malem

There's rarely a good reason for anyone to send a PM requesting to take conversations off-site. This is doubly so for a newly registered user with zero posts. For what it's worth, I've received three different PMs from this user today asking if I had Skype, then asking for my username. I politely declined to provide it.

Excellent report and pictures! You took a lot more of them than I did, and somehow I avoided every single one. Thanks for posting, and sorry I took your parking space! Slight addendum - the small log flume (Race For Your Life Charlie Brown), being part of Planet Snoopy, was actually operating. No one in the group was brave enough to ride it in those temperatures, of course.

That was an excellent and detailed trip report - it's obvious that you had a great time. Thanks for sharing! It was great meeting you at the park; I'm sorry that the bigger group meet-up time didn't work out for you. (Next time, hopefully!) Once upon a time, one could ride The Beast with that style of seating.

True, but you can be rude without resorting to name calling. Several of the posts seemed rude to me, hence my comment. Everyone is different, which is why it's important to be as respectful as possible if you want to keep conversations civil. I couldn't agree more. My comment wasn't intended to imply that disagreement is "pointless drama". Rather, I was trying to make a point about social media sites seeming to thrive on "drama" that doesn't necessarily advance the discussion of the topic-at-hand. The purpose of these sites is to be as interesting (read "entertaining") as possible, so users keep checking their feeds every 2 minutes. Discussion threads, on the other hand, are best to read when they're civil and on-point. I should have been clearer with that comment; thanks for pointing that out.

Discussions tend to work best without people being needlessly rude or needlessly defensive. A little bit of respect can go a long way. This isn't a posting on Twitter or face book. The objective of a discussion thread is to have a civil conversation, not to create pointless drama for the sake of entertainment.

I was asking how you knew NOTHING had been designed yet? Don has stated that planning for the cleared land will begin after Son of Beast is removed. Management at Cedar Fair likes riding coasters, too. I'm sure options for this plot of land, among others, get a lot of thought on a continuous basis. I agree 100%. When you post to a forum, you're inviting others to engage in civil debate and discussion. This may include disagreements and rebuttals. If your opinion about Kings Island is contrary to what the park's PR manager has announced numerous times, expect to be called out. I've certainly made misstatements here, and I'm grateful to anyone who calls me out on it. What follows those words usually is personal. Could we please keep this debate civil? Also, sarcasm gets old quickly.

Considering that this is November, you have a pretty long wait. Pay attention to meet-ups that are being discussed, and show up to one. Threads about them are in the "meet ups" forum: http://www.KICentral...ntral-meet-ups/ . The bigger meet-ups, like this one, will have lots of replies. Read the thread for details on how to find the others, and reply to let everyone know you're coming. Do be on time at any designated meeting location, or you might miss the group. Lots of people missed us on closing day.

^ Cedar Fair is concentrating resources on its core assets, where management believes the biggest growth potential exists. This standalone water park, nowhere near Knott's Berry Farm, was not a core asset of Cedar Fair. The San Diego assessor has the land and improvements valued at just over $20M, so it's reasonable to assume that Cedar Fair got at least that much. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, this is very close to the estimated annual expenditure for hotel renovations at Cedar Point.

Ah, I didn't notice the 2012 total there, thanks. It seems I was comparing incomparable numbers rather than noticing any drop in the rider count. My guess is that Soak City rides are included in the grand total but aren't broken out on the page. Maybe Dinosaurs Alive and Haunt walk-throughs as well - Snoopy's Splash Dance is listed as a "ride".

From Kings Island's website: Are excessive WindSeeker downtime, the absence of The Crypt, a lost week of Diamondback, and perhaps more accurate counting enough to explain the 10% (2.6M rides) drop?

DA is also yet another way to make a field trip to the park "educational", which I'm sure is helpful in marking to schools. Besides that, It's something the entire family can do together, and it offers a break from the hustle and bustle of the more-typical amusement park attractions. The fact that it's expanding to yet more parks after 2 years at KI says a lot about its continued success among its target audience. KI said that this area would receive periodic updates to keep it fresh when they first announced it last year. If you want families to keep paying to visit an exhibit year after year, you have to keep it updated. That's not the place for a high-capacity attraction - DA's admission is designed to keep crowds thin. (Specifically, re-entry isn't allowed.) Expanding the dinosaur theme to a third "attraction" beyond DA and Action Theater could be interesting, though. It would certainly increase interest in DA.

When I was at Cedar Point, someone kept changing the Disaster Transport sign to read a wait time of 2 hours, and I reset it to something reasonable every time I walked by. Unlike almost every other queue in the park, this one had an unstaffed entrance, so anyone could walk by and adjust it. The line was barely reaching the stairs, probably because so many people were turned off by that sign! This was after the "leak" that DT was being demolished, but before the official announcement, so I didn't want some selfish person's mini-marathon denying others their last rides. DT's final queue configuration had a wait time of about 30 minutes from the building entrance with good operation, so anything much longer than that without a line extending outside was nonsensical. Have you been scolded by a ride op? ("You, in the <color> shirt!")

Good to know, thanks! I don't know what my schedule will look like that far out, but I'm definitely hoping to go. I really enjoyed visiting HW for the first time this year, and this event seems to be a lot of fun. If I go alone, I'd certainly be open to splitting a room with someone, but I wouldn't mind having my own room either. I'm with Hendrick on this - I'd be driving 300 miles each way to get to HW, so I'd prefer not to add 80 for a hotel. That $20 savings goes down to $10 considering gas, which isn't nearly enough money to drive that far.

There's not much lodging near HW, so how early do you have to book to be reasonably close? The hotels up near I-64 are already $162+/night that weekend according to Expedia, and I assume Santa's Lodge and HW's campground cabins go quickly. I haven't gone to this before, but I'm considering it for next year. If I do go, I wouldn't want to be stuck driving 50 miles round-trip to a hotel Friday night.

I intended to buy a two-day ticket this season, but I ended up getting a season pass at the last second and going six times. It was my first season visiting KI since 2004. ^^^ Next year, if you want a 2014 pass, buy/renew before the park closes in October to avoid the price increase. (2013 passes were $80 through October, but are now $105 - or 100/90 if you buy 4+/renew a 2012 pass.)

They'll be better. A tour would be really nice to get invited to again at some point, but we'll be doing lots of fun things at meet-ups next year regardless. I think it would be really cool if we could order t-shirts/sweatshirts. We could put like- KIC CREW on the front, and put our usernames on the back. Just an idea though. T-shirts would be really nice for finding each other and making our presence known. We should figure something out before next season. Printing individually is probably harder and costlier than making a bunch, so I don't think we'd print usernames. There are always temporary fabric markers, name tags, lanyards, buttons, or whatever we want to use for that. Or, we could just talk to each other when we see t-shirts to figure out who people are.

Thanks for sharing more footage! Somehow, TheCrypt managed to get more time in front of your camera than me - not sure how that happened. By the way, what is the song at 1:20 (before the National Anthem)? The Beast ride after the tour didn't work out so well. We ended up on two different trains and got separated afterwards. If we try that again, we should split into two and hold up both sides of the queue until the station has room for the group. I'm glad everyone else had so much fun; it was one of the most memorable days I've had there as well. We definitely need to do things like this again next year!

How times change. I remember always being impressed with how modern and sturdy Vortex looked when visiting as a child, even though it was one I'd never ride. I wonder how people will describe Diamondback in 20 years, if it's still standing.

Thunder Alley was still listed on the "Family Rides" section of the site when I posted this topic last night, but it's now removed from that page as well.

There is a good chance they don't even use chlorine, but the less abrasive bromine.Either way, the chemical(s) used in pools/ spas is strictly overseen by the Warren Co. Health Dept. That includes overusing the chemical as well which can be more harmful than inadequate amounts. An excess of "chlorine smell" is usually not caused by using too much chlorine. The irritants are usually disinfection byproducts, which ironically can increase when not enough chemical is used. These byproducts are created when the disinfection chemicals interact with organic contaminants in the water. For this reason, it's important that all bathers properly shower with soap before entering. (Yes, I'm aware that most, in the US at least, do not.) On that note, Cedar Point's Soak City really needs more than 2 shower stalls in the men's changing room. Properly working shower heads would also be a plus there.

If an empty seat button has to be pressed every time to avoid overcounting, perhaps this guy should be recruited for Flight Deck on slow days:

Kings Island tweeted today that the ride record book has been updated for 2012. Interestingly, Thunder Alley was removed from the page, perhaps confirming its demise. The updated page is at http://www.visitking...ide-record-book Also interesting are the total ride count differences from before and after the update, which are presumably the 2012 totals. To save everyone the trouble of finding a cached version of the page and doing arithmetic, I made a quick sorted list of the differences. I'm pretty sure that this is acceptable to post, given that this is from data on the official website and that many of these numbers have been announced: Diamondback: 1,812,311 Racer: 1,372,948 The Beast: 1,130,830 Vortex: 1,120,052 Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad: 1,046,644 Adventure Express: 981,359 Boo Blasters on Boo Hill: 926,346 Flight of Fear: 790,019 Flight Deck: 764,423 Backlot Stunt Coaster: 721,448 Viking Fury: 662,547 White Water Canyon: 646,922 Woodstock Express: 632,159 Invertigo: 615,576 Firehawk: 610,749 Dodgem: 569,706 WindSeeker: 517,736 Race for Your Life Charlie Brown: 510,352 Delirium: 508,957 Flying Ace Aerial Chase: 498,444 Drop Tower: 496,574 Congo Falls: 473,207 Eiffel Tower: 422,297 Scrambler: 391,584 Zephyr: 381,316 Surf Dog: 371,150 Shake, Rattle & Roll: 363,122 Monster: 362,985 Snoopy's Splash Dance: 356,578 Linus' Launcher: 312,104 Grand Carousel: 296,346 The Great Pumpkin Coaster: 292,910 Character Carousel: 274,556 Woodstock Whirlybirds: 269,803 Kite Eating Tree: 234,470 Joe Cool's Dodgem School: 212,080 Sally's Sea Plane: 196,339 Snoopy's Junction: 172,467 Charlie Brown's Wind Up: 161,270 PEANUTS 500: 148,639 Linus Beetle Bugs: 142,509 Snoopy vs. Red Baron: 118,830 PEANUTS Off-Road Rally: 90,934 Xtreme Skyflyer: 38,571 Slingshot: 35,991 Total: 23,056,160 Newer attractions like WindSeeker and Diamondback presumably keep track of occupied seats, but I've always wondered how totals are kept without turnstiles for older rides. Does anyone who knows more about this than I care to enlighten me?

^ Right, this type of "rumor" isn't very interesting. Of course master plans are going to include anticipated ends-of-life. If it's true that Vortex's popularity is waning with costs increasing, planning for its retirement certainly seems logical. I disliked this coaster ever since the 90s, mostly for the lack of legroom as of late, but I actually enjoyed my last ride in the front of a car on the back half of the train. That said, I wouldn't mind its removal if a suitable replacement was installed. Considering how long it took to determine Son of Beast's fate - with 0 riders and a "dissatisfying" ride experience, I can't imagine that any master plan involving its removal is anything close to finalized. Vortex still isn't a "bad" ride unless you're tall and don't know which seats to pick, and I've seen it pack a "crowd" on a moderately busy day this season. (I waited a full 15 minutes.) Will things change (or continue a current downward trend) "in a few years"? If they do, I suppose it's mildly interesting to know that someone at Cedar Fair might be "making plans".

I'm glad to know that the "ending" I saw (after 12am on a Friday night with particularly bad weather) isn't a normal occurrence. Suffice to say, it was not at all appropriate for any family amusement park.

The R-rated "final scene" of Mysteria is rather tasteless; I wouldn't consider that a warm-up for anything.