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Wow. Get a grip and a sense of humor. Or get lost.

I wish that KI would do like CP did and make an Adults only area with a hot tub and swim up bar. The best thing about the hot tub at CP is the view of Magnum. Waving at the guests as they go by and them waving back is cool.

I'm still waiting for the Glockenspiel on the Festhaus to be operating again...

Terp, one of the reasons I started posting here again is because of your refreshing posts. I'm not even joking.

I realize there has been a lot of controversy lately as to what Matt Ouimet was/is going to do for KI and the other CF parks. Well, I was at KI yesterday for the first time this year and I would like to share my positive experience with you. We were waiting at the front gates right before ERT, and all of the employees came out of the Guest Relations office and cheerfully greeted the crowd. Asked us if we're ready to have fun in the park, waved to us, and many of them were passing out park maps. Never in the years I've been going to KI have I seen the employees interact with the guests the way they did. It was amazing. As we walked to Diamondback, employees and even security guards said hello with a smile on their face. I also saw neatly painted white gates with the KI logo in place of the tattered ropes used to hold back the non-ERT guests. A little later, we went to Beast and I absolutely can not believe how the massive amount of retracking has brought that coaster to its former glory. For the first time in a few years I had my hands up and a smile on my face instead of gritting my teeth and clenching the black bar to stop myself from getting jerked around. Beast has needed some love for a long time and it finally got it. When we got something to eat, we headed to the new burrito place (the name of the restaurant escapes me right now but it is where Outer Hanks used to be). I walked in and there it was. FRESH FRUIT. Yes, you read that right. Fresh fruit, and salads. And lots of it. How long have we been asking for this? It was so nice to bite into roast beef, rice, and lettuce yesterday instead of a greasy hot dog and cold fries. The friendliness of the employees was constant yesterday and all the ride crews were having fun. I also noticed a large shelf of cold cut sandwiches with veggies on them at LaRosa's. I'm not sure if they were there before or not, but not everyone does well with greasy food at an amusement park and it is nice to have healthy food options. (I did get pizza, but that's neither here nor there ) Yesterday was also math and science day. There were a few groups that got Fast Lane passes and the way the employees executed it had zero effect on the usual speed of the lines moving. This will be my 17th year visiting Kings Island. In all the years I've been visiting, I have never seen such a genuine and obvious effort to make the guests happy. I know I've said that I won't visit much this year, but seeing my home park turned around like this has me wishing I could go back today. So I would like to give a shoutout to our new CEO. He was at KI yesterday, and I'm disappointed that I didn't get a chance to tell him that he's doing a terrific job.

Tonight at 10pm on Travel Channel's Off Limits. It features coaster maitenence on Mean Streak.

Tell me about it. Terp, who went to Atlanta for many reasons, and who is much happier jobwise.

All-star special at Waffle House

Here is my complaint about Fast Lane. Yes it is a good if you want to visit the park and experience the park without major lines. But here is where it goes wrong for the people who stand in the regular line. This was my encounter with Fast Lane during my wait for the Diamondback on Sunday May 6th: We entered the Diamondback line at around 3:15pm the line was in both top and bottom queues with the top portion being just over half full. Me just being off of the convo with Don Helbig http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?/topic/25503-convo-with-don-Helbig-5612-fast-lane-question/ I wanted to see how many people jumped in front of me and my GF while we waited in the regular line. So the counting began and when we ended up in the station in a total of 1 hour and 6 minutes. My final count was 309 people that passed us with Fast Lane. Now lets do some math here: A FULL Diamondback train holds 32 people. so 309/32= 9.66. This means 9 and 2/3rd trains for the DB were filled with just purely Fast Lane users before my turn to ride. That is 3 full cycles of the ride. I did not get an official cycle time for all three trains to make it around BUT based off of this POV the station to station time is right around 3:40 secound. Add around 1:20 (Generously added; I think it takes longer to load a train) We get a total of 5 minutes each cycle. So while waiting in the regular line our wait was extended by right around 17 minutes (+2 minutes for the final 2/3 train). That doesnt seem like much until you put it all together. The total wait time was 66 minutes. take away the 17 minutes that means the wait time without Fast Lane would have been 49 minutes. The total wait time for a person in the regular lane with Fast Lane implemented increased a whooping 35%!!! The worst part about this was there was a group of four that rode the ride 6 times while we waited. Another group of 2 rode the ride 3 times while we waited. So ultimately my wait time for the Diamondback was increased by 35% just purely because of the fact that I chose not to buy a Fast Lane Pass Now mind you this was not on a busy day in the park. I can only imgaine what would happen if the original wait was somewhere around 1 1/2 or 2 hours... This is the problem with Fast Lane. It does increase the wait time for the regular people while allowing people with Fast Lane to ride multiple times with a minimal if not any wait at all. The bad thing about it all is the 20% rule that Don told me about is not a very effective way to monitor. That is because the 20% of the park attendance that will be allowed to purchase Fast Lane Passes WILL ride rides. While NOT EVERYONE who is in the attending crowd (which they base the 20% of Fast Lane sales off of) will ride rides. That means longer lines for the general public who ride rides without a Fast Lane Pass. Its a sticky situation to be honest.

There will be guests in the park.

My cousins face hit the lap bar and blood was everywhere,he still talks about it 30 years later. I think the pond was removed because of Vortex,im sure somebody else knows for sure. I miss those comfy seats!

There are videos and threads that you can search for that will show trims on the first drop and second hill of Beast since the ride opened. What's changed most recently is the style - moving from skid trim (which is less forceful over the short run but typically longer) to magnetic trim which can feel like sudden deceleration at times. These changes are advertised as not having made a difference in speed on The Beast - although there are those who might disagree with that assertion.

I'm glad to hear it is running better than it has in a long time. Honestly, I have been losing more and more interest in the ride over the last few years... the ridiculous shuffling and roughness being the main reason. I'm by no means one who would take a forceless glass smooth ride, but The Beast had gotten really bad. Next up, here's to hoping they remove the airtime-killing trim on at least the second drop. Two trims on the first two drops has just plain neutered the ride compared to even ten years ago. There needs to be a balance between trimming to maintain safety and structure and laying off the trims to maintain some of the speed and airtime.

^That would be one dumb person

Sadly, on this board I think a lot of people agree with this statement.

Son of Beast is done. End of Story.

It's been mentioned in MANY trip reports.

Well given what happened with Bat and how Hades has been riding of late..., Terp, teasing.

KI does listen. We discussed better food options last winter including offering some fresh fruit and other healthy snacks. I went to the Cocoa Cola Market place yesterday (it's outside Hanks Burrito Shack where the big Coke bottle mister was). They have iced barrels filled with individual servings of veggies and dip, FRESH FRUIT, even hummus and chips, for only $1.99. You can get an orange or an apple for a buck. I asked the worker if the healthy options were selling well and he said they all were extremely popular. KI is an amazing company and truly wonderful place to visit. The fact they listen to their customers as much as they do is something very rare for a large corporation. You will be receiving many more of our dollars. The restaurants up the road will be losing out, at least from us. Thank you.

I thought the same thing when I got up there to order one on Saturday along with Avartar and Oldiesman. The grill was clean and you would have thought it had not been turned on, but it was hot when they started cooking them. I thought it was pretty good. I did wish it had just a little more meat on it though.

Thanks again, J.D. for the wonderful thread and many never before seen historical pictures I always enjoy seeing the way the park was in its earlier days before I was born. I definitely enjoyed seeing this topic and all the wonderful comparisons you did. I`ve thought about doing something similar for Coney Island, just haven`t had the time to take the present day shots. Maybe this upcoming season, I will make it a point to do the comparisons. This is such a wonderful topic. Too bad it has to end now! Again, thanks for all of your hard work in this thread!

The flags at the corners of the tower are still there. It's just a basic white flag with the KI logo on it. The flags in front of the fountains were added 2 years ago I believe.

I just discovered this topic about a week ago. With college and stuff, I haven't really had the time to get on the forums all that much. Although I came into this topic pretty late, I really did enjoy looking back at all the other pages and seeing the comparison from 1974 to 2011. Thanks for posting all these, they are awesome!