Woody - Sadly, I will be in Ohio next week ( May 11 - May 18th ). I made my plans sometime ago. I figured SOB would be up and running at least in time for the release of MF... Looks like I will be wrong. My travel arrangements are already paid, so it looks like I will miss out. :(
Jeff - Right on brother... Patron travel distance from park is directly proportional to the POed level felt when a ride is not open as hyped.
coasterpunk - "...squeeky wheel gets the grease." heh, heh... Funny, I like that. I also have complained to guest relations before and have been handed free tickets for a later date. However... If I could only get reimbursed somehow for air fare, rental car, and hotel room... now that would be something. :)
*** This post was edited by backseat on 5/7/2000. ***
I have voiced my opinion on SOB elsewhere, but I'll throw in my 2 cents here. I'm a student at the University of Cincinnati, and I have a season pass to PKI. I was upset that I wasn't able to ride SOB, and won't be able to for a while. But, my friend that works at the park said it right, "if you're going to advertise that your new coaster will be running, it damn well better be running!" In other words, they should not have started advertising that it will be open until they were sure it would have no problems. Hell, they could have not advertised, and if it opened earlier than expected, used peoples word-of-mouth as free advertising. Now, word-of-mouth will be going against them, people not wanting to come to the park because nobody will know if SOB will be running or not. I mean, they still have ads on TV here saying it's "Now Open." If you ask me, that's turning into bad publicity.
Backseat, I feel for ya. I really do. And SigEpster has it right on the nose. I've been a big fan of parks since I was 10, including PKI (Heck, the Beast is my favorite woodie), but they did this before and now have ruined their image again. I have a good friend in Cincy, he says that people WERE excited, now they (people of Cincy) are pushing plans to go to CP instead of PKI. I expressed my opinion, bluntly, on other forums about this and people told me to shut my pie hole, but I'll pat myself on my back when I said, "it'll have a lasting effect on their overall season." They WILL make money on SOB, but they will lose money, overall, because of bad word of mouth. People ARE pissed and that has a lasting effect...but humans, as a species, have short memories and it will be forgotten soon enough, but in my book, I have boycotted PKI for a season. I have better parks (K-Wood, Hershey) to plunder through for my first time.
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There's nothing like a woodie...
Let's not forget that the majority of theme-park visitors don't sit at a computer everyday letting their anger fester like us (If they even know what they're supposed to be angry about). I wouldn't go too far on the effects that this will have on PKI's season because, quite frankly, the average ticket-buyer doesn't know or care! PKI knows they made a mistake, and they are trying to fix it. I think it's time that we move on to other things instead of harping the same sob-stories everyday about not getting to ride, or boycotting. I'm not pleased either, but this thread has been going on for almost two weeks.
And by the way, I think we forgot somewhere along the line that running a park is a business. You are supposed to try to do what is financially best. PKI tried. They screwed up. Let's get over it.
(And if you noticed, the commercials up until this week said "Coming Soon." They just started playing the "Open Now" commercials on monday.)
I beg to differ about the commercials Jacob. Here in Indianapolis, they played the "Now open" commercials on the weekend of the 29. Up until that point they played the "Opening soon" commercials. The whole reason I went down there on that weekend was because they told me (through their commercials) that it was open.
I stand corrected. Just goin' by what I had seen in Cinci, I guess.
