CoastersRZ

There is a likely reason for the lack of updates to the Diamondback site from Mr. Helbig. Head on over to Onpoint!, the Cedar Point blog, and find out that representatives from all Cedar Fair parks in various departments have been up in Sandusky for meetings this week. So naturally, if Don is up north, he cannot be providing construction pictures or blog entry updates on the progress of Diamondback.

Not going to happen because theming tie ins to movies is no longer of paramount importance at Kings Island.

Keep in mind that what you are seeing on the station is simply the structural steel that supports the roof. Siding and finish materials are not added until the basic structure and roof are completed. In other words, I would not expect to see any finish materials on the exterior of the station until after the Christmas season. And it most certainly is not an un-modified NoLimits station...

Keep in mind that I believe they also own and operate a hotel at Knott`s. Why would Cedar Fair be interested in owning hotels adjacent to their parks? Because it gives them the chance to capture out of park revenue, while offering a service to resort guests. Translation, the hotels provide Cedar Fair with additional revenue that capitalizes on the success of the park which Cedar Fair owns.

Well, as the Interpreter himself pointed out, I did correct him when he misspoke once. Everyone is bound to make a mistake once in a while. Even I will sometimes post something that is incorrect. When that happens, I note my mistake, apologize and move on. Nobody can be perfect. And I don`t know what you`re talking about FF EKU dawg 4 life. Fairly Odd Coaster is fairly smooth. But then again, as other posters have said a coasters` degree of smoothness is based on personal tastes so it is different from one person to another. Which is why if you ask a simple question like which is rougher Son of Beast or Beast, you will get some people that say the father and some people that say the son. What can be agreed upon though, is that generally B&M coasters are known for their smooth ride experience.

Skaterboy22101, why are you playing devil`s advocate with Diamondback not being smooth? With the exception of a few B&M coasters, most of which are older models/stand up coasters, what B&M coaster is not glass smooth? I have ridden my fair share of B&M coasters (although no hyper coasters), and every single one has been extremely smooth and very rerideable. Saying that the trains will make the ride rough is like saying that Kings Island will be open year round next year. It simply defies logic. B&M rides are known for their precision engineering and superb riding experience. That is not something that will suddenly change with "rough trains."

That ride pictured by Beast1979 is not the same ride as Head Spin/Carolina Cobra! And as others have mentioned, the white paint is likely just the primer paint and not the finish coat of paint for the ride.

Actually, I believe that Hurricane and Son of Beast had different track gauges. Hurricane I believe is typical wooden roller coaster track gauge while Son of Beast is extra wide. I believe that Kings Island modified the Gerstlauer trains to fit the larger track gauge of Son of Beast.

There was another wooden coaster that contained the same Premier built trains that Son of Beast opened with. I want to say it was located in England or Europe. Not sure which park, but it opened a year or two after Son of Beast. As far as I know, there has not been a test of Son of Beast`s top speed that it got its Gerstlauer trains. I`d imagine that the top speed is less than what it used to be with the Premier trains. For one, the the Premier trains featured thirty riders the last season, while the G trains only feature 24 riders per train. Secondly, the Premier trains were built very hefty with lots of tubular steel structure in them. The G trains utilize a lot of fiberglass and likely weigh a lot less than the old trains.

Because they were moved off of the station floor so that workers could work further on the station. They simply put them there so that they were out of the way for station construction and readily accessible for when they do future concrete work.

SonofBeast07, see my post from yesterday morning in which I explain what those tarp like things are that are hanging off of the catwalk outside the station. (Also I provided a detailed description of the concrete curing process yesterday, but will not go into detail about that again here, you can find that post by searching back a few pages if you desire).

Very true. The band organ on Kings Island`s carousel is sourly missed by me. Since we are on the topic of carousel history, I`ll through in some history about another PTC carousel that used to operate in the Cincinnati area, besides the one that is currently at Kings Island and originally operated at Coney Island. In 1918, the Cincinnati Zoo purchased carousel #45 from PTC. It operated at the zoo for 56 years until 1974. In 1974, it was purchased by the Marriott Corporation for use at Great America in California. It operated there until 1996. From there it was placed in storage until eventually being donated to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle Washington. The ride reopened in a new pavilion on May 1st, 2007, and it continues to thrill guests to this day. Ironically, several years ago the Cincinnati Zoo decided to once again operate a carousel, and purchased an animal themed carousel from Chance Morgan Manufacturing, which is not anywhere near as elegant or majestic as the PTC that once operated at the park.

Did you not see my post above? I do not think that Cedar Fair would be in a position to acquire this property given their own debt load. Not to mention that Cedar Fair, as Interpreter noted, passed up the opportunity to own a minority stake in the property when they purchased Paramount Parks from CBS.

Well, as someone who has done a lot of research on indoor water park resorts (that`s part of my thesis topic), I can offer some insights. The Sandusky area has a LARGE amount of indoor water park resorts. They have Kalahari, the largest indoor water park resort in the country, the Great Wolf Lodge, Cedar Fair owned Castaway Bay, and the now bankrupt Maui Sands. Those four (now three) attractions definitely over saturated the Sandusky market. Keep in mind that the Sandusky area only has a population of nearly 60,000 people in the winter. Certainly not enough to sustain all those indoor water parks. And keep in mind that the Kalahari Sandusky has over 170,000 square feet of indoor water park space. By comparison, Great Wolf Lodge at Kings Island has 78,000 square feet of indoor water park space and Coco key has 50,000 square feet. And from the numbers that Great Wolf has released for the Mason property, it is certainly making money for the company. It`s just that GE Capital, the lender that owns the mortgage was not wanting to extend the time period, due to the current state of the economy. I would not say that Great Wolf is about to loose the lodge. Secondly, it would be even more unlikely for Cedar Fair to acquire the property, due to the large debt load that Cedar Fair has from the Paramount Parks purchase in 2006.

I was referring to the fact that during this off season, Kennywood has hired Morgan to fabricate all new track (to match the layout of the existing track) to replace the old Arrow track that still remained from the original Steel Phantom. Ie, the lift hill, first drop and part of the second hill and drop are getting new track this off season.

Well, The Vortex is being taken out... eventually. We just do not know when that time will be. Whether it is two years from now, five, fifteen or thirty years from now, we simply do not know. But steel coasters, unlike wood coasters cannot last forever, without substantial maintenance and replacing sections of track/supports. Look at Phantom`s Revenge at Kennywood as a prime example of maintaining a steel coaster.

It all depends on the temperature. There will be concrete blankets placed around the supports to keep out the cold weather. If it is cold enough they will provide space heaters to keep the water in the grout from freezing (which would be a very bad thing because then the grout could not cure correctly.) The process of concrete and grout curing is an exothermic process. That means that when they cure, the chemical reaction releases heat. So the concrete blankets are keeping the heat from the chemical reaction in to keep the water from freezing. Water does not evaporate from concrete. Instead, the water chemically reacts with the cement in a process called hydration, which is when the heat in the curing process is produced. Is that enough technical information for you on concrete and the curing process?

I have to agree, those ducks landing on the ice were rather comical. And back on topic, it seems as if they have begun to place the bar joists for the station roof. And if you check the webcam, those things hanging on the side of the catwalk immediately outside of the station are concrete blankets. These blankets protect the concrete from the cold (and preventing the water in the concrete mix from freezing, which would produce bad concrete) during the curing process. Also, they are pouring some footings near the Crypt and have added another piece of track and support for the second hill.

People were waiting in line two to four hours just to see Santa? How many people was this place attracting? It sure looks (based on the pictures) that people are getting ripped off and that the place is clearly not worth the price that guests are being asked to pay.

What are you talking about it never snows here anymore? I got stuck in a major snow storm last March heading home from UC. We got about four to six inches of snow!

Coney, aka Taft Broadcasting did not purchase Coney Island until 1968. Until Taft Broadcasting bought Coney, there was no formal discussion of relocating to another property. Hence, they did not begin the purchase of land for Kings Island until the late 1960s, not the 1930s as you stated. And yes, as you mentioned, the deed probably has some restrictions on future use of the land and continued upkeep of the property. Which is why Kings Island likely cares for and maintains the cemetery.

As you can tell from that link, the cemetery is no longer active, and has not been active for more than 100 years! It is not a simple process to un-inter a grave. Not to mention it would be difficult to locate the offspring and descendants of those buried in the cemetery. It is easy enough for KI/Cedar Fair to mow the grass in the cemetery than to try and do something with it. Besides, its not like KI is hard for space, especially when they can use the grass field to the south of the Deep South parking lot.

You, obviously have never had to drive in Cincinnati when there are a couple of inches of snow on the roads. Cincinnati drivers freak out if there is even a couple inches of snow on the ground! I`ve spent several four hour drives in my car going home from UC or my co-op jobs downtown. That`s four hours for a normal twenty five to thirty minute drive time, all because people insist on going super slow for just a couple of inches of snow! Trust me, its not fun when you leave UC at 3:30, and don`t get home until 7:30, and you`ve only traveled 16 miles!

Excellent photo trip report! Glad to see you and your kids had fun. I actually went to the Newport Aquarium this summer with some relatives who were in town from Pheonix, AZ, and we had a fun time there. As an aside, the Newport Aquarium is now owned by Herschend Famil Entertainment Co.

I wouldn`t really call the tactics that Disney uses "spirituality." The Walt Disney Co. is a really good marketer of their products and creating strong demand among children around the country and the world to visit their theme parks. Do I believe that Disney is using spirituality in a negative way? No, because I do not believe that Disney is using spirituality to bring people to their parks. Yes, Disney markets their parks to children. Yes, they promote their parks as a place where child hood dreams can come to life, right before the child`s eyes. At the root of what Disney does though, is it creates and sells memories. While some people may only make one pilgrimage to Disney World as a child, which may give the park a form of awe and spirituality to the child, I wouldn`t say that Disney is exploiting this. They are simply marketing the memories and quality family time that visitors can have at their parks. And the synergies that Disney has between ABC, the Disney movies and the parks help to promote and market all the Disney brands. Not everything that Disney does is good. But they are a well run and operated company, especially in the category of running world class resorts and theme parks. There are scores of books that critically look at Disney, from the "Distory" (the Disney edited version of history presented in such attractions as "The American Adventure at EPCOT), to the way that Disney has pursued developments and pitted local communities against one another in order to secure the most lucrative deal so that the company did not have to pay for large infrastructure improvements that the theme parks required. You can read more in the many critical books about Disney and its theme parks (a quick amazon or google search will turn up many). Having done quite a bit of research on the history and development of Disney`s theme parks for my thesis topic on entertainment architecture, I have read several of the critical books about Disney. In summation, I do not think that Disney`s marketing strategy implements a spirituality or higher meaning for the Disney brand in the eyes of the children. What Disney does do well is successfully market their products to children, and makes a tidy profit off of it. I would not say that Disney is corrupting the minds of children though. I think that this cleric has better things that he could be arguing for than how Disney is corrupting children. How many people today still do not have basic literacy skills, or lack proper education and schooling? Not to mention children that lack proper shelter, food and medical care around the world. Sure seems like he is picking a trivial cause to stand against compared to those more serious issues facing the human race today. Further more, as mentioned above, he is out to sell and promote his book. And the topic that he has chosen will surely guarantee that papers and people talk about his work because of the sensationalism of the link he created between Disney and the corruption of children. In the end, he hopes to be able to make some money off of his book, and likely does not want to stop the corruption of children by Disney.