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LongLiveTheSmurfRide

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Everything posted by LongLiveTheSmurfRide

  1. Wouldn't that be Adventure Express? Gets you all excited then lets you down at the end?
  2. We took this season off from getting a pass and I was just expecting the normal "1 free ticket for 2018". Getting the rest of the 2018 including Haunt and Winterfest is really above and beyond what I'd hope for. We're for sure getting passes now.
  3. That's great! Hope they stick to it all season.
  4. What kinda music was played on I-Street? Soundtracks or pop hits?
  5. Listened to it a while ago, but just getting in to comment. Great first episode guys! First couple episodes of most podcasts seem a little rough until they get their footing (heh, footing), but you guys sounded pretty good right from the beginning, so I imagine it will only get better as you explore the format and introduce different "segments". Really happy to have a podcast to listen to about Kings Island. Looking forward to the next one!
  6. Awesome. I've been medically diagnosed with podcast addiction, so I'll be listening!
  7. That's good to hear. I went on opening weekend and then the following weekend. I wanted to go back one more time but other activities and obligations got in the way so couldn't make it.
  8. I went twice this year and my impressions were that it was very very good. Great even. I loved how much effort they put into it. Felt much different than the last attempt at Winterfest. I loved how they renamed a lot of the shops and food places with Christmas themed names and signs. There's so much to see and do that even after 2 visits we still missed a lot. The only show that I saw was the elf one in the Festhaus which was really well done. Reminded me of old Kings Island level of shows. I don't know how they can ever go back to just having generic 70's/80's/90's singing revues there during the regular season when they proved that they can do much better. I did like the Eiffel Tower lights more in person than pictured, but I agree with @CoastersRZ's earlier post that the star needs to be filled with light instead of just an outline. If the lights can't go above the observation level, the star needs to be brighter and stand out more. Other than that, it was pretty cool. Also, what was up with the metal candy cane structures that were put up during the regular season? I thought they were going to be lit up, decorated or something, but since they were just dark I hardly noticed them. It was cool that they had them I guess, but seemed not worth the effort compared to other stuff. But yeah, I don't have much negative to say about it. Much better than I expected.
  9. ^My thoughts exactly. This means something. This is important.
  10. ^ Nope, just going by picture comparisons. Never made a "final statement". It just looks odd to me from what I've seen. I'll be seeing it in person on Saturday.
  11. I understand that if they want the lights to go all the way around this might have been the best way to do it, but I kind of prefer the old Winterfest tower look: The star should be at least slightly larger than the top of where the "tree" ends, or it looks odd.
  12. ^ Yeah @chugh43, that actually looks better than KI's. Below is from the King Island Jobs twitter (https://twitter.com/KingsIslandJobs): If that's how it looks at KI......eh.....little weird.
  13. Maybe it's just me, but I think the tower with the lights they way they did them this year looks kind of awkward. I'm not a fan of how the lights go up so far then stop short. Makes it look like, if it was a tree, the top has been cut off then a star placed on the flat section.
  14. There was a ride in that spot that I liked a lot, but I can't remember the name now. Dang it! I'll get back to you.
  15. The state of the parking lot won't ever make me not go to the park or anything. I'm not that upset about it. But when you're a fan of a park and visit it so much, it's the little things that you'd like to see improved to make it more "magical". Like the music on International Street or the abandoned theming on the Train. The parking lot is just another one of those things that bothers me and I'd like to see improved.
  16. It does matter. I have a gold pass, so I don't have to pay, but am still appalled when I see how much they charge for parking and then look at the state of the parking lot.
  17. But, unless something has changed, they don't charge for parking.
  18. Favorites: CarnEvil and KillMart Least Favorites: Blackout and Urgent Scare
  19. Haha, found this excerpt from an old trip report I posted back in 2006. Remember those days when the parking prices were $10 and that was ridiculous? And the trams. Oh, the trams. *pours one out for the trams* How young I was then.
  20. I've been ranting about the parking lot here and in the KI surveys they send out for years. Years! It's one of the first and last things you experience with the park, so it should be a no-brainer to make it pristine. It seems even worse with the nicely paved entry way to the parking booths. Then it dumps you into the gravel back-roads of the parking lot. I'm pretty sure I saw this the last time I was there in Racer 23: That's a joke. But really, the newer entry way just magnifies how bad the rest of the parking lot is and I hoped they would start spreading it out from there. It should probably be a multi season project which hopefully begins this off-season. But, I'm not holding my breath.
  21. I didn't notice any real dark issues where I couldn't see well personally. Maybe they had some lighting issues or were trying something out when you went through. Or they put a bag over your head for extra effect.
  22. Oh crap, I forgot about Slaughter House. Thanks for reminding me. We did that one right after riding The Beast. No line at that point. It was alright. It's never been quite as good to me as it was the first couple years when it was in Action Zone and they had chainsaw guys at the end. I still feel gross when I leave there due to all the bloody stuff you gotta walk through, but that's by design.
  23. My wife and I went to KI this past Friday to meet our friend who only had that evening available all season to visit Haunt, so the idea was to go from open to close, if we could make it. Our friend wanted to mainly do haunts, and a coaster or 2 if the lines weren't bad. We got into the park around 5:40 PM and our friend wasn't there yet (busy feeding his family or some such nonsense), so we lined up on the right side of IS so that we could hit a couple rides on Mystic Timbers early. The "opening ceremony" of Haunt is pretty cool. There was some kind of DEMONstration (get it? get it?) going on in front of the fountains that we couldn't really see or hear, but then there were around 6 concussive fireworks that went off at the stage by the Tower and the music went from Pop to Carmina Burana and a wall of monsters on either side of IS rushing into us. It was a pretty sweet way to open the evening. We got to MT and we walked up to the steps and rode in a couple minutes, then went around and rode one more time with about a 5 minute wait (Tree and Bats respectively). Then we walked over to Potato Works and had some dinner. At that point our buddy was rolling into the parking lot so on our way to meet him back on IS we stopped and grabbed some blue ice cream. My wife's cone was kinda average, but the girl who gave me mine gave me the highest stack of ice cream I've ever had. I had to ask for a bowl in case it fell over or the cone's structural integrity failed and I needed a back up plan. Lots of ice cream. I did end up using the bowl and a spoon. First stop was Madam Fatale's. It's not the best for scares, but I enjoy some of the scenes and decor. Then we went over to Urgent Scare. Worst haunt of the night. Every year I hope it will return to how it was year one, but it just gets worse and less worth the walk back there. At this point it was about 7:45 so we got into the pre-line for Field of Screams and waited around 15 minutes once they opened the actual line. This one has a lot of potential, but I think they need more people to blend in with the corn and jump out. A lot of dead spots (no pun intended). Then we went to Kill Mart. This is one of my favorite's and it is still a really good one. Lots to look at and the actors pop out in a few good spots. There's a shopping cart scare that's pretty good and got my wife. Next we moved on to Board to Death and found that the name would be pretty fitting if they changed the spelling. Not a favorite of ours. We may our way down Coney Maul and, as I observed last week, the midway here is the best scare zone in the park though it's not an official scare zone. Seem to have the most Sliders here and great costumed characters spooking people out. The new troll was working better than last Saturday with better movement in the mouth and the eyes opened, so that was cool. Wolf Pack was next for us and it was....it was fine. The new thing at the end was cool to look at, but the rest was meh. Blackout's line was super long so we put a pin in it and made our way over to Wasteland. I think this is an improvement on the previous scare zone that was there, but I just wish it extended a bit longer. Seems too short. Also miss the dude that bounced out at people on bungees from last year. That was great to watch. We hit Backwoods Bayou next and it was pretty lame. Still think they needed to go with a Christmas or Krampus theme since they had the candy cane structures in there which they discretely hid by wrapping them. So, instead of being red metal candy canes they looked like covered up candy canes.....in a haunted bayou. We went over to Dance or the Macabre. This area is cute, but they really shouldn't call it a scare zone. It's more of a monster meet and greet. Most of the characters stand around waiting for you to take pictures with them. It's a fun idea, but not a scare zone. Then it was CarnEvil's turn. This is always a favorite because of how fun it is. We were not going to buy glasses, but then some kids ran over who just got out and asked if we wanted theirs. Okay, I see the appeal of them now. It made the haunt even better and made the art on the walls really trippy. Missed the black light bubbles, but the tunnel was even cooler with the glasses. Then we walked back through Freak Street, which had some scare actors wandering but not many and is hardly a scare zone at this point. They really should utilize that path between Backlot Coaster and Diamondback as a scare zone again. We wanted some night Beast so waited about 15 minutes for it (I think this was around 11:45 PM?). Stuff on the TV in line was lame normal park stuff. What happened to the days when they had spooky movie scenes and dark rock videos on for Haunt? Beast ride was good though. Ended our night over at Blackout where we waited probably 20 minutes. It's fun, but I think could use some more scare actors in there to mess with you in the dark. Potential there. We got back to the front of the park where it was more scare actors that normies, so it was fun watching them run around scaring everyone. All of the sliders were there (had to be around 10 of them) doing their slidey things with one even doing hand stands, which was pretty impressive. Overall a great night in the park. Did all of the mazes and scare zones plus 2 MT rides and a Beast night ride all without any kind of special pass. I'd say we got our Haunt's worth. Until next time; stay Smurfy my friends.
  24. Last night could have been a bad night to judge the Haunt because it was very crowded (and hot), but I actually feel overall it was pretty good. Didn't blow me away or anything, but also assured me that it wasn't taking a step back due to Winterfest. We only ended up doing Blackout because we got in line early, but we toured the rest of the park to check out the decor and scare zones. Here are some of my thoughts and observations: Coney Mall was great. Might as well have been a big scare zone. There were more scare actors there than in any of the "official" zones. The Sliders got us pretty good when we were making our way over to the Troll. The Troll was cool, but his eyes were not working when he'd stand up. Assuming just a glitch since I know that model of animatronic has opening eyes. The Macabre area was pretty neat, though I wouldn't necessarily call it a scare zone, but a cool place to get some pictures. Wasteland was fun. I liked how they had walls alternating from left to right so they could actually jump out and scare you. Freak Street - Could have been when we walked through (around 9PM), but there was only 1 guy there that we saw. And he seemed to be greeting people more than scaring. Hopefully that changes, but that's been the weakest scare zone for me the last couple years and the early impression is that it's at it's worst now. Also missed the guy who is like the official greeter of the Haunt at the front of the park. Hopefully he just had the night off and that he's not gone. Again, overall, I enjoyed myself even on a crazy busy evening. Planning on going this Friday when I hope it's not as bad as far as crowds and can try out some more of the houses.
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