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PKIDelirium

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Posts posted by PKIDelirium

  1. The “it’s not really a giga” claims drive me nuts. Apollo’s Chariot is an undisputed hyper, but with a sub-200 structure and terrain first drop. KI building a giga that way is a very KI way of building a giga because of our history with using the available terrain in ride designs.

    • Like 5
  2. 4 hours ago, Oldschool75 said:


    Nope. I would have said. “We we’re #1”.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Apparently I’m the only person on here other than you that’s seen the movie a current attraction is named after.

  3. To answer the thread title's question, I'm going to say the original Antique Cars. Paramount was bad at putting things where they didn't fit, like building IJST using less than half of that land instead of Action Zone where it would actually fit the theme of the area. Action Zone itself was meant to be a backlot, but instead they bulldozed a large area, an attraction the park itself was designed around, and just thunked it down there while leaving the rest of the property a bunch of flat grass.

    Regarding Diamondback, I'm sure it would be done differently now in a more area-fitting way, but the early Cedar Fair years focused more on catching up on things Paramount had lagged on, especially the spree of building B&M hypers. Maybe if Paramount hadn't done IJST how they did, Diamondback's station area could have taken the place of the closed Rivertown Antique Cars area and crossed the pathway using the lift hill instead of the drop, without removing the lake. The return run could have been a tunnel under the midway to get back to that side of the path for the finale element and brakes.

    Obviously there's no way to bring back Swan Lake as it was, but there's a lot of open grass on both sides of the pathway there, behind Showplace and also across from Diamondback that's sat vacant for a very long time now. A new lake as an entry to Rivertown could use both of those areas, with the pathway bridging over it. Diamondback's repaint is a welcome step in making it blend in more, but things like landscaping around the pool, upgrading and theming the queue, replanting the excessive number of removed trees behind the former Crypt building to better obscure the back half of the ride, there's plenty of things that can be done just with theme and landscape work to fit the area better.

    (There is still a box of broken flip phones that forms the "theming" for the queue. That got old ten years ago, guys.)

    • Like 2
  4. It's probably both a matter of a new spinning ride getting broken in, and there's probably also a mechanism where every car has to be set to the same rotation limit. People keep saying some spin easily but others barely spin even with a lot of power, so they're probably just not all matched yet.

    2 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

    Not sure where this idea that Zamperla is a discount manufacturer comes from. They are the premier flat ride manufacturer by a mile. 

    It seems a certain person thinks that these rides are supposed to be direct replacements for Keggers and Skylab.

    • Like 2
  5. 7 hours ago, AintNutinElse2Do said:

    While not a huge difference per Zamperla's website the 48 seater is 1.5 meters larger in diameter (likely just how double seats would center versus single) and .4 meters more in height during operation (that part I'm not sure what makes up the difference unless the seat connection hardware is slightly taller) 

    I'm guessing the seat carriers themselves are slightly different as on the 24 they only have a single attachment for each seat, instead of the hardware needed to attach a two-seat pod. Otherwise I'm pretty sure they're the same mechanically.

    • Like 1
  6. Nope, those were just plain wood walls.

    Sol Spin’s foundation makes sense now. There hadn’t been anything visible for the side braces of the ride structure to attach to, only the row of main attachments, but now it seems they drilled and chemically anchored the bolts for those during assembly.

    • Like 4
  7. I know I’m picking nits about concrete here, but the ET photos have me convinced they actually did cut out and replace the part at the edge of Mercado. It’s a very clean line, and the new surface is exactly the same shade as what was poured for the AE entrance last week. A slightly deeper shade than the midway right next to it, which has been in place for over a month and had time to weather in compared to the new.

    And now back to construction, lol.

    • Like 3
  8. https://www.zamperla.com/products/endeavour/

    Zamperla’s page seems to indicate that the 24-seat model is trailer mount and the 48-seat is a park model. It’s unclear though, because one of their photos is a 48 seat park installation but the foundation is different than what is at KI.

    Regarding the concrete, they already had a crew there pouring shaded concrete for the AE plaza and touching up around Cargo Loco, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they just cut and removed the existing concrete and poured new along the Mercado. It’s not THAT much work to remove a section and replace it during the week while they still have time to modify it.

    • Like 2
  9. 11 hours ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

    I noticed this yesterday evening. I am guessing this will be the entrance sign into Adventure Port.

    Nah, that’s just the SlingShot tribute statue.

    52 minutes ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

    One interesting change that Kings Island made this past week was that they ripped out part of the plain concrete from edge of the Mercado patio bordering the midway and replaced it with the colored concrete of the midway. I really like this change. It makes the midway seem a lot less like a bottleneck compared to before even though it is technically the same size. Before, it seemed a lot tighter than it was. I attached two Kings Island Central pictures for reference. One is from April 14, and the other is from this past weekend.

    Nice catch, didn’t notice that. It was strange to have the Mercado concrete so far outside the bounds of Mercado itself and into the actual midway. Someone must have realized that and decided to fix it before daily operation started, looks a lot nicer and will be even better once the construction fence is down.

    I’m pretty sure Mercado’s concrete has some shading to it. Subtle, but compare it to the ride queues or stand on the Mercado directly and look between your feet and the cap on the skyride foundation. It’s kind of a steel blue.

    • Like 2
  10. Using the ride foundations and queues for contrast, I'm pretty sure the Mercado deck's concrete has some shading in it. It's not blatant, but there's some light blue/steel grey or something in there. Up close, just compare the new cap on the old Skyride foundation to the Mercado surface right next to it.

    • Like 1
  11. For a company that started off with two LARGE coaster projects in a row, the initial Timberliner woes that led Holiday World to bring GCI in for a while, and some of their rides having problems with being high-maintenance, Gravity Group has really struck gold with the all-wood prefab track system. Racer's retracking and profile adjustments turned out great, and the following major Beast project provided a much needed, well-executed overhaul.

    Fun Spot is opting for RMC ReTrak on some parts of Mine Blower, but I heard Voyage has started getting some of the new Gravity Group track. Considering how finicky Voyage has been over the years with conventional track, hopefully that works out well for them and they can get it back to more like how it ran when it was new.

    • Like 2
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