CoastersRZ

I don`t know. Comcast seems pretty intent to invest in their parks. If they end up adding the Nintendo IP to the fourth gate I think it will be quite impressive. Spoken by someone who grew up playing Super Nintendo and N64.

But there are also competing forces. When you have other places like Target offering $12 an hour, it becomes harder to attract employees to a seasonal job making less than that amount. I know that at Coney, where we offered $9 an hour this pas season, we still had a hard time keeping things staffed. This was the first year where Coney offered more than minimum wage, and that was in an attempt just to attract enough employees. I agree on the festival front. If this comes to fruition it will be nice. The Nickelodeon Celebration Parade that ran in 2005 and 2006 (and the Winterfest Parade in 2005), added a lot of excitement to the park. The Nick Parade traveled around to all of the parks, so it was only at each park for a couple of weeks. It was well done and had a Disney vibe to it. I am excited to see what develops from this and would assume it would be a temporary event similar to the Nick Parade. It would definitely add some excitement to the park, and I would love to take my son to see it!

Not sure if it was a change for this season, but Cedar Point is no longer open until 11pm during weekdays in July like they used to be for years. They close at 10pm except on Fridays and Saturdays in July when they are open until midnight. So they are saving labor costs on five hours of operational time every week in July. There are other ways to save labor costs besides limiting hours. I would suspect we will see more self ordering kiosks and automation where they can to save on labor.

Congrats to ride crews at Kings Island, Valleyfair, Holiday World and The Park at OWA. At Coney, we train using the "Ten Critical Components" that are referenced in the news release. My direct report boss (the Director of Operations at Coney), has attended the Ride Operator Safety Schools the past couple of years.

https://www.carnival.com/onboard/bolt-ultimate-sea-coaster This looks like a very interesting concept, and a totally cool idea! The layout looks pretty cool too. I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise this past February with my family. It was a fun experience (including riding the on board water slides). One day, I would love to go on a Disney Cruise, but those are pretty pricey.

I wouldn`t necessarily say it was a "beloved" ride. Yes, it was iconic. But it was not a ride that was very re-rideable. I would take Banshee any day over Son of Beast. I am sure the park didn`t care for the ride after all the money they sunk into it trying to make it an enjoyable ride. The pre-recorded spiel they had playing in the station even stated that "Son of Beast is a high speed, forceful, turbulent ride..." How often to you hear a safety warning discussing a ride as turbulent. I believe another park (might have been Hercules at Dorney) that had a sign that said to expect "intense ride jostling".

That is all part of the Easter eggs that have been woven into the story. Much like those Flight of Fear bulletin boards with news clippings. Those were not original, but showed up after a certain person started working in that area of the park. That person no longer works at the park (they used to post on here a lot, but I haven`t seen them recently).

I only rode Ghoster Coaster once. It had horrid capacity. Each car/train only held two people. The one time I rode the ride was on a day when the park was very empty in Sunday October (around 1999 or 2000). There were only about ten people ahead of us in line, and we still had to wait nearly fifteen minutes to ride. It was not a very fun ride either.

I have to wonder on the timing to open a fourth gate. How long did it take them to build Islands of Adventure when it opened in 1999? I am sure that Disney will have a huge hit on their hands next year when Star Wars Galaxy`s Edge opens at Hollywood Studios and Disneyland. I still hear wonderful things about Pandora at Animal Kingdom, particularly the Flight of Passage ride, as being one of the most incredible ride experiences people have ever been on, so it should be interesting to see what Star Wars has. Universal struck it big with Harry Potter. But now it seems like Disney is firing on all cylinders in Florida. Not to say Universal hasn`t been doing new things (new Harry Potter attraction under construction at Islands of Adventure and their Volcano Bay water park. It certainly is giving people a reason to not just visit Disney when they go to Orlando. My next visit down there will be to the house of mouse though, because my son loves all things Mickey.

And that is not without precedent at Cedar Fair. Carowinds did a Great Carolina Fest this past year that featured food from the Carolinas. Knott`s also does their Boysenberry festival. I could see KI doing something similar. Remember the focus of late has been on having special events throughout the season that spark a sense of urgency to visit the park (thus increasing visits and the odds that pass holders will spend money inside of the parks).

I don`t know who designed the Octoberfest buildings. I know Anthony Daniels (a UC grad), designed many of the original buildings at Kings Island (as well as many of the buildings at Coney in the 60s, with the current games building being one of his projects). More recently, the buildings have been designed by two Cincinnati architecture firms, RSL Commercial Architecture (http://www.rslarch.com/) and TRA Design (http://tra-design.net/portfolio-type/entertainment/).

And it looks like they have an ice skating Snoopy show. I think that would do a lot better in the Kings Island Theater than the current production that is in there.

I am curious, what kind of live entertainment offerings does Knott`s have for their Knott`s Merry Christmas event? Do they have this show, or do they utilize a different Peanuts themed show?

I agree. I still love the way they put the lights on the buildings at Dollywood. The attention to detail and the different color lights that they use is simply amazing.

I believe that Mystic Timbers has a minimum start up temperature. It was 33 when I got to the park last night at 4:45. Mystic Timbers never opened last night as the temperature only dropped. There were still people pouring in when I left around 7:30.

I really hope I can make it down to Carowinds at some point in 2019. This ride looks amazing! I also still need to ride Fury 325!

Yes, that is correct. Worlds of Fun has one Crown built engine. A lot of the track is visible from inside the park. That park has kind of a weird layout. It is cool all the views you get of the train.

My only complaint with the video is that the ground is the same color as the sky (blue). Would have been nice to have some distinction between the two.

Well, part of the reason for the removal of the curbs, is trip hazards. The amount of people that walk on the pathways likely led to trips and first aid runs. Not to mention the accessibility issues with people in wheel chairs. And in its current set up, it gets more of the pedestrian traffic closer to the shops where they can see the items that are for sale, which likely leads to a higher traffic through the stores and increased merchandise sales.

Part of the weird layout is because their back of house buildings are more into the "park" territory. As an example, their International Street doesn`t have an entrance off of it in the middle on each side like KI`s. Also the water park kind of is odd as it is right by Candy Apple Grove and straddles both sides of Racer 75 (the former Rebel Yell).

I was there around the same time on Sunday night and they had the Cinnamon Pull Apart bread. Almost got some, but my in laws got a funnel cake which we shared.

Here is a cool video that WCPO here in Cincinati captured: https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/warren-county/mason/sky-9-kings-island-aglow-for-winterfest

Except what would that gain them? Its not like it sits on a large plot of land. I think the more logical place for expansion would be on the marina side, by where Wildcat and the dorms currently are (for now anyway). It is worth noting that they continue to purchase more land on the main land and not on the peninsula. They haven`t revealed what they intend to use that additional land for.

Nice article, Ronny! It would be nice to see what future expansion they have planned for that property. I always have liked how the original grew organically. The Eastgate location is nice, but there is just something about it that doesn`t seem as authentic as the one in Fairfield. Maybe its the fact that it went into an existing location, and they built it all at once, whereas the original in Fairfield grew organically and was added onto piecemeal.

And, as you can see in the above picture, the train has been lifted up on jacks. The trains are fired by liquid propane, which is denser than air. Because of that, having a traditional maintenance pit could be lethal for those working on the trains. So instead, they will jack the train up off its wheels to do the necessary maintenance.