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Given how fast KI managed to repair The Bat after the derailment earlier this year and the repainting of the trains, I think it's safe to say KI plans to keep The Bat around for a while, which is good because I really don't want to see that coaster get removed.

The Bat is fine. Why is everyone trying to get rid of it?

I think what needs to happen first and foremost is an injection of reality..... why would any company with a modicum of business sense spend an extremely large amount of money to remove one or multiple things in order to redevelop an area, when there is already a very bare plot of land roughly 1/4 mile south of it that is already prepared for development? Lets take care of the horse that is The Vortex plot before we start putting demolition markers around the cart that is Action Zone.

I totally agree. The Arrow Suspended Coasters were never as common as the loopers and mine rides and their numbers are dwindling. They are an endangered coaster type that needs to see a group like ACE make a motion to start preserving at least one or two. I was so excited to hear The Bat trains are getting repainted this year and of course that Adventure Express is getting enhancements. That's code for AE is going to be around many more years and The Bat has a few more seasons left as well. I personally love to see the directions the park is going with maintaining the older coasters - Racer re-track greatly improved the ride, Beast re-tracking was amazing, Adventure Express enhancement is exciting....I think it's always a debate of do we fix an old coaster or just build a new one and unfortunately 95% of the time they build a new one. Kings Island has some very important coasters that need to be preserved for future generations and one of those is The Bat.

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed reading "Kings Island: A Ride Through Time," I immediately purchased "Kings Island: A Photographic Journey" upon hearing about it this past Sunday. It arrived this afternoon and was, in my opinion, well worth the money I paid for it. Even though I wasn't around for the Old Coney/Taft/KECO/Lindner years, it really transported me back to that timeframe and makes me wish I was around to see the park in its early days. As I started going to Kings Island beginning early in Paramount's ownership, around 1993 or 1994, there was a lot of nostalgia around that section of the book and a lot of good memories come to mind as I approached the Cedar Fair section. Anyone who has visited Kings Island or is a fan of the park needs to get this book before it's gone.

The Beastie should have gotten a new pin in the series automatically, it puzzles me how it got passed by...but with that said, I voted for a tram one since I already do have a Beastie pin. I think a pin with the trams sitting underneath the old Kings Island marquee would have been great.

There is a big part you are missing, and that is service life and repair costs of steel coasters compared to wooden coasters, and that is why we see things like Vortex, Firehawk, and King Cobra disappear, and eventually The Bat will leave...that plays a much bigger role than "community" opinion or a "debate of do we fix an old coaster or just build a new one" on when a steel coaster is removed. And don't mistake a paint job as it means it will be around a lot longer. King Cobra was repainted and was gone a year or two afterwards. Slingshot was painted and then removed without re-opening.... A wood coaster can last longer because it is easy for the parks to buy lumber in bulk and the type of laborer needed and access to the piece that needs replaced is easier than for a steel coaster. Our wooden coasters are walked daily and if you visit enough, there are times you can see a piece of wood has been replaced mid-season as a result of these daily inspections. And then sometimes we get off-season sections replaced as we have seen recently. Due to the design of the wooden coasters (walking paths the entire length) and the type of laborer needed for wood (compared to a welder), it is cheaper to maintain wooden coaster than a steel coaster. While steel is stronger than wood, it is subject to higher loads, fatigue and as such has a defined service life. Sometimes the service life is shorter than expected, and sometimes it is longer. So many factors come into play. Maybe it got bad steel; or the stress loads were higher than anticipated; or the temperature of the location of the ride impacted the steel more while it was being operated. Steel can only handle so many cycles before it starts to fatigue and it typically deforms and weakens at the welds. Steel coasters are subject to annual non-destructive testing inspections for the integrity of the welds. Other testing such as holiday testing, ultrasound, and several other methods are used to detect imperfections that are not visible to the naked eye. At some point these inspections provide how much longer the ride is able to operate until wide-scale fatigue failure occurs. Sometimes is matches up with the intended design life, and sometimes it doesn't. Part of the maintenance of steel coasters is repairing any welds that are beginning to fatigue. This is extremely expensive. The ride manufacturers require certain methods, type of welds, materials, etc. to be used on their rides. Plus, unlike wooden coasters with a walking track the entire length, steel coasters usually only have that on the lift hill, MCBR, and final brake run. So now you need cranes or other equipment to hoist the laborer and material in place. With a wood coaster, you can carry a couple of pieces of lumber with you to the location. The specialty labor required for a steel coaster weld repair, along with the parts cost is orders of magnitude greater than for a wooden coaster. You may be asking well why don't parks re-track and replace components yearly on their steel coasters like they do for wooden coasters? Again, the answer is cost. Depending on the nature of the repair, it could cost more to repair than a new coaster. Same thing with automobiles - sometimes the cost to repair a vehicle after a crash is more expensive than just buying a new car. Or restaurants. Many times it is cheaper to demolish and rebuild on site than it would be to remodel and get it up to current code. The initial build and fabrication of the steel coaster is always cheaper in the factory and onsite in an open field than 30-something years later. Access is more difficult, more levels of approvals are needed. More specialized laborers are needed. The cost of the materials are more expensive, etc. Further, by the time the ride has reached its original design life, many of these rides will have lost enough ridership as they have aged that the ride's popularity would not justify replacing all the steel components needing replacement, especially if it would be cheaper to simply build a new coaster. As it relates to The Bat, it does have going for it that the segments are bolted instead of welded like older Arrow coasters, so if there were sections that came back that were more fatigued than others, it could be possible. But there is still a lot of welding on The Bat. Does that mean that no steel coaster is ever rehabbed and track replaced - no - it has happened and will continue to happen on a case-by-case basis. But for something like The Bat, I could only see KI keep it around beyond its service life with rehab if ACE provided funds to do so to "preserve" an Arrow Suspended Coaster and I just don't see that happening...

There are some people in the amusement park community that seem to only have interest in extreme thrill rides, I've come to find. Arrow classics like The Bat are likely about to die out across the board, and many won't respect their uniqueness until they are all gone.

I hope it never goes on sale - meaning of course they never take it out! The Vortex Track was pretty cool but I was poor and couldn't justify buying it...I probably would for The Bat just because I have a real love for that coaster model. If I was a coaster activist for the preservation of one particular model it would be the Arrow Suspended Coaster. They are so unique and deliver an experience not found elsewhere. Idk if there's a way to save them in the long run but it will be very sad if one day they just aren't around anymore. I don't know why S&S hasn't brought the model back. Seeing as there's only 5 (if counting Vampire in UK which doesn't have Arrow Trains) still in operation, you would think some other parks would be interested in them and it would possibly make replacement parts more affordable and available for the existing ones.... I can see the headlines - Revenge of the Big Bad Wolf new for 2024 at Busch Gardens!

My wallet let out a sigh of relief…so far the park hasn’t listed anything new on the KIGEAR site today!

Nothing says “horror area” like a big play area in the middle LOL (come to think of it… squealing kids kinda IS a horror)

Just announced today, the event will be two days in 2023, February 25th and 26th, and tickets will be distributed utilizing the oh so legit "lottery" system. More information on submitting your name and up to three guests names into said system can be found here https://www.cedarpoint.com/blog/2022/2023-events-now-live

I just found this footage from when my sister and I were young. I thought it was 1981 but now I think it may have been 1979 or 80

We changed the PW policy at work. I made nice pretty directions with pictures, screenshots, and made it as short as possible to kept their attention. Well, 95% of the problems reported are people not reading the directions. Yet they expect the same from their customers every day.

As for Action Zone, I think it's the next "area revamp" that needs to happen. I personally would prefer to see Phantom Theater replace the god awful boo blaster in 2024 and see a new coaster on The Vortex plot in 2025. After those two projects, I think it's time to focus on breathing new life into Action Zone. Since our current Octoberfest section is getting redone into Adventure Port, I'd like to see an Octoberfest theme that also incorporates the dark forest theme of Banshee and Bat (yes bat needs to get all the love and money dumped into it that the park can muster). Busch Gardens Williamsburg German/Octoberfest is a perfect example of what I want to see Action Zone become. They have a dark theme with Verboten and Darkoaster but also a festival theme with their carousel, Drop Tower, wave swinger, and dogem. Kings Island new Octoberfest would include Banshee and Bat as dark theme and would have Delirium, Drop Tower, Xtreme Skyflyer, new fats and possibly a new coaster as the festival section. Here's my personal opinion, I think that Invertigo, Congo Falls, and Timberwolf are all disposable. If I'm choosing one to keep I'm taking Invertigo just because it is the last Vekoma "face off" boomerang in the USA as far as I know. It could get a new theme to fit the area. However, I personally don't love the ride experience so I'm not crying if it's gone. I would hope they relocate it to another park where it would be more popular instead of scraping it (just to preserve the coasters model if you know what I mean). However, to really do the new Octoberfest/Dark Forest thing right, I think it will be a multi year project

Thanks for sharing! I especially love the footage inside Enchanted Voyage. If you wanted confirmation it's from 1981 and not later, the Firestone International Airshow's last year was 1981 - with the presence of The Bat (opened in 1981), that limits the video to that year.

Standing in line for The Bat, someone going on about how The Vortex was sinking and was too expensive to fix... Does anyone know wether there was any incident or indication once upon a time that caused this to be a rumor?

Not something a guest said, but last night in Rivertown I scared someone who was sitting in a corner eating beans straight from a can. No idea how they even got that in, or how they opened it. It totally caught me off guard!

Sone of you people are impossible LOL

in concept yes, but the execution is a "modern" church, tons of concrete and a few Spirit Halloween tombstones with disco lighting that stopped working a year or two after opening. If there was a themed break run, sure. If there was a themed queue, sure. As it stands NAMING something scary is WAY different than theming something scary. You could just as easily call Banshee "EaglesFlight" and it would be the same experience. The "theming" adds little to the overall experience (which is unfortunate as it had one of the best teaser videos ever, and the gift shop was an eventual waste of space that could've been used to help finish the story as you left, or been configured to use it as the entrance instead of the exit.

Made an Area 72 expansion idea. It involves demolishing the current maintenance buildings and building new ones on the other side of Orion (red rectangles). It is based on Carowinds Aeronautica Landing and would feature 3 new flats: A Zamperla Air Race and Nebulaz, a gravitron ride, and a trabant. It would also feature a new restaurant with a patio and bar overlooking Orion.