Pros
•Free access to all Cedar Fair parks as well as some nearby parks like Dollywood and Busch Gardens. •You get to meet a lot of people from all parts of the world such as Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Latvia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Albania, Nigeria, Colombia, Mongolia, and Thailand through the work and travel program. •Starting pay is above minimum wage, with Food and Beverage associates making $16/hr. •It can be a very fun environment to work in, and they promote diversity and inclusion •They pay for your ServSafe certification and non slip shoes. •I have heard positive things from other departments like entertainment and rides.
Cons
•We have to beg for supplies such as timers, thermometers, PPE, brooms and dustpans, mop heads, and new equipment when ours breaks. Kings Dominion will refuse to supply you with those as yours break or are stolen by the other restaurants until you’re either down to your last one of said item, or have no more. Definitely not an ideal situation for keeping restaurants clean. •Standards and methods of doing things are always being changed. It is extremely difficult to get a definitive answer on how to do something and you will get different answers from different managers because nobody is really sure what Kings Dominion wants us to do. •Trying to train new associates can be difficult because they are often teenagers or people from other countries with varying levels of English proficiency. Fortunately, the latter can frequently be mitigated by using translation apps, having visual aids such as signs, and by showing them how to do things. •Depending on the restaurant you are in, the pay may not be enough to warrant the amount of work you have to do. They are stingy about giving raises and it often leaves employees feeling under appreciated. •If you are full-time, you have to work 40 hours a week or else they will take your vacation and sick time to make up for the hours you did not work. This wouldn’t be a terribly big deal if it were not for the fact that scheduling can leave you an hour or two short every week due to scheduling you later than it takes to close the restaurant or sending you home early. •During the previous years for Haunt, they would temporarily increase pay by $4-5/hr to ensure all the extra work employees had to do was compensated well. For Haunt 2022, they did not increase the wages or offer any bonuses on top of every restaurant being insanely understaffed (operating below bare minimum staff needed in some cases, leading to shortcuts being taken in food preparation, restaurants not getting cleaned properly at night, and employee burnout.) •Seasonal employees do not receive paid time off or overtime. I regularly work 50 hours a week and receive no overtime. •We are not allowed to bring any personal items into our restaurant. Instead we must put our items in lockers we have to pay for or leave them in our car. Both of which can be up to a 10-15 minute walk from some restaurants. Women are allowed to bring a small Fanny pack to store feminine hygiene products in, but sometimes they are told they can’t even do that. •You are only allowed to check out one apron, two shirts, and two shorts. You cannot purchase additional uniforms. This leads to many associates not wearing aprons at all or coming to work with dirty aprons because they can’t do laundry every night. •We do not have a way to dry PPE when it is washed, which leads to the PPE staying dirty because when it is wet it can lead to severe burns. •Understaffing is a huge issue.