CoastersRZ

Of course we care! You will have to share your thoughts on Europa after you return from your trip! Sounds like a fun time!

I think they had some sort of company picnic paired up with the customer appreciation day in October last year. The place was crazy busy! I too have never seen it that busy before. Good to see them attracting that many people!

Yes, they did used to sell UDF Homemade brand ice cream at KI. Now they sell Graeters, which is known as a super premium brand, and is expensive outside of KI. Yes, there used to be a sports themed store I believe in the area that is now part of the Starbucks.

As Don has confirmed on here, there will be a pass holder preview for those who renewed their passes by the cutoff date of I believe November 7th. They have not yet released when the pass holder preview will be.

There used to be many more water features throughout KI. There used to be one in front of the Oktoberfest Gardens and one in Coney Mall, by what is now a designated smoking area. These were simply fountains that came out of the pavement a couple feet in the air, and the water drained through the pavers. Cool feature, and added some liveliness to the midway. Sad when these left. I like the river that leads to Diamondback`s splash pond, but it is so far away from the midway, that few people probably realize it is even there.

Fortunately, with architecture, I had co-ops, which were paid and helped me graduate with less than $10,000 in student loans with my Master`s degree. I have since paid them off. There are days where I question why I went into architecture, but that could just be related to my current position at a very small firm. If given a choice between a full time job in architecture and a full time job at an amusement park, all other things being equal, I would totally ditch architecture. Amusement park jobs, especially the front line jobs, are typically people`s first jobs that they get in high school. From the company`s stand point, it makes sense to stream line things with this card. They are still going to have games employees, but with less work needed to oversee the cash and collect it from all the game locations. As an aside, speaking of amusement park workers, at the end of last season at Coney, we were hard pressed to find enough workers to staff all of our rides. And we couldn`t pull more applications and bring people in as there simply were any new applications coming in at the end of August. We are hoping to get enough employees in the department this year. If anyone is interested in working in the rides department at Coney, please let me know.

As others have mentioned, please continue the conversation in the other thread you already started. Also, for the record, this is how you spell itinerary (which you had misspelled in the topic title. Bkroz, please leave the moderating to the moderators. Topic closed.

It is most curious that there is nothing in the spot of the former funnel cake stand...

Thanks for the update!

A little disappointed it will not be ready this weekend, but not totally surprised by the announcement. Still going to have a fun time at Dollywood. This will just give us an excuse to get back down there at some point. What page is the early ride times on Saturday on the Dollywood website. I could not find it. What time does the Coaster Crew event officially start and where is the check in? My wife and I will be coming, and want to know what time to leave the hotel.

Yep. And to make it easy, here is the conversation about Winterfest at California`s Great America, and what was said on the last conference call about the possibility of expanding it to other parks: http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php/topic/31773-californias-great-america-winterfest-2016/?hl=%2Bgreat+%2Bamerica+%2Bwinterfest

I too have heard similar things for the property. It will be interesting to see what develops.

And a little tidbit (and completely off subject). Baynum painting, which is the main company that paints roller coasters in the United States, got their start staining The Beast at Kings Island.

I was able to ride that ride a couple times on visits to Carowinds. The rest of the park had near walk on lines, and that ride had like a thirty minute wait. It was a unique concept (and the opportunity to dump water from the car on spectators on the ground provided a unique element), but the capacity as The Interpreter pointed out, was awful. I believe Hersheypark had a similar model, which also has since been removed. I believe the rides were manufactured/designed by Setpoint.

And how exactly do you know that Dollywood is in a tough spot right now? Do you have connections/sources saying that? Just because they haven`t said anything about the early ride times does not mean that the ride will not be ready.

I think all the stuff that was salvageable, Six Flags already relocated to other parks.

And it looks like several of the rides that used to reside in the park have been relocated to other Six Flags parks and live on today.

So how did the City/Industrual Development Board obtain the property from Six Flags post- Katrina? Was it right around the time of the Six Flags bankruptcy? The article didn`t really mention how the property was transferred from Six Flags to the city.

Um, did you see my earlier posts in this thread? Coney is adding Typhoon Tower at Sunlite Pool. There are no new additions planed for Coney in 2016. They added two brand new rides last year...

The reason KI has so many haunts is that they need them for capacity. Crowds on Saturday nights can be pretty busy with long lines. Also, they have tend to use permanent buildings for several reasons. One, it saves on labor, as they do not have to tear down all the props every season, and setup the tent and take it down. Remember, they used to do CarnEvil (back when it was Circus of Horrors 3D) in the Festhaus before it mades its now permanent move to the old Enchanted Theater location.

But it does allow them to change pricing easier if they decide to raise food prices midway through the season. It also allows them to better promote options such as the season long dining plan, etc. with video verses just a static image.

In a way they already have adopted that policy for the last several years. Halloween Haunt admission is cheaper on Friday nights, which are typically less crowded, and Saturday admission is more expensive when Haunt is far more crowded. I believe that they could start doing this with their food items, as a lot of food locations now have TV menu boards... It makes sense from a business standpoint in terms of supply and demand.

Which if I had to guess, is the pump/filter building for the new water slides.

I would venture to say that they haven`t updated the operating calendar. They have been working hard to get this nighttime show going at Animal Kingdom, and together with the nighttime safaris, are trying to turn this park into more of an all day park. Yes, there may have been some budget cuts, but as far as I know, those were mostly related to entertainment (meet and greets), and not a reduction in hours. (Granted, I do believe that the second nightly Fantasmic show is one of the cuts.) Still seems odd that they would cut budgets at the domestic parks to compensate for cost over runs at an abroad park. Especially given how the domestic parks continue to be successful.

Hopefully it will be ready to roll. I believe I heard somewhere that Dollywood has not been late opening a new ride. But that just means there is always time for a first... My wife and I will be there on opening day, and will be in attendance at the event.