XGatorHead 8904

Overheard just inside Cedar Point's front gate yesterday: "Why's it called Gatekeeper? There's no gate anywhere."

Wut? Were bak in akshun zown? We aint bin thair sins that chikn shak ran us owt ov town! Now im all sortsa konfuzd! We had a nys noo hows n now were kikd owta thair 2? We wuz jest gittin cozie n that hows now we got 2 moov all tha pigys n stuf? Mama aint gunna lyk that 1 bit! -Sam U aint anywair neer az xited az me! -Sam I wunt 2 no 2! I hope mayb mama wil let me n tha rest ov tha famlie play in thair if were good. We need 2 git all r wurk dun furst! -Sam EDIT: Sorry about that. It always happens this time of year: the barrier between Sam and me becomes weaker and he's able to seep through easier. I've set him straight that according to the map in the "Plan Your Visit" section of the website that Slaughter House is staying exactly where it was last year so he doesn't have to worry about moving all the animals and equipment to another new location.

A little convenience store down the street from my house had one of those until it caught on fire a few years ago. I just happened to be driving past the store and saw the fire department the putting the fire out so I pulled into the lot. Unfortunately the trashcan didn't survive. It was tough to watch.

^There's also no reason for allowing people to vote multiple times other than to drive up the numbers for each park. It should be one vote and done.

Just got word, we weren't picked for the coffin race. Oh well, we'll get enough exercise in walking around the park for a day and a half! We'll make sure to watch the race though.

And as of now, Cedar Point's Halloweekends is #1 and Universal's HHN is #8??? Don't get me wrong, I love Halloweekends, but from what I've seen online (I've never been to HHN in person) Universal should be a lot higher.

Friday night, Cedar Point is holding its inaugural Coffin Races. Teams of five (4 pushers and 1 passenger) will race down the midway in coffins. Out of those that sign up, three groups will be chosen at random to participate. My group has signed up, hopefully we get picked. It's a unique way to kick off the Haunt season! https://www.cedarpoint.com/online-fun/coffinraces?mobile=0

^ And I see that you reused and recycled your post, too!

That's right, I forgot that you succumbed to the voodoo of the bayou!

I had been checking Cedar Point's website nearly every day for the past several weeks waiting to see details of this year's Halloweekends, and finally when I checked yesterday it was there! I'm doing my 6th Annual Halloweekends Opening Weekend Roadtrip next week and can't wait. This year I'm working a half-day on Friday so I can leave at 2:00 and be there at 6:00 instead of the usual leave at 6:00 and be there at 10:00 and have only two hours the first night (and then, of course, we'll be there all day Saturday). I'll be going with chugh43, Coaster Kid (who hasn't posted on here in quite some time) and a non-KIC member but longtime Haunt scareactor, Johnny. Sam and I are very excited to see Slaughter House. I already know that I'm going to have trouble keeping Sam in check when we go through. He's going to want to join in with his northern brethren and give them tips on the finer details of meat carving and trapping, but I'll have to keep telling him that he has to wait another week before he's allowed to have any fun. As it is, I may have to concede a little bit and allow him to wear his butcher hat and maybe his nametag too. I'm also looking forward to Fear-y Tales, but Slaughter House is near and dear to me and I love seeing how CP's versions compare to KI's (ie KI's Club Blood vs CP's Club Blood in the past, CP's Zombie High School vs KI's Kill Mart, CP's Cornstalkers vs KI's Cornstalkers, CP's Eden Musee vs KI's Madame Fatale's). And then of course my returning favorites, Cut Throat Cove, Eerie Estates, Eden Musee & Cornstalkers. So, that brings me to my annual question: will we be seeing the return of a certain pirate once again this year?

From what I could tell they did not. On Monday the signs at the food stands in the waterpark still said drinks only, but I didn't pruchase anything from them, just the main park.

Our plan was to go to Soak City yesterday and get food there, but thankfully I saw markr's post on Facebook about the waterpark only having the drink deals there. So, we entered the main gate at about 11:30 and went straight to Street Pizza. The line was not bad at all, we had our food within 10 minutes. We had gotten in line at just the right time, because when we exited, the line was back to Graeter's. We had our lunch at a table just outside Graeter's, and as we were finishing the doors to Sweet Spot opened up. We went there, waited in a short line and quickly got milk chocolate covered pretzel rods for the Gatorettes and a white chocolate covered Oreo for me. After Soak City, GatorGirl left with a friend and her parents, and Mrs. Gator and I headed back to the main park to see the 5:00 Off the Charts. We had some time before the show so we went to Tower Drinks around 4:30 and got some dollar hot dogs and dollar drinks, about 5 minutes total in that line. The lines for food were long at Soak City, even without the dollar deals on food there. I remember a few years ago waiting for dollar pizza there in an extremely long line. We timed our food purchases well yesterday; just at the beginning of the lunch rush and at the beginning of the dinner rush so we had a positive food experience.

...and yet I remember waiting over 60 minutes for it a few years ago, in 2011... I miss Jaws terribly. We last went to USO on July 18th, 2011. Jaws was one of my favorite rides of all time, and I was preparing a then 6 year old GatorGirl for it, telling her that it was one of my favorites and that there's a shark that attacks the boat but it's all pretend, nothing would hurt her. As she was playing at the Curious George play area, I pulled out the map and saw printed on there that Jaws would be closed from July 18th to whenever for maintenance. Now, I had checked USO's website before we left for Orlando for any planned ride closures and couldn't find them anywhere. WDW's website, on the other hand, was and still is excellent in letting the public know of any rides that will be down for maintenance. Needless to say, I was ticked. We had just been to MK the day before, and if I had known beforehand that Jaws would be closed starting the day that we were going, I would have switched our MK & USO days. Then to add further insult to injury, a few months later they announced that Jaws and Amity would be closing for good. Sigh. Now the last time I experienced it was June 1999, and GatorGirl will never get that pleasure.

I seem to remember attending a meeting on that with a few other people... and something about holding signs outside said meeting...

I'd love to see a campground back at the park... I never went to the old campgrounds, but that would be awesome waking up to The Bat or The Beast or whatever ride a new campground would be close to. I never stayed at KI's campground since I live so close to the park, but in 1995 I did stay at the campground at Carowinds. I loved waking up to the sounds of the coasters testing.

ORRRR.....how about this idea....why not have a sit down restaurant in the park and call it Decades with items from every era....fads, clothing, toys and Kings Island memorabilia on display from 72 to present? You could even have servers dressed in each era's clothing and sell popular food items from each era! I see your restaurant and raise you this idea: how about a whole hotel resort based on the decades? You could have different buildings for each decade and put giant icons out in front of each one: giant foosball outside the 70's, giant Rubik's Cubes outside the 80's and so on. And we could even go back and start with the the 50's and put a bowling alley themed pool in front of that building, and a few other pools to match some other decades. Wait... I've just been told that another park down south has already done this. Never mind... -Gator, a fan of WDW's Pop Century Resort, where we will hopefully be staying for a few days next summer, unless we decide to try Art of Animation.

I haven't seen that weight since I was in high school 25+ years ago. I was 5'11" 180 when I started college.

I like Scarowinds' backstory for their Slaughterhouse: https://www.carowinds.com/haunt/ride/Fury/cat/Mazes For the past couple of years I've been getting a group together to go there on their opening weekend, which this year is September 11 & 12th. It's the only weekend I can go since my Halloweekends trip is the following week and Haunt starts the week after that. I'll make sure to include you in the invite.

Power outage cancels memorial concert at site of fatal hayride accident: http://www.pollstar.com/news_article.aspx?ID=819877

We ended up not going to the zoo today, so I'll be there for the last show at least. I'll try to get up there for the 5:00 show too, but I have to cut my grass first (before the neighbors start to totally hate me).

Well, here's one parent who doesn't act like Miz Drysdale meeting hillbillies when my kid snaps (or tries to snap). GatorGirl is still a snapper-in-training. Every time we ride a set of scooters at any park, after each ride she inevitably asks me how she did on that one. This parent is more like another kid encouraging her on!

Better places to eat than Waffle House?!? Don't let Gordon Bombay hear you say that!

I know what you mean. I dragged Mrs. Gator & GatorGirl to see it this year. Their reactions: "It's the same as last year," and "Once was enough, I don't need to see it again." My reactions to their reactions: "No it's not, the basic premise is the same but there are different acts and it changes quite a bit throughout the season," and "WHAT?!?!?" So now one of my favorite things to do is this: We watch America's Got Talent every week. Whenever an acrobat performs on that show, I say "It's the same as last time they were on. I've already seen it once, I don't need to see it again," just to get my digs in at them. I saw Cirque four times last year, but this summer's been busier and I've only managed to see it once this year (with only 8 visits to the park this year compared to 15 at this time last year). We won tickets to the Cincinnati Zoo and we're planning on going there this Sunday, hopefully we'll be done in time to swing up to KI for the final performance... or at least me, the Gatorettes can do their own thing if they don't want to see it again. EDIT: Re-reading this post, it sounds like I'm very bitter towards the Gatorettes. I assure you, I'm not. To each their own, I just like to tease them a little about not liking the show as much as I do and as much as a lot of people here do too!

^And Carowinds, which reportedly encourages snapping.... their flyers are located where in the park? (He asks, knowing the answer...)

The waterfall's gone? That just shows how much I go in there since they changed it over to a massive smoking area.