King Ding Dong

Given that it is 12:33 right now the park has not been open for 4 hours yet he must referring to the posted wait time. CP has been overestimating the wait all season so it is unlikely really that long. (Unless there is a shutdown). But as the July crowds pick up I wouldn’t be surprised if the wait starts topping the 1.5 - 2 hour standby line wait most have reported.

At CP as well. Every time I go to a refresh station I am asked if I want to purchase a souvenir cup. Why would I want to do that? I should ask them if I did purchase the cup, would that mean my pass would have TWO drink plans on it then?

Welcome to KIC! Depending on how your family eats and cooperative they are, you can consider 2 or more All-Day-Meal Plans for $30 each. They will get you 1 meal every 90 minutes, so if you stagger eating well you can feed the whole family fairly well all day for $60. It is a wrist band so whoever has the plan(s) has to be present to order and pick up the food. Once that person has the food the park does not care what you do with it so you can share with integrity and it is not abusing the system. You would probably want to budget a bit extra for ice cream or other treats for the kiddos. Another option is to just pack a cooler and go out to the car to eat, many families do. In that case paying the extra $10 for preferred parking can make it bit more enjoyable.

That is interesting Brad becuase when that happened to me last year one cashier said I had three, then another said I didn’t have any. (The family had three as both boys have the drink plan on their passes as well) Fortunately I assured them I did and I guess I look honest because they gave me cups anyway. I think the boys passes scanned fine. Did not have an issue the rest of the year so I just assumed the glitch was fixed.

It would be great if some could post some pictures of between the cars and the track as I can’t visualize it right now and won’t be there until probably Thursday. (Obtained legally and with permission, of course )

That’s to bad and happy to hear no serious injuries. When I was there two weeks ago they were still installing it. Unfortunately they took out a rather tall body “speed” slide tower to fit it in rather than expand the waterpark. I have mixed feelings about those cloverleaf rafts. They are fun but as bigger person I don’t fit in them very well and could easily fall out if I lost my grip on the handles. Although I meet the weight requirements for regular tubes I routinely flip over on tube slides and end up going down the rest of the slide on my back so I have curtailed my use of those until I am loose some more. I think it is a combination of mass and higher center of gravity as my bottom doesn’t fit down in the tube far enough. Tip to anyone that flips on a tube slide, flip to your back if you can preferably feet first. A couple of times I didn’t and banged up my knees a bit. Exiting into the splash pool on your stomach is a bit dangerous. FYI I was chatting with a guard there and they are using Ellis, the same company CP and KI use, for their guard training and cert. So they are doing the whole head nod scan thing as well.

That subject has come up before and at least policy wise you can’t have more than one meal plan per pass. But we all know that several people have reported up to three drink plans have mistakenly been on some people’s pass likely due to a software glitch. But I think it would be good policy if at a mimimum a parent can get gets the child’s meal while someone else corrals them at a table. I personally have never been questioned when getting my kid’s food, but I am starting to switch them over to handling it all themselves.

I have mulled the policy around in my head and can’t really come up with a good justification for it. If the dinning plan isn’t activated until the pass is scanned at the gate then the plan holder is there, so what is the big deal? The only abuse I can really think of is if Mom or Dad drops the kids off at the park and scans in and leaves their pass with the kids so they then have extra meals. Seems a like an rather unlikely scenario. Park the car, walk all the way to the entrance, go through security and the gate just to turn around and leave? Maybe there are others my devious mind hasn’t thought of yet?

That is park policy. I emailed GS last year over the arguement here on sharing Dinning Plan meals and their reply was the person has to be there to pick up the food and after that they could care less what you do with it. Agree it is kind of a pain especially with small children as they aren’t always the best behaved in food lines. It usually isn’t a problem if the family is eating at the same stand but can be an issue at something like Festhaus. I would email GS and express your displeasure over the situation and suggest a policy change at Festhaus for exeactly this situation.

Loosing a FOB is my worst nightmare. We lost 1 of 2 about 10 years ago and I think it was well over $100 to get a new one and programmed. Did you check out the model of SV being built in the Town Hall Museum? Very impressive.

MotionX GPS is pretty good app I have been using for years, has various map types and can store multiple tracks plus a ton of features I haven’t used. Was free when I got it years ago. This actually got me thinking that I should run it while on some coasters and see how well it tracks the course at that speed. In my pocket of course.

The standard reply on this forum goes something like this “The two parks have different coasters and restraint systems and therefore have different loose article policies.” The personal injury lawyers are drafting plans to build new wings on their houses right now.

Updated theming: Don’t Go In The Rows!

Welp I guess it won’t be to long before they build all coasters like this to keep the loose articles contained.

I would easily pay $50 a year for a drink plan per family member if they always kept both Freestyle locations open added a staffed dedicated stand in Action Zone and one farther back in Coney Mall. Asking for one in Xbase would never happen.

There is one across the patio from GateKeeper gift shop. Another on main midway left side about halfway up, I beleive right past the Raptor entrance but may be a little farther up. Another on Frontier Trail near the Millennium tunnel. Another across from the antique cars in Frontier Town on the way to Maverick/Steel Vengeance. The last is on Gemini Midway next to the Yogurt place across from the flats before Magnum. Midway Market has a couple but I don’t think you can just walk in to get refills, but I have never tried. Most should be open this time of year but there always seems to be one or two closed. The Frontier Trail one is the least reliable for me. If there is no show playing the Red Garter Saloon is a decent standard refill station in that area with generally a short line.

Manatees also known as sea cows have a top speed of about 19mph.

1st thing which is obvious is experienced skilled managers on duty. Sometimes one of the Chefs will jump in and help out but it is clear qualified management is not always on duty. See my post about the entire line held up for a full 10 minutes becuase they ran out of mac and cheese. 2nd sides, estimating amount needed, sitting to long in the Cambros and not dumping it when it is deficient quality. I have heard employees talking to each other at other locations about getting yelled at by managers for letting food go bad dumping it. 3rd, it is hard getting consistent quality with BBQ even with quality equipment. I wouldn’t dream of walking in there and telling them I could turn out consistent meat. I have said this before, when slow cooking things like brisket, pork butt or ribs it is not done after a certain number of hours or when it reaches a set internal temperature. Every hunk of meat, pig and cow is different. It has to be closely watched and tested with a fork for tenderness as the process nears its end. Doing that on a big rotisserie with 50 hunks of meat must be a lot of work and I bet they don’t do that. Cook them to long and they start drying out and crumbling apart or in the case of ribs fall off the bone at which point it is like pulled pork (if using the Texas crutch) or dry out if naked. There is a reason the competition BBQ circuit is so big, it takes skill and if you watch any of the TV shows even the top pitmasters biff it now and then.

What parks did you visit?

No kidding! I only expect that from Six Flags parks!

A bit harder for women to secure their key but I agree with Malem. SC generally requires you bring more stuff but as long as you can ditch your phone in the car and bring old towels and a cheap bag I don’t worry about my stuff. If you arrive early enough you can park really close at SC. Your clothes are not likely to be stolen but shoes maybe so I change those in the car.

Yeah, what is a rollercoaster but entertainment and KI has many high quality entertaining coasters. Now if it had started with high quality food service on the other hand....

My father (72) went with us to SFSTL Wednesday and first ride got Batman. He was done, poor guy. It was hot and muggy and we all ended up leaving after a couple of hours. The park was dead as everyone was at the waterpark.

Have not heard of it being removed (yet)