CoastersRZ

That doesn`t sound the best! The park has never been the cleanest park in recent years. Especially when compared to a smaller park a couple of hours away.

Expect large crowds. Even though opening day is all day on Friday, it is Good Friday and a lot of public schools in the Cincinnati have both Friday and Monday off as well. In addition to that, I have heard of at least one radio station giving away a lot of tickets for Friday. Presumably, radio stations from far away from Cincinnati are doing the same thing. (Perhaps as far away as Indianapolis, Dayton and Columbus.)

The Interpreter, what do you mean BGE and BGA (formerly known as BGW and BGT). Last time I checked, the Busch parks were still BGW and BGT.

It has been known for quite some time that that was going to be the car used on Avatar. It is a skater car, on a disko style track. The car will spin like the disko car. The only difference is that the seats are not outward facing. Which means the ride is geared more towards families than thrill seekers like the Survivor ride at PGA.

The Interpreter, it was not obvious when Paramount Parks was sided on the CBS side that they would be selling the parks. Keep in mind that the parks bring in money, but are not a high growth item. That is one of the main reasons for the split of Viacom. THe high growth companies on the Viacom side, with the lower growth (but still profitable) companies on the CBS side. In short, the parks seemed to fit the financial strategy of CBS better (at least for the investors) than when they were a part of the larger Viacom. Ultimately, CBS must not want to run the parks, or is not see as much profit from the parks as they would like. I would imagine that the parks make a pretty nice profit. But the amount of the profit that must be reinvested in the parks as capital expenditures to maintain that profit could be one of the reasons CBS wants out. There is not much return on the investment.

Has any one directly compared it to being on par with Seuss Landing? And no, they are not just simply repainting the existing rides. The Kiddie Whip has been moved with a new shelter built over it. The Go Diego Go ride has had some new cars added to replace the fire trucks. Jimmy Neutron`s Atom Smashers have all new cars, or at least all new fiberglass bodies replacing the boulder bumper bodies. Additionally, the HB Carousel will be getting horses to replace the HB characters. Not to mention the various facade changes to the restaurants, Atom Smashers and the station are of the Azul`s Aventura train ride.

Well, that is good to hear the scoop on how they will be doing the gold pass early ride times!

I have to believe that this may not be related entirely to budget cuts. Since both trains were in operation for both FearFest and WinterFest, I would imagine that the delay in opening is to allow for the full offseason maintenance to occur on these classic steam engines.

Yes. So expect LONG lines, especially if the weather is nice! I`m hoping Easter is like it was two years ago though!

But keep in mind that cold and rainy conditions were present last year on the season pass holder day. The park only was open for two hours due to lack of crowds. Also, this morning, I heard that Warm 98 (WRRM Cincinnati) is giving away 100 tickets for next Friday (Five office workers will win a ticket for them and 19 of their coworkers is what the commercial said). Most likely other radio stations are giving tickets away as well for that Friday, if not the other days of the weekend.

Yes. The walkback will meet at the old pass entrance, with signs denoting the meeting spot. You must show up there at or before 9:45. (The parking lot will open around 9:30). And they will be checking for ACE cards this year. In past years, they have not checked cards often.

I`d say Plankton`s Plunge is in the range of twenty five feet. It definantely is not 50 feet tall. I`m sure there are still a bunch of little details to be added, especially to the Spongebob attraction.

No, it appears as if they were adding a drain. One thing I noticed was new cars on the Hampton Car Ride, now called Go Diego Go (formerly Huck`s Hot Rods). Gone are the firetrucks that were on it last year! The whole area is looking good!

Patience is a virtue! Good things come to those who wait.

Well, I think that Cedar Fair could be a good fit for the Paramount Parks. But, I would not want them to nessecarily abandon the franchises they have, such as Nickelodeon. Also, theming adds to the experience and atmospher of the park. True, PKI has lost some of the theming to areas of the park, but some of the theming on the rides (FoF and TR:TR in particular) are more grand than anything that CP has. Yes, they will likely install some more roller coasters. If this is true, that begs the question what happens with the season passes? Currently, season passes for GL are not good at CP and vice versa I believe. Will they extend that to PKI? Also, with Cedar Fair owning all the major parks in Ohio, will there be less emphasis on new capital expenditures? I think Cedar Fair will be a much better company to run the parks than a private investment group, IMO.

Yeah, I`m sure the Outback by the Harley Davidson would be less crowded than the one two exits south on 71 by all the hotels!

Which, IMO could be pose a problem. But, the rides do have to be tested out by the state before the public can board, so all the kinks in the rides should be worked out. It poses more of a problem with employee`s getting used to running the rides they are at, than it is the actual rides.

I believe he was referring to how that ride did not open until early May last year. (Son of Beast suffered a similar fate its opening year. It opened about three weeks late, and then only opened briefly before being closed for another couple of weeks.) I believe that ALL of the attractions in NU will be operating on opening weekend. But things can change. Some of the landscaping, and final theming elements might not be installed by opening weekend, but they will no doubt be added before the full season kicks into gear in June.

Needs a new paint job? I wouldn`t necessarily say it needs a new paint job. Yeah, it would be nice to have the track painted red again, but it is not looking too bad. Drop Zone`s colors are starting to fade rather noticably though. But still not as bas as Vortex was back in 2000.

Yeah. You would be amazed at the amount of cars that pour into PKI`s parking lot just to watch the fireworks from the parking lot on Nights of Fire! And they still are charging for cars to get in. Not sure if they will do that this year since they are closing the park at ten, instead of midnight like they did last year. Lets just say that when i was up there, I didn`t go into the park, but there were cars parked well into the Deep South lot.

It all depends on what days of the week you go to the park, and how the weather is.

I think he was in charge of food operations at Paramount`s Kings Dominion, perhaps? I know he got his start working at Paramount`s Kings Dominion back in 1975 when it opened as a seasonal associate in food services.

Yeah. Attendance is based on so many factors. A new ride is an important factor to overall attendance, but it is just one of the many factors that determine how well the attendance figures do. I believe the best year attendance wise that the park has ever had was back in 1996 when Flight of Fear opened. If I remember correctly, they had 3.6 million people visit that year.

But yet, they really didn`t start implementing rides tied to their movies and properties to the full potential until the last couple of years. Yeah they added Top Gun in `93 and Splat City in `95. But not until Drop Zone and Face Off in `99 and then eventually in full force with Tomb Raider did they start to tie in the Paramount properties into the parks.

Yes, if you have a Paramount Park pass you do get a reduced price. Last year`s prices were as follows: $40 for Coasterbuzz Club members without a Paramount Park season pass. $16 for Coasterbuzz Club members with a Paramount Park season pass. Non Coasterbuzz Club members may attend the event for an additional $4 over the above prices. On site registration (member and nonmember) was $45 without a PP season pass and $25 with a season pass. In one of Jeff`s posts over on Coasterbuzz, he said he believes the prices will be the same as they were in 2005, which was the same prices as in 2004. I`ve never been to BeastBuzz. In fact my first coaster event was Beast Bash this past October, and I`ve been an ACE member since January of 2001! I think I might just have to attend this event! It seems like a blast, and will be a good way to end my co-op quarter before a long ten weeks of classes at UC in the summer (yuck!).