Pagoda Gift Shop

Not the front seats, but some B&M trains come with what are sometimes referred to as "big boy" seats which have seats and restraints that can hold larger guests that might not fit in the standard restraint. These seats tend to be in the middle of the train somewhere. It seems to be very hit or miss which B&M coasters have them. I don't believe any of the B&M coasters at Kings Island or Cedar Point have them.

David Fornshell, the Warren Country prosecutor was on 700 WLW earlier this week and discussed the Kings Island incident. He indicated that significant changes have been made to the security posture of the park in connection with Mason police. This matches what many here have already reported regarding seeing more security presence. He also indicated that his office is continuing to identify individuals from the incident in order to press charges. This is a tedious process and involves following individuals backwards thru video footage all the way back to the time they enter the park. I assume they can then correlate the video along with the season pass entry data.

Yeah, but not outside the shed...which is where we and most trains were stopping. Go in the shed, go in the shed, g-g-go in the shed...

I agree with silver2005's assessment from yesterday. We were in Planet Snoopy quite a bit, and it was not as crowded there as in other parts of the park. Boo Blasters was about a 30 minute wait mid-afternoon. We rode Mystic Timbers, Adventure Express, and Racer. In all 3 cases, operations seemed slower than normal, mostly because it seemed like more workers are needed on the platforms. All 3 were stacking routinely.

My goodness those food lines. I wonder what percentage of people waiting in line for food have a meal plan.

One concern I have is that Fast Lane might impact the adoption of additional technology in the parks. Now that everyone carries a phone, seems like we shouldn't be too far from being able to do more virtual queuing using the KI app and something like kiosks at the ride entrances. I worry that the park won't consider things like that because it might impact Fast Lane sales.

Finally got around to ordering a copy of the new book. After following this thread for the past couple years, I'm so glad this is being published. I hope it does well.

I'm really glad the park has brought back ERT. Looking at the list, it looks like they made some very good decisions by making sure Orion is always included, as well as Great Pumpkin Coaster. ERT is really different between Cedar Point and Kings Island. Hotels full of people are the main reason. Steel Vengeance continues to be a maintenance hog at Cedar Point. It also sees heavy crowds from open to close. Orion is probably the most comparable ride, but it doesn't appear to need anywhere near the same amount of nightly maintenance. A more comparable situation would be if The Beast were busy from open to close with very large crowds. Notice that The Beast is not listed for any ERT. If we guess why, it is likely related to the lengthy time it takes to check it every morning. So far there is no indication any line closing policy has been changed. It seems to me it would have been changed already due to the noise complaints rather than any operational costs. Most of crowds at Kings Island seem to leave before evening, which is why they have nightly fireworks and Grand Carnivale. So far we've been told Coasterstock is returning and so is ERT. That's +2 over 2020 already.

Username Bbygurl1212? First post? Troll.

Part of me says, "wow, that's a rare collector's item." And another part says, "It cost $230 for a track piece and they couldn't even get the label plate correct?"

As of this evening, they de-listed the track pieces from the Kings Island Gear website. I assume they will be back tomorrow.

I would have to think that goal #1 for 2021 is just to open every park in some capacity. Even then, that might be very challenging to achieve.

Watching the Son of Beast POV reminded me of the kicker tire at the top of the lift before the first drop. There is something terribly wrong with that from a design perspective. Heading into the 2nd hill on Son of Beast is still the roughest element of any roller coaster I've experienced. It wasn't awful every time, and depended on where you were sitting, but there were times where it felt like the train was bouncing all over the place to navigate that hill and turn into the rose bowl.

My theory would be that Kings Island already sells a lot of season passes to families with 3-5 year olds. The loss of making all those passes "free" would need to be compensated by the amount of additional passes and business they would get by attracting families with 3-5 year olds who do not have passes. Another theory would be that they might offer it eventually. They do sometimes try out different concepts at different parks to see how they perform. Although I believe most other Cedar Fair parks do offer it at this point.

I was at an event at Holiday World about 15 years ago where they did a charity auction for several road and guide wheels. I have since regretted not making more of an effort to get one.

Orion...3.8% better than Diamondback.

Here's a picture from the Cedar Point webcam from a few years ago. This was taken during the season in July, late at night. I've heard in the past that Cedar Point/Fair have been way ahead of the curve in terms of the testing @jsus describes. While we can't know for sure what they were doing, it goes to show that the maintenance department is very much on top of testing and monitoring track issues.

If it is a track issue, they might be doing work such as welding after hours and when the park is closed this week.

There was a blog post about The Vortex track pieces selling out. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2020/october/track-pieces-from-retired-Vortex-roller-coaster-go-on-sale-sell-out-fast The first and only comment on the post at the moment is "any chance of more of these?"

Yeah I don't really have a problem with the eBay sales, mostly because these were not a gift or gratuity. In order to get one, someone had to actually go to the park and buy one. Add to this the fact that many of these will likely be purchased by other coaster enthusiasts around the country who did not have an opportunity to buy one otherwise. I applaud the park for their effort to make these available. I hope that they were pleased with the interest level and the results. I hope they and other parks will continue to do these sorts of things in the future. Kings Island is a well-known regional amusement park. I think there would have been a decent amount of sales from the national and international coaster community if these had been available online also.

I'm happy for @Vortex1987. Thanks to @IceePirate for being so considerate.

I'm sure they would look a lot better if mounted on a plaque. From the picture it looks like they are about 3 feet in length, that makes them a lot harder to display easily.

I get the nostalgia, but those are some pretty ugly pieces of metal.

I think full scale lighting packages are on the rise for coasters. Take a look a Monster at Adventureland or HangTime at Knott's Berry Farm as examples. There has been discussion lately about how Kings Island has great night rides. I think whenever the next coaster is added, that an extensive lighting package would be great; especially if it is in Vortex's spot where it can be seen easily from the midway.

Seems somewhat indirectly related to French Quarter Confections which opened in a new building at Cedar Point this season.