shadowscare

I did not receive an email; just a note on the app. Keep in mind your password is linked to your account, not just the app. Did you try to reset your password through a computer instead? You may have better luck that way as the problem may be a bug in the app.

You 'da real MVP. Thank you! Those times are reasonable. Looking forward to visiting tomorrow!

^This. It's obvious the line for Orion is crazy long. I'm more interested in the other 95% of the park.

Uh... No. I'm going. Those that can't follow instructions are the ones that should stay home. People like you that occasionally adjust their mask aren't the ones I'm concerned about. Though as a previous poster mentioned, I'd be lifting up the glasses to defog them not the mask. For your next trip though, pick up some defogging solution on Amazon. Works great! Granted, if the park is full of idiots than we'll just leave. But from the reports I'm reading that shouldn't be necessary.

Hopefully Don is there to open a can of whoopass. Anybody refusing to social distance, jumping the line, not wearing a mask? Pull them out and put them at the end of the line. A second reminder? Boot 'em. Take a hard-line early.

I guarantee you I will not be shy about telling people to give me space. I'll ask nicely once. ONCE. After that I'm calling security. There is no excuse for that level of stupidity. None. I'll give the general operations of the park a lot of leeway as they stumble through this new normal. I fully expect slow and uneven food service, ride operations, etc. And that's fine. But pandemic safety enforcement should not and cannot be a stumbling block.

If you're up front, what time did you arrive?

To the boots on the ground providing live updates, I really, really appreciate it. It is a tremendous help for our visit tomorrow.

But... but... muh FrEeDoM! Constitution! Tyranny! Socialism! And other scary sounding words I'll use out of context!

A couple things that stick out to me... 1. I'm very surprised every row of the queue is available. I thought they would only allow every other row for social distancing purposes. You may be 6 feet away from the person in front of you, but only a couple feet from the person on the rail next to you. 2. Hard to tell from the video but it looks like they're allowing riders in each row. I'm also surprised by this; is each row 6 feet apart? I've read that's the case with wing coasters.

True but they also weren't limiting the number of guests in the park. That said, you raise a very good point. I'm now thinking riding first thing, or, maybe we'll take two cars and the oldest and I can hit it closer to park close. But I'll still be watching tomorrow!

You're probably right but what I'm curious to see is... how long? 45 minutes long? 2 hours long? If it's the former I'll wait until later in the day, and start off at Woodstock, Flying Ace, and Stunt Coaster for our younger kids. At that point they'll probably be ready for The Beast and Mystic Timbers. Ride Orion mid day while my wife and younger kids ride Racer, Adventure Express, The Bat, etc. If it ends up being in the 2 hour range, we'll probably want to head there first thing and then track back to Woodstock and Stunt Coaster. I'll be very curious to read the reports tomorrow evening; not just on Orion, but throughout the park. Regardless, I'm just excited to go and our kids are just over the moon.

I haven't tried the health screening yet, but if it makes you feel any better KI's IT is failing today. I added all 5 of our passes on the app. Now that I try to fully process them online, only 4 out of 5 work. And of those 4, only one of them will take the photo upload. It says it's successful, but nothing saves. Been on hold on the phone for a while now.

For all those attending on the second, I hope you're able to provide a detailed report of the first day! We're going on Friday, and with young kids of differing heights, we're not sure the best way to snag a ride on Orion. We could hit it first thing, but then we're concerned some of the lower capacity rides for our younger kids like Woodstock Express, Flying Ace, and Stunt Coaster may get longer lines before we can get back to that area. Or head there first for short waits, and hope the line for Orion settles down later in the day for our oldest son. It will be interesting to see what the ebb and flow of the limited crowds looks like, and how it relates to reduced capacity on the rides.

Yes, there will be fireworks both Friday and Saturday night. It will be the standard nightly show. Source: myself, a pyrotechnician.

Was beginning to think I was the only one that noticed this. Or at least was willing to admit it. Haunt '09 pales in comparison to Haunt '08. Don't get me started on the anticlimactic opening at the front gate. Talk about let down. If the monsters gave anything more than a half-hearted effort to scare people, I would agree with you. But as you said at the start of your post, it's almost as if the event was dulled down. Don't get me wrong, there were some monsters that were giving it their all. But on the whole, it was not what it was or what it should/could be. Death Row was a joke (was great fun in '08), Slaughterhouse was not scary at all, and for all the hype about Massacre Manor it was pretty weak. Trail of Terror was pretty good, and CarnEvil was ok, but the 3-D theming and effect was great. And then there's park operations... ONE train operation on several coasters on a Friday night?

Ah... I've been looking forward to this all year. Last year was my first ever trip to the Haunt, and I was blown away. This year we had a couple Haunt rookies! Woo-hoo! So below is trip report. Possible spoilers are below; I did my best to reveal as little as possible. Friday night, October 16th. We arrived at the park around 6:30, happy to see Invertigo and Diamondback warming up. Considering the cold and misty rain, this was a welcome sign! Kudos to KI for getting the rides going in the elements. Thankfully the rain never got worse than a light drizzle, and we hardly noticed it throughout the night. As we wait outside the gate I'm getting pretty excited for the opening. As 7:00pm nears I notice there's not nearly as much fog building behind the gate as last year. Then the countdown 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... the gates lift. And powering through comes a mass of... huh? Make that a TRICKLE of ghouls and goblins. And there was little to no fog as we passed through the entrance. Much different from my previous experience. We took off toward Firehawk, knowing that line would get insane as the night rolled on. But... where's the fog? There was a small machine here and there, but last year I could barely see right in front of me on the walk to the back of the park. Anyway... we hit the front seat of Firehawk, first train out. Good times as always. Then a haunt! Below is a list of the Haunts we hit. But first let me make something clear: I'm not a haunted house snob. If I get spooked a few times and the monsters inside are somewhat into it, I'm happy. So on with the reviews... Death Row This haunt received mixed reviews last year but when I went through in 2008 it was pretty impressive. Thick fog, disorienting strobe, and inmates popping out everywhere. Not so much this year. Still had the strobe, but less fog, and just a handful of imates that were apparently told "hey, don't jump out at this group of 4 guys. Just stand around, and tell them how the Buckeyes will lose tomorrow." Funny considering none of us was wearing any OSU gear. Even funnier that he was right! By the time we exited we all had the same reaction. "That sucked." So on a scale of 1 to 10... Theme: 4 Scarefactor: 0. Yes, I know it's a scale from 1 to 10. This wasn't even worthy of a 1. CarnEvil 3-D Glasses eh? So are these really going to... oh wow. WOW that is cool! We really enjoyed ourselves in this one. The hall of mirrors was pretty disorienting, and we were spooked a couple times by the scareactors. Not very scary overall, but it was great fun. Theme/Setting: 8 Scare Factor: 4 Trail of Terror Walked behind Firehawk to find a nearly empty line. Nice! This was by far the best haunt of the night. Walking back into the dark forest with the eerie quiet was creepy. We got nailed a few times on the trail. I won't spoil the location for anyone, but whoever swung out of the tree right towards my face (no contact, thankfully!) nearly made me wet my pants. Still, the trail seemed sparsely populated. That said we had a great time back there. Highly recommended. Theme/Setting: 8 Scare Factor: 7 Massacre Manor Known as one of the better haunts in the park we were looking forward to this. The dark facade and the narrow entry way set a great tone for this haunted house.The scareactor hiding in the hall with the fabric hanging down got us good. But after that it was pretty tame. If you work the Haunt, here's a tip. Just standing there staring at us is not scary. Theme/Setting: 6 Scare Factor: 2 Slaughterhouse Again, another Haunt with mixed reviews, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Considering the name, I expected lots of blood, guts, and gore. If that's your thing, you won't be disappointed. I'm not a big fan myself (take it or leave it), but I have to give credit to KI on this one. The guy in the intro room going over the rules was well into character, and looked like he could snap at any moment. Nicely done. From the music, to the scenes, to the actors, they hit a home run on the theme. Now scaring visitors? Not so much. I mean we walked through the hall of dangling carcases, and nobody is in there? Really? Big opportunity missed there. And the car would've been scary had we not been able to see it plain as day before it charged at us. Well done theme, but didn't deliver at all with the scares. Theme/Setting: 9 Scare Factor: 1 Your mileage may vary but I gotta tell ya on the whole I was not impressed with the Haunts. Last year we only did Death Row, Urgent Scare, and Tombstone Territory. TT was just ok, but the other two were pretty good. Something this year was off. Rarely did anyone bother to attempt to startle us (other than TOT), and for the most part the scareactors seemed uninspired. I'm not sure what the deal was but it was a far cry from 2008. Other than the Firehawk we also rode Diamondback twice which was great fun. We had to wait 50 minutes for our first ride but that's no biggie. Back seat is where it's at on this one. Holy ejector air, Batman! Flight Deck was a walk on so we hopped in the front seat. Little did I know this ride has an "Awesome" dial , and apparently it was turned up to the max. I've always enjoyed this ride, but wow that thing was out of control on Friday! We immediately got right back on for another spin. Flight of Fear was entertaining as always, though those mid-course brakes grabbed HARD. Unfortunately Drop Tower was not open, and Delirium broke down. Can't win them all, right? After seeing many people bash The Crypt on this site I had to find out for myself. Uh... yeah. Pretty weak. Much to our surprise there as a lot of 1-train operation. Racer, Stunt Coaster, and even The Beast were only offering solo runs with lines moving at a snails pace. Booooooooooo. They weren't very long lines people wise, but they weren't moving. We ended up skipping all three because of it. I realize the weather isn't the greatest, but c'mon. I also noticed the lack of roamers. Only saw one knee-slider, and where were the guys pushing around carts of body parts? There also was not a single scareactor lurking in the heavy fog areas. The only thing I can figure is that the cold, damp weather caused a lot of employees to no-show. Haunt 2009 was nowhere near our experience from Haunt 2008. Hopefully that changes for next year. Don't get me wrong, when all is said and done we had a good time, and look forward to 2010. Hopefully Kings Island will crank it back up a notch.

Well played!

This is the best news I've heard all day!!!

True. But has he mentioned any of the others? I would imagine Racer will be running, since it's also a wood coaster. Add Flight of Fear to that list as well, since it's indoors. Vortex? Firehawk? Stunt Coaster? Invertigo? Diamondback?!?! I'll be interested to see if any of these are operating.

I saw the same thing so we're going for it. The Interpreter brings up a good point that the weather could be the same or worse at the end of the month. I just hope a lot of rides are open despite the cold. I haven't had a lot of free time this summer and have been looking forward to riding Diamondback at the Haunt as I have yet to ride it. Crazy, I know! I'm guessing it will probably be a mixed bag with half of the rides operating. Should make for some great stories riding coasters at midnight in 38 degree temps!

If you do please post a mini trip report. I'm curious to know what rides will be open with the cold temps as I'm going on Friday.

The verdict is: Nope! Coupon is only good during the day on Saturday, as Friday night is already discounted. Regardless, considering online tickets are available for $22 it's a non-issue in my book. Have to say the person I spoke with on the phone was extremely friendly and helpful.

I was planning on going to the Haunt this Friday (10/16) but the weather is looking ugly. High of 45 and rain. Considering the cold there's a good chance several coasters won't be open, so now I'm kind of on the fence. Unfortunately the only other evening I'll be able to go this month is Friday, October 30th. Any idea if this will be doable or will it be CRAZY busy? I'm guessing crazy busy but figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Sheesh... the weather has not been cooperating with the Haunt this year.

In the Entertainment Book there is a "Fall Savings" coupon for $15 admission. Can this be used for the Haunt? It doesn't say on the coupon either way. I realize that only drops it down to $20 (instead of $22), but just wondering. But that the same time, I want to be at the gate and ready with ticket in hand for the opening when all the creatures come running out. I mean, is it worth the hassle buying tickets at the gate?