KDCOASTERFAN

I managed to get in a couple of night rides on saturday's trip but was suprised to see that the lights were on in the tunnel,I ohh so hope that's not gonna be permanent even though I still had to drop my hands during that part of the course.

A thought just occured to me:if anyone has their camcorder or even a cell cam with them they can just record the whole incident & then forward that footage to GR so that they can see from a firsthand perspective just how out of control the situation is getting.I think that's the course of action I may take myself in the future when it comes to dealing with this situation myself.

Good for them! I hope they waited and met the line jumpers in the station of the ride. Make them wait as long as possible and throw them out! If they keep that up, people will learn pretty quick not to line jump there. Kings Island needs to get their act together and do the same thing. Maybe people that spit can go right along with them. Cedar Point also has cops that have guns too. I had to deal with line jumpers that felt the need to try to do something about me saying something to them. I just tell them that if you was to lay a hand on me that by all laws i can fight back and you can get halled off to jail for throwing the first punch. That and if you tryed to lie and say something different that the people in line can go against you. It dont matter if its one or a group. They can be sent to jail. I know that Cedar Point isnt happy with the way Kings Island did the 09 Platinum Passes. I know that i had to redo mine when i went to Cedar Point cause i couldnt get in the park. I got a new one for free so i was happy. I know most was mad about it but its not Cedar Point's fault. That's the thing with CP,they employ officers from the Sandusky police dept. to help keep order in the park while all of the others rely on rent a cops to enforce the rules & of course most people aren't half as concerned about getting busted by an underpaid,overworked rent a cop than they are a fully fledged law enforcement officer so it's no wonder things like line jumping get so out of hand.

I can share your frustrations with line jumping....same thing happened to my friend & I yesterday at KD while in line for Dominator when this kid has the nerve to cut in front of us to join the rest of his group after getting out of line for something & then to make matters worse a whole group of people standing in the empty section of the queue(that wasn't being used) decide that they want to hop the rail to join their friends,who were standing right in front of us.It was at that point that I'd had enough & just left the queue because I wasn't gonna put up with that nonsense....after all if I want line jumpers I'll go to SFA but won't tolerate that BS at KD.

Come on guys it's just the name for the event the park plans to hold nothing more.

The tunnel on grizzly always gets me no matter how many times I ride it.....how did you get video in the FOF station? I got reprimanded by the ops just for taking a photograph of the train on opening day.

That's because KD always had that theming throughout much of the park to begin with.How was grizzly running? I'll be going on saturday to get my first laps of the season in since the ride has been closed for maintenance the first two times I've visited this year.

You should thank them. The way those restraints are designed, they only have a maximum of 4 clicks. On both The Beast and The Racer, all riders are required to lower the lap bar a minimum of 2 clicks in order to ride. Had you not been able to get the second click, you would NOT have been permitted to ride. Technically, it is not the ride operators responsibility to get your second click if you cannot get it yourself. They could have simply not permitted you to ride. I can get more than four clicks on a PTC ratcheting bar so that's not what the limit is,at least on KD's woodies.For some reason though the bars seem to be a much tighter fit than last year so perhaps they must've done something to them during the off-season. As for DB:there's no way you are gonna slip out of those restraints,B&M know what they're doing from the engineering side of things & as long as a rider doesn't do anything stupid to try to defeat the safety systems they should be just fine.

That is one of the reasons I prefer Vekoma Fliers. B&M's are way less comfortable, Even with 2 Trains they Stack and I mean stack for about 10 Minutes- All the Blood rushes to your head. Plus the 2 I have Ridden (S:UF Clones) Are forceless Minus the Pretzel Loop. Firehawk is a great ride, it has forces, smooth ride, comfortable ride, great layout, and more. Theres only two things I do not like about Vekoma Fliers, if you ride during day your eyes Burn on the lift hill, and the restraints make my hair statical. Ever been stuck on Firehawk's brake run with the sun in your eyes? I had that happen on batwing a couple years ago & it wasn't pleasent but still it's better than being face down with your body weight in the harness the entire time.

Seems like a few of us have had negative childhood experiences on Beastie/Ghoster coaster,which when we think of it today is tame compared to the bigger coasters we've since grown not to fear,but to enjoy....case in point was me at the age of 8 being dragged onto KD's version by my mom & hating the whole experience swearing off coasters for good as a result that is until a 1989 trip to SFA(then wild world) & a ride on wild one changed all of that forever. Now whenever I'm in the park I spend more time riding the coasters than anything else...although I'll stop & hit a flat here & there to even things out.

Didn't CF institute a mandatory ride closure policy on their coasters chainwide in the event of rain following the low speed collision on magnum a couple years ago? When I was at KD last weekend (before the monsoon hit) they shut down rebel yell north(running only one train all day) due to a very light rain. You're correct regarding the proxies though because as part of the coaster's blocking system if even one burns out then the system has no way of detecting wether or not a train is present in the effected block so the ride shuts down automatically but in this instance IIRC a compressor on the MCBR failed & that's what caused the ride to be evacuated.....when the brakes fail due to such things as a loss in power or air pressure they default to the closed position to stop a train in the event of an emergency & require air pressure to release the calipers to allow the train to proceed.

Oh, really? Well we don't know what the ride type or material is yet as we don't have access to the detailed site plan sketches,it could be a hyper due to the fact that they mention water requirements but that could also mean that they need to make changes to the drainage system for the waterpark. My best guess is either another woodie(giving the park a total of 5 ),a hyper or a flyer as those are the only two steel coasters that KD's currently lacking but it could very well be an impulse coaster since the park is in need of a shuttle coaster ever since King Kobra was removed in 1986.

Right now we don't know all the details pertaining to the new 2010 coaster project just yet & just because Kinzel Jr. is the GM of Carowinds doesn't mean that the park is all of a sudden going to become spoiled rotten. I wouldn't mind finding out what area of land within the park the parcel # listed on the site plan pertains to,I have a feeling that the coaster isn't going in the clearing behind anaconda & across from FOF but may go somewhere behind hurler or rebel yell...or quite possibly north from the HS:XLC area & through old virginia instead but only time will tell.

Yeah just look at KD's website & you'll find a pic of CGA's top gun/flight deck on the right side.

I don't think so,last year KD kept Dominator running for a good hour past closing when I went in july & they still had plenty of folks in the queue left to cycle through.I don't know if the KI ads are similar to the KD ones we've got here but it seems as if CF is taking the "six flags approach" this year by showing footage of other parks along with the park they're marketing....I saw one ad last night in which they were trying to pass off KBF's Ghost Rider as one of KD's coasters ughh.

Well CP has an Intamin and B&M Invert. Valley Fair needs it more though, even though they also have an Intamin Invert, they don't have a good looper. There's a bit of a difference since WT is an impulse shuttle coaster & Raptor is a full circuit model.I'd like to see volcano replaced by a B&M invert myself but it's simply not gonna happen unfortunately.

Grizzly is currently down for rehab & won't reopen till May,I heard that Americana should be up & running by this w eekend but unfortunately it wasn't when I visited on opening day.

Since Vortex is an Arrow design I assume it has the same style belts as KD's Anaconda.The belt simply extends/retracts from the middle of the seat bottom(between your legs) & clips into a buckle attached to the bottom part of the harness....which on Anaconda is good because the harness tends to pop up a few clicks when I'm riding it.

Judging by what I've seen with KD's installation of Dominator this season that may be a correct assumption save for the lockers.Dominator uses the separate front row lane & has the huge queue TV's set to play the commercials over & over during one's wait in line but they also added a DJ booth as well. Most B&M's have a 54 inch restriction so that presumption for DB seems to be spot on as well.

I think they'll go with a simple yet effective station house design much like what was used on both Behemoth & Dominator.

I'm sure that CF has great long term plans for most,if not all of the former paramount parks,they just need to pace themselves & not jump into things too fast like SF did nearly a decade ago to avoid a similar situation. Diamondback will make a great & much needed addition to KI especially in terms of capacity & just the overall quality of the ride experience & along with that CF will see that,just like the addition of Dominator brought in the crowds this year at KD DB will do the same for KI in 09 & thus prove to CF that the park is worthy of large cap ex investments in the future. After SF made a mess of things with their parks over the past decade or so I was (and still am) a little worried about what the future of the former paramount parks will be,I'd hate to see these great parks end up in a state of disrepair & neglect the way so many of the SF parks formerly managed by premier did because many of those parks were beginning to turn things around just before SF's spending spree ruined them.

Already Americana,El Dorado & Black Squid are on site at KD so that's one CF park that is benefitting from GL's selection of flats.

At least KI still has a train ride,KD's got ripped out for that god awful POS Hurler back in 94 even though it wasn't anything to really write home about. I ohh so hate it when parks let their themed rides decay the way BLSC's theming/special effects have....same thing goes for the pre-show video they once had in FOF's queue every time the trains would launch.Why bother with the added expense of installing animatronic effects on a ride when two years later they aren't going to be working anymore any way?

Depends on when you go,on my trip in july they had all trains going on the woodies save for rebel yell left side.As for Dominator I recommend front row outside left...the best seat in the house IMHO.

While BGE has the theming it's sorely lacking in rides(mainly flats) & the hilly terrain coupled with the overall park layout really didn't leave a good impression on me when I visited 11 years ago. If you go to KD you should have a good time on some great coasters,namely Dominator & Grizzly...Rebel yell is ok but nothing to write home about & Volcano is just a complete bore to me.I should hope that they see fit to add a decent invert with better pacing & a lift in the near future but the flats package that's pretty much assured for 09 will also add more variety to the park for the time being.