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I finally have the 1977 Kings Jester Memorybook scanned and stitched together. I will have an enhanced version sometime in the future, Please enjoy! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1002769133589901&type=3

Lately, I've been on a big baking kick thanks to The Great British Bake Off. I recently tried my hand at knitting, but I'm not sure it's the thing for me. In previous off-seasons, I've tried skiing. In general, winter tends to be the time when I try new things. Over the last handful of years, I've gotten back into video games after a decade-plus long hiatus. I'm wanting to finish playing through Undertale, Final Fantasy IX, Super Mario Sunshine, and Horizon Zero Dawn, but mostly I tend to play whatever I feel like playing at the time. And, of course, I wouldn't be a true coaster nerd if there wasn't some nerdy Youtube watching and article reading being done, too. Not to overshare, but this particular off-season, the previous one, and the one before that have been big ones for working on my mental and emotional health. I've finally confronted some generational trauma that landed in my lap with increasing intensity over the last several years, and I've decided the cycle ends with me. It's been incredibly hard work, but so worth it. I'm happier than I've been in a decade. Different things work for different people, but if anyone is struggling with their mental health and has the means to see a therapist who they trust and learn from, I can't recommend it enough. Therapy (and you) are worth the effort. Apologies for taking this on a bit of an unrelated tangent, but since we're here: During my times of mental health work, I also came to the realization that it was time for me to accept myself and come out as gay. I've since met someone, and we got engaged in December. So, I'm also trying out being a fiance for the first time.

There is this big forum site called KICentral. It takes up a lot of my pre-season, regular season, post season, and off-season. I am glad you guys are apart of it.

For posterity, here's grainy concept art for the Festhaus, as well as a pic of how it actually looked when it was first built. Trivia: For 1983, the existing Beirgarten was remodeled and the bridge that extended over the Octoberfest pond was added - as to drive traffic between the two venues.

I know this may just look a little messy, but I did a little sketch on what a Maverick like coaster could look like in The Vortex plot if it started in Rivertown. Picture is taken from the park's cinematic video from the Eiffel Tower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2gyKbhMufE Heres the sketch:

With all this covid-ness happening, I've been concentrating on getting better on sax as well. I've taken online lessons on alto to really push the horn to its limits as well as, basically, being able to play any piece of music you can put in front of me. As seen in the random photo thread, I've also taken up the soprano sax, and after getting some minor work done to get it playing at its best, I'm ready to get really serious and try to get as good on soprano as I am on alto by the time any of my bands come back to play. I'm also looking into recording covers of songs for fun. Been transposing a TON of songs.

As far as the original shows at the Festhaus... here are some Grainy print/ad images... The first two are of "World of Christmas" - the first show to play the Festhaus during Winterfest 1982. The third is of "World Cabaret" that played the 1983 spring/summer/fall season.

Never heard of it, sounds fun though!

I’m a 15 year old, so I just do normal teenage stuff like school and just lazing around. I also work at Subway so I guess that’s another thing.

I live life like most humans. I work, pay my bills, eat and sleep.

First of all, its Mystic Timbers hands down. However, Orion still does have great theming. MT essentially is built around its' theme, which is why I love it. Between the truck, que line, music, train design and shed it is a total experience. Orion definitely has this same "experience" vibe as you walk through the lab before getting on the ride and I love it, but it doesn't measure up to MT's in my opinion. Orion is more about the coaster - and it should be! Overall, I respect a ride that makes an effort to sell it's "theme." Not everyone feels that way but the best rides have his quality in my opinion!

..Introducing Kings Mills Striker! This coaster will feature a beyond vertical drop, multiple inversions, and multiple airtime moments through the woods and hills of the Kings Canyon Mining Company.

I am pretty sure it is Schwur des Karnan...and in terms of raw size stats, it's massive. https://rcdb.com/11615.htm 239.5 feet tall- taller than Diamondback! 219.8 foot drop. 90 degree drop. 4,051.8 feet long. Only 1 inversion though (if Kings Island is replacing Vortex with one of these they will want more inversions than that obviously though). These infinity coasters clearly range from tiny to mammoth. ...holy cow, that looks awesome. The theming does look a little much for a ride at a park like Kings Island, but then again Kings Island has been increasing how much theming they have for their new rides (see Mystic Timbers and Orion) for the last few additions so I wouldn't completely rule it out. I am pretty sure the sign above Beast calls it the Kings Canyon Mining Company though as of late (before 2019 it was Beast Canyon). The theme works though: for over 40 years, The Beast has tormented and caused mayhem for the workers of the Kings Canyon Mining Company. In 1987, they constructed a huge robot to battle The Beast, which did so for 33 years (ties Vortex into the story) until its steel weakened due to age and The Beast finally defeated it in 2019. However, the workers have constructed another huge machine, ready to battle The Beast once again.

I've said it on other topics, but I would love to see a ground up rmc in the spot of Vortex. If not there, maybe in the spot of The Bat. I've heard rumors that might be the next roller coaster getting the boot. I also wouldn't mind seeing a B&M Floorless model come to Kings Island. I've mentioned this before too on other topics on KI central. Have a similar layout like Dominator at Kings Dominion.

Usually in jail for trespassing on various Cedar Fair properties.

Jess and I visited Cedar Point this weekend. To say that Cedar Point was crowded this on this visit simply does not do the situation justice. The park was beyond packed. The midways were so crowded that it was difficult to walk through them, and even the bad rides had multi hour waits. I am not sure what percentage of capacity Cedar Point allowed make reservations, but it was obvious to me that they were simply not conservative enough. While I was at the park, I chatted with quite a few guests. The one thing that stuck with me more than anything else was that nobody was having a great time. Time and time again, I heard people complain that they had been at the park all day, and had only ridden 1 ride. I talked to one person who told me that he has been going to the point 20 times a year for over 20 years, and had never had a day when he has ridden so few rides. Every single person I talked to did nothing but complain about the experience. The most impactful conversation of the day was with a man who was leaving the park at the same time I did. His comment to me was “Cedar Point ripped me off. They said they were taking reservations to make sure that there were not too many people in the park, but they just wanted to take our money. I was here for 8 hours, paid for admission, paid for parking, paid for food, and only rode 2 rides the entire day. This place sucks, and I am never coming back again.” Our day was not as bad as this guys was, but it was still less than ideal. We entered the park at 11 and when to get in line for a Top Thrill Dragster Access pass. Chatting with a ride op, he told us that due to the high winds, Dragster would not likely open for a few hours, and we may be better off trying to get access passes for something else. We ended up snagging passes to board Maverick between 1-2, and passes to board Millennium Force between 2-3. We thought we were off to a great start. After grabbing the passes, we were close to Valraven, and saw that its wait was only listed as 45 minutes, so we entered it queue around 12:15. A little over an hour latter, we were finally done with our ride on Valraven. We jogged through the park to get to Maverick, and make it into the queue around 1:30. From this point, it took us another hour and a half to wait for Maverick, and we got off the ride at 2:58, only having 2 minutes to get to Millennium force before the end of our window. We ran to Millie, but did not make it there before our 2-3 time slot ended. When we got there, the ride opp saw us panting for breath after running across the entire park, and had mercy upon us, allowing us to enter the queue even though our access passes had expired 5 minutes earlier. Every employee we interacted with was awesome on this visit, and a little gesture like this really made a big difference for us. We waited for about an hour and a half for our ride on Millie, getting off right as the 4:30 access pass handout window opened. We resisted the urge to grab another pass for millie, even though we were right there as they started to hand them out, wanting to allow another guest to have a chance to ride her. We made it to the Dragster access pass distribution point at 4:38, but at that point, all the passes were gone. Talking to another guest who was there exactly at 4:30, she told us they were gone before then, and apparently, they had passed out the evening passes earlier that day for Dragster. At this point, we had not had a chance to get a bite to eat or hit the bathroom all day, so we attended to nature and got some food at Chickie and Pete’s. By the time we were done eating, it was 5:45, and there were few rides with wait times short enough to get us on the ride before the park closed at 8. We took a lap of the park to grab some footage, and hit the road around 7pm. We had spent 8 hours in the park, and ridden 3 rides. Based off my conversations with other guests, we did better than most. I hope that Cedar Point further reduces the number of reservations available for the last few weeks of the season, and I really hope that by next season, the capacity killing covid prevention measures will be a thing of the past, and it will not be necessary to limit attendance. That being said, we all know that Saturdays in October are the busiest days of the year at Cedar Point, and while I will certainly visit Cedar Point again next year, I for one will not likely visit the park on one off these days again. I love riding coasters, but there are plenty of parks that provide a better guest experience in October that I could visit. For the TLDR crowd, here is a link to the youtube version of this trip report :

It doesn’t matter if Wonderland is #1 in the chain, or even #1 in the entire world, the fact of the matter is, when you’re closed you can’t make any revenue whatsoever and you’re worth as much as the worst rinky dink amusement parks out there. Should Wonderland defy these orders, the police will be after extremely swiftly and lay huge fines and threaten to imprison all the associates, while they let typical crime run its course. On top of that is completely botched vaccine rollout, and as I said, if Wonderland opens up by that bold date, I’ll eat my underwear.

The park has to open first, and despite their bold announcement of an opening date. The government has the ultimate say if it will open or not. Based on previous attitudes of the government here, if Wonderland actually does open on time, I'll eat my underwear. Honestly, I'm starting to think Cedar Fair is better off to just "cash out" and sell the land to condo developers, as government has openly made it hostile to do business here.