Hawaiian Coasters 325

Imo anyone who believed SSBR would be ready for opening day was too overly optimistic and wasn't paying attention. Holiday World literally came out and said on a podcast that Vekoma guaranteed them Good Gravy would open first. Also I don't believe concrete has been poured for footers yet and concrete if I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong) requires at least 28 days to fully cure before vertical construction can begin. With that being said, we may not see SSBRs go vertical until like mid-late January-early February. I think we're looking at Memorial Day weekend at the absolute earliest hopefully I'm wrong. EDIT: Just saw @Taylor.B03 post when I posted my post. Like I said, if they're pouring concrete now, I believe we're at least 28 days out from vertical construction (correct me if I'm wrong though).

So another concert venue in an area already stacked with concert venues. Imo I think this along with the potential for the Linder Family Tennis Center to host concerts down the line should be the final nail in the coffin for Timberwolf. I hate this for those who go to Coney in the summer to swim/go to the water park as they never got a chance to say goodbye. This feels like Opryland/Geauga Lake all over again where the park closed without people having the chance to say goodbye.

I could see a coaster going there. However, since Six Flags IP's are now in the picture with the merger, I could very well see one of those Justice League dark rides going there along with an Action Zone DC Universe retheme.

According to this post on Twitter a few days ago, rebar work is being done for footers:

I never said it would go all the way to Timberwolf. An idea I have is to build the pedestrian walkway overtop the current sidewalks in the center that connects the drop off area to the front gate and have it connect from the area right in front of the metal detectors and would end in front of the tennis complex. Ik its a long walk, but I think what they could do is add those straight escelator things that are in airports (Ik Universal has them in the walkway between parking and CityWalk. Unfortunately this would probably mean the end of the current KI marquee sign, but they could design a better marquee sign that would go on top of the walkway. EDIT: Here's a mockup I came up with for this idea.

From an article posted 3 weeks ago on WCPO: "Beemok has proposed a $260 million expansion that includes not only a larger stadium complex, but also public amenities like a pickleball center and facilities to host concerts, NCAA tennis tournaments and other events year-round." If this ends up being true, I think we can 100% kiss Timberwolf goodbye. I think the best option would be for KI to work with the city as well as the stadium owners to maybe develop some sort of easy accessway between the stadium complex and the park so that people attending events at the tennis complex can visit the park as well without fighting traffic on KI drive/I-71. Link to article. It's actually a good interesting read: https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/i-team/more-costly-than-previously-announced-but-still-reasonable-inside-the-deal-that-kept-w-s-open-in-mason

Seems like footer work is continuing:

I believe family boomerangs use square footings. I know Good Gravy's footings are square shaped. Also Pine Tree Rocket at Wild Land Taizhou (a clone of Snoopy's Soapbox Racers) has square footings.

I'm watching Christmas Vacation on TNT and I just saw a Winterfest commercial! It was brief and I believe mentioned a 2024 season pass.

I would prefer to see the gravel stream by Mystic Timbers' entrance to be turned into an actual running water stream (I believe it was a stream at one point).

Also seems like footer work may be about to begin. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this truck I circled here is used to drill holes where the rebar for the footing will be placed in. I feel like I remember this truck being used for that during Orion construction.

Ik everyone wants Phantom Theater to return to Boo Blasters, but with these new IP possibilities, maybe we see Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle return. The stuff is still there, all they need to do is update it to make it more modern and make the guns work again! I'm a 2000s baby so my young child memory is the Scooby Doo dark ride. I also hope we see the Crypt building reused.

I don't think it was ever supposed to be a water feature. I believe in the concept art it was a planter too.

Isn't the old season pass entrance from the paramount days still there and not in use? If so, that is the perfect solution for this problem.

I haven't been keeping much track of things, but I have not heard any announcement of blue racer getting the second half done. It might've been said awhile ago and just missed it, but where did this get confirmed? I believe both Racer and Beast trackwork were done in 2022 (more Beast work though as Racer was just a small section in 22), but still both can be done at the same time especially if it involves just that one turn before lift 2 Or just get rid of the front and back line dividers altogether. At this point it is just a way for people to try and bypass the remainder of the line if the line is backed up on one side, but not the other (even I've been guilty of doing it at times). Not at just Bat, but at rides like Beast and Viking Fury that still have 2 sided station queues and only use one. Plus at Beast when they assign rows it basically makes the whole lines for front or back of train kinda pointless. I'd rather see the park get rid of the divided queues altogether. They did it with Racer's queue last year where the queue house isn't divided anymore.

I feel like that would ruin the vibe of rivertown even more. I would rather see the station go where Vortex's station was as that corner of the park now is pretty dead at the moment. I think putting the station where the old Vortex station was would help draw crowds back down to the far end of Coney Mall and would probably boost ridership of WindSeeker, Antiques, Troika, and maybe even Backlot to some extent. Rivertown as is already is coaster heavy. I would rather see the Crypt building reused for some sort of indoor ride like the Vekoma madhouse @Cedar Fair Fanboy keeps bringing up

He joked about it at Coasterstock and the place erupted in applause and laughter. Unfortunately won't happen though.

I haven't seen such survey myself. Can you provide a little more information on what they were surveying on. Like the themes of the events and parades?

Tbh while I like Carnivale, it has been going on for 3 seasons now and has only been downsized over the years. I say if they aren't going to return the event back to how it was in 2019 (the different stages, more interactive character opportunities, the weekend concert series) I wouldn't be opposed to axing Carnivale and bringing in something new. At Coasterstock I asked Mike Koontz about doing a Frontier Festival or Kidzfest type thing and he said something along the lines of "we are looking into doing something in May and June that would be specific to Kings Island." For example he mentioned about how doing a boysenberry festival like Knotts wouldn't work at KI since that is a Knotts thing and there are no boysenberries here. Now if Carnivale leaves, maybe we could get an event along the lines of Knotts Summer Nights or the Busch Gardens Summer Celebration where the idea around the event is celebrating the season of summer. They could even tie the nightly fireworks into that and do concerts at Timberwolf on the weekends during the event (like BGW does).

I don't see KI going 8 years without a major coaster. I think 2027 is the absolute latest with my money on 2026. 2025 I think will be Soak City's year. My theory is they fill The Vortex plot first before starting on Action Zone as I feel like AZ will be a multi phase renovation/expansion.

Seems like trees have been cleared by the flume.

Also worth to note that in 2025 the tournament is expanding to 2 weeks which would likely mean more people coming to the area. Wonder how this will affect the park as this will likely mean more people coming to the area.

Taron is an Intamin btw. You must be thinking of FLY?

I believe Time Traveler has been a big hit at Dollywood and it has a magnet on the train that makes it a controlled spin and not an uncontrolled spin like tea cups. Now Ride to Happiness takes that magnet off and runs as an uncontrolled spinning coaster. I think knowing how the park would want the ride to appeal to a wider demographic, if KI gets an Xtreme Spinner it'll likely have the magnet on and ride like Time Traveler.

I worked Monster a couple times this year and heres the thing, those pod doors (especially for someone who is short and out of shape like me) are HEAVY to lift up. Not to mention the control operator manually parks the ride and they have to park it perfectly to safely load and unload people. You also can only load and unload one at a time so that slows everything down. Not to mention on low crowded/short staffed days they only staff 2 operators (drive and load/unload) and since there is only one operator loading and unloading they can only load one side which reduces capacity even more.