goettablitz
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Posts posted by goettablitz
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1 hour ago, Shaggy said:
I hope Jess Naderman will eventually (someday) fill a lead position at KI.
She and I started on Beast crew together in 1999.... now she's the Director of Operations at Dorney. (Following stints as the Dir of Ops at Valleyfair, Asst GM at Schlitterbaun etc )
She's a gem, and going places. Id love for her to come full circle.
Agreed. I also worked with her and she is a rock star!
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The bee issue with the outside fountain drinks is such a problem. It is not a good look for the park when guests go to fill their drink they just paid for and have to worry about all the bees around the drink machines. The same for the employees working these stations. Also you are drinking what ever was on the bees feet when the walked on the machine nozzles. And no one wants to get stung but what about people allergic to bee stings?
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I worked White Water several times in 2002 and 2003 and can attest to the operator having control of 2 of the blasters across from the guest operated ones. I was in the guest area last year and didn't notice any blasters going off that were not coin operated. I wonder if Kings Island changed this at some point.
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Millenium Flyers are great trains and i would love to see them on The Beast and Racer.
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Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster, a "dive" coaster similar to Hang Time.
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I think that Holiday World is certainly more directly impacted by the goings on at Kentucky Kingdom than KI. If Hershend treats KK like Wild Adventures then Holiday World will probably be in a better position than when Ed Hart was running the show. Time will tell.
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I love everything about Mystic Timbers! The theme, the layout, the logo, the merch.... Oh and the ride kicks serious butt. So smooth, great trains, fast and furious, rapid fire ride!
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1 hour ago, Rivertown Rider said:
So if it is a chain there are probably three logical choices:
Cedar Fair: While selfishly it would be great to have another Cedar Fair park two hours from my house, at best it would be Michigan's Adventure where they weren't investing in it much or at worst it would be Geauga Lake.
Six Flags: Obviously SIX left them high and dry last time. During an ACE event I attended back in 2018 the workers were talking about Six Flags destroying the coaster operating systems which KK had to add new when Ed Hart and company bought it. SIX is not the same group it was at that time but I'd be surprised if they went that route and resold it to SIX.
Herschend: They are probably the most intriguing because they could turn it into a great park and give KI the most competition which would be good for the growth of KI as well.
I could see Ed Hart and company cashing out now with so much uncertainty in the world.
As for Herschend, see Wild Adventures in Valdosta GA.... Yikes. Nowhere close to Dollywood or Silver Dollar City.
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It is out of view from the midways, I bet it will remain a haunt for quite a while. We have the old Crypt building that is in plain sight and they do not seem too concerned about that one.
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I vote Banshee. I am not a fan of the vests. They make me feel clostrophobic and it really does not have any quick transitions that i see could be head banging moments. Lastly it is the only B&M invert that i feel has a really bad rough rattle and i suspect it may be the trains.
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I have overheard guests numerous times over the past couple years asking each other what the old arcade building is for or what is in it. It certainly seems like there could be a better use of that real estate. It is highly visible and right on the midway.
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On 9/21/2020 at 9:13 PM, SonofBaconator said:
I could see both honestly.
That's kinda why I wish KI got a Skyrocket II, because that would be a coaster KK couldn't claim.
In a perfect world KI would get both a 4D Freespin and a Skyrocket but I don't think the park wants that many low capacity coasters and I don't blame them.
Clearly KI has been favoring high capacity / highly reliable coasters and I agree with those decisions. They pull in nearly 3 million visitors a year and need the higher capacity rides. The Free Spins and Skyrockets were never really designed for a park like Kings Island. They are very thrilling and unique but just don't have the thru put.
RMC Raptors are the same way. RMC even said the Raptors are meant for smaller parks while the T-Rex is for larger parks. However what I wonder if we may be seeing is the appeal of a T-Rex is not the same as a Raptor. Both are single rail coasters but the rider in the Raptor is single file, straddles a narrow rail and offers a unique experience. However the T-Rex seating configuration is not unique. The track is simply built as a single rail which I don't think most riders would care about. So instead of building a T-Rex Six Flags Great Adventure is building a larger Raptor.
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I rode Tigris at Busch Gardens last summer. It was my first time on a Sky Rocket 2. It defiantly made me much more nervous than any coaster has really done to me in a loooong time. The idea of going thru the slow inline roll at the top with nothing but a lap bar just really creaped me out. It was much more fun and thrilling than I thought it would be. I have wondered for a while why Cedar Fair has not installed these (or S&S Free Spins) in their lower tier parks. I feel like both give you a great thrill and bang for your buck. I also thought that either of these models would be a great fit for Kentucky Kingdom as well.
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The piece that i feel Orion is missing is the quick dircetion changes found on Fury before the trebble cleff. To me that was the most distinct part of Fury and was really hoping to see something like that on Orion.
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Unfortunaely there are a lot of coasters on this list that rank higher than Dback for me.
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On 6/14/2020 at 1:16 AM, beastfan11 said:
Any insight as to why the rides were removed? The reasoning of the expansion of more water attractions doesn’t seem to reflect the reaction of the majority of the general public.
I, too, fear for the future of Coney. This summer is going to be different for a number of reasons, but the lack of half the park is a major one.
I believe it was stated that the rides are not profitable. They make just enough to pay for their own operation and maintenance. What is interesting is that I know of several companies (mine included) that would normally have their summer picnic at the park and now that the rides are gone they are looking for other venues (in my case Strickers Grove). Yes Sunlight Pool is great but not that many people are interested in seeing their co-workers in bathing suits. So while the rides in and of themselves may not have made much sense I think they probably drove much more of Coney's buisness then they realized. I used to work at Best Buy and a similar principal was used. Tuesday was "new release day". New movies and cds came out and were a few dollars cheaper during that week than they would be after that. They lost money on every movie and cd sold at that price but it drove business to the store and enough people bought other things while they were there to justify selling the movies and cds at the lower cost.
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1 hour ago, cdubbs727 said:
I have no love lost for Boo Blasters (although both of my kids love it; the kid factor is why it's still around). A Peanuts attraction just seems a no-brainer. But man, I really don't want anything screen-based. It just doesn't work for me unless you can put the research and engineering to make it really immersive (and even Disney and Universal struggle with this). Animatronics are a charmer, but I get why they aren't used much.
I was of the right age for Smurfs Enchanted Voyage; it was the first ride I ever went on at KI and I loved it. The narrative of it was so simple -- you floated through and watched the Smurfs do whatever they did throughout the year. You could easily come up with something similar for Peanuts, even if a boat ride would likely be out of the question for reasons mentioned above. And there's enough nostalgic appeal for Peanuts that I think it would be a popular ride.
But I also loved Phantom Theater, maybe not as much as Smurfs (my theory: whatever was in that place when you were 8 is your favorite thing that's been in that place). But it was a really solid, fun dark ride, especially for a regional amusement park. The Pepper's Ghost illusion was fantastic in the big theater sequence, the animatronics were good and some of the effects were a lot of fun (the boiler at the end).
I'd love to see something innovative and fun put in the Tomb Raider/Crypt building. Like I said, I'm not a fan of screens. But if they did decide to go that route, why not put something unique in that building? (I also have no qualms about them tearing it down completely).
I too would love it if we got an all or mostly animatronic dark ride but seeing the way things are going with Cedar Fair and triotech and Six Flags with Justice League I don't know if it will happen.
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I have said before on this site that i think it could be a smart move to renovate Boo Blasters. Remove all the sets and leave the omnimover ride system in place and create a triotech, mainly screen based dark ride there based on the Peanuts characters. Then have seasonal versions based off of the Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown Christmas.
As an alternative i think it would be great to recreate Phantom Theater, again primarily has a screen based ride.
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I have listened to many podcasts with park officials as well as design firms and it seem that the biggest challenge with a dark ride is the story. If you have a familiar intellectual property such as any of the Disney story's or a famous movie or character (Tomb Raider, King Kong, Jurassic Park, Days of Thunder, James Bond, Justice League, Spiderman ect) then half of the battle is done from a design standpoint because the guests already have an idea of what is going on. It is far more difficult to create a good, original intellectual property. Six Flags has been using Justice League which it has rolled to most of its properties. Universal doesn't really do dark rides without IP any more and Disney has moved away from it as well (the Disney higher ups have even said they are focusing on IP based attractions). I don't think it is a coincidence that most of Kings Islands dark rides were IP based (generic mine train roller coaster and spooky lumber mill roller coaster don't count in my opinion as dark rides. loosely themed yes but not dark rides). One shining example of when Kings Island created their own characters and it really worked was Phantom Theater (the concept of haunted theater is pretty easy to understand). Recently when Cedar Fair has done dark rides (Wonder Mountain, Voyage to the Iron Reef, Knotts Berry Tales) have all been park created IP. I applaud Cedar Fair for creating their own original stories and rides but I think the biggest dark ride challenge Cedar Fair faces is their only IP is Peanuts. The other issue even with IP based dark rides is that not all IP is created equal. A park has to evaluate if an IP is strong enough or will translate well into a ride before they will invest in a multi million dollar attraction.
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21 minutes ago, teenageninja said:
I would look more to the lawsuit filed in Lake County Ohio in which the Gyms sued to be able to open, rather than the items you quoted. The ruling happened very quickly and favorably for the gyms.
I was just thinking the same think.
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On 6/1/2020 at 12:54 PM, teenageninja said:
I had originally thought of replying to him, but I was thinking he was saying that it required more energy to pull through the magnets, but I also may have misread.,
That is what i was attempting to say.
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I imagine that modifying the controls for either ride would require additional cost from the manufacturer or control system providers to interlock them as well as additional state inspections. By making a phone call or providing a video camera to observe the other rides operation by passes all of this extra cost on the control system end since both rides still operate the same way as they were designed. It is just up to the operators to manage the dispatches.
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5 hours ago, Pagoda Gift Shop said:
Glad to see Kings Island share a clip related to Orion's station. I'm also glad they have not shared any POV videos or footage of anyone riding. It would just be so cruel right now.
The info about Flight of Fear and Drop Tower sharing power is so interesting. I would not have pegged Drop Tower as a power hog considering it is a fairly slow lift to the top. I suppose the gondola is pretty heavy and it is a vertical lift.
I believe the reason that Drop Tower uses so much energy is because the magnetic brakes are rare earth magnets and are therefor always energized (you don't want to loose your breaks if the power goes out). Therefore the elevator mechanism has to have enough umf to pull the ride vehicle up thru the breaks. When you watch it cycle you will notice that the elevator speeds up once it clears the breaks.
The Bat phone went away at some point and I believe it came back in one form or another (a phone or camera) when Banshee opened. It may be gone now but I'm not sure indicating that they may have updated the power distribution for that side of the park.
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Best area haunts outside Kings Island
in Kings Island
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Wilmington Haunted Hollow Ride is really unique. You get on a bus which goes thru some haunted areas then 2 fire breating semi trucks chase you.