CoastersRZ

Yes, those pictures are pretty nice. I too liked the shot down the shaded path by Vortex that leads to the Rivertown Pizza area.

According to the searches on Caripro I just did on the net, it appears as if they were indeed sold to Vekoma back in February of 2002. For the quality of ride that SDGC is and the capacity it offers, I don`t see it fitting that well with PKI`s longterm plans of family friendly entertainment. They could very easily dismantle it and add a higher capacity ride, and more family oriented like a Setpoint Swing Thing.

As long as the ride is fun, it will fulfill its design goal. Any ride that is built is built to be thrilling and exciting. I certainly think that this ride will be an exciting ride for people of all ages to ride, since it will not be high on the intensity ranking. April and May can`t come soon enough!

Yep, you are correct PKI Diana. Here is the picture in question. It is no doubt the Kings Mills Log Flume, not Kenton`s Cove Keelboat Canal as the caption states.

That is the first time I have heard the park say anything about a new campground will returning to the park to replace the one lost by the Great Wolf Lodge. It will be interesting to see where they put this new campground. I would assume that it would go behind the current campground, but their is the plant nursery there. Maybe behind that, out to the right of the Son of Beast midcourse brake run?

I believe that the Dora ride is just a retheming of their prexisting miniature train ride. I don`t think it would be a totally immersive dark ride, like Disney because of all the other work and stuff Carowinds is getting.

The only thing I dislike, othe than them having PKI`s flyers is calling the Carousel the Nick-O-Round. I`m sorry, but with a classic like a carousel, they should keep its name as Carousel. Also, I hope they don`t destroy the classic carousel by adding the vignettes of the Nick Toon chracters! Also with the original introduction of Nick Central, PKI was not first. PKD had Nick Central installed in 2000, and then PKI revamped Nickelodeon Splat City into Nick Central in 2001.

That twisting drop by the station area it a pretty twisted drop! This just goes to show how quickly the track can be assembled once they start with the track!

Gabriel, PKI has in the past limited the number of people on the loading platform. They used to do it regularly, which is why there is the large podium in The Beast`s station. Also, a couple of years ago they did this for the Gold Pass holder double ride Tuesdays on The Beast. Also, the first weekend Face Offf was open in 1999 they also did this. It makes waiting on the platform more enjoyable because there is more room, and its easier for groups to ride together. However, they have to have a operator doing this which result in more staffing required at the major coasters. However, they could work on Drop Zone. they could make the queue work like Delirium`s so that there is less downtime between cycles. That could help Drop Zone`s capacity a little.

The only reason I think that they MAY consider removing it is because it could impede on future expansion of Nick Central. Also, from what I have heard, the maintenance on the elvator lift system is quite involved. Honestly, I hope the ride sticks around for awhile any ride that is removed is a loss for the park.

Well, Disney seems to pull of different themed uniforms for different rides ok. But they also are open year round, and probably don`t have to deal with shortages of riders. I disagree with making the guests get confused. Look at PKI in the old days, they had uniforms for different areas. While it would make contacting an associate a little harder to do because they all would not look the same. The thing I remember most when I was a kid was the rainbow uniforms at KI in Hanna Barbera Land. I believe they were white, but had rainbow strips on the sleeves and collar.

I don`t think the ban of smoking would result in a drop of attendance. Look at what Holiday World did with the special decks for smokers. I think it could be a good move on PKI`s part to ban smoking, but it would likely cause some contraversy. As far as the selling of alcohol, back in 1993 when Paramount bought the parks, they did ban alacohol for a couple seasons. But then they brought it back. Even though it may cause some minor problems, I`m sure it brings in a lot of revenue for the park, which adds money to the capital expenditure budget. They perhaps need to enforce the point of sale rules a little bit better.

The uniforms that the TR:TR crew wore the first couple of weeks were simply the left over unforms from the Son of Beast announcement, as I understand it. Yes, it would make people look oout of place if they were sent to another ride, but after having been to Disney, it does add a lot to the themed atmosphere of a ride or area. I don`t forsee PKI doing this in the near future though.

Dry run day is reserved for employees and their families. Essentially, it allows the employees to get a feel for running the rides, stands and games with a more acceptable audience and one which is not paying to experience the park. It essentially allows the park to work out all the kinks and bugs of awakening for a new season before paying guests and pass holders enter the park.

I sure hope that they update it frequently!

Have you ridden Son of Beast? LOL.

Off topic, but Gabriel, are you planning on flying over IJST anytime soon? It has been a couple weeks since the tour and I`m sure they have acomplished something more since the tour. Sorry for being off topic. Back on topic. I find Scooby to be a fun ride. Although I do miss the animatronics and originality that came with Phantom Theater. Scooby keeps be coming back though trying to get a high score.

If I`m not mistaken, you must be 36" to ride the Sooby`s Ghoster Coaster. Which is a smaller height requirement than Rugrats which is 44". In fact i think they recently gave Beastie a height requirement of 36 as well. While slightly smaller kids can ride Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster, with the maximum amount of guests it ccan reach in a day so small compared to the other kiddie rides, I wouldn`t be at all surprised if they did remove it in the near future.

Yes, I never said that the Hanna Barbera rights were sold off. That is because it gets tricky. When Carl Lindner purchased Taft and KECO, he also assumed control of the rights to Hanna Barbera. Also, Paramount bought KECO and not Taft Broadcasting which was now known as Great American Broadcasting, and then Clear Channel. Some how, and I don`t know the connection, but Time Warner got a hold of the Hanna Barbera rights (hence, the reason why the new Scooby movies are made by Warner Bros.). This is also the reason why Six Flags parks have Hanna Barbera characters. Now, the whole reason for the rumored departure of the characters from the Paramount Parks is also connected to this. Apparantly, when Paramount bought the park, they agreed to a long term license to the Hanna Barbera characters. From what I have heard, this contract will expire in 2007 or 2009. At this point Paramount Parks will no longer have the rights to Hanna Barbera, without renewing the licensing fee, which they will probably not renew. They will however retain the rights to Scooby Doo, since they "bought" a license for Scooby when they bought the ride from Sally, as mentioned earlier in the post. I hoped I made a little bit of sense. I don`t really know the history of Hanna Barbera after Taft Broadasting was sold.

But see, that is the thing. The ride only fits two people per train, and the trains do not move that fast. It may appear popular by having an hour long line, but that is due to the low low capacity of the ride. Also, if the park wanted to use that land for a new ride that they feel would be more popular and be able to reah more guests per hour than SGC, I`m sure they would remove it. Yeah, it is inly seven years old, and is a fairley new coaster, but it is kind of redundant to have a children`s suspended coaster and an inverted coaster. Runaway Reptar is essentially the same thing, has a higher capacity and is taller longer and faster.

Ok, time to bring out the old history of Kings Island and how it relates to Hanna Barbera. Taft Broadcasting was a Cincinnati based broadcasting company that was incorporated in July of 1959 when Radio Cincinnati Inc. sold The Times Star to The Cincinnati Post. Taft traces its roots back to August 25th of 1939 when the Times Star newspaper and Radio Cincinnati, headed by Hulbert Taft, Sr. (1877-1959) purchased the WKRC radio station. Radio Cincinnati later built the WKRC television studios in Mt. Auburn. Eventually, Taft Broadcasting would own a number of television and radio stations. In 1964, Taft Broadcasting secured the rights to the popular Hanna Barbara cartoon studios. Based on the success of Kings Island, Taft executives set out to duplicate the success in Richmond, Virginia. Kings Dominion opened in 1975. In addition to Kings Dominion, Taft entered into a partnership with Top Value Enterprises, a subsidiary of the Kroger Co. in early 1975 to purchase Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina for $16 million. In 1980, the partnership dissolved and Taft became the sole owner of Carowinds. Additionally, Taft built Wonderland outside of Toronto, Canada in 1981. In late 1983, a group of general managers at the Taft parks as well as several vice presidents at Taft Broadcasting led by Nelson Schwab III, purchased the parks. They then formed their own company to manage and own the parks, the Kings Entertainment Company (KECO). Meanwhile, in 1987, KECO was reorganized as Carl Lindner purchased the majority of the shares of Taft Broadcasting and KECO. KECO now owned 100 percent of the parks, except for Great America. Carl Lindner continued to let KECO operate the parks. However, the parks were rapidly loosing steam and money under Lindner`s direction. So, on July 31, 1992 Paramount Communications purchased KECO, which by this time was comprised of five parks. In 1993, all five parks except for Canada`s Wonderland, were rebranded as Paramount Parks, and now sported the Paramount moniker in front of their names. Wonderland received the Paramount moniker in 1994. The reason that Paramount Parks are phasing out HB is simple. Their license for HB ends in coming years (somewhere around 2007-2009). Rather than pay to renew it, for character that most children don`t know, they will retheme it to the more popular Nickelodeon characters, which they have the rights to through Viacom. Also, Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle will remain as they will keep the Scooby license as it is still popular. Wuite honestly, I don`t think HB has much of a local connection. Yes, the chracter did add to the park, but they are no longer as popular as they were when the park opened bak in 1972.

Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster, located in Hanna Barbera Land was built in 1998. Over on Ultimate Roller Coaster, there is a discussion about its days being limited. With an extremly low capacity (I`ve riden it once, the final weekend of 2000 I believe, when there were about ten people in line, and it took about 15 minutes to get on!) could it be removed? The need for it is somewhat pointless now that the park built Runaway Reptar. Also, with the rumored departure of the Hanna Barbera characters in the next couple of years (minus the Scooby ride) could PKI take out this ride and use it as part of an expansion and renovation to Nick Central? Possibly the one rumored in 2006? If they also removed the water maze next to it, and relocated some of the smaller rides underneath SGC, they would have quite a large area for an expansion. What does everyone think about the future of HB, and SGC?

I believe that PKI will have Scooby for longer than 2010. Because I don`t think they would install the Scooby ride in 2003, and expect to get only 8 years out of it. Granted that the tradition for rides in that building is for the rides to only stick around about 10 years.

The park opens in 11 weeks. They have a lot to get done on this ride in that amount of time. While there will not be any more construction tours, the park will now hopefully keep us up to speed on their website, sine full construction is now well underway!

Accoriding to RCDB.com, Paramount`s Kings Dominion will rename their children`s coasters this season. Topcat`s Taxi Jam will now be known as Hey Arnold`s Taxi Jam. And Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster will now be known as Fairly Odd Coaster, in reference to the Fairly Oddparents. That name has got to be one of the weirdest names for a coaster! Anyway, does this mean that Paramount has begun to phase out all the Hanna Barbera cartoons (with the exception of the Scooby rides?). Could PKI see name changes like this for rides, and see Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster changed? Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster is fairly close to Nick Central.