that were in the park were season pass holders. I couldnt believe that they stayed open for the whole operating schedule considering the non-existence of people and the cold weather.

I am glad that they did stay open though cuz it was coaster riding heaven. :)

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Arena football has arrived in the Windy City. Go "Chicago Rush"

The last week has been a rough one for us out here on the West coast. The storm fronts are coming in waves, making for unpredictable weather conditions. One minute the sun is shining, the next you're getting doused. The locals ordinarily stay in when we get weather patterns like this. When you have more employees standing around than customers, the red ink starts flowing. That's when you issue the rain checks, send everybody home and lock the gates before somebody slips and falls and sues you butt off.
*** This post was edited by Dutchman 2/28/2003 1:28:07 AM ***

They are a business, but they advertise opening times, and customers pay much more than just the price of admission to go (gas to get there, hotel rooms etc). If they advertise an operating schedule, it is just good business to adhere to that.

They may lose money when the weather is bad, but when the weather is good and they make lots of money do they make the decision to stay open beyond the advertised hours that same day so the people who have paid to get in an overcrowded park can enjoy everything throroughly? The answer is no.

Any weather related business is like this, its a risky business as you cannot control the weather. But if the business is not willing to give its customers hours beyond the operating schedule on days they are profitable, they should not cut hours when they are not. Its just bad business and leaves a bad impression on those who made the effort (and paid the expense) to go. Its hard to undo bad feelings and negative word of mouth publicity, especially with the internet.
*** This post was edited by super7 2/28/2003 10:16:40 AM ***

I wonder how well Grocery stores would do if they shut down every time traffic was slow. We should be thankful that Knott's is trying to keep full year-round operation, but I'd rather see them operate on an OFFICIAL reduced schedule than just close because of the threat of a poor day. It just seems like bad business to decide to close for the day without significantly poor conditions.
Also, while I don't know if Knott's has it, I know for a fact that Disneyland and other parks have inclement weather insurance policies where they pay a percentage of every GOOD day as a premium to cover the insurance for when they have bad days. That way they can afford to stay open even when it's clear they're going to be taking a loss that day.
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Pun is the death of wit.

I would agree with Super 7. Unless you have inclement weather and not just the threat of it you should adhere to your advertisied schedule. If the crowds arent big in

certain times of year than maybe close a couple days a week but too close on a whim shows no concern for your guests or the employees who expected to work that day and may have had to make child care plans etc.

And i would agree with Chi-town that im sure SFGAM lost money that weekend and it was great to be in the park!!! They deserve credit for not closing and remaining open but when you are open that time of year you have to hope mother nature is going to be nice.

I agree with Super7. I unsderstand that these are businesses and not charities and there might be some circumstances (torrential downpours, hurricanes, tornados)that warrant closing a few hours early or whatever, but I don't like seeing parks close because there aren't many people in the park.

If there aren't many people in the park on a particular day and it isn't becuase of weather, then the park needs to take a look at their operating schedule and revise it for the next year. Maybe be open for shorter hours that day or not at all.

Sure, season pass holders who live 10 minutes away can just come back another day, but you'll never get any good word of mouth from those few people who might have driven from out of town that day to experience your park. Perhaps this is fine for small regional parks who rely on only local business, but I think it's pretty unacceptable for a park that is claiming to be a destination for tourists. I'd say Knott's would qualify as one of these parks.

Last year I took a trip to CP with a couple friends and we went into the park around 8PM. As soon as we walked in, it started pouring. Two of us had season passes, but one person had bought a starlight pass. We felt pretty bad for him as it rained pretty hard for about the next two hours. But in true Cedar Point fashion, the rain stopped around 10PM and they opened all the rides for that last hour of the night. We got a ride on Raptor, two on WT, one on Magnum, and one on MF all within that last hour. That is good customer service and something I appreciate as a park guest. If they had sent the crews home and not bothered to open for that last hour, I'd have been disappointed. Sure, they might have lost some money that night, but they probably gained it all back through good word of mouth, or at the very least, didn't lose any more money due to bad word of mouth.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

I have been to a few parks that closed in rain. I was at the aforementioned Knott's when they closed down for the day due to rain. At the time, however, they attempted to keep the park open as late as possible. They closed at 4:30 instead of 6:00

In 2001, we were following a tropical storm through Texas & Louisiana on a coaster vaccation, great timing, huh? Astroworld closed at 3:00 pm on our one day there amd Jazzland was closed on the day we wanted to go. Fortunately, we scheduled more than one day in N'awlins and it opened the next day. It was still raining, but not as bad, talk about empty!

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SCREAM with me... in 2003!

Hey, is that how you got your screen name?? ;)

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"Know thyself!"

Ha ha! No. My name is an OLD (and not very funny) inside joke with my high school buddies.

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SCREAM with me... in 2003!

Knotts brochures and website states that "Operating hours are subject to change without notice." Knotts relies upon a weather forcasting service, especially this time of year. I would surmise that the decision was made to shutter the day in question with information provided by this service. It can be somewhat of a gamble, as the storm can hit ahead of the estimates, slow down, or take a different direction. When this happens it sometimes can be too late to call the employees in. Now, you say, why just don't they have the troups report for duty first, then make a decision? Well, according to California labor law if an hourly employee reports to work and you send said employee home, said employee is entitled to four hours pay.Pay them to come in and stand in a virtually empty park, pay them to come in and then go home, or just tell them not to come in tomorrow. If you were signing the paychecks, what would you do?

Why not keep the park open like Disneyland? Well, the Magic Kingdom has closed in the past due to inclement weather, but also realize that the majority of their attractions are indoors, as opposed to Knotts. For the most part, for years Knotts has been considered a "local" park not a destination. It has been only since it's acquisition by Cedar Fair that the resort concept is being developed.

The same thing has happened to me at Knott's because it had rained the night before. (Not sure what year but I remember seeing Windjammer construction.) Everything worked out because we just went to Disneyland.

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http://community.webshots.com/user/cpbubba

For once, I agree with Matt. It is just plain bad policy to close a park down without some significant catalyst. I had a similar experience @ SFWoA where it was raining off and on all day (day after CoasterRainia 2001), then about two hours before closing there was a heavy downpour replet with lightning. They could have just closed the park then, but the storm passed with about 40min left till park closing. They promptly re-started all the rides. I got in a ton of rides on B:KF that night. But since the park had cleared out when the rides shut down, I dont think they made much money those last few hours.

lata, jeremy

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"I will break away, I'll find myself today"

I dont think it is right for the parks to close unless it rained for at least 3hrs straight. Or if it was not safe to open all of the rides then fine that is understandable. However when parks close the gates in people faces then that is not fare to everyone, and im sure many people dont return to the park becuase of it, but like coastaplaya said "its a busines"

I dont agree with him when he called season passes "cheap" ,and "over used" becuase that is what they are marketed to the public as so why smash it in our faces later?
*** This post was edited by WoodenCyclone 3/3/2003 11:14:28 AM ***