CoastersRZ

I think that was more to emphasize his point about how Cedar Fair has struggled with turning around Geauga Lake. In the next paragraph, he goes onto say that the parks are in good shape and won`t take much tweaking. The major error in his article is in reference to the Great Wolf Lodge. Cedar Fair did not acquire the interest that Paramount Parks had in that property, built on the former Kings Island Campground. CBS retained ownership of their stake in the property (15%) which, IMO doesn`t make much sense. I guess they are figuring to capitalize on having a minority stake in it without having to worry about running it, like they did with the Paramount Parks. I wouldn`t be surprised in the next five to ten years if Cedar Fair doesn`t try and buy the 15% stake from CBS.

Perfect example was Al Weber, the CEO of Paramount Parks before they were bought by Cedar Fair. He got his start as a ride operator at Kings Island (he might have also worked a season or two at Coney Island before Kings Island opened). He climbed his way up to the top spot, even with all the ownership changes from the original Taft, to KECO to KECO being owned by Carl Lindner and American Financial to the most recent owenership of Paramount Parks by Viacom and CBS. Another example was Jane Cooper (for whome the fictitous military base that Flight of Fear sits on is named after (Fort J.G. Cooper)). She got her start at Kings Island, and was with the company 25 years, including the President of Paramount Parks for eight years before leaving and being replaced by Al Weber. So clearly, there were a lot of people at the Paramount Parks that had been with the parks for a while and remained through the ownership changes. While Cedar Fair will likely cut some people (especially at the corporate level on the Paramount Park side) and some people will go, I think that there may be a few people that stay on at Cedar Fair. Just because Cedar Fair took over does not mean they are going to completely remove all the upper management at the parks and replace them with new management. There is really no need to as the difference in management style between CF and PP was not that great. Granted, there will be changes but I don`t think they will be as drastic as everyone is making them out to be.

You don`t have any ID besides your pass from laste year? How about a school ID?

I knew it was Ryan`s first video in about a year, not the sites. At one point in time he was talking about a end of season video for 2005, but obviousely he never got around to it.

I thought the video was very well done. The first video in about a year! Gosh, that`s hard to believe. What happened to the end of season video that you had planned on doing last fall?

Naturally, I think that the site should become KICentral.com if the Paramount name is dropped (which I think is going to happen). KingsIslandCentral, while in theory would be better because then the URL would contain the name of the park, would be cumbersome for people to type because of the length and more of a switch from the current pkicentral.com (granted most regulars to this site have it bookmarked). Additionally, KICentral is short and to the point and not a drastic switch from pkicentral.com. My vote is for KICentral.com.

And that is why this site is The Complete Guide to Paramount`s Kings Island! Yeah, the pictures were wonderful. The Eiffel Tower looked awesome with the lights that were installed for WinterFest last year! Unfortunately, the pictures are as close as I`m going to get to Kings Island through the fourth of July. I will most likely be working down at Coney tomorrow (depending on how my one class at school goes tomorrow). Tomorrow is perhaps the busiest day of the year (last year they set an attendance record on the 3rd). It is the annual LaRosa`s Balloon Glow, followed by Rozzi`s Fireworks launched behind Lake Como at 10pm.

This has been discussed left and right. While Paramount Parks signed a seven year deal with Coke back in the first part of this year, it is believed that all Cedar Fair parks will serve Pepsi products next season. (Much to my chagrin, I prefer Coke over Pepsi).

I personally don`t buy the thought that because IJST can`t easily be rethemed it will be removed notion. True, the ride does depend heavily on the theming elements to make the ride what it is. But I don`t see why Cedar Fair would completly scrap a ride that is only a couple of seasons old, and is fairly reliable, and for the most part, seems to be a hit with the public. True, capacity is an issue and if they decide to remove the theming it poses some challenges to the concept of the ride. But I just don`t see Cedar Fair removing three relatively new multi-million dollar rides at three of its new parks simply on the basis that the rides are themed around a Paramount movie. The Interpreter, Viacom didn`t buy Paramount until 1995. Before that year, Paramount Parks were owned by Paramount Pictures. The first two seasons under the Paramount banner were solely Paramount and no Viacom. It wasn`t until Viacom purchased Paramount in 1995 that Nickelodeon entered the park in the forms of Nickelodeon Splat City.

Yes, why would they remove a ride that is only two years old, simply because it isn`t a "great" ride. Sure, it is not a world class caliber coaster. But it is a fun, thrilling ride that can be enjoyed by families. Not too many launch coasters are out there that are geared towards families. That is part of what attracts the families to PKI. And we all know that they are the ones who bring in the money for the park and increase the per capita spending.

No, ST:TE will not close down. Why? Because as it was stated before, Cedar Fair does not entirely own it. It is a joint venture between (now) CF and the Las Vegas Hilton. I`m sure that Hilton doesn`t want to loose the attraction, which is a big draw to their property on the strip.

That`s rather sad news that they don`t intend to reopen the park. This combined with the news of the other parks could drastically shrink the size of the company.

I do believe that trams have operated on the busier days this year. Its just that when they redid the front gate area and removed the tram circle, it kind of defeated one of the benefits of the trams. Granted, taking a tram to the Deep South lot is still better walking to the new tram pick up location than all the way out there. But in general, the people directing cars to parking spots is a nice way to start off the day at the park. Disney parks do this. Heck, even Coney Island does that for concerts and more crowded days. But that is in part due to the limited availability of parking at Coney on the busier days. Some days, cars will have to park out in the grass between Lake Como and Kellogg.

Well, I tend to disagree. Both rides are relatively major ride installs. Yes, TR:TR is just a "Giant Topspin in a box" but it is one of the most heavily themed rides at a seasonal park. They may not be the biggest or baddest new ride in the country the year they opened, but they certainly appealed to the families and offer a unique thrill/concept to the park. Granted IJST could have been placed on some undeveloped land as not to force the removal of the Antique Cars and the sending of the Eagles to Carowinds.

Personally, I think you might be reading way too much into that quote from the press release. Yes, technically Cedar Fair does have full control of all the Paramount Parks now. But are they in any hurry to make any changes to the parks before the end of the season? Keep in mind that when Paramount bought the parks back in 1992, they had control of the parks at the end of July, and did not institute any major name changes until the following season. Granted they had one less month than what Cedar Fair has. I just don`t get why people think changes are going to be quick and widesweeping at KI this season. Cedar Fair has said that the general public will not notice any signifcant changes at the Paramount Parks this season. Sure, some minor day to day operations may change (such as the front gate procedure which has already been altered), but I wouldn`t look for the immediate dropping of the Paramount moniker before at least the end of October. But stranger things have happened.

As has been the stance all along, the gp will notice little or no changes at the former Paramount Parks this season. While there maybe small things here and there between now and October, don`t expect any major changes. Perfect example will be the parks will still probably use the Paramount logo through the end of the season. However, towards the end of the season, we may start to see the new logo sprouting up, but I doubt that will occur until next season.

Well, WinterFest isn`t "set up" already. The only visible signs that WinterFest is still around are the trees that are sitting in the back of Swan Lake. It will be interesting to see if they continue to sell WinterFest tickets in the coming weeks. If they do, then it will be an indication that they intend to hold WinterFest this year. We will know one way or the other by Labor Day. Personally, I hope they hold WinterFest again, making modifications to what they learned last year. Hopefully, it can become a profitable event and a way for Cedar Fair to realize revenue at Kings Island as well as Carowinds at a time when they otherwise would be sitting dormant.

The image on the main page has Kings Island correct without an apostrophe. However, on the page talking about the actual acquisition, it still has an apostrophe. It will be interesting to see how soon changes start appearing in various places now that the parks are officially owned by Cedar Fair. I can`t wait to see what the new logo for Kings Island will look like. Certainly it won`t resemble the current PKI logo with the Paramount banner. But that is something we will have to wait until the offseason before we get a glimpse at that I believe. In regards to the PKICentral question. In case you haven`t noticed, if you type in KICentral.com, you are automatically redirected to PKICentral.com. I don`t know when we plan on switching over to just KI, but it will likely be after the park itself begins calling itself just KI again.

At BeastBuzz a couple weeks back, we had ERT on Drop Zone. Keep in mind that we weren`t riding Drop Zone until around 10:45, after sitting in the Paramount Theater for a while waiting for the park to clear. When we got on Drop Zone, the parking lot was anything but clear of cars. There were cars waiting in long lines to get out of the parking lot. And this was 45 minutes after the park closed, and I`m sure it wasn`t as crowded as it will be this weekend.

Well the map on Cedar Fair`s website now simply has "Kings Island" without an apostrophe.

Well, seeing as how it is a holiday weekend, expect rather long waits. That being said, the park will have lots of extra entertainment for the Fourth of July weekend scattered throughout the park and throughout the day. Of course, the entertainment is capped off by the Nights of Fire at park closing. Don`t be expecting to ride the rides with minimal waits. Or don`t expect to be able to ride everything during your visit. Also, if you leave after the fireworks, be prepared to deal with a mess of cars in the parking lot.

Well, the day you were there might have been the exception to the rule. All the busy days I`ve been at the park this season Son of Beast has had a rather long line, if not longer than Top Gun.

Coasterking123456, as CombatStupendous said, you don`t have the right to decide when to close a topic. Topics will be closed only when the moderators deem it necessary. CombatStupendous, while The Vortex may have new fenders, I would imagine that it is still using the same size running wheels it always has. Switching to the much larger suspended running wheels would not only cause new fenders to be installed, but it would increase the distance between cars because of the larger diameter of the wheels.

Well, I`m sure that Intamin could manufacture their prefab track to fit the current track guage of Son of Beast. The question would be does Cedar Fair see that as a cost effective remedy for SoB`s issues. Or would they rather remove the ride then deal with all the costly upkeep that has been associated with that ride. Only time will tell what they do with it, but I think it will be a few years before they do anything drastic to the ride.

Well, at one point, there were a lot of trash cans sitting behind Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle, back behind where Starbucks is at. Not sure if they are still piled up back there or if that was just temporary storage for earlier in the season. I remember while at Beast Bash last October, Ryan was talking to one of the ecology guys by The Beast entrance. And like you were doing TopThrill, this guy was rattling off how many trash cans were in each area. The thing is though, that rides like The Beast, Racer, Vortex, Top Gun to name a few, have additional cans in their queue lines that the rides crews are responsible for.