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Stopped by the park the other day and snapped some photos of Banshee, The Bat, and parking lot improvements. Since I couldn't find the topic about the parking lot improvements for 2014, I'll post those here. I DID NOT TRESPASS. I have a 300 mm lens. Shot from the highway & Great Wolf Lodge. Check "The Bat flies again." forum for The Bats photos.

^ I think that's slightly pushing the limits on "throwback."

The station will be darker at night.

Flying Hooters??

Dat Interior... If you wish to visit Kings Island's Instagram and view the photo on their social media page please click here Instagram hides their photos well, I had to sneak my way into the developer encoding(thank you Google Chrome) and find the right link where they are keeping the photo... Anyways I think that is some fantastic detail in the rafters.

Another gem found in the old phone photos on my computer... This was taken August 24th, 2009 - just over 4 months after Diamondback opened.

I enjoy wandering around parks aimlessly. The whole "planned experience" drives me insane. My work life is endlessly planned to the second with Outlook invites and meetings galore. I'll be darned if I'm planning my rides. The day I start doing that is the day I start pursuing a new avocation. One vocation is enough. Yet another reason my phone stay in my car. I detest riding with large groups who spend inordinate amounts of time deciding what to do next. Like Nike, "Just do it!"

I am not basing my assertion on a tweet. And I won't be expressing any opinion or fact as to the "target" or "circle" prior to early morn of April 17. Terp, known as a strong supporter of the park industry, and as one who interprets and disseminates that which is in the best interests of that industry, both as a whole and of its two largest US seasonal park chains.

Stopped by the park the other day and snapped some photos of Banshee, The Bat, and parking lot improvements. Less Exposure: More: Lift hill + banked turn: Station: I DID NOT TRESPASS. I have a 300 mm lens. Shot from the highway & Great Wolf Lodge. Check "Banshee construction progress" forum for Banshee's and the parking lots photos.

As promise from earlier! Taken from an iPhone

Indeed! The reference was to a big blue B&M at Cedar Point. There is one. Now.

titanic3 by ki_faerie_wench, on Flickr

titanic by ki_faerie_wench, on Flickr

As poorly as I think families would take to that name, I'm a man who enjoys a good pun. Well played, sir!

Sponsored by that family restaurant, of course!

Terp has never lead us astray in the past. I too believe that on (Reds) Opening Day 2014, the area will be named Action Zone.

As I have stated before, the name of this area on opening day 2014 will be Action Zone.

If it makes you feel any better, my friends and I have been waiting three and a half weeks to hear from Busch Gardens. Last year they told me it would be two weeks until I heard back from them. It was a month and a half later when I finally got the call...

Be careful with all that in caps..people may think you're yelling

INTAMIN is a registered trademark and, as such, should always be capitalized.

It's also kind of a unique situation with KIC since it is simply so large. Remember when "Kings Island new roller coaster" was trending at like #8 on Yahoo a few days before the announcement? That was all you guys. The first thing that popped up when you clicked the link was the, "Decoding 2014" thread. That thread lit a fire and the park continuously threw gasoline on it all season. They knew what they were doing. One thing that you see is that social media can be a series of photos and conversation, or an absolute machine. One works, and the other works very very well.

So, time for a PTR & all that jazz..So as most of you know Cedar Point & Pointbuzz hosted a meetup this year. It was a paid event with all the money going towards Give Kids the World, it's an awesome group. If you have no clue what it is, go look it up, it's incredible and very important. Now onto yesterday. First off we decided to leave early in the morning to avoid two hotel stays and plus, I didn't feel like driving at 0100 when Lindz got off of work to head up to the point. So after waking up, packing, etc. we hit the road from the base up to CP. I made it in record time, even with construction, stupid drivers, and some traffic around 0900. I usually will take 70W to 75N then RT-6 E all the way to Sandusky. The suggested route is to take Rt-4 N all the way up to Sandusky, but to me it's a death trap waiting to happen. It's a huge long boring straight that takes forever. I'll fork out the extra mileage and a bit of gas possibly to avoid that road. Anyways the drive is listed as three hours & 5 minutes, but i made the drive right on two hours forty minutes, not bad. Held 80-82mph or so on 75 except with traffic/construction and about 60-70 at times on RT 6. Anyways once we got there we headed by the dorms and got a peek on the new dorm complex being built. Not too many details about them. I honestly believe the new dorms will be all female dorms to replace Golds which was recently just torn down and turned into a parking lot, and I believe 1300's which was the off site girls only dorms are still condemned.. Once we got off of the causeway we headed down 250 to Sonic for breakfast. Their ultimate burrito is very very good btw! Once breakfast was done it was about 1030-1040 or so, and we figured head over to Castaway Bay to get their early, register, and talk. Once we registered we headed up to the marina gate, parked, and got ready for the tour. Here's some shots of the tour, everything is self explanatory really. Nothing too crazy to talk about during the tour, just a nice casual stroll down the midways and some behind the scenes areas taking pictures, talking, and having fun. First things first btw, here's a video highlight of the tour, phone automatically makes these, very nifty Part Dos to follow

Perhaps there will be multiple designs. When I was at Carowinds in 2012, they had a souvenir cup for just about every major ride in a bevy of colors. I'm not holding my breath, but if I could buy and orange cup with The Bat on it, I MAY be willing to invest in extra cups...

If I'm not mistaken, Terp's confidence in the area still being Action Zone at the start of the season is based not upon some top-secret information, but rather on this tweet from last week, with emphasis added: (Source: https://twitter.com/KingsIslandPR) One does not need to be a detective to see the area in question is clearly referred to as Action Zone, so you don't need to take Terp's word for it.

Because it's the off season. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I see something that makes me think of StoneHenge. B"Ancient"B©1 Nah, churches will at least have all wood stained or something! And if not, it's usually, from my experience, a naturally darker wood than pine. We don't want our ride to look like its materials came fresh out of the nearest Home Depot.

Here's a pic from 2004 (I think? *See EDIT*): Fun Fact: This was my first ever profile picture on Facebook. EDIT: I'm not actually sure when the picture was taken, because the picture's file says 2008, but I'm pretty sure it's before that as this picture was taken with a disposable camera and scanned into the computer. I think it's at least from some part of the Paramount years.

Baynum Painting of Newport, KY is painting The Bat. They have a long term relationship with KI. I have met several of them since their old shop was just down the street from my house in Covington. They almost exclusively paint steel coasters with PPG PSX700, currently are using it on The Bat and Knott's Silver Bullet. It does have a temp requirement it must be above freezing if they use the fast drying hardener, and stay above for the cure time of almost 24 hours. Also has a required humidity to be above 40%. They have been busy this winter, since they are known as the go to guys for coasters now. They have said but they are planning more projects for Cedar Point or Kings Island later this year. I would say maybe The Beast for its birthday, but it takes 3 months to paint that, but I wonder if they are allowed to paint the support structure while the ride is in operation?

It got closed for a reason, and a good reason at that. I despised that decoding thing, and none of it shall I par take in any more, for that is just ridiculous. The way you talk is ridiculous

I would think they choose parts they have not already painted. Terp, who just HAD to. (The reward for poor quality, hasty work is rework).

Same Bat time. Same Bat Channel.

The park map gets posted on our website around April 1 each year. This year will be no different than what we've done before with the timeline.

"Why cant we be friends"

Week 30 (02/17/14 - 02/23/14): Angle 1 - (Low Def) Angle 2 - (Low Def)

CP was good..only thing is waiting on the calls to go through..lots of changes to park op this year

Good to see the station mostly completed as far as the visual part goes. I understand there is still a lot of electrical work to go. Also, thanks for the pictures Gplez90.

sometimes its the little things that tell you the most. When an employer makes a promise and doesnt keep it (even little ones), it shows the respect they have for the employees. KI - interview and decision in one day. They know if they like a person they need to hire them before they lose them for another job. PLus if it doesnt work out, you can always replace BG- makes a 2 week promise calls back in 6 weeks. KK - interview and no decision. At most places, if you are not contacted you are to assume they didnt hire you. I wonder how many people they will lose to other jobs before making a decison. Then again, they did ask for free labor to clean the park up. KK, IMHO, are taking 2 steps forward and 2 steps backwards in every phase of the reopening of this park. Gets a new roller coaster, announces it quietly on facebook. Roller coaster arrives on park, pictures released on facebook. Holds a huge job fair, asks for free labor. Puts up a billboard, runs no other advertising.

That doesn't look like super high quality wood, that has been finished or should be... I think they made the right call to paint it.

I think it would have been better to leave the wood its natural color instead of painted it grey.

Not griping, just feeling a bit anxious. Seeing another poster on here go to interview with Kings Island today and coming back hours later with a decision just made me wish. I think it is likely they will hire me but the wait is just almost killing me.

Liking the wood arches in the station. I know this might be too much to ask, but a chandelier would be cool, maybe with cobwebs. I also recall that The Crypt had some fake flame torches which I think could be utilized in Banshee's station to great effect. Stained glass windows over the track at both ends might be cool, too.

Nope, other than they plan to have it up opening day and maybe a possible press release before then..but nothing now.. We walked passed it during the tour...we laughed, and poked fun, and said things..

Couple of new pictures of the station up on Instagram. Looks like the freestanding wall is to hide some kind of electric box. Pictures can be found here: http://instagram.com/kingsislandpr

I don't think it gets said enough how ugly the Luminosity stage is. The stage and the bleachers combine to make one of the ugliest areas in the park. Just awful.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!! Part Dos..lets start with the rest of the pictures: So that was the tour, any questions or anything just ask. I omitted a few photos/duplicates but there are many more. Anyways, back to Castaway Bay for Q&A..hey I rhymed, awesome So we grabbed our food, which was all provided by Famous Daves, good stuff. Had a bacon cheeseburger, fries, brownie, and Mellow Yellow, good stuff. Once we sat down and ate a bit Tony and the rest of the CP crew came in to talk to us. Some things I can't talk about, we got some exclusives as a perk for donating our money (over 13 thousand) to GKTW. What I can talk about is this, I'm ganna just jot them down as bullets: Surf Dog is classified as a coaster as expected, parts are here, it will take a day to install Lake Erie Eagles will get here later, it will take a day to install A Coke Freestyle and Yogurt stand like at GK plaza will be placed next to Joe Cools GK gave 2.3 million (may be wrong correct me if so) rides it's first season. Raptor is still the winner. GK gave most rides this season Starbucks is coming to Donut Time New tweetup coin will feature Blue Streak being it's anniversary year, only 500 every year Blue Streak, Raptor, and I forget the last one are celebrating anniversaries this year Talked about the events (Campout, Walk-Backs, etc.) Iron Dragon's height requirement is going up to 48 inches Slingshot is being installed, it will be the second highest point on the peninsula at 360 feet. It is a paid attraction Camper Village is totally changing, the building currently demolished, no updates yet We raised 13 thousand in donations, I can't stress this enough And many more So we ended with a Q&A with the Jason McClure, the current VP/GM of CF. You all might know him from his PKI & Carrowinds days as VP of Finance, and his last assignment as VP/GM of Dorney. Very cool guy, glad to have him on board, he will have big shoes to fill, but he is a good pick for the park, no doubt. After the quick Q&A going over a few comments, which sadly weren't that great of questions aside from painting TTD (literally a painter with a roller will rappel down the tower and roll paint on the ride), someone even practically I bet ended the Q&A by asking a question about Geauga Lake..stupid stupid person. Whoever you are, you're stupid. Anyways as a parting gift for raising this much money, doubling what we had last year, we got some parting gifts aside from some exclusive knowledge. In a packet, we received a Cedar Point 2014 calendar, it's pretty neat. I needed a calendar so this solved that. Lots of cool pictures, and has some CP events listed already in it, cool stuff. I also forgot to mention we got a CP Beanie, and CP gloves before the tour, they are going to mail our T Shirts to us as well. Also, and you guys that didn't go are ganna hate this We got one line pass per person. Just walk up the exit, anytime during the season, present the pass, ride the ride. No wait. Also as a final token, McClure put in a free pass to ride the new Slingshot for free valid anytime this season. Again, just walk up, present the coupon, and ride the ride. O So all in all, paid 40 bucks per ticket, got a look at some behind the scenes stuff, got to see the park with some snow on the ground and no people, just us, snow, wind, and seagulls. Awesome food, Q&A, and some exclusive freebies. Plus the feelgood of donating money to an awesome charity. So for those that don't sign up for these things because you think, oh it's not worth the money, or oh it's expensive, or oh I bought a platinum pass why do I need to pay to do this, etc. Stop your whining, you get what it's worth being honest, and plus I'd bet the majority of the times we pay for an event, the money goes to a charity such as GKTW. As you see above, it's awesome to be apart of these events. There are things you guys don't even know about yet hehe After the event, met with a few friends of ours and talked for a bit. Their group ate first so they decided to go grab dinner together while me and Lindz headed to get our hotel. We decided to stay at the Motel 6 off of RT 6 and RT 2. It's a great small place and good for a budget. This visit was my first in five times we've stayed here that I've been disappointed with them. The room was terribly messy and unclean. No reason to delve here, I got a partial refund and just sent the GM an email and pictures relating to the room. I will even after this recommend them. Staying five random times in five different rooms, being honest I'm willing to give them a second chance. The rooms are all modern, great amenities, and very cozy. Plus the beds are fantastic here. Great for a coaster trip, always have been. Anyways while my friends ate, we went to Walmart and bout swimsuits, because we were going to try and do Kalahari day passes. However, after getting swimsuits and driving up the road to them, day passes were sold out unfortunately. Same with Maui Sands up the street, and Castaway Bay. Basically apparently Canadians/NY have a mid winter break and Sandusky was very popular this weekend, sadly. After seeing from the windows how enormous and amazing Kalahari is I will be back at some point. The water coaster alone is enough of a draw to go there for me. But the place is HUGE. I mean HUGE. For those of you who went to the KIC Holiday Party, take that GWL and multiply it by about three times. Kalahari is 215,000 square feet, wheras that GWL is 79,000 square feet. Let that sink in.This doesn't even include the size of the hotel/resort attached to it, just..MASSIVE Anyways after no luck for waterparks, we sat around and talked for a bit about coasters/meetups/etc. we hadn't caught up for awhile. After parting our ways we headed to our room where we spent the rest of the night. We were going to go to Crowbar, a gay bar downtown that is fantastic, however the party wasn't for us, as a couple it seems weird, and we were both exhausted, especially me. Was up at 0600 for work Friday, worked, came home, and stayed up till 0100. Then woke up at 0600, drove, and did all the CP stuff. So by 2200 I was shot. After getting a great bit of rest, we wokeup, and got ready to leave. After leaving the disappointing room, we headed to one of my favorite places to eat in Sandusky. For those who may travel with me up to the point for events this year, I will take you there. But for now Dirty Dees is my secret. For those that are enthusiasts and know what I'm talking about, it's the best place to get away from all the tourism, hectic, and crazy bit of the on season life that happens in Sandusky. After breakfast we headed over into Downtown Sandusky and stopped at one of the piers to climb rocks and go to the edge of them to take pictures of the point and look at the frozen lake. There wasn't anything really that wasn't frozen. It's so quiet and calm up there in the off season. Take that and remove the waves/water/boats, even more quiet. The only thing you heard was wind, seagulls, and us. Speaking of ice, the ice is so thick and solid I took a boulder and chucked it straight at the ice, threw another straight up, and nothing, barely a dent. It just hit, slid, and bounced. Also got to see another cool thing. Between two of the piers, there was an ice quake. There was a straight but somewhat jagged line down the middle of the two piers where the ice split and broke with a little water between them, very cool stuff. Once we got off the rocks, the pier, and back to the car, it was time for the long drive back to Wright Patt. Passed up good olf Davis Besse, Flag City, and Piqua (Tra La La..see who read the books), and then on home. We left about 1230 and got back at 1510. So again, saved twenty minutes off of my drive. I'll take it. Well, that's all folks, nothing else to report or upload. Just ganna sit here, relax, enjoy the night and prepare for work tomorrow. FUN weekend even if six ish hours were spent in a car listening to music, girlfriend, or nothing. Glad I got time to go up there and do this, hopefully KIC will get to do this with KI one day during the off season. I enjoyed this alot, I'd love to take a trip with all of you and have a similar experience at the park. Until next time..btw...pretty soon..this Trip Report section will be filling up, are you excited yet? 75 days left till CP opens, even less for KI

Na na na na na na na na Bat Cam

< (Looks around for Robin and Bat Girl) No, I'm not The Joker (more like Steve Allen...)