Weekend rally draws supporters of Kentucky Kingdom

We were in Louisville this weekend to go to the (Awesome) Zoo, and it was amazing how many times I saw SFKK referenced as if it was still operating. In the hotel there were multiple printed brochures with 2010 dates that promoted it, but more surprisingly every hotel web site I looked at still had SFKK listed as a 'nearby attraction' and all the brown 'attraction' signs on the interstate were still up, with no 'closed' sticker or anything on them.
Further, it's odd to me that none of the 'upper southern eastern midwest' parks are open yet. Aside from SFKK, I would've taken my family to Holiday World, King's Island, or Beech Bend if any of them had been open this weekend.

I'm not sure if your insinuating that the parks should have been open or whether your just pointing out that we had some unusually nice spring weather the past couple weekends. But, just because the weather happened to be nice, doesn't mean a park would be able to accelerate their schedule to open any earlier.

Out of the 6 parks that I have been to this year, 2 of them were not really ready to open. I would rather wait for the park to be truly ready then to push it and have a lessor experience for their guests.

You also could have gone to Dollywood, a bit of a drive from there but worth the trip.

Jason,
Seeing as how SFStL, Dollywood, and Kings Dominion are all open in similar weather zones, it just strikes me as odd that the cluster I mentioned all remain closed. HW and Beech Bend make some sense as they're (comparatively) smaller operations, but why is KI closed when it's sister park is open?
There's obviously more to when a park opens than just average annual weather patterns, but in the end I wonder if it's more based on 'that's when we've always opened' than any real business model.

Just look at all the stories about trains valleying from this past weekend and you have your answer.

It can be nice this time of year and it can be not so nice. Also HW and KI are located in a different group of states (midwest) as opposed to the south. You just get a different mindset when you say Ohio or Indiana weather vs Kentucky weather.

Kings island used to open the2nd weekend in april, untill cedar fair took over.

http://www.themeparkbrochures.net/2002/pki2002_7.html

Yeah and in order to get the park full with enough people they ran bring a friend free deals to passholders. My guess is that they made very little money those first few days.

But isn't a little profit better than none?

Isn't bring a friend free day offered at all the other SF parks?

Oh, come on now. Kings Island has been opening on the weekend closest to April 15 for at least the last 15 years, and when The Beast opened in 1979, it was on the 13th. Sometimes that's the second weekend in April, and sometimes it's the third. Cedar Fair did not change the operating calendar, at least not in that way.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.