RingMaster

For what it tries to attempt, the Nick Parade is a really cool show with great float designs and costumed characters...on paper. But, come on, who here has seen a Disney parade? Even the generic daily Disney parade is a work of art and blows NCP out of the water. Kat is right, Kings Island is a victim of false advertising from Paramount Parks. Several attractions/events (Tomb Raider, SDATHC, IJ:ST, FearFest, NCP) were originally stated as state-of-the-art, one-of-a-kind ride experiences, yet they are reduced to nothing but cheap ride technology with "Hollywood make-overs" slapped on when they open to the public (not to mention they break down to the point of frustration on any given day). For what Paramount Parks has done to Kings Island and the other parks that they own, Winterfest and the new Nick Central update to Hanna-Barbera Land better be good if they want to maintain their popularity among guests. *on a similar note, Viacom (owners of all things Paramount) is confiriming that they will split in half, with the second half, temporarily named CBS. Corp, being in charge of Paramount Parks and CBS, KingWorld, etc, by the first quarter of 2006. Viacom is also looking towards selling off Paramount Parks to company bidders (Universal, Disney, Cedar Fair) between 2005 and 2006. -courtesy of Screamscape.com

The fact is that Paramount is just plain scared to build a massive "movie ride". Think about it, what's the last big ride PKI put out?.......Son of Beast. Remember, Paramount was about ready to sue the people who built it due to some sort of design flaw. Now, they're stuck building small attractions (Scooby-Doo, Tomb Raider, IJ:ST). If they would just stop and look to see what Disney and Universal are doing, then they can see what they are doing wrong. I know two major attractions that could have been a WHOLE lot better than what they are now-Tomb Raider and Italian Job. TR:TR could have, and should have, been a Spider-Man clone, seeing as how the press release mentioned "rocketing up to razor-sharp stalactites" and "plummeting into a pit of boiling red-hot lava." Sounds like the climax of Spider-Man where they make you feel like you're rocketing into the sky and falling 400 feet...virtually, doesn't it? And IJ:ST just screams Test Track at Epcot. Just imagine two other cars running side-by-side with you in a much more believable Los Angeles movie set. Oh, one other thing-can that new Sahara movie become a Expedition Everest-style coaster experience? Someone give me some more information, and I'll try to word it together into a believable ride experience.

Is it just me or did Paramount enter the theme park industry too late? Think about it-Disney had rights to Indiana Jones and Universal had rights to film Nick shows at Nick Studios before Paramount even went into the theme park biz. They didn't want to waste so much money on building an all-new theme park so what do they do? They buy the corporation that had PKI, PKD, PGA, Carowinds and Canada's Wonderland under its belt and "improve" on them. Instead of "improving" the parks, they tear down popular rides for no apparent reason and put up new rides that don't work (Yeah, I'm looking at you, TR:TR and IJ:ST) to keep up with Disney and Universal. Realizing that they can't keep up (and somehow forgetting that PKI is the #1 attended seasonal park in the world), an auction begins to sell off the Paramount Parks. Universal, Disney and Cedar Fair (Cedar Point, Knott's Berry Farm) are all in the running, and just when Cedar Fair is about ready to buy, Paramount jacks up the price and everyone drops out. Now, Paramount is joining forces with Great Wolf to build an all-new Great Wolf Lodge resort hotel with an indoor water park for PKI. If what everyone is saying about 2006/2007 is true, Paramount better come up with something good. (Note: The auction was an actual event that had to be kept to a bare whisper.)

No, it's definitely the cars; so many people have complained about the size of them and how the 1st and 3rd rows of each car rattle violently. I know Screamscape is just rumors. This is just another ploy of making conversation. I have a wild guess that the Nick Water Maze could be torn down and the Ghoster Coaster could be re-done and remodeled to that Nick Super Saturator water coaster, Nick Theater will be gone and walls will go up for the Car Wash, and those little kiddie rides behind Ghoster Coaster will make way for SpongeBob SquarePants and his Boating School...of Hell! Mwah ha ha ha! (Also, the Antique Car cars are still in the park, behind Delirium, and the King Cobra track is still behind SOB, next to some old tram cars.)

the signs are cool to look at b/c they use a lot of humor in them. My two personal faves are one that says, "Slow: As If You Had Another Option", and a picture of a chicken crossed out (it's supposed to mean "No Chickens" for you visualy-impaired people).

The preshow and outside messages have started to pickup again but punk's right-any themed ride at PKI that has come out before 2002 has gone to hell. Adventure Express, Top Gun, FOF, etc.; PKI (along with the other Paramount parks) don't care about any of their old rides. They only like to focus on new things, like IJ:ST. And, I doubt if anyone can explain this to me, but is there a reason as to why Top Gun has yet to recieve a "Hollywood Make-Over", and why PKI is still forcing us to use those annoying Reservation Tickets for IJ?

I already know three of the guys who work on IJ, and now I am jealous! I'm glad they got rid of the tickets, they were beginning to annoy me. Now I won't be stuck having to wait till 6:00 to ride it.

Joker has a point, they could be unleashing something big within the next few years. they could pull a Universal and wow us with an amazing psychological thrill ride based off of a smash hit movie, or a series of groundbreaking new rides. i doubt any massive coasters will be involved in this; PKI, I guess, halted big coaster building since 2000, with the Son of Beast mishap. What's weird is that the other parks have gotten a big record-breaking coaster within the past five years: Great America-Stealth Kings Dominion-Volcano-The Blast Coaster Carowinds-I believe some new Star Trek indoor coaster Canada's Wonderland-Tomb Raider coaster if anything, 2006 will be a nick expansion, b/c already they're investing in the all-new hotel/indoor water park with Great Wolf Resorts, so 2007 ought to be big in terms of all new rides.

Originally Universal had rights to Nick involving taping live shows at Nick Studios in USF in the early 90s, since paramount didn't get into the theme park business until around '92. Now that Paramount is becoming a bigger theme park corporation, they want to have their Nick rights back, considering now Nick Studios at USF is utterly useless. and, to answer Scooby_Doo, War of the Worlds is, in fact, a PARAMOUNT movie, not Universal. If WOTW turns out to be a good movie, there's no way Paramount can miss a great opportunity to build a ride off it.

the news on screamscape is really creeping me out, because now they're rumoring either Vortex, top gun, fof, or Son of Beast to be torn down. i HIGHLY doubt sob would be torn down (even though this is just a rumor); im thinking that they could get new cars for the ride. or is it the actual track thats been getting a lot of people hot under the collar?

what if PKI and the other Paramount Parks pulled a Universal and started building amazing movie rides, like Earthquake and Back to the Future? think about it-Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow could be an all-new motion simulator experience in its own building! It would probably be in the form of Disney's StormRider and Star Tours attractions, to where you would enter the ride vehicle and the screen would be inside the car, rather than just having moving seats in front of a big screen. Or they could do an Earthquake-styled War of the Worlds attraction, where you're escaping the wrath of aliens invading the city (Los Angeles, for instance), and your only means of transportation is, like, a city bus or a helicopter. And all this destruction is occuring all around you, with fire effects and water and laser beam fire. Finally, imagine Disney's Splash Mountain scaled down a bit and themed to Nick Central characters and you get Nicktoon Falls! you get into a log boat and travel into the side of a canyon cliff and into the world of the Nicktoons. Twisting and turning you come across evil in the form of Vicky, Angelica, and others who send you plummeting down Nicktoon Falls and into the river.

even if the reservation tickets didn't occur, i highly doubt IJ:ST would have a 3-4 hour line. with three trains and at least a launch every minute or so, the line decreases really quick. i can remember when they actually ran out of tickets, and they just let everyone on the ride at 6. we only waited in line for less than a half-hour (and we were under the covered line with three rows filled). i can see when the ride would have more than an hour long wait if only 1 or 2 of the trains were running. this past weekend, only one train was operational. even though these tickets are a good idea, forcing everyone to have a ticket is unfair. i was expecting the tickets to be for gold pass members, like they did with walk-on weekends last year.

i believe that quite a few rides were over-rated. tomb raider is a prime example. if anyone can think back to 2001 when they had a press release for TR:TR on the PKI website, the ride sounded like it was going to top Spider-Man! instead, what we get is just a simple top spin that isn't really all that great. if they had gone with a spiderman-esque ride, or a ride similar to Disney's Indiana Jones Adventure, then it would have been much better. Scooby Doo's Haunted Castle just scares me on how popular that ride is. the theming on that is utter crap compared to the stuff inside the Haunted Mansion or even Tomb Raider. if PKI plans to expand Nick Central with a SpongeBob Boating School ride sometime soon, they had better make it look good. castle just disappointed me.

Ernie's got a point: i would much rather go to a well-themed park with GOOD rides than to a record-breaking, coaster-filled park with rides that dont even work. the reason why Cedar Point and a few other parks with other record-breaking parks haven't died is because their coasters are actually GOOD. Six Flags coasters are a total piece of crap, and they just want to keep building more and more roller coasters until they have only one park left (which would probably be Magic Mountain). holiday world is a perfect example of why record-breaking coasters don't have to be built; the Raven and Legend coasters are both some of the best well-designed rides I've ridden on. i believe that more parks are starting to shy away from "bigger, taller, faster" rides (the only exceptions being Kingda Ka and SheikRa) and are now creating show rides with amazing special effects and detailed stories. the best examples are Revenge of the Mummy at USF and IJ:ST here at PKI. Both rides, while not the fastest or biggest around, still pack a punch with their innovative design and attention to detail.

if winterfest does make a return, i doubt it will be by the end of this year. theyll probably wait until the new hotel is finished next year, considering that will be open year-round. at least then people will also have an indoor water park and the amenities of the great wolf lodge to go to during winterfest.

Yeah, I remember they were discussing about building it a year ago. They said it would be comlpetely different from PKI and PKD's. I was expecting it to be housed indoors and well-themed. All i can see is just the entrance and one wall of statues. Nice pics, though.

that super saturator looks and sounds like a really great idea. if they do put that in at PKI, it would have to replace water maze. im guessing that 2006 would be the year of some water-themed kids attraction in Nick Central, like Car Wash, Super Saturator, or SpongeBob Crash Course. or we could see another thrill ride/family ride combo like in 2003 with Delirium/SDATHC. Maybe we can get another flat ride and some addition to Nick Central. and then in 2007 we get...ADDAMS FAMILY COASTER!!

Addams Family would make a terrific family coaster,

Addams Family would make a terrific family coaster, and the idea for a haunted mansion overlooking that lake would just look gorgeous to me. just one thing-and this is my little crappy idea-if AFC would be built at PKI, could it be a spinning wild mouse? like the cars would be traversing through all of the rooms of the mansion, like SDATHM, but a lot faster with steep drops. i can imagine the car spinning so that it would be facing backwards, and then the ride pulls off a 90 degree drop...BACKWARDS...in TOTAL DARKNESS! add to it all this fog and strobe lights and, like, a rock n' roll version of AF theme song, and animatronics of the family, complete with Cousin It and Lurch. or maybe thats another one of my crazy ideas...

I believe for what it is, IJ:ST is truly a great ride. i rode it last night and i seriously felt like a stunt driver. its a real smooth ride, and the helicopter scene was terrific (i didn't think there'd be THAT much water!). PKI is heading in the right direction with their themed rides. if they do decide to put in a spongebob boat school ride, i will actually be looking forward to seeing how they theme it. i just wish Stunt Track was a wee bit longer. other than that, great ride, and we only waited in line for five minutes. we were a couple of yards away from the bridge, yet we were waiting for less than five minutes! so this could have short waits in line once it opens up. *puts his two cents in, then goes back to playing RCT3*

well, im still waiting for my mission: impossible stunt show. please give it to me! what was up with that cage thing next to fast pitch? is that supposed to be some new game?

Does anyone remember the old crawl-through maze for PKI back when Nickelodeon Central used to be Nickelodeon Splat City? it would make perfect sense to have Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera at paramount parks. will paramount buy nick studios from universal or is nickelodeon just doomed for all eternity?! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!!!

paramount parks always use photos from all their parks, many of their rides are all-too-similar to each other. that photo is from PKI, you can tell from the landscaping behind the sign; PCW's is way too bare for that to be a pic of it.

i am so there this weekend! even though i am working there this weekend, ill ride it on my break if i have to!

It used 2 b the site of many a great game shows, such as Double Dare, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and GUTS. Now, I don't think they even use the studio anymore. as for where nick studios would go, its very doubtful that it will be moved up here in Ohio. The California paramount park would be a much better decision.