Thoughts on Carowinds

I know, you probably don't care, but after taking the boys to Carowinds yesterday I had some thoughts I thought I'd share (that kind of rhymes...).

Carowinds has such potential. It's the only real amusement park anywhere around us. Sure, you could drive to Atlanta for Six Flags, but who wants to do that? Carowinds has some great roller coasters. The water park is a really good water park. There are great kids areas.

But I think I know how they could improve (and since I'm such a business genius I think they should listen to me). First, do a better job with cleaning the park. Things looked dirty. The bathrooms smelled really bad. It didn't look like people took pride in taking care of Carowinds. My experience would have been better had it been cleaner.

Second, customer service isn't optional. There were some great, energetic employees. There were some employees that were jerks. That shouldn't happen... especially when you pay out the wazzoo to get into the park. Employees should smile and be nice. They should like people. They should like their jobs. If they don't then it's the job of the supervisors, managers and owners to change the culture. Some things need to be changed. Nathan got yelled at by a middle-aged life-guard who seemed to have some control issues about a green line on the ground. I know you need to stand behind the green line, but you can be nice in how you talk to people. I could go on with this, but I'll stop before I get worked up.

Third, if you're going to charge $10 for lunch then it better be out of this world. Seriously, I know this is nothing new, but food is outragious. Tons of people, including my family, were picnicing. It would have been a great idea for them to have picnic tables available for the families that were trying to save a little after having to take out a second mortgage just to buy entrance tickets.

All this gets me thinking about the church too. There are some paralels. A clean, appealing context are important. That's not hard or expensive to do. It just takes some attention to detail. People are important and we need to treat them with respect, period. And I know we don't charge for food, or at least most churches don't have food courts, but if we are going to have food, coffee, etc. it needs to be good.

It's about doing the best you can with what you have. I'd like to go back to Carowinds, but I just don't know. You think they'd hire me to manage the park?