Maestro

If I had somewhere large enough to store it & display it, that'd be a cool piece to own. It's one of those "totally awesome it still exists, but I don't know what to do with it" items. I can confirm the crate Shaggy references. Wish I had spent some time digging through it when I had the chance. Always wanted a "Bat" head!

Couldn't have been said any better.

Yes! I have it somewhere. I haven't had a VCR in years, so no idea where I put it. :-)

I wish!! But, no.

Would love to see a heavily themed mouse in the old Tomb Raider building. Just enough floor space and height to make it happen, and there's lots of potential for theming interaction as you head towards the walls, dive towards the floor, etc.

I'm going to date myself here - but a few of my favorites memories are: - Winterfest 1986: seeing a light-up Christmas tree at the top of The Vortex lift, still under construction - Riding the Tumblebug with my family, sliding side-to-side and laughing hysterically - Racing my brother down the slide - The feeling of riding Outer Limits for the first time without the shoulder restraints - my first multi-looper with a lap bar. - The Smurf ride, especially the Winterfest version I witnessed a ton of really cool firsts, and lasts, during my tenure at the park as an employee - but will never forget those family memories in the younger days.

Thanks for the pictures, glad it went to someone who will appreciate it!

Great video, thanks for sharing. Loved the video of the Bavarian Beetle. And the live actors on the train. And the Enchanted Voyage. And .... :-)

Sorry, don't know about the chair. Also - don't have any info on The Freezer. I've got some history with Tower and Phantom Theater because they were staffed with actors from the Rides team, and the Rides team was responsible for them. The other attractions were managed through Entertainment, and I wasn't a part of that group.

It's been a while, so don't count this as gospel, but here's what I recall: - Most of the characters and props were still turned on and working. While the actors enhanced the experience, I don't believe they were designed to be the focus. In my opinion, there weren't nearly enough actors to make it the center of the attraction. Not all scenes had an actor. - Tough one to remember - I don't think there were a lot of adds, short of the props the actors used. - The line was always long, so I don't know that guest reception was the issue. There were a few attractions that were dropped after the first year. It was definitely labor intensive. Capacity was fairly lousy since every other car was loaded, the speed of the cars was slowed slightly, and the once per hour breaks. It might have just been more trouble than it was worth. - Never personally worked this attraction but was on-duty some of the nights it was open. My opinion? It was kind of a stinker. If memory serves me, a group went up in one elevator. Walked around the platform, which mainly consisted of a few temporary walls to hide actors, fake cobwebs, and a few hanging body bags. The main attraction was the electric chair gag. I don't recall how they got down - my gut tells me the associates staggered and paced the groups on the platform such that the guests just went back down the next elevator. Terrible capacity. I think what made it "cool" was the aspect of being up in the tower. Totally get why this one didn't make it past year one.

Agreed with Dane here. The spark will effect is fairly common, so I don't know if it's the same one (or not). The one at Phantom Theater was located in the electrical room scene (one ghost was hanging upside down by a rope tied to his foot, while another ghost pulled the rope). The fence for the spark wall ran most of the length of the scene, so you could move along the fence as the cars went by.

None of this is true. I was a Rides Manager at the time, and worked as a "scare-actor" on several occasions on this attraction. The roles of "scare-actor" (in the moving ride area) were played by Rides supervisors, managers, and full-timers. All of these folks had to go through training & certification prior to being allowed to participate. They wore full-theater makeup, just like the actors in the houses. As mentioned above, each associate had to wear a belt harness and was tethered by a cable to prevent the associate from getting too close to the track and moving cars. They did not jump in cars, or on cars, throw things into cars, etc. Every other car was loaded so that the actors had time to reset between guests. This was prior to half the cars being removed for Boo Blasters, so capacity was roughly the same as the current capacity. The ride stopped once per hour for about 5 minutes to give the actors time to rotate stations & get a quick break. Effectively, all the cars were unloaded, the ride was powered down for rotation, then restarted. I recall the following "stations" (I'm sure there were more). - Associate jumping out of a door with a chainsaw - Spark wall, where an associate hit a metal wand against an electrified "fence" to create noise and sparks (really cool effect, very grueling and hot work) - Associate hitting the back of the cars with a foam mallet (no, it wasn't metal, no it wasn't enough to damage the cars) - Associates poking through various "windows" and "doors" to startle guests - Associate throwing a fake "head" at cars as they passed - essentially, a "head" attached to a series of two cables that allowed it to swing towards the cars, but stop way short of contacting guests Similarly, the actors working the top of Tower were also Rides managers.

Love this idea!

I'm surprised they didn't repaint The Racer this season. Historically, surrounding rides get some love when a big, new attraction is built. Racer desperately needs it!

Meh to the Bradys. I spend more time looking at the old ride signs (among other things) and wondering what happened to them

Love that Kyle & the park are sharing these. Is that Dave Focke in the video?

I know it's been mentioned many times before - but always thought a museum of some sort would be a nice add.

Would be nice to see one of these back. How about across the midway leading from Planet Snoopy (near the back restrooms) into Rivertown (by Flume)?

I think a solid dark ride is an integral part of a ride line-up. Boo Blasters has definitely seen better days. I rode it a few weeks ago and was surprised how "beat" it looked. Personally, I'd like to see something along the lines of a Toy Story Mania - interactive, but easier to maintain than a true mechanical attraction. Theme it to Peanuts. Maybe mix in some nods to old Kings Island attractions in some of the scenes?

My personal experience - the social distancing aspect went fairly well. I didn't feel crowded, and I didn't run into any folks in line who got too close. On the mask enforcement - I witnessed only one employee throughout our entire 6 hour visit who corrected a guest with a mask violation (kudos to the one associate at Panda Express in the Festhaus). I'd say about 25% of guests that I saw were not wearing them, or were wearing them incorrectly. I witnessed employees walk right past these individuals without saying anything. In fact, while in line for Boo Blasters, an associate came through the queue to clean the hand rails - literally asked a group, who was not wearing masks at all, to please move their hands to clean - no mention at all of the masks. I get that is sucks for both guests to both wear a mask, and associates to enforce it. I'm not pro-mask or anti-mask. But, if the park is going to make the rules, I think they need to go so far as to enforce it.

Paramount went through a kick in the mid-late 90's where they wanted a set of closed brakes between trains whenever possible. OLFoF used to skim through the mid-course brakes. As did Vortex. In my personal experience, both were much better prior to the change (especially Vortex). Both rides had limited runs in their original form after they received new control systems (or reprograms), but they didn't last long,

It was replaced in 1998 (I was supervisor in 97 and 98).

The Marketing an PR folks are paid well to cleverly drum up buzz on anything and everything. And they do a darn good job. How convinced were the local TV stations in the last few months that both Son of Beast was returning and Vortex was being torn down? Only to be completely wrong, but still get even more buzz about the truths? That takes talent. However, I will say that in exchange for the terribly long hours and the stress of running a theme park, one of the greatest joys of having worked at a park (especially for someone who had the knowledge of the "next big project") is to mess with people and watch the reactions :-) Remember the old Dippin Dots Guy theory? He didn't know. He probably didn't even think he knew. He just liked screwing with people :-)

I had very fond memories of the original Winterfest as a kid. I remember being extremely excited about the long-awaited return in 2005. Then, I remember being extremely disappointed in the overall experience in 2005. The 2017 Winterfest was the event I'd been waiting and hoping for, and am happy to be sharing with my family now.

I rarely post, and am terrible at keeping up on topics, so this may have already been discussed before. But has it ever been considered to create a forum on this site where members could post items they want to sell? Almost like a "classified ad" type of thing? Seller could list the item and a price, and if someone is interested, they could contact the seller via direct message. Auction sites suck, and the fees eat up so much of the profit - plus, sellers end up jacking up the prices to cover the cost. Deals fall through, people complain stuff is damaged in shipping, blah, blah, blah. Almost like a Facebook Marketplace kind of thing? If and when I sell some of this stuff, I'd prefer it go to someone who would appreciate it, and who I know will take care of it. As opposed to a random person on the Internet.