CoastersRZ

Come out to Coney Island to celebrate the 4th of July a day early on July 3rd. There will be hot air balloons glowing from 8pm to 10pm on the Moonlite Mall behind the Dodgems ride. Admission to see the balloons is free (parking rates still apply). At 10pm Rozzi`s Famous Fireworks will put on their typical amazing display over the banks of Lake Como. Also, don`t forget to check out Sunlite Pool (which will be open until 9:30 and Coney`s classic rides, which will be open until 11pm! Be sure to check out TopSpin and Fender Bender, the two new rides for this season. And if you didn`t visit Coney last year, be sure to check out Wipeout! Normal rates apply for Sunlite Pool and Coney`s classic rides. Parking is $8 before 2pm and $10 after 2pm. I will be working all day that day, so if you are going to Coney that day, you just might see me. If you do, be sure to say hi! For more information, visit Coney`s website here: http://coneyislandpark.com/larosas-balloon-glow

It is just Python. It has been since 2010. This was a story much ado about nothing. I was working when this happened. The ride did exactly what it was supposed to do. (There were several other rides where we had to manually lower the ride to evacuate the riders.)

Voicetek, How did you enjoy Coney today for the Autism walk? I spent a lot of time out at TopSpin today. It seemed to be a big favorite of the riders. Did you get to ride it? What were your thoughts on it if you did? For those wondering, check out the Coney 2015 thread for some pictures and a brief video I took today of TopSpin in action: http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php/topic/30101-2015-at-coney-island/

TopSpin at Coney Island was previewed today by people attending the Walk Now for Autism Speaks. The ride officially opens for fun next weekend on Saturday, May 23rd. Check out this picture of the ride in motion: And for a brief video of the ride, check out this video: https://youtu.be/fQR_TPcWWLo

The Scrambler at Coney was NOT removed. It was temporarily removed while the support pieces received a fresh coat of white paint. The ride was open this past weekend for the Appalachian Festival, and will officially open with the park next weekend.

Per the article, all of Pinnacle`s real estate assets are potentially up for sale. I doubt that this will immediately affect Belterra Park or Coney in the near future. But nothing in life is certain.

Thanks for the congratulations. I have the privilege of riding TopSpin over the weekend. It is a fun little ride. Definitely packs quite a bunch. It will be a nice addition to Coney. The ride hasn`t officially opened yet, but will be ready when the season kicks off on May 23rd.

Yep. This is an old topic. Also, for anyone headed down to Coney tomorrow or Sunday, please note that the new ride, TopSpin (which is not a Huss Top Spin for those curious), likely will not be quite ready for this weekend. I will be working all day down at Coney tomorrow, officially kicking off my 14th season there!

Wow! I just read that and it was an amazing read. Definitely brought a tear to my eye! Thanks for sharing!

The park is starting to look great again. The new TopSpin ride is installed and looking sharp. Several rides have received paint jobs, including the Turtle Parade and Racing Rockets. The rides will be open next weekend as part of the Appalachian Festival. Official opening day is on Saturday, May 23.

That was an excellent article to read! I will be getting out to Knott`s Berry Farm in about a month when I go on my honeymoon. I am excited to visit it. (And of course to visit Disneyland).

And I believe that the offer was for $11.50 per unit of Cedar Fair. Cedar Fair has been trading around the mid-upper 50s lately. Seems like the unit holders made a wise decision. And with Great Wolf being private, they do not disclose their financial performance like a public company, so it is hard to definitively say if they turned a profit. I will say they are still charging a hefty rate to stay at the one at Kings Island.

That has a nice ring to it.

No, I have not heard what the height requirement for it will be yet. Or what it will officially be named. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It has been a while since I posted in this thread. I just thought I would post a couple things about Coney`s new rides for 2015. The as of yet un-named pendulum ride is actually being manufactured by SBF Visa Group, which also manufactured River Runner. The ride model is a Midi Dance Party 360. The ride is going to be located across from Tilt A Whirl, (between Tilt A Whirl and Moonlite Pavilion, in space that was previously a large berm). Here is a link to the SBF website: http://sbfrides.com/product/en/742/MIDI-DANCE-PARTY-360/ And here is a link to a YouTube video of the ride in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCzN39ULgo The kiddy bumper car ride is likely going to be located next to the Giant Slide.

I have worked at an amusement park now for fourteen season (we just started hiring at Coney for the 2015 season), and I have loved every season. Granted, I started off as a ride operator, and have since transitioned into a rides manager position at Coney. It is a fun job. Yes, the hours can be long, the weather unbearable at times, and the pay not the greatest. But like others have said you get to say you work at an amusement park. How cool is that? To this day I still find that awesome. Even as a manager at Coney, I like to get out and run the rides. Seeing kids having fun and their smiling faces on the rides as they make memories is priceless. I still remember a day I was working my second season at Coney. It had stormed around 4pm, and we reopened after the storm, even though there was no one left in the park. We stayed open because their was a group from the Boys and Girls Club that was expected to arrive around 6. They did finally show up. I was working the now defunct Spin-A-Ree ride at Coney. One of the kids that got on my ride that evening made my day in so many ways. As I let him in the ride area, he said "I remember you from last year! You are the guy that let us ride helicopters over and over without getting off and you were giving us high fives when we did finally get off." Things like that make working at an amusement park so much fun. The other perks like occasionally getting to test ride are also fun too.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-seaworld-ceo-joel-manby-20150319-story.html So who will take over Many`s post at Herschend?

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-seaworld-ceo-joel-manby-20150319-story.html

Which also means that it is the same amount of time to my wedding. My wedding day is on KI opening day. So between the rehearsal dinner the night before and my wedding itself, I will not make it to KI opening day for the first time in many, many years. I have gone to every opening day since maybe 1999! But this is a very important reason not to make it to opening day. And then I will leave bright and early on Sunday morning for an eight day honeymoon out in California. (And yes, roller coasters will be involved out there, including a visit to Knott`s Berry Farm and Disneyland!)

There needs to be a distinction made. Calling the monorail cars trams can be a bit confusing, considering Kings Island also used to have parking lot trams, similar to what Dollywood and Disney World have in their parking lots. For a while, these were parked in the bone yard out beyond The Bat/Son of Beast. I am not sure if they are still out there or not.

Yep. The river crested this morning and has begun its slow retreat to the normal banks. I can shed some light on how things are done at Coney. Some rides, like the Carousel, are taken apart. The horses are actually moved to the second level of Moonlight Gardens, so it would take a really big flood to affect them. (In the flood of 1937, some of the carousel horses on the PTC Carousel that is now at KI wound up down river as far as Paducah, KY). Some of the electrical boxes on the rides are removed at the end of the season, in case of flooding such as this. Or if there are buildings, Coney will typically cut the electrical supply to those buildings before the water can get into the electric system. Over at the pool, most of the lounger chairs are actually loaded onto semi trailers at the end of the season. Normally these trailers will sit in the parking lot, or are moved in the Coney owned lot across the street from Kellogg. Since these are already loaded onto the trailers, it makes them easy to move in the event of a flood. Once the waters go down, then the cleanup can begin. The later in the spring a flood happens, the harder it is for Coney. Back in 2011, the last time that the rider got up to 55'. it actually crested in mid to late April. We start hiring and doing ride trainings in late April. We got our first training in,and the mechanics had started to set up the rides for the season. Due to the flood, they had to undo some of their work, and we had to cancel some trainings, and that year they had to cancel the Appalachian Festival in May because the park wasn`t cleaned up and ready for visitors yet.

Coney added some more photos of the flooding to their Facebook page. River is expected to crest tomorrow morning. Entrance to River Runner is under water. The flood waters have almost reached the administration building.

They are now saying 58 feet will be the flood crest. The highest flood since the flood of 1997. Enough of a flood to completely submerge all of Coney under at least some water.

As the Anderson High School alma mater starts out "By the fair Ohio`s waters, Stong and staunch and bold." The Ohio River is above flood stage. Coney just posted some pictures of the flood to their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/coneyislandpark Lake Como has grown by several feet, with the island in the center of the lake under water. (It would be hard to launch any pedal boats off of the pedal boat dock, since it is under a few feet of water. The river is forecasted to crest at 56.3 feet. Flood stage is 52'. The last observed river level was 52.84 at 2pm. http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=iln&gage=ccno1 Remember, this is one of the reasons that Taft Broadcasting decided to "close" Coney down and build Kings Island. Hopefully the water goes down quickly, so that we can start to get ready for the 2015 season. There are two new rides on the way to Coney this year.

Some of you may know that as part of the development of the Banks and Smale Riverfront park in downtown Cincinnati, they are installing a new carousel, with hand carved horses from Carousel Works, located in Mansfield, Ohio. This carousel will feature unique animals. Check out this video from the Cincinnati Park Board with interviews from employees and carvers at Carousel Works discussing the Cincinnati Carousel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS7kleLasfU And to see a video with the local artist doing the paintings for the rounding boards, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHGGN_E7HMI Caroul Ann`s Carousel will open at Smale Riverfront Park on May 16th. If you haven`t checked out the progress on the park so far, I recommend you check it out as it is a very nice park, with lots of unique and fun features.