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Here at my home park, Busch Gardens Tampa, we have something similar called "Quick Queue". There are two tiers. The lower tier, which cost half as much as the upper, allows you to skip the line ONCE at the major attractions. They give you a punchcard pass with a lanyard, which gets punched everytime you use it. You can use it for every ride, or to ride one over and over until your card is all punched out. Which is great because lets say one coaster is slammed,while the other has just a short wait. You get the idea. The upper tier is unlimited and cost twice as much. It was trial and error when BG started this a few years ago. People got ****ed when the operator would tell them to hold up while a QQ was sitted and they had to wait for the next train. So BG actually ROPED OFF a car just for QQ. They stayed roped off till a QQ came along...while everyone in the meantime watched this empty car make the line even longer. Now, a QQ gets to skip the major line, then "blends in" when they reach the front. Which kinda sucks, because the old way you went up the exit queue away from everyone else. Now it feels that you really are cutting in front of people...but usually its so busy, and everyone else is happy that they're at the front as well,so I really havent had a problem. I grew up near KI. I remember when The Beast served refreshments at the snack bar in line...sodas,nachos,pretzels etc. Problem was,as you're standing there waiting for your grub, the line was moving. Try to run and get your spot back..good luck. Even trying to just get back in line there at the snack bar sucked... you werent in front of that person before, but you bought an ICEE, so now you are...lol. Since I live here, I know when to go and when not to. The only time I get the unlimited upgrade is maybe for a bday present for my son, and we go marathon everything. Even with the QQ, the lines here run pretty quick. However, most of our coasters sit four wide. So thats something to consider. I can see where a pass would have a bigger effect on a park like KI with just 2 wide coasters. I dont blame tourists who get the QQ. Its the best way to experience our park in a day. BG has a great deal for locals. You pay the regular admission,which now is $90. Then you get to come back for the rest of the calendar year. Considering BG is open 365, pretty good deal. Point being,BG takes care of the locals, so I dont mind if the family from Toledo wants to shell out extra so they get to experience in a day what I get to do all year. The idea of fast pass does make me feel cheated in a way. Cheated in the sense that its been a long time coming. I wonder how many more times I couldve rode the King Cobra, or The Racers backwards, or The Beast just one more time on the 4th of July. I have great memories of KI, and all the fun I had on my favorite rides,some of the rides of which will forever be memories. I also remember waiting 2 hours in lines in the sweltering heat on a Saturday afternoon. Its nice to know I can go back and relive those memories,with the option of not reliving the long queues. I'm coming up there this summer with my son, and guess what? It's his birthday!

Monty Jasper, vice president of safety and engineering for Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, addressed members of the Ohio State University Theme Park Engineering Group about the construction of the new Gatekeeper roller coaster Saturday at Cedar Point. The park is also partnering with The Ohio State University Alumni Association to host a special preview event on May 10, one day before Cedar Point and Gatekeeper open for the 2013 season on May 11. Download b-roll video here

Guys!!!! We're getting a nice sit down restaurant, shut up and be happy!

Oh really? I can recall many times I went prior to 2011 when The Beast had a near full, if not totally full, queue. The day you visit drastically affects the length of the line - sometimes it is indeed a walk-on, but many other times it'll be crowded, Fast Lane or not.

I always laugh at the claim of, "The line will be longer if we have to wait on those who get in front of us using Fast Lane." If those people were to get in front of you in the regular line, your wait would be longer as well. Everytime that I've been "skipped" by someone using Fast Lane, the ride attendants/hosts only let a certain amount of guests using Fast Lane board the ride then, they let the non-Fast Lane guests go through, then the repeat the process. I thnk a lot of people are making a bigger deal out of this than it should be.

That would work.

I would envision a VERY clean park, well themed, with lots of trees, shrubs and such - and the same would go for the parking lot. I think some less expensive food would be nice, and a bigger variety of foods. (there's a gold mine to be made on International Street besides pizza and ice cream). Finally, I would like to see all the rides the park EVER had, good or bad, be up and running - with no ride ever leaving the park, just new rides coming in. (the same goes for the Animal Habitat with the Monorail).

You'll love Camden Park. It's awesome. Enjoy a Pronto Pup. And know they don't sell Fast Lane!

Or they could use Kentucky Kingdom as an abandoned theme park scare zone. That would be so terrifying I might have a Hart attack.

A terrible but great working money making trick idea: Sell a lot less of the standard Fast Lane passes, so by the time they're all out, the late to the park GP will have to settle for Fast Lane Plus.

Well there is a limited quantity!

I don't know whether I do or don't like this idea of the "Plus" option yet or not, but either way its not worth complaining about guys. Change is and always has been inevitable at amusement parks and in life as a whole.

Thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Thank you for your time, effort, and creativity standbyme !!!!

I loved Skeleton Crew! It was like a circus.

I saw the Skeleton Crew at CP and it was the best show I ever saw, truly impressive, that's just me though. I would absolutlsy love to see it at KI. Lots of acrobatics, and illusions from what I can remember. 900th post

Can I ride even after I'm silly, being as I have such a head start?

Harsh.

What about the sixth one?

Well, for me that is really a varied thing. Perfect Kings Island, a BB1 perspective. Coming upon the Island, you may notice the old sign that stood in the Paramount era, with a slight change to the KI skyline. There is no WindSeeker popping out of the scene, Diamondback is now gone, and SOB is there in working, non threatening condition. When you enter, you may notice that you may go one of two ways, Kings Island, or Crocodile Dundee's Boomerang Bay, for now we will go left to the main park. As we venture through, we park at the usual Gold Pass parking, located right next to the inner walkway. After, we take a ride on the trams, which take us right up to the front gate. We enter to the music of International Street past, highly themed architecture from all around the world, with trees in "planters" in the middle of both sides of the walkway. A breeze of cold water hits you as you meander through the street, now we take a right to Hannah Barberra Land. The Phantom Theater is to our left now, with all of the classic rides of HB still running. As we make our way through, we make our way into Rivertown. Rivertown is a highly themed region of the west, with the KK ride up and running, as well as other favorites of today. A western show is performed at noon and five, featuring a shoot out and a few other western favorites. Swan lake still is the center focal point, a watering hole for the forest. The old walkway to The Beast is still up, with many trees surrounding us now, it is still upon a lake, which now is more cleaner, equiped with a filter. As we make our way through the area, we come upon the Antique Cars. Then we come into the region of Coney Mall. The Eagles still fly at this fine estate. We walk towards the Happy Days Diner, where it still is the Happy Days of yesterday. We walk by some of todays rides, as well as the red and white Racer, with the blue car going backwards once more. The X-Base now has a X-Files theme, with all the rides themed to as they were. After, we walk into Oktoberfest, where a German festival is always in season. The old german restaurant is here now, with a great biergarten over looking the lake. The Festhaus now has its clock back in working order, with inside a festive german show, and germanic foods for all the family. The fountain which was a planter now runs as a fully functional fountain, being a focal point of the area. Along with the old sign of Oktoberfest back in its original place. Adventure Express now has more ruins that it runs through and escapes. We are now entering the last area of the main park, the Action Zone. All of the rides are in the original names and paints. Top Gun now has more props and a new quene featuring more naval items. As we begin to walk out, we take the train to Crocodile Dundee's Boomerang Bay. Which on the train, we find another western show. Upon entering the Bay, we are fully immersed into Australia with Crocodile Dundee. Which all of the rides are in the old conditions and are running smoothly. All of the old props are in their respected places, with the paths being in in sync.(Note, no bad theming here!) Now as we begin to wind down in the day, the Bay stays open, lit by tiki torches by the walkways, as well as paths. BB1, just sayin'

A nice sunny 75 degree day with light crowds and short lines.

If you will look back at the thread about Fast Pass, I predicted something like this would happen - and I was laughed at! http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24189-fast-lane/page-3?hl=%20fast%20%20pass Post #87 Stick that where the sun don't shine!

I thought it would be cool to make Picnic Grove an abandoned theme park scare zone during Haunt. It could feature more defunct ride items, lots of fog and lots of ghouls lurking under the shelters.

Hehe, I think its safe to say lots of pictures will be taken! XD

Sent to me by Kings Island's Don Helbig. SANDUSKY, OHIO – Eric Lapp (right) and Jeff Durbin (left) from Cedar Point’s maintenance division get their first look at a train on the track of the new Gatekeeper roller coaster Friday at the 364-acre amusement park. Riders on Gatekeeper will fly through a wing-coaster record 4,164 feet of track along Lake Erie and across the park’s redesigned main entrance. The ride will also set world records for the longest drop (165 feet), tallest inversion (170 feet), the most inversions (six) and fastest speed (67 miles per hour) of any wing coaster. Cedar Point and Gatekeeper open to the general public for the 2013 season May 11. Courtesy / Cedar Point Trains for Gatekeeper after they were placed on the transfer track of the ride yesterday to post on KIC.

Here's my image: As you park enter the parking lot, and park your car, you board a tram taking you to the main gate. As you look to your left, Invertigo is painted aqua and royal blue like it is now. As you enter the park, you see the Kings Island logo, the old one from back in the 70's. There is no crappy robot dinosaur to greet you. If you walk down the right side of International Street and take a right again about a hundred feet, you will enter Planet Snoopy. All the rides are the same as they were from 2010. Planet Snoopy has expanded onto Picnic Grove. An additional kids coaster is added to the expanded kids area as well as the addition of more small flats. Children view the locomotives pass by from the platform that many of you see by the train shed junction. Rivertown is completely different than what is is currently. There is no ginormous white building between the K.I.&.M.V.R.R and The Beast any more but instead a larger Rivertown. Swan lake still resides and Diamonback is in the corner of Rivertown, (The station is where the block breaks before the 6th drop currently is). Filling up the rest of the space, more flats are added, as well as more resturants. Guest wave at the happy passengers on the Kings Island and Miami Valley Railroad before it goes over the bridge and into the woods. The two locomotives travel through many scenes that the railroad used to have back in the day. Kenny Van Meter has his original look as well http://s1325.photobucket.com/user/sonofbaconator/library/KIC?page=1. In my image, the LCS and S.O.B. never existed and there would be a that extended Coney Mall mid way that was discussed in other threads. X-Base would be expanded to the storage area where the sheds currently reside to the left of The Racer making X-base its own section instead of a subsection to Coney Mall. X-Base would be a government- extraterrestrial sort of feel with some flats, a restaurant, some games and some restrooms. Kings Cobra would be where Congo falls is now and Congo falls would be in Soak City. The Tiques would still be in there original place and the BLSC would be gone. The Eagles would also return as well as many older flats that shouldn't have been taken down. WindSeeker is a Star Screamer flat with no malfunctions. There is a lake under Flight Deck with some extra aviation theming to make it really seem like riders are in a fighter jet. Anything I didn't mention is fine the way it is.

Some news on Voyage Timberliners via Twitter: Also via Twitter, a nice picture of Rhinoblaster Hyena Falls: Full size link

I meant 6 mybad. I missed a count somewhere lol. 4 opened in 2011, and 2 in 2012, that would be 6. lol.

I don't have a problem with Fast Lane(s) itself. However, something I observed last summer did concern me. I visited in June during the week when normally the lines are pretty short, at least until early afternoon. On that trip, by 11AM, the lines were Saturday morning-esque. There were also a couple main rides down…I'm sure officially due to maintenance. I wonder, will the park purposefully create a demand for Fast Lane by manipulating ride operations to ensure long lines? This, I would have a problem with.

Before the issues? I'm not sure there ever was such a time. It had a major collapse incident during construction. It closed in its first hour the first Saturday morning, and stayed closed for weeks. It had numerous injuries, including some not widely reported or known until the 2006 incident. How about Son of Beast designed properly, built properly and meticulously maintained?

Hank is correct. Parks like Coney Island, before they moved to Kings Mills, operated on a pay per ride basis. You bought a roll of ride tickets and gave the tickets to the attendant at each ride. Rides like the Shooting Star required more tickets than a ride like the Lost River. You also paid a low admission price and or a parking fee, depending on the park. I know lots of older guests have inquired about this as guests like my 90 year old father do not ride the rides but they take their grand kids to the park. In today's age of pay-per-view movies, premium content, closer to the event of a show, the higher the price. The higher the demand for products, the higher the price and so forth. Parks research all ways to increase revenues without raising the cost of admission beyond the point that guest stop paying. They look for a happy medium that satisfies everyone.

I forget who said it here, and I'm not going to sift through a sea of complaints, but it is possible to do a one-ride policy with Fast Lane. I believe Kings Dominion was the park who implemented this for Volcano.

In my "revised history", Phantom Theater would have been restored and refreshed - not gutted, the antiques cars area wouldn't have been destroyed, and any non-defective rides would have been installed instead of Son of Beast and The Crypt. ^^ I'm usually comfortable in either temperature extreme, but 102°F with high humidity (from your storms) is way too hot. I'd gladly take the weather we got on Closing Day or at Haunt over that, but I'd remember a jacket for any downpours in the lower 40s F.

I will sit in the new restaurant and be happy! I wont buy fastlane,because now I fear what they will do in the future if I keep supporting it! I dont want to pay for every ride in 10 years,thats where this is headed. Im not a "Yes Sir" , I work for myself and I speak my mind about how I feel,I dont like this idea and if they read it then good ,if not,I still save money because im not going to support a system that is leading to a pay per ride conclusion in a few years. Im in Planet Snoopy 80% of the time anyways,so it is what it is.

My "perfect day"? Afternoon high of 102°F and a severe thunderstorm watch for the entire area, but no long-lived or damaging storms that shut things down for more than an hour or so (several long showers unaccompanied by lightning would be a bonus). Why? Get the temperature high enough and even waterpark attendance will go down, probably, as people want to stay inside in the air conditioning, but I love the heat. Add a threat of storms and rain, and attendance goes down even further, plus it's on days like that that I have the most fun, rediscovering the little things like Viking Fury and having fun getting drenched in the rain. I know, y'all think I'm crazy, right?

A short side trip to Kentucky Kingdom? Terp, who just HAD to.

CoastersRZ, I never had a problem with Fast Lane. But Fast Lane Plus is just stupid. Two more rides to skip in line for an extra price? Why? ^That's what they should do - Fast Lane lets you only ride the ride once, while with Fast Lane Plus, you can ride any ride unlimited times.

Here is another video of the Americana/Fantasy Farm areas. The video was filmed by a guy called Adam the Woo. He has a YouTube channel and he's got quite a few videos of abandoned places including amusement parks. I watched a few yesterday, very interesting!

Terrible, terrible, terrible...

well Las Vegas is actually happening too. Flights and hotel booked. My mom's first time flying, so she wants to see Donny and Marie Osmond and go see Grand Canyon. I seen Grand Canyon several times so I'm just gonna get my rides on Desperado, and the other coasters as well see some dolphins. Yeah, interesting year.. Wasn't sure with this one till it was finalized, such a long painful exchange over the last few months, mother thinks she's "seeing the country" with layovers, and way I see it Las vegas itself is a layover (since I'm used to Cali), flying nonstop to it isn't a big deal. I tell her there is nothing to really see in the other airports...just over priced merchandise and food, my main focus is making sure there aren't any delays, haha. Agh. Yay me (with help from a family friend who is always flying somewhere on business) convinced her to do nonstop flights. XD

I love Drop Zone at KI Kings Islan, it is 1 place in my heart.

Seeing the ruins of Six Flags New Orleans makes me sad. It was closed not due to money or struggling from other parks coming in near by, but mother nature's wrath. I wonder what will come of it. Also, you couldn't pay me to walk through any of these parks at night....creepy!

Supposedly the old policy had been that children aged 8 and above were allowed in the park without a guardian. That, to me, is ridiculous. An eight, nine, ten-year-old alone in the park, dropped off for the day? No thank you. Not in this day and age. Even a roving gang of twelve or thirteen-year-olds can be an issue...

According to the Pointbuzz offseason tour, Cedar Point's WindSeeker will have the same evacuation contraption as Knotts does. They expect it to open with the park in May. I'm going to assume Kings Island will get the same thing, but I have no idea if it will be ready or not by opening day.

What would be a good idea is some sort of more darker "magic" show at Kings Island's Theater at night, I would probably see it myself. Its not like that ever happened before at any other Cedar Fair park.

If the State of California approves this system, in particular, you can be assured this is the real fix. What did you expect? Terp, who likes to ask questions.

I guess the evac thing is better than nothing but it does seem it would take a long time to evac a full ride. So much time that the previous method could be of comparable timing. On a windy day it seems they would have to catch the seats in order to get them inside the cage I imagine they wouldn't use this method in windy conditions though.

First time poster. Long time browser. I am a big guy too. Last year I bought my family season passes. I was only able to ride on very few rides. Surprisingly I was able to fit on some of the rides in Planet Snoopy better than the "adult" rides. I really had some hard times because my oldest son was wanting to ride rides, and as a family my wife would have to always ride with our youngest and I couldnt fit to ride with him. The last day of the season last year, I went to almost every ride in the park that I had been "shamed" from and forced myself into the Walk of Shame again just to see how close I was. Since then I have been working on trimming down as much as I can. I hope by April 27 I will be able to ride some of the things that I used to be able to ride. Its been a difficult journey but since then I have lost about 40 pounds, I still hope to lose a lot more,

"WAY" too early? Like "SoB" said, Its never too early to start talking about The Haunt

Lets start the season before we start talking about Haunt in 2013. Haunt means end of the season, and the season hasn't even begun yet.

Pros: Good for one day, Saturday visitors. Bad: No discount for passholders, time restriction, and the whopping 50 DOLLARS! Now this isn't a poor idea, but the price tag is outrageous! Sure you don't have to wait for a certain time such as Disney or Dollywood, still it's crazy. If a family of 4 comes for one day to the park that means over $200 in park fees. Then if they want to skip lines, that's another $200! To have this system be almost the same price as a general park admission is not the right thing to do. I may not run my own business, but if I were running this option I would put the price around $30 at the most! At Dollywood one Q-Bot is $15, much less of a price for a family! This year of KI has been really good for the park with the addition of WS and DA! Many people don't want to pay $5 for DA! Let alone $50 for this. Sorry if this post seems poorly written or rantish, this just doesn't seem like a good addition for the price.