DeLorean Rider

I doubt people will be willing to sell their homes to Cedar Fair for them to be demolished for a new parking lot and entrance. In addition KI does not have the kind of money to just go buying peoples property. LOL, just remember you heard it here first.

For those of you that are not up on your coaster jargon. MCBR is Mid-Course-Break-Run or the "break shed" as it is offically known.

I would venture that Timberwolf's future is sketchy. Congo and Timberwolf could provide space for a good park addition.

Man this is a difficult question, As with Millennium Force, my favorite steel coaster is Phantoms Revenge but without the ravine it is built into, I believe it would loose much of it's pazazz. In addition Thunderhead on the side of the mountain and the Voyage out in the woods would not be the same in a different location. This will require some thinking.

I can think of several reasons. I dont see why that matters though. Yes the park still does them but it is not a day that is open to the public. You must get tickets through a variety of different organizations. It's usually a friday in september but like I said, the park is not open to the general public.

When the ride E-stops it does not return to the home position, it mearly lets gravity bring the ride to the lowest point, this also means that the gondola is not parallel to the ground but rather angled facing downward. In the event that the ride is unable to be homed such as a lack of air pressure, the ride will be Locked Out, a very large jack is placed under the front of the gondola then jacked up so as to level the gondola, then a roling stair case is wheeled to the front right corner of the gondola. Operators stand at the opposite end and corners to keep guests from walking off the edge. Once all of this is done, an air compressor is wheeled behind the ride and connected to a valve near the back row exit side corner. This allows the manual opening of restraints using the controls at on the side of that valve/box. Restraints are opened half a row at a time starting with the front row entrance side, then front row exit side, then middle row entrance side, etc. The rest of the evacuation procedures are the same, the ops will take your name, seat number, and ask if you're feeling alright. I've had to do this many times^

You know just because the Voyage "exists" doesnt mean that The Beast is any worse of a ride. But then I guess it's cool to be a rebel in a thread where everyone is talking about how great The Beast is. Anyway to answer your question Nick, the total elevation change of the train on The Beast is about 202ft the break shed holds you about 75 ft below the top of the first hill. Since the first hill is I believe 110 ft tall, that would mean that the break shed is about 25-30ft off the ground. Meaning that the distance from the break shed to the lowest point on the ride is still about 125ft or so. This is why the ride would have been capable of holding trains in the break shed.

Yes but AE was not supposed to go directly into the break run. AE was supposed to make a quick and final drop back down into the ravine before it entered the ready brakes. Budget cuts killed that idea.

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I also said that my opinion reflected Paramount PRE 2005. Good things paramount did for us: * Bought the park from Lindner who was letting it go downhill, just look at the "Climax" of Adventure Express. *Expanded the water park many times. *Son of Beast, come on now, they had a huge ambition when they installed this. Not to mention, you guys may hate it but there are TONS of people who come to KI because of Son of Beast. Anyone who's ever worked the SOB greeter position can justify this. *Flight of Fear, just as SOB this could have been hit or miss, luckily it was a hit. *Creation of the Action Zone with the addition of Face off/ and Drop Zone *Attempted relationship with HUSS. --->Tomb Raider had nearly all its effects under the management of Paramount. In 2005 after the park went up for sale, the ride still had nearly all the lights, the steamers, the firewalls, steam blasters, water jets, bubbliers, hazer, fog machines, misters, etc. *Nickelodean universe is Incredibe and if you dont think so, well KI doesnt care because Kings Island is not trying to appeal to you. All the Nickelodean can be talleyed up to Paramount. Entheusiasts who have a season pass who know exactly where the cheepest food in the park is etc is not who KI wants to come in their gates. They want familys of 4 and up and groups with many children and many mouths to feed. *Its a fact that towards the end Paramount had a lack of interest in the shows. That does NOT mean that this was always the case. DID YOU KNOW that in 1999 KI had 7 shows. I dont think Cedar Fair has that many at any of their parks. *OK now one of my personal favorite additions from Paramount: FEARFEST. Fearfest and weekends in October are BY FAR my favorite times to visit the park. 2000 was the year that Fearfest started, cannot deny that. *Even with the knowledge that they were for sale, Paramount Could have just kept the off season empty but they didnt. They tried what seemed impossible. To recreate Winterfest. Obviously it had its flaws however they tried, and to me that is most important. Personally I LOVED winterfest and was heartbroken that Cedar Fair would not attempt to keep it going. *Everyone removes rides, its a fact. Cedar Point changes rides and ride locations more than I change th oil in my car. Sometimes, there are losses. Paramount did not remove the flying eagles, Paramount relocated the flying eagles. I know, I miss them too but I surely doubt that Craig Ross woke up one morning and said "Lets move the eagles to Carowinds" Likely the call came from much higher up and KI had little say in the matter. *IJST Okay I worked on the crew the year this ride opened and I personally can say, that I have ridden the ride while the stair effect was on. I know this because there were times when the stair effect was being tested and I was lucky enough to be working several times. In addition I can tell you that the maintanence department worked like crazy to get the effects to work right but in the end, vandalism and design flaws triumphed. Originally the plan was to repair all the damage in the off season but selling of the park throws a lot of curve balls. * There are COUNTLESS other good things that Paramount did for the park that gets overlooked just because either Paramount Fired them or because they're still upset because the flying eagles got removed. *Moving Firehawk from Geauga Lake to KI doesnt exactly make Cedar Fair #1 in my book. Just because they can afford to move a ride they already own. They still have a lot to prove to me before I'll appreciate them they way I appreciated Paramount.

I dont know if you've heard this before but Dick Kinzel said that: "Magnum was the best business dicision Cedar Fair ever made, and Top Thrill Dragster was the worst business desicion Cedar Fair ever made." I surely hope they're not going to just pass their #$@% down to Kings Island to let our maintainence deal with the headache. Aswell I would have a very difficult time thinking of a place where that ride would actually fit.

I know and I apologise but I must say this. There is no longer a single policy at Kings Island that allows any guest to simply hop on a ride as they choose. The disability policy is this: If you have a disibility you may get a disability guide. What that allows is this: if a line is under a half an hour you may enter a ride through the exit. The reason for this is that it often takes people with a disibility longer to manauver and so forth through the park causing a loss if time. This 30 min grace period is to somewhat suppliment that. My brother,whom I lost to cancer when he was 15, and I used to visit the park frequently together and it did indeed take him much longer to do most things, things even as simple as using the restroom. Believe me this grace period helps a lot. Now If a line is 30min or longer, the operator at the exit will calculate the length of the line, say 1hour for instance, if the time is currently 3:30, the operator will mark 4:30 in the guide, initial, and stamp the book. From that moment on, that guest is figurativly waiting in line, though not physically, the guest is still waiting. The guest in this time may NOT get another time for another ride as they are currently waiting in line already and nobody can be in two places at once. The guest MAY however sit down in the shade, get something to eat, etc. waiting for their time to come. Once their time comes they will go back up to the ride's exit, the operator will take their book, mark off their time, and will have seats saved for them on the next available ride. As stated before there are MANY disablilties that cannot be seen visually. Working at the park 6 years you come to realize this very quickly. You could never know that someone is diabetic without them telling you, even still they could be unable to wait in a line such as, Oh I dont know say; Firehawk, with its wonderful lack of covering from the hot sun. Perhaps you should be glad that you do not need to use a disability guide. Maybe someday heaven forbid, you'll be glad they have the disability program because you may need to use it. Either way from personal experience I can tell you that I never enjoyed having to use a disability guide with my brother. It is inconvienient to have to go to the exit of a ride like The Beast, then come back down and find something to do for an hour an a half then go back up the exit. It certainly better than trying to brave the heat with him for 1.5 hrs but believe me, if we were able to stand in line, we would have prefered it. Sorry about the off topicness. Great trip report!

I agree^. In addition Cedar Point has all those hotels back there to justify that. What has KI got? The little Miami River?? I can see it now: NEW FOR 2008! CANOE PARKING! Come on down stream to our brand new entrance on the Littlie Miami River! Just $8 for Canoes, $9 for Row Boats, $7 for Kayaks and $10 for small sailboats. All those with boats larger may park convinently at our new landing dock for the price of $16. Dont miss River front access for 2008!

Man, I cannot stand when people go on and on about the "terrible" things that paramount did with disreguard for the good things paramount did. I know there seems to be a collective hatred for Paramount here but I for one will stand up for paramount. I will admit that 2005 and after saw some dissapointment but even still, Paramount had Kings Island in the top spot for kids area for years, and if I may say so, Nick U is an amazing kids area that can be 100% attributed to Paramount. There were other things that dropped off in the end but that was also much due to problems within the corporate level of the company. Personally I believe that while paramount owned the park with interest, they did a GREAT job managing the park.

Not to mention that some of the departments still wear the old white shirts like admissions.

In addition, the preshow operators control panel and microphone have been removed. The preshow operator can no longer talk to guests in line via loud speaker, nor can they mute, stop, or start the preshow, it just runs by itself non stop. They cant turn the lights on and off either like they used to be able to. Half of the ride running, no preshow controls, a practically destroyed second theater, no theaming at all and low popularity; I think the future for AT is sketchy at best.

Thats Great! Have they worked on anything else. I really miss the pulsating spears and such in the tunnels. Did they ever turn up the volume of the guys in the last tunnel, I remember at the beginning of this year the voices were so low you could not hear them over the lift.

I've been evacuated from both Millennium Force and the Ledgend. Dont remember how long it was but it was a while. I've also evacuated people off IJST, SOB, TRTR, Beast, Vortex...

Spongebob 3D does definately use 2 projectors. There have been times where one of the films will wear out or break and in the midst of getting a new one, the ride will just shut off the second projector and run Spongebob 3D, in 2D. The thing I could not believe is how there is absolutely NO themeing between the theaters anymore. Just old dirty concrete. The turntable, spongebob, carpet, and everything else in the middle is just gone. It looks terrible.

Agreed^ If they had Tomb Raider closed right now, people would complain that it should run with or without the show. Also there is no reason to assume that the park is going to all of a sudden have a profound intrest in restoring Tomb Raider. They could have been changing lightbulbs for the past 5 years but decided not to. I doubt they'll start now.

How often do those refresh?

Knowing your source I would agree.

Which is still attributed to new ownership.

Scrap steel sells for like $0.10 per pound and less, nobody wants that price but nobody wants to pay more than that either. Being Japanese steel it probably went for less too.

The only people that could get away with wearing a Carowinds shirt is a full time department manager or higher and it is true that within the park chain, managers will visit other parks to talk, take notes, and add experties. As well the park has had managers transfer from carowinds in the last year.