CoastersRZ

Now now, lets not be mean. Although, King Maple does bring up some valid arguments for why he no longer is in ACE. Everyone can have their opinion. With regards to the events, yes, KIC`s event was half the cost of ACE`s winter Soar for non-ACE members. The KIC event also sold out within days of the tickets going on sale, at the very busy Christmas season. And the KIC event is featuring food that is not customary for the Winter Soar events. I myself used to be an ACE member from January 2001 through January 2007. I am no longer a member. My reasoning was that I never really went to any of the events, save for the fall event at KI a couple of times. Additionally, by the time I received my ACE publications, the news was a couple months old already, and I knew about the information from the internet. I simply did not go to enough events and did not get enough out of the publications to justify my membership dues. Some people might really enjoy being ACE members, but they sometimes do not have the best stereotype in the industry. As the saying goes, sometimes a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.

Currently, Disney Cruise Lines has two ships. The "Disney Magic" which began operating on July 30th, 1998 and the "Disney Wonder" which began operation on August 15th, 1999. Two new ships are to join the fleet in 2011 and 2012.

I do not know the answer to that question. I do know that the slides are designed and being manufactured by White Water West. Currently, there is not much progress at Coney on the future site of the Twister. However, the slides are currently beginning to be fabricated in White Water West`s fabrication shops. A tidbit about the new Twister slide is that it will occupy approximately 1/3 of the land that the old Zoom Flume used to occupy.

Beast1979, I have a couple comments based on your construction progress graphic from above. Firstly, how do you know that the station roof is completed? For starters, it is hard to tell how much work has been completed just from looking at the low resolution webcam. Secondly, if you don`t have much construction knowledge, how can you know that the roof is completed? Personally, I believe that the "roof" that you speak of may in fact be corrugated steel decking. The decking is used to span between the structural bar joists. The finished roof material (which provides the water proof barrier for the station area) will be attached to this substrate steel decking. Secondly, your graphic on progress of the ride steel has some errors. The large support next to the Crypt`s queue has not yet been installed (located between the cave entrance and the actual queue). The next support (located immediately to the right of the cave entrance) has been set into place. Thirdly, the correct spelling of "qeue" is "queue." You need to be careful about what you post and make sure it makes sense. It is generally not wise to assume and state stuff as facts which you do not know to be true. Particularly when it comes to building buildings! I`m just offering you a friendly reminder to read over your posts to make sure that they are as accurate as possible (to your knowledge), and that you try and make posts that have valid content that adds to the discussion at hand. This last point is in reference to some of your posts yesterday.

The rides close at the end of the day on Saturday, January 3rd. They reopen for the year on Saturday, March 28th.

For all intents and purposes the ride is considered done and complete when the Ohio Department of Agriculture`s Rides Safety Division certifies that the ride is suitable to be open to the general public. As it moves closer to April, things will be checked off of the list of things to do. But to be saying that the wiring for the station is almost done is just absurd, just basing it on the image from the webcam. Heck, even if you were standing on the midway looking at the station in person, you would likely not be able to tell how close they are to completing all the electrical work for the ride.

Well there are many circumstances where land values caused the park to be worth more as real estate as opposed to be operated as an amusement park. Six Flags Astroworld comes immediately to mind. Not to mention the fact that Elitch Gardens was moved to a new location in the mid 90`s. Never say never, as nothing is ever guaranteed. It is highly unlikely that Kings Island will suffer the same fate as Geauga Lake, but there is always that slim chance of uncertainty with everything.

Yes, the front row was removed from The Crypt, not the back row. And a few seats on the exit side were also removed a few seasons back.

Well, there is a distinct difference between constructing a coaster and performing maintenance on it. Steel coasters, once they are built are relatively done being 'constructed' until they are removed from the park. Wooden coasters, however, are always subject to being reworked and retracked every season to reinforce parts of the ride and make slight modifications to make the ride better and more enjoyable. Those types of modifications rarely happen on steel coasters, but they do sometimes happen, like with Phantom`s Revenge having most of the old Arrow track replaced this winter with Morgan track.

Yes, but to say that they are finishing the wiring implies that they are almost finished with the wiring. I`d venture to say that they still have a lot of wiring work to do on the station and the ride control system. It would have been more appropriate to say work continues on the station, including wiring, roofing, and miscellaneous items.

Well, I also thought that some in school would know the difference between homophones and be able to deduce the correct one in use in a sentence!

And if you`ve followed the Gilroy Gardens saga at all, you would know a little bit more about the situation. Cedar Fair`s management contract of Gilroy Gardens was set to expire in February of 2009. But at the end of October, the park`s board of directors decided to continue the management contract with Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. for another two years, effective through February of 2011. Back in October, there was a proposal from some South Korean investors to buy Gilroy Gardens (originally named Bonfante Gardens), but they have since withdrawn their offer.

Beast1979, how do you for a fact know that the roof and all the wiring for the station is done? While it looks like the roof may be done from the webcam, I highly doubt that the roof is completed, and I certainly doubt that they have finished all the wiring in the station and for the ride. Be careful about speaking on subjects of which you have limited knowledge! And, at most parks the area where the main control panel sits is called the drive box.

It was a Jesuit Monastery from 1934 to 1966. It then operated as a private college until 1983. The property was then sold. It became a victim of the real estate company that bought it went bankrupt, and maintenance on the building was non-existant after 1985. The building was closed to the public in 1989 due to safety concerns. In January of 1991, a heavy snow caused a portion of the exterior masonry wall to collapse, although the structure of the dome was not damaged. Then in 1996 came the restoration efforts. Both French Lick Hotel and Casino and West Baden Springs Hotel are now owned by the same company.

After riding Mystery Mine, we headed next down Timber Canyon to ride Thunderhead. We encountered a walk on line for this ride and rode in the back. This ride is non stop action from the moment the trains leave the lift hill until the moment they hit the brake run. The trains never seem to loose any speed until they hit the brakes at the end of the ride. This was my first GCI coaster I have ridden, and it was definitely an awesome experience! The millennium flyer trains are awesome. After grabbing another ride on Thunderhead, this time a front seat ride, we headed off towards the Village section of the park. We quickly caught the 8pm departing Dollywood Express. This was a fun train ride, and it is amazing how steep some of the drop offs are immediately adjacent to the ride! After the long twenty minute train ride, we rounded out the final minutes of the night with rides on the Sky Rider, Dizzy Disk and the Waltzing Swinger. It was now 9pm and we left the park to grab some dinner. We settled on IHOP. When in there, we glanced at the jelly packages that were sitting on the table and were given a surprise! Yep, the jelly packages were packaged under the label Knott`s Berry Farm! On Monday, we wanted to hit up some of Dollywood`s live shows. The first show for the day was Christmas in the Smokies. This forty five minute show was an excellent show, complete with a seven piece band performing the music! An excellent show. The next show that we saw was Babe`s in Toyland. This hour long show featured a cast of 20! It had elaborate sets. The finale to this show contained a "blimp" where the family journey`s out of toyland and back to their home town. This blimp flys on elaborate rigging out over the audience. A very cool special effect! The final live show that we saw was `Twas the Night Before Christmas. This show featured an elaborate set and contained many classic Christmas carols. It also featured the big jolly St. Nick. In all, the three live shows that we watched were all filled to capacity. And the three shows covered 2.5 hours of our visit to the park, which is very impressive. What was even more impressive was the amount of talent that was present in all of the shows. When we were not enjoying the shows, we were enjoying more rides on the Tennessee Tornado. We additionally grabbed several more rides on Thunderhead throughout the day. The station has an awesome fly through in it, where the train roars through the station. Thunderhead has become one of my favorite wooden coasters. I`m not sure if it has knocked The Beast from my number one spot just yet, but it is a very good ride that I want to ride some more, and one of my favorites! Timber Tower is a HUSS ride, but we did not go on it because it did not look that thrilling. Before we grabbed a final front seat night ride on Thunderhead, we went to the Country Fair section of the park. We went there to ride the Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel is a sixteen seat Eli Bridge Ferris Wheel. The ride was built in 1993. Above is the name plate for the ride. All Eli Bridge rights have this located on them. The last two numbers in the serial number are the year of manufacture. In this case, the ride was built in 1993. The ride is tire driven, and not cable driven like the 12 seat model that I run at Coney. The cable driven wheels are no longer manufactured because they are harder to keep properly balanced. All in all, we both had a wonderful time at Dollywood. Most of the ride operators were older, with lots of gray haired retired people. But all were very friendly and seemed to be enjoying their jobs. I highly recommend that you make a visit to Dollywood. And I highly recommend the Smoky Mountain Christmas Festival. Their live shows are amazing, and both Thunderhead and Tennessee Tornado are awesome rides! Like I said above, Thunderhead is now one of my favorite wooden coasters. And, the best part is, since I have a season pass that is good through the end of 2009, I could go experience the Christmas festival next December as well. One thing to note, is that the regular Dollywood season pass does NOT include free parking. But parking was only $8, and they did have trams working It was nice to be able to grab some roller coaster rides a couple of days before new year`s! And now I`ve ridden a total of 78 different roller coasters! I`m sure Cory will chime in with additional comments and insights from his point of view from our Dollywood trip

I`ll start off this trip report by shedding some light on my thesis topic. During my final thesis presentation for Autumn quarter in early December, my second thesis chair gave me an assignment to complete over Christmas break. He told me that I need to go visit French Lick Resort and Casino and West Baden Springs in southeastern Indiana. He suggested I make a visit there to see how they treated the circulation between the hotel guest rooms, and the actual casino building, since this resort and my thesis project share similar uses. When I was giving my presentation, he kept picturing these resorts in his mind, and told me that my design would greatly benefit from first hand experience of these resorts (now I get to spend all winter quarter refining my design and including some of the design elements I learned from visiting French Lick.) For those of you who are not aware, my thesis project is centered on entertainment architecture and an indoor water park resort on the current U.S. Playing Card site in Norwood, Ohio. Before I was given this assignment, Cory Butcher had been asking me about making a trip down to Dollywood to experience Dollywood`s Smoky Mountain Christmas. Well, we decided to go ahead and do the trip, hitting French Lick first and then driving down to Pigeon Forge Tennessee and Dollywood. All below images were taken by me, unless noted as being taken by Cory. We left Cincinnati at 5am on Sunday, December 28th for the three hour drive to French Lick, Indiana, which like Santa Claus,IN is pretty much in the middle of nowhere Indiana. Above is the original French Lick hotel building which was built in 1901. After spending some time at French Lick, we hopped a mile down the road to West Baden Springs Hotel. The sprawling grounds of this resort are immaculately maintained, and the hotel itself is a rather large building, given the size of the small town that it is located in. On the interior of the hotel, which opened in September 1902 and was designed by Harrison Albright. The dome is 200 feet in diameter. The building under went a $35 million renovation from 1996 through 2004 and reopened as a hotel in May of 2007, operating as a hotel for the first time since 1932. The building is listed as a National Historic Landmark. After spending two hours in the towns of French Lick and West Baden, it was time to depart for Pigeon Forge which was about a six hour drive! After some lapses by "Sally" the GPS unit and sitting in a very backed up highway in Pigeon Forge, we arrived at our hotel around 4:45. After dumping our bags, it was time to depart for a night of fun at Dollywood. We opted to purchase season passes, since they were only $73, and we would be visiting on both Sunday and Monday. The shear amount of Christmas lights that Dollywood puts up is amazing! I haven`t been to the Cincinnati Zoo`s festival of lights in several years, but the zoo would be hard pressed to surpass this display! More lights. One of the challenges we faced is that I had never been to Dollywood and it had been a few years since Corey had been to Dollywood. It is a little difficult to navigate in a park that you are unfamiliar with for the first time, at night! A large Christmas tree is decked out in lights. There were several trees like this throughout the park. They were simply beautiful and contained thousands of lights. http://daapspace.daap.uc.edu/~zerhusrf/temp/dollywood/IMG_4690.jpg{/img] Even the buildings contained thousands of lights! Our first stop on Sunday evening was Blazing Fury. To our surprise, there was only a one train wait! This is one awesome little ride. The theming on this ride is typical of what you would expect on a dark ride at Disney World. And the ending will leave your appetite wet for more thrills. After being warmed up on Blazing Fury, we headed next door to the Tennessee Tornado. The ride only was running one train, but the wait was only a couple of trains. It is an awesome ride, especially at night when there are no lights in that valley. The ride, just like Flight Deck is incredibly too short though. After departing the Tornado, we made our way through Wilderness Pass and over to Timber Canyon. Once there, we headed for Mystery Mine, which had about a fifteen minute wait. The ride itself, like most of the other rides at Dollywood, has impeccable theming. And like the other rides at Dollywood, it is literally built into the mountain side. The ending to this ride was the best part of the ride, however, I was not impressed with the ride that much. It was unique, and had an excellent them. The ending was superb, but it felt like there weren`t enough elements strung together in a row between all the block brakes/trims. It felt like you would go through one element at a high rate of speed, only to come to a near complete stop in a set of brakes. All in all, that is a very minor liability of the ride.

Well, on the subject of raising prices. Coney Island is also raising prices in 2009. Regular pool only admission and regular rides only admission is rising by $1. Parking is also increasing by $1 to $7. The price of a general admission that includes both pool and rides is rising $2. The price increases is the result, in part, by the fact that Ohio`s minimum wage increases to $7.30 on January 1st. Additionally, the park is adding the $1.7 million Twister water slide. Really, the prices of the destination theme parks in Florida are astronomically high for one day admission. But, like with the Disney admission tickets, the price per visit begins to drop dramatically the longer you stay. What they are trying to do, is to encourage people to stay at the parks more days, which will lead to them spending more money on food and merchandise. For example, you pay $70 for one day admission and two meals at $10 a piece equals $90. But you could visit the park three days for a total of $120, or $40 per day. While the price to enter the park per day is lower, you will now be buying six meals at $10 a piece as opposed to just two. So while it seems like there is a tremendous value in the three day pass, you end up spending $180 for three days verses just the $90. It is all about creating value and enticing people to stay longer and spend more money.

In response to TOPGUN1993`s response post to Corey`s comments about Mystery Mine and Thunderhead, I`d have to disagree with TG1993 and agree with Corey. I found the very last part of Mystery Mine to be fun with the two inversions. However, in general, the ride seemed to be a little jerky, and it did not contain any sections with lots of speed or with a series of elements lined up together. Ie, it seemed like you would do one or two things, then hit a trim or block brake the entire ride. On the other hand, I was blown away. Thunderhead was the first coaster that I had ridden from GCI (yes, I will be posting a PTR later tonight!). From the moment you leave the station until you hit the final brakes, the ride is non-stop intense thrills. The ride never seems to loose any speed anywhere throughout its course! It just seems to keep up its momentum and pacing throughout the entire circuit. If I could choose one ride to ride that I haven`t, I, like the Interpreter, would need a time machine. I would love to have experienced the Shooting Star at Coney! Yes, it wasn`t the tallest or fastest, and would seem tame to most coasters at Kings Island today, but it was a classic ride that I wish I could have been alive to experience it. As far as rides that are currently in operation that I would like to ride, that is a tough decision. While I have now ridden 78 different roller coaster (which still pales in comparison to some who have ridden several hundred), there are many that I would like to ride. I would like to experience the B&M flying coasters. Additionally, I would like to experience SheiKra and/or Griffon. Other honorable mentions would go to Alpengeist, Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia, and Kentucky Rumbler. There are just so many different rides out there, and many of them offer their own unique elements that it is hard to choose just one that I really want to ride the most.

Well, in all fairness, adding words that state "I am simply adding these words so I don`t make a one word post" does not make the post of higher quality. In fact, the post still lacks any pertinent or additional information to the subject at hand.

Heck, the season pass we bought paid for itself with just our two visits! And I will want to swing by there again and try and use that pass either in the summer or for next year`s Smoky Mountain Christmas. And yes, the live shows at Dollywood are top notch. We watched three shows, one was an hour long and the other two were forty five minutes long! So three shows took 2.5 hours of time, and that`s just the actual run time of the show, not counting the time we sat in the theaters before the show started! Dollywood is a really great park, and Thunderhead is now one of my top wooden coasters! It was the first coaster I have ever ridden that was designed by GCI. In my opinion, Kings Island needs one of those rides! I`d trade Son of Beast for a ride by GCI in a heartbeat.

Well, technically, it was CBS that sold the Paramount Parks, not Paramount itself, nor Viacom. Paramount Parks became part of the slow growth division when CBS and Viacom split several years ago. Paramount Pictures was under the Viacom umbrella and Paramount Parks, because of the slow growth nature of the amusement park business, under the direction of CBS. If none of the major operators were willing to even buy the Hard Rock Park for $35 million at auction, there certainly won`t be any interest in buying a piece of land where there used to be an amusement park. With the large amount of money that was invested in the Hard Rock Park, for it to only last a year does not bode well for any potential new parks to be built in the United States anytime soon. As Railrider said, ultimately, the former GL property will likely be developed as some sort of commercial big box development, or a mixed use development that contains some specialty stores, one or two big box stores and some office spaces and residential units all in the same development. With the state of the current economy, it could be a while before any of these developments take shape, but if the GL property is prime real estate, it will eventually be developed in some form or another.

Trust me, the staff will document all of important stuff in pictures to put on the site. Not mention all the personal trip reports with personal pictures that will be filed soon after the event.

Holy fright! Talk about a bump. I would not count on the Nickelodeon characters receiving their eviction papers just yet. But time may be running out on their stay at Kings Island. Then again, maybe not. As the old saying goes, only time will tell what the future has in store for Kings Island. Was is certain is that Kings Island will be a different place in five years than it was this past year or five years ago, let alone thirty years ago. And the Interpreter will be quick to point out, that it is not a guaranteed fact that Kings Island would still be seeing the fair in five year. Robbie, who has been known to post witty posts like the Interpreter from time to time.

I believe he might also have been referring to the fact that the narrator was talking about not riding the rides with back or neck problems. When the narrator mentioned that, the video showed a clip of a guy wearing a neck brace riding a slow teacup spinning ride.

I`ll be there! Boddah1994 gigacoaster2k Gordon Bombay Mr. 3000 beastfan26 flightoffear4thtrain Raptor66 CoastersRZ