Searches for amusement parks hit their peak every July, says Hitwise, and this year was no exception, with most searching for parks close to home because of gas prices. Not only did they peak, but they were the most searched-for travel destinations.
Theme Park Searches Peak In July
The only top 10 destination sending traffic to travel websites that wasn’t theme park related was “las vegas.”
Over half of visits funneled into Disneyland’s website, 56.7 percent, came from California. The same goes for Hershey Park, where 65 percent came from Pennsylvania. Cedar Point received 58 percent of its visits from Ohio and Michigan. Wisconsin and Illinois sent Wisconsin Dells 71 percent of its visits.
In order the most searched travel destinations were:
1. Disneyland
2. Six Flags
3. Cedar Point
4. Las Vegas
5. Disney World
6. Hershey park
7. Wisconsin Dells
8. Universal Studios
9. Dollywood
10. Kings Island
The following is a completely unnecessary aside, but some venting is needed. The above article is over and I will now devolve into petty ranting.
It does my heart good to see Kings Island so far down the list, which probably got a lot of its visits from Kentucky, since they didn’t seem to care that my family and I had a rather miserable experience for $50 a piece.
I explained to Gregory Scheid, Vice President and General Manager of Kings Island, that after the cost of gas to get there, the price of parking, the price of admission, the price of food, the price of locker rentals, the price of hauling three 14 year-olds around, which equates to somewhere around $500 contributed to the cause of adolescent fun, we were all quite disappointed that half a dozen rides were closed (out of the 15 or so we were interested in riding) with still a third of the evening left.
Basically, it went this way: Drop Zone malfunctions after we’ve been in line for an hour, stranding a bunch of people at the top; Son of Beast sent a bunch of people to the hospital a few weeks before and is still under investigation; we leave Drop Zone and go to that spinny one next to it I can’t remember, but it’s closed; we leave there for Tomb Raider, closed; for White Water Canyon, closed; and finally to Firehawk, which is closed, before we decide to complain.
The PR girl at guest services was sweet and powerless, but was certain we’d get free tickets if we complained to management.
This was management’s response:
We were able to open Firehawk and Drop Zone later in the evening after the electrical issues were repaired however Tomb Raider and White Water were not opened until the next day. With the exception of Firehawk being down earlier in the day for 65 minutes, we experienced very little down time of this specific day up until the electrical spike.
We do take guest concerns seriously and appreciate your comments.
Regards,
Gregory Scheid
Too bad. Guess I’ll check out Kentucky Kingdom next time.
