malem

You must have a souvenir cup to buy a refill or to use a refill wristband. Drink wristbands that allow you to use disposible cups are only available as FunPerks rewards and through group sales. If I remember right, refills are now $1.99 each or $7 for a refill wristband.

I'll also be going to Haunt for the first time. I might be there tomorrow as well, and I'll definitely be going on "KIC Day" Oct 5. I've avoided reading any descriptions of mazes that could be spoilers, as I want to be surprised. There will definitely be people and things startling you, but you should go in knowing it's all for fun. Some people are more affected by this than others. If you're particularly affected, you might try forcing yourself to scream. (I don't make a habit of screaming, but I've been told that it helps by people who do.) Whatever you do, running and/or touching actors is a very bad reaction in any haunted attraction. Actors should never touch you - unless you touch them first. (With notable exceptions, but none at KI.)

It's one full hour, as it has been the entire 2012 season. Confirmed by Don on Twitter, even, in response to someone who tweeted the question:

They technically aren't supposed to accept CP cups, Some of the food people do anyway, but don't count on it. If you have a WindSeeker cup, perhaps they wouldn't bother to look for the park logo. Though I somewhat doubt that they are selling more of these this season. Or, you could be like me and just get courtesy cups of water 2 at a time; I even gave my FunPerks drink voucher away. (The only exception is Holiday World, where I did get some Gatorade.)

Spitting off the sides of coasters, especially Magnum, Mean Streak, and The Racer. Better change the spelling of this topic before Terp arrives. You misspelled it ("darnedest"), but you didn't misspell it correctly. (see http://www.KICentral...t-things-haunt/)

It's not.Each seat is still physically checked by a ride op no matter if the light is on or not. If one of the two redundant systems for verifying that seats are locked is malfunctioning, that could be a safety issue. They're redundant for a reason, and that's not the only safety problem. The WindSeekers are now hurting the safety reputation of the entire chain, as fair or unfair as that may be. No ride is ever worth that, so it will be interesting to see what happens. $33M (1.5 Sons of Beast) is a lot to sink into a project for these results.

According to statements by the park, you should be able to use the printed online voucher to enter for your one free visit this fall. Just present this at the gate, as you would a printed ticket. That said, there have been stories of people denied entry using passes that should have worked every season from 2006 onwards, so you may wish to call them and/or get to the park early. Guest Services will help you in the event there's a problem scanning your pass and/or voucher. (Everyone there is really nice, but there could be a long line depending on the time.) The same goes for anyone renewing a 2012 season pass for 2013 at the park. Get to the park early, in case there are any problems or long waits. Some people posted on PointBuzz that they had problems entering in 2012 after doing an in-person 2013 renewal. (Hopefully this particular problem is resolved by now, but operator error is always possible. They're still using the same Paramount Parks ticketing/pass system they inherited in 2006.) I'll be getting to the park at least an hour before opening on the "KIC Haunt Night" Friday (Oct 5) to make sure I have time to renew my pass. By the way, Kings Island's Halloween event is "Haunt", not "HalloWeekends". The latter is used at Cedar Point only. If you are planning to visit Cedar Point at least twice next year, you might consider upgrading the pass to Platinum instead of Gold. You pay the difference in what you paid vs. the current price of a Platinum pass, so it pays to do this before prices go up.

Perhaps they prefer that people who check the webcams page see things other than Son of Beast. The images on their website are posted on the blog, which is primarily of interest to enthusiasts and anyone interested in park developments. Featuring it on a webcam would draw continuous attention in a way a blog post does not. I'm sure the park currently prefers continuous attention to be directed towards Haunt and next season, rather than whatever is planned for SOB's plot in the future. It's great that the park is taking images of the demolition and publishing them, whether they're offering a live feed or not. You should email KI to thank them!

KIC isn't an appropriate way to ask the park anything. You aren't the first person to ask about this here, and I'm sure the park has already been asked in various ways such as email and Twitter. Offhand, I would guess that the park prefers pointing their webcams at more positive things.

Most downtime there, from what I've seen, is fairly short (<30 minutes) in duration. It's gone down multiple times when I've been either in the station or in the queue. Having TTD running probably a huge maintenance priority. That queue is often a frustrating one to wait in. The split doesn't always result in fair wait times, and you have to navigate a station crammed with 4-5 trains worth of people.

Something inspired me to look at old KI construction photos, and I found several great PTRs from Diamondback's construction tour, including this one. It's fun looking back to see now-completed areas under heavy construction, so I thought one of these should (finally!) get a post-completion bump. It's especially interesting for people like me who weren't regularly following these forums back then. (Looking back makes me wish I had been.) Those are some really nice shots. You guys definitely got up-close with the construction site!

The park was open today.

Some of them could be suffering from lingering fear/stress from the situation. Depending on the person, real medical issues could result from being stuck that long. As a park enthusiast, your perspective of being stuck on a ride is likely a lot different from an average guest. If this happened to me, assuming no actual injuries/damage, I'd want to be compensated for my expenses and be offered enough for a replacement trip. They didn't forsee something that had happened 4 previous times, including less than two weeks ago at the same park? l

Yes, it seems that they are. Since Flash is no longer supported on Android and has never been supported on iOS, it means that videos in the forum will not work on such tablets. Some apps that try to replace YouTube Flash content with an appropriate <video> tag, for example, might allow them to work seamlessly. The proper fix is to get an update for the forum software to resolve this, rather than using hacky apps to work around the problem. (Really, all that needs changed is the YouTube embedding URL hardcoded into the forum.) All YouTube videos are h.264 mpeg4 files. They can be played on any device or program that supports this format, regardless of whether Flash is available. When viewed from anything other than a Desktop web browser, Flash is definitely not used.

The free meal was a Knott's chicken dinner. (Presumably from the Knott's restaurant outside the park, since they didn't get off until 2 hours after park closing.) The T-Shirt is actually for sale on the Knott's website: http://marketplace.knotts.com/I-Survived-WindSeeker-Brown-Adult-T-Shirt-P587.aspx (Probably not for long, though) I'm pretty certain that the park would have been required to collect names and addresses of all riders on an incident report, so a written apology and proper compensation would seem likely. Perhaps even lawsuits. (I should probably reference Terp's lengthy IANAL disclaimer here)

Flash support on mobile devices is no more, so you're out-of-luck. (This is actually a good thing, as Flash is horrendous) If the video is on YouTube, you can view the video there directly to see the mobile (HTML5) version that will play quite nicely on Android or iOS. The IP Board video embedding feature really should be fixed to properly support videos on mobile devices.

Fans of KI Entertainment has a nice review of the dining experience: http://www.fansofkientertainment.com/?p=554

What actual launches?

Pretty sure it's a "him". It's not DOB.

Considering the recent events in California, it's very probable that it's down. WindSeeker would be a pretty miserable place to get stuck for 4 hours on a rainy night.

3+ hours to evacuate is not safe. Just imagine if someone had a heart attack when the ride stopped, or if someone particularly sensitive to sun exposure was riding. When (if?) I ride a WindSeeker again, I'll definitely make sure I've had enough to drink and am wearing sunscreen as appropriate. Getting stuck up there at midday could cause quite a sunburn. I think it's pretty safe at this point to assume that the unannounced Cedar Fair 2013 capital expenditures will not include more WindSeekers. They need a lot more than a free admission if Cedar Fair hopes to ever see them again. They've had a day of their trip ruined, and admission is far from being the only cost involved. At a minimum, they should be reimbursed for all costs associated with their visit, including gasoline and any lodging. If I were the park's GM, they'd also be getting platinum passes and a one-day ticket to Disneyland.

Most rides have unsecured bins you can place articles in before riding. I would advise against putting valuables in these bins; you should have these securely stored in a cargo pocket or placed into a locker. Hourly lockers are available in several places throughout the park - in Coney Mall, X-Base, and Rivertown. All-day lockers are available near the front gate. Small hourly lockers cost $1/hour with a $2 minimum charge, and small all-day lockers cost $12. All the lockers are controlled through computer kiosks, so credit/debit cards are accepted. EDIT: got the hourly locker info wrong; corrected it. Thanks TheCrypt. If you have your camera in a bag that doesn't attract too much attention, you could take the risk and leave it in the bin. Just know that you are taking a risk of having it stolen. You shouldn't post a phone number on a public forum like this. Instead, ask people who want to meet you to PM you here, and you can give out your number individually. You can edit your post to take out the number.

KI needs to put this on the season pass page of the website, as it's clearly stated there that the only exception is Fridays during Haunt.

Kings Island has early ride time 1 hour before opening every day except Fridays during Haunt. Cedar Point has 1 hour of early entry every day, including during HalloWeekends. Kings Island doesn't have HalloWeekends.