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Flight Deck got more electoral rides while Back Lot got more popular rides.

Rumor has it that the kids who run the Flight Deck purposely fudged the numbers in order to "get even" with the kids who run the Back Lot Stunt Coaster. Glad someone else noticed the conspiracy.

IMO, a "flagship" ride needs to have that "awe factor" to non riders. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've went to the park with non coaster riders and they have stopped to watch Vortex for several minutes.

Just for the record: Son of Beast also had said "awe" factor to an incredible degree, possibly even when it was not running. It was one of the most visually impressive roller coasters ever built, with its incredible 218-foot-tall wooden structure and the huge "dip" before the first drop...of course, looking good from off-ride and actually being good are two different things...

^Is that even English?

Are you a fanwoman?

Great Wolf Resorts was the worlds largest operator of indoor water park hotels. Great Wolf was primarily a development company, then the economy went south, they were transitioning into an operating company. They achieved long strides and were about to turn the profitability corner. The wolf arrived at the door. In the guises of a little enterprise called Apollo. The hammered out a tender offer merger agreement calling for the payment of $5.00 per share. They also needed the holders of rather exotic mortgage debt instruments to agree to change in control provisions to debt covenants. Like the deal agreed to by former management at Cedar Fair, Great Wolf's management and board lapped up the milk and licked their chops at the prospect of lucrative management contracts and golden parachutes. Shareholders, much like Little Red Riding Hood, recognizing a great wolf when the saw one, balked at the deal. The shareholders demanded more. Mortgage debt holders wisely refused to surrender protective covenants. The deal day approached to find hardly any shares had been tendered, and frighteningly, zero mortgage debt had agreed to drop change in control restrictions. Mean while Little Red Riding Hood--the shareholders in our tale--agitated for the deal to be aborted if adequate consideration was not offered for shares. A competitive bidding of sorts broke out with Apollo consistently raising the consideration to best the new suitor. The shares took off and Apollo finally won the company with a cash price of $7.85 per share. One of the largest price increases ever in a tender offer merger. Little Red Riding Hood was left to ponder if it was all just silly coincidence two of Richard Kinzel's children had played significant roles at Great Wolf Resorts. So yes, Great Wolf Resorts is on the market, one way or another, as the Interpreter has alluded. It is simply a question of price. Would the new Cedar Fair board, which from all observation takes it's oversight role very seriously, and new FUN management team pay an extravagant premium for the Great Wolf Resort at Kings Island? Not likely given current debt loads, this quarters unexpected revenue miss, and a healthy increase announced to the dividend. Purchase the property at a fire-sale price? No doubt FUN would like to, but less likely Apollo would consider a distress asset sale. However, never say never. The CEO hinted at the possibility of acquisitions in the not to distant future (think two to three years after the balance sheet is cleaned up a bit and the debt due in 2014 has been restructured at lower rates) of attractive assets offering good returns on investment. One clear lesson from our little morality tale; the Wolves (investment firms) are having a harder time leading the Sheep (shareholders) to slaughter. Leland Wykoff

I was always more a player of 52 card pickup...

You tried and failed miserably. Get over it dude.

Same deal with Adventure Express - it dropped from three to two trains a couple years ago. No, it's not. He knows much more about the park and the working of the rides than some Boomerang Bay fanboy.

The only part of the ride's structure that will still be standing by the end of the month will be the station, which will continue to be used for the Wolf Pack maze at Halloween Haunt.

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?

Just. Drop. It. Please.

Were you the dealer?

KI doesnt need to hire any website editors. They can just come here and look for one of the KIC memebers to point out all the mistakes.

Drop Tower is and always will be my "flagship" ride.

That brings up an interesting question, was SoB ever operating enough (or reliable enough) to be considered a "flagship" ride?

On a per year basis, wood coasters cost more to maintain. If/ when steel coaster track needs to be replaced, the cost is enormous. Rust is the worst "disease" a steel coaster can encounter & does not just stay in one area, but spreads like wildfire & cannot be easily replaced as in the case of a wood coaster rotting board. KC was removed for a handful of reasons, the poor steel used being one of them.

...or they could just be changing the sign at Skyline...either way is fine.

Insert Erie music here? Or is it Masonic music?

If there is one ride that gives the "awe factor" it is Top Thrill Dragster without a doubt.

That brings up an interesting question, was SoB ever operating enough (or reliable enough) to be considered a "flagship" ride? You bring up a good point. I'd say from 2001 thru about 2005 it ran enough to be conisdered the "flagship" ride. After the accident in 06 it was all downhill from there. Pun intended

Popcorn, Coke products and cotton candy available for purchase in the mezzanine.

What was the flagship ride in Action Zone? Terp, who likes to ask questions.

The day Vortex leaves is the day I stop buying season passes. And no, I'm not joking. Vortex and Beast are just about the only rides at KI that I can still enjoy every single time I ride them. The others have all gotten to the point where they frequently bore me. I love Vortex so much that it is one of the central reasons I visit the park as often as I do.

I'd swear my son racked up about 100 rides on Beetle Bugs alone this year!

KI coasters have buttons that the driver presses each time a empty seat passes by. If the driver doesn't push the button the computer thinks the train has no empty seats and counts it as a "full train" So to answer your question "Ffej" rerides do not effect the count they simply add to it. Compared to Cedar Points system where the rides have turnstiles that count the number of riders and therefore wouldn't count if you rerode.

Most rides have a counter built into the control panel, where an operator counts the number of riders per a cycle and it'll calculate the sum. In case a ride doesn't have such a feature, then standard mechanical counters come into play. As the headline says on the page linked in the first post, "Yep, we really count every ride". Thunder Alley included.

Weird or not, big crowds = big money ... usually.

Haunt just brings some weird people in. Big crowds, bad people, serious problems.

^ If Vortex commented, he would have sunk to a new low.

Face Off is Invertigo now....

I still remember the excitement of seeing those empty footings right after they were poured. Touring the construction area with Angie Arnold and later with Dave Focke. I never, ever thought back then I'd see them empty yet again.

That was pretty cool to watch. Somewhat sad as well.

A few idiots will NOT stop me from visiting or working KI or haunt again. You get them everywhere, at least security seems to take it seriously pretty often

Rumor has it that the kids who run the Flight Deck purposely fudged the numbers in order to "get even" with the kids who run the Back Lot Stunt Coaster. Glad someone else noticed the conspiracy. Perhaps it's 3 train jealousy

http://twitter.com/KIGMgreg just said "Timber!!!" http://telly.com/627VV

Terp, when SOB was running, I would say SOB was. THESE days, I wouldn't say it has one.

I would say the flagship ride in Coney Mall would be The Racer.

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:

I really hope this dosent get torn down.

I didn't think the argument was which was cheaper to maintain (on average I would assume a steel coaster is much cheaper to maintain on a yearly basis) but rather, once track needs to be redone on a steel coaster, which is cheaper to maintain. I would suspect the retracking of a steel coaster would be significantly higher than a wood coaster, however I have no idea how often (if ever) that needs to be done, nor what it involves. At any rate, I certainly hope Vortex has many seasons left, seemed fine to me the 1 time I rode it last season. My son is pretty tall for his age, may well reach 48" prior to his 5th birthday next summer, and so far there isn't a ride at KI that he hasn't loved. The Racer, Adventure Express, The Beast all seem like naturals once he hits 48", however I've worried that I should wait little longer to put him on Vortex due to the head banging I've always experienced b/w the overhead restraints. May have to throw caution to the wind if next season proves to be its last.

Same deal with Adventure Express - it dropped from three to two trains a couple years ago. some Boomerang Bay fanboy. Well, I am no "fanboy", not even a boy at all. Although he probably know much more things of the park than some department complex on KIC.

They didn't want to do anything at all at first except throw him out for the night. I told them that it was unacceptable! So my 2 coworkers and I wrote statements, so they definently charged him with disorderly, cause it would stick. It could later escolate to assault if I developed bruising or injuries, which didn't. At least he earned a dent in his beer money and learned (I hope) not to grab on people. The scary thing was that I was surrounded by people, even with kids, and no one even looked twice while I'm screaming to be let go while trying to fight back! I told security "what if I was your daughter or sister?" Waaaay scary.

Without any sort of "best if used by" date, if somebody loads up on water and lets it sit for too long, they may drink it and think it tastes terrible, causing them to contact the bottler/retailer to seek a refund, or more. It's not because of refunds and taste. Plastic sinking into your food and drink can be deadly, which is also the reason why people should never microwave food with products like saran wrap over it. While it is true that plastic can do some terrible things, the FDA states that shelf life of water, when produced in accordance with the set standards, has an indefinite safety shelf life. It goes on to explain that bottlers may voluntarily use expiration dates on the label. http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/product-specificinformation/bottledwatercarbonatedsoftdrinks/ucm077079.htm

BREAKING NEWS: Activist lawyer Scrambler has unearthed some dirt on Racer! It seems that the Wood party vice-presidential contender once actually ran backwards, and for what appears to have been a very long time! Beast campaign headquarters released a statement saying that this was "old news," and that we need to get on with tackling more important issues... Developing...

You must be new to the Internet.

Oh really? And you've seen the budgets? Did you get this information from "people you know?" The information you supplied about budgets to steel coaster maintenance is just plain wrong. Seriously, just stop.

Father of CoasterBob63, son of CoasterBob61 & husband to CoasterRoberta17.

Oh he's serious all right. There was once a member named the abominable snow man, well needless to say he tried to steal one of Snowmans lines...and you know... I don't think anyone knows exactly where he went...Some say he got bored of the forums, others said he used Internet Explorer instead of Chrome, I however think....well... I don't wanna say cause I don't know wanna get on his bad side...but uh... it is getting kinda colder out isn't it? Perfect weather for...a snowman.... or something....