befat

Son of Beast was built around this tree and it’s still there! I think it’s become sort of a tradition. See also the 2 trees around Mystic Timbers drop. I’ve never heard the part about that tree actually being damaged and removed during Beast’s construction. Edit, you can actually see this same tree in @sixohdieselrage‘s image.

Diamondback is the only coaster at KI with a backup generator. It’s only to restart the lift in the case of a power outage. There’s also a system on the mid course brake run to manually release the train back to the safety brakes. It then needs to be evacuated from there. I don’t know if this comes standard on B&M mega coasters. As you know, all coasters will come to an automatic stop in the next block in the case of a power outage. Only on the arrow coasters, the trains need to be chalked eventually since the air pressure will bleed off after several hours.

It’s all about the limited time events these days to drive attendance. I wouldn’t be surprised if they put off the teasers until after Carnivale ends on July 7th. 2020 should make for a record breaking attendance year regardless. They’ll want to do everything they can make sure 2019 isn’t a down year. Also, they have a count down on the website for Gold Pass prices increasing on May 28th so they might be waiting to clear that hurdle.

It would be a sneaky way of including “world’s” in the marketing materials. Also, the world’s only hyper-giga coaster with the lift of a hyper and the drop of a giga.

My guess is it was maintenance road back then too. It looks like the fence line continues across the path as a gate.

Two things I find interesting from this image: 1. Seeing KCKC out there alone in the woods without The Beast next to it. 2. Seeing the train layout before it was modified for Waterworks.

#whatsinthepropbuilding?

That’s one of those simple things that makes one think, wow, why did it take this long for someone to think of that? No more lugging around a heavy water cooler for this ride crew.

Reliability. I don’t remember the exact words he used, but Dick Kinzel said in an interview that TTD was his biggest mistake/regret. Six Flags was in too deep before they realized it might be a mistake. Xcelerator has the same issues that TTD does. It’s not the biggest draw for me at Cedar Point. It’s actually pretty low on my list or must do rides there. I don’t have much desire to go check out Kingda Ka. As already stated, they are (very expensive) one trick ponies.

Good point. Those would all work well as they could be themed to a rocket ship. Lumberjack could be themed that way too.

I think long term, Firehawks queue line will be used for a new flat ride either behind the train storage for the new ride or in the cutout where the turn around into Firehawk’s station was. What kind of flat ride would you like to see? When it comes to flats, other parks seem to be going with drop rides or giant swing rides but KI obviously has those already.

Opening up all the queues at FOF and Firehawk created problems at both rides. “Things” tend to happen when you have that many people in a tight space with slow moving lines. Same reason that the middle queue at Firehawk was frequently closed. I still think it’s overkill but it will help with those issues, especially during Haunt. It does look like one of the switch backs is going to be removed from the outside queue at FOF for more lockers. I remember getting in line for FOF during its opening year (not opening day) somewhere around The Racer entrance. This new queue setup could easily eat that crowd but I don’t see a 25 year old ride pulling that kind of draw anymore. Fast Lane probably slows the line down though. Crowd management is interesting.

It looks like another switchback is being removed from the outside queue at FOF to expand the locker area. Using the Firehawk queue for FOF? I did not see that coming. It might be overkill but I guess if it's already there, you might as well use it. I wonder where ride-photo will be for the new ride. Could be the little expansion in the back of the expanded locker area, or the shaded area just outside of the station. We can rule out the maintenance garage (old helicopter building) and plush barn being removed. It's unlikely that the other maintenance buildings or the X-Base Haunt building are removed. I'm still guessing the construction between Racer and FOF is for a new maze. I don't think it's for Carnival because the Nickelodeon parade floats were stored behind Zephyr and that area is still available.

Wow, just wow. Classic example of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. Was this the Coney Mall or Soak City location? I’ve never eaten at the Coney one but the Soak City line moves pretty quick as long as both lines are open.

That better be a good sandwich! I’ve had some less than stellar food experiences at KI but nothing like that. You could drive to the Subway on Kings Mills and be back in 30 minutes tops. Something tells me they don’t take the meal plan though.

My family went to the Brewhouse yesterday and it was a great experience. I was surprised to see that they opted for ordering at a counter instead of tableside but this made for a very efficient operation. It’s essentially the same set-up as McAlisters. The food was fresh and delivered to the table quickly. There was a problem with our meal plan and shout-out to the associates and supervisor for correcting it quickly. We had 2 pub burgers, a big pretzel and the kids chicken tender meal. The burgers did not taste like amusement park burgers (a good thing). My kids are very picky eaters and they loved it. It was nice to be able to sit down and relax to eat while it didn’t take away a big chunk of time. The line to order moved quickly even though it was out the door. The associates also cleared the tables quickly. I watch a lot of Gordon Ramsey shows and it seems they took his advise of keeping the menu simple to showcase what you really do well. This menu would be hard to mess up so I think they have a winner on their hands.

There were stakes in the ground for Slaughterhouse on June 21, 2014. So if this is for Haunt, they're about a month ahead of schedule which wouldn't be a bad thing.

My guess is a new permanent Haunt maze is being constructed between Racer and FOF. Massacre Manor, Carnevil, and Tombstone Terrortory were all removed without replacements. Since area is so far removed from the midway, there shouldn’t be much of an increase in congestion. With Winterfest being well established now, it would make sense to invest some capital into Haunt this year.

It’s easy to forget! That was mainly my point.

For the record, I think this coaster will be over 300ft. Cedar Fair took a risk at Canada’s Wonderland. (Rumor has it, Leviathan was slated for Knotts.) The risk obviously paid off since Carowinds repeated the model. Having riden Fury, I have high hopes for this coaster. It will be interesting to see what they do with the second element since MF, Leviathan, and Fury all make a turn after the first drop. This one seems to go straight for a while. It will need something other than an airtime hill to make it feel different than Diamondback.

Would you believe that Kings Island once operated 2 hyper coasters at the same time? The second was only 12 feet taller and less than 2 mph faster. The general consensus is that it was 100% better though. So we would all be happy with a ride that’s 242 feet tall and 82 mph, right?

B&M (almost) always starts construction with the transfer track, station, and lift. So if KI could try to avoid the layout going public for a little while by filing a partial print, why wouldn’t they? If I remember correctly, there was construction going on all over the layout for MT from the beginning which could explain why they had to file the full print of the layout.

I find it interesting that the leaked layout has so many surfaces highlighted in different colors even on the interior of Action Theater. It highlights where the theater was changed for Urgent Scare and on the side where the seats were later removed for the Dino movie. It highlights where the pavers were added in Coney Mall and where a walkway was added for Field of Screams. It also highlights all of the changes for the presumed queue extension in the Firehawk area.

If I recall correctly, at some point it was said that the drop would be 80 degrees. Everything I can find now says 74 degrees so maybe people were right to question it. I could be totally off on the 80 degrees though and don’t feel like digging back through old threads. I also can’t find anything where KI officially announced the angle. No one guessed the name, until it was trademarked. Mustang was a highly rumored name thanks to the diversions in the teaser campaign.

In one of the original Diamondback threads, I recall a lengthy debate over the angle of the first drop with people attempting their own calculations. Which was very similar to the current debate over the angle/height of the lift hill. Same stuff, different new ride.