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bsktgrvy

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Everything posted by bsktgrvy

  1. I have some great memories of Lesourdsville Lake / Americana. My family went there several times when I was young along with Fantasy Farm which was right next door to it. I always liked the haunted house at Lesourdsville, and the Paratrooper ride. One of my biggest memories is when I participated in the WKRQ Giant Jello Jump contest in the late 70's. The prize was a Pontiac Firebird (oops - Trans Am) (if I remember correctly) tricked out like the Indy Pace car for that year. My girlfriend (now my wife) and I were on the sky ride when my name was announced. I had to make my way to the podium where I soon jumped in a big dumpster full of green jello. There was plastic fruit with a paper inside with a number on it. It was cool and rainy that day and I spent the rest of the day a cold, sticky mess! I had to come back the next day and trade my paper with the number on it for a key - which I got to try in the car. No luck - I did not win. Edit - I just followed the link to the Americana website and look what I found! I thought it was put on by WKRQ but I guess their personality was just the emcee. Dive for car keys at Americana Park Middletown Journal May 21, 1979 Americana Amusement Park will open the 1979 season on Memorial Day weekend with 300 contestants jumping into 880 gallons of green (lime) Jello in a contest to win a special edition 1979 Pontiac Trans Am valued at $13,000. Keys will be hidden in pieces of plastic fruit at the bottom of the Jello but only one key will fit the new car’s ignition. Contestants will jump in groups of 100 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. All contestants will get a chance Sunday to try their key on the Trans Am. All contestants will receive a t-shirt and free admission to the park for the event. Patrons can register today at the park for next weekend’s jump. The Giant Jello Jump, as it is billed, will launch Americana Amusement Park into its fulltime, seven-day-a-week schedule that will continue through Labor Day. A new attraction this year is “The Great American Thrill Show,†a 70mm motion picture production filmed aboard stunt airplanes, helicopters, roller coasters and hang gliders. Patrons can also enjoy the animated Country Bear Jubilee, the antics of seven bears performing in a show seen previously only in Walk Disney parks. Three times each Saturday, Sunday and holidays, and twice each weekday, Tommy Hanneford will present the Hanneford Circus International, featuring acrobats, aerialists, elephants, tigers and clowns. Park patrons can also bring their own picnic basket and eat in the Americana picnic grove. Cost of admission is $6.50 for adults, $2.50 for person over 60, $1 for 4 and 5 year olds and free for children 3 and under. http://www.americanaamusementpark.com/1979%20articles.htm
  2. About the only thing I have is a cup with The Bat logo and some Bat specs on it.
  3. Not to get too far ahead of things, but I would certanly hope that King's Island gets a true "new" ride for next year. I think it would have been too much to ask to get one this year and by adding Firehawk they did the best they could in the time frame that they had. A ride like Maverick requires more design and planning time than just moving X-Flight to King's Island took. I would hope Cedar Fair is already planning something for 2008.
  4. My first major coaster was the Screamin Demon. Why did I decide to ride it? Because a girl I had a crush on wanted me to. Enough said! And I was 15 at the time and had not even had a ride on The Racer yet. But I did that day - and a lot more rides after that. After that I rode every coaster Kings's Island had. Now I am reverting back to my teen years and get freaked out on the lift hills, so I don't ride as much anymore.
  5. Let it go coasterdadGL. There are still plenty of rides at Geauga Lake.
  6. The older I get, the less I want to ride the big rides. I have been weaning myself off of coasters like The Beast, Vortex, etc. over the last few years. I just get too worked up going up the first hill. If I could start at the top of each ride I would be fine. It's apparent that some upper level management reads this message board. One thing I have seen mentioned countless times is "improve the train ride" or "make it like it was". One of the best parts of the ill-fated return of Winterfest was the train ride with the singing, audience participation, and decoration of a few of the buildings. King's Island really needs to make the train ride fun again. I have filled out surveys and written e-mail to them a few times to suugest this and it seems as though others have as well. Instead of cowboys and indians, put in some animated animal characters, or just cowboys w/o the indians, animated wild west town people - something. The construction of a few Disney style rides with great special effects would be something I would consider. Maybe an "underwater" submarine ride or a high capacity boat ride. Bring back some old flat rides like the tumble bug, as someone suggested.
  7. When I was a kid I loved - Bayern Curve - one of my all time favorites The "roulette wheel" ride - I can't remember the name The train with the Western theming and the actors. I'll always remember laughing at one of the train robbers and he looked at me and said "Waht are you laughing at boy? Do you think it's funny to see people robbed and shot at?" Some of the old Coney rides like the Tumble Bug. Der Spinnin Keggers. Kenton's Cove Keelboat Canal The original Enchanted Voyage Someone else said it best earlier - "I miss being so young that King's Island is all I had to worry about" At least we can still go there and have some fun.
  8. You can also click on this link: http://www.pkicentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8520
  9. That truly was not my intent - although it probably will feed the rumors. This is obviously an existing ride somewhere and I just wanted to know what/where it is.
  10. http://www2.paramountparks.com/kingsisland/events/events.cfm Shouldn't the ride photos be of something the park actually has?
  11. 1. The train ride - fix up the existing western town or build a new one. Add more scenes along the whole ride including animatronic figures. 2. The Racer - not only repaint but fix up rough sections of track - especially the bottom of the first drop.
  12. I watched the animated video of Maverick - it looks nothing like IJST. The inversions are also quite a difference.
  13. That looks like a great roller coaster that will satisfy thrill seekers and even let some that are not up to riding the 300-400 foot tall coasters (like me) possibly be able to enjoy this one. Why can't KI get something like this? Hopefully they can.
  14. We have souvenirs from previous trips to K.I., so we did not get any on this trip. Our girls are in their teens now so they enjoy the park more for the rides than anything else. No Beast for me - I have not ridden it in a few years. I'm kinding of losing my ability to ride the big coasters now, which makes me feel bad because this is the age my girls love to ride them. I've got to make myself ride it with them next year - that's my resolution for 2007.
  15. What a spectacular day to visit K.I. The weather was perfect. Usually, my family takes a vacation day in the middle of the summer and visits on a Tuesday or Wednesday and the crowds are pretty small. This allows for plenty of riding. Yesterday the park was not packed, but certainly more crowded than we are used to. We arrived about noon. My youngest daughter likes to start off with Adventure Express, so we did. I think it's a great family coaster. Then we headed up the Coney midway and rode the Scrambler and Shake, Rattle, and Roll. The girls rode The Vortex (I had a sore back - I tested it on Adventure Express and thought The Vortex might be too much, so I sat that one out). Although A.E. might be rougher than The Vortex. They eventually rode The Vortex 4 times. The UC Bearcat football team visited the park yesterday. Being a UC fan, this was great as we got the chance to talk to a few groups of Bearcats and take a few pictures with them. They were all very friendly and asked people to sign their t-shirts. We waited in line about 40 minutes for ITSJ, and right before getting on we noticed the ride ops checking the doors or something on one of the trains, and you guessed it - they closed the ride. This happened to us on our earlier visit to the park. So we headed over to the Nickelodeon area to ride Avatar, and it too was closed. We eventually made our way back to the other side of the park. My oldest daughter and my wife rode Face-Off. My wife described it as "intense" - she said you can really feel the g-forces on the loops. My oldest daughter loves it. We made our way around the park again with more rides on A.E., The Vortex, the Scrambler, Shake, rattle, and Roll, the Hanna-Barbera movie (This should have been 3-D - but it's not too bad), then a visit to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and a spin on the Carousel. We also managed to get a ride in on The Beastie (or Fairly Odd Coaster - whatever you prefer). And we tried again on IJST and got one ride after only a 20 minute wait in line. I think IJST is a very fun ride - it's just too short. Dinner was pizza by the fountains on International Street - always good (But very expensive). Ride times varied from 15-30 minutes - not too bad. Some additional comments: 1. K.I. does not enforce their smoking policy at all. People pretty much smoke whenever and wherever they want, even in the queues. I'd like to see the policy enforced better. 2. I am glad they give out free ice water - that saves a lot of money buying drinks. 3. Food prices are ridiculous, but we know that going in. Eating LaRosa's on a K.I. visit is a tradition. $17 for 3 slices of pizza, an order of breadsticks, and a soda is a lot. Add on a $5 waffle later (that amazes me - 5 cents worth of dough for $5. My wife joked that we should buy 4 with toppings - could you imagine spending $24 on 4 waffles with toppings?) All in all a very nice day.
  16. Whew! It hurt my brain to read that "sentence".
  17. I respectfully disagree. If I were in the elevator and heard the operator say this I would have wondered about the condition of the elevator, the controls, and the electronics. I think if he knew what the problem was, a simple "I expect power may be out for a short period but will be on very soon" - then explain what to expect once it starts back up again.
  18. Based on that report it sounds like it's all clear to go again? Probably not.
  19. Thanks for the report - we went to the Beach Waterpark a couple of years ago and I thought it was run down and not a very clean place. A few attractions were not running the day we went either (in the middle of July!). I decided then I would not be going back. Cleanliness in a water park is very important in my opinion. If it's dirty I may as well just go swim in a lake.
  20. For employees, there is a green line in the shape of a box in certain areas of the station at certain coasters. Vortex has one... for example http://photos.pkicentral.com/displayimage....album=46&pos=15 Where the employees in the background is standing, that would be an area a green box would be. Wow - what time of day was that picture taken? Look at that line.
  21. Does that make it nobody's fault? Just because they didn't or couldn't find it? I'm sure it's true a routine check may not have found it - although it seems as though the initial investigation after the accident revealed pretty quickly there was a broken timber or timbers at the root of the problem. And to "The Interpreter" - I stand corrected - yes - it was serious injury.
  22. Yes - these were definitely different situations. It would have been extremely difficult for any maintenance person at KI to detect a problem with a certain board in that massive amount of lumber. However, we have read unsubstantiated complaints about that section of the coaster being more rough than usual - which if true - should have been a cause for concern. Perhaps it was checked out - we will probably never know. The good news is I don't think anyone was hurt seriously on SOB like the little girl in this thread was.
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