CINCINNATI — The gates to Coney Island are scheduled to openFriday, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the new safety procedures parkgoers must obey to reduce the number of guests is that reservations must be made online – a process that has not come without some trouble.
“No pool this year,” Coney Island season pass holder James Taylor says he fears he'll have to tell his grandkids. “We’re going to have to figure out something else.”
Taylor says he hasn’t been able to make online reservations.
“If you are able to get into their website, which, their website has been crashed and been down for most of the day,” he said. “By the time I finally got in I was able to add one reservation for myself and it crashed before I could check out and I was unable to add any of my family at all.”
Something similar happened to Nancy Van Pelt, who lives only a few minutes from Coney Island.
“That was one of my main reasons for moving back to Mount Washington,” she said.
The website crashed on her, too.
"I've tried calling Coney management and left a lengthy voice message there and no one's gotten back to me,” Van Pelt said.
Coney Island released this statement Thursday:
"We knew there would be high demand on Coney Island’s new season pass reservation system, but the initial demand has been literally overwhelming, outpacing the system’s available bandwidth. As a result, many season pass holders experienced long delays or technical issues today while attempting to make a reservation. This is certainly not how we had envisioned the launch of the system and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our team has been working all day to alleviate the issues and will continue to do so until the system meets our expectations. We’d like to thank our season pass holders for their patience, understanding, and strong desires to get back into the world-famous Sunlite Pool."
Pass holders said there have been problems with the park’s website in the past. They’re hoping it gets resolved so they can enjoy their summer by the pool.
