The Interpreter

Scheduling conflicts, they say? Hmmm. There is also this: Strange that these conflicts also seem to affect Paramount's Carowinds. I wonder if someone can see der fair possibilities here.

Two words; Yeah, right. No waya, Hosea.

Well, there was the time I was going to Michigan's Adventure and ended up at the Wisconsin Dells. Random? Sure. That's part of the fun of life. Many is the time that I started out at Kentucky Kingdom and just left and went to Kings Island or Holiday World or vice versa, or even all three! Life is for living. Enjoy! If you can afford it and have the time, why not go somewhere else if the notion strikes? And sometimes, when you are dependent on someone else for a ride (or they on you), you change your plans, or have them changed for you. One time I was going to spend three happy days at Six Flags Great America, but a friend had his brakes going out on his car and needed someone to follow him back to Cinci....and so I did, ending my Great America visit after the first day, going back to Cinci--and ended up going to the Point and having the time of my life. I like fairs (and yes, this post has been random, too!)

As you can see, all have their own opinions. You, too, will have yours. If there is time, ride everything and make up your own mind! If there isn't, set priorities and do those things first. I recommend you get to Top Thrill Dragster as quickly as possible, get in line, and wait for the front seat. It is an experience, and a grand one. You will either enjoy it or hate it, but if you don't do it, you will always wonder which it would have been. I love Blue Streak, find Wicked Twister about as exciting as waiting for a funnel cake at Kings Island...but what does that matter? It's your trip, you do what you think you will enjoy! Most of all, have a great time!

Indeed, the Geauga Lake Big Dipper is, in my opinion, the best wooden coaster currently operating in the state of Ohio. Until recently, I would have reserved that honor for a ride in Middletown, Ohio; but the park is closed and the Screechin' Eagle sadly stands but does not operate.

The West Virginia Turnpike Toll is $1.25 at each of three gates, each way...unless'n you are driving a semi or sumthin!

No. It hasn't been stated it won't open, but they also have said they can't say it will.

You would THINK someone at Cedar Fair and/or Kings Dominion would update their website. Is that so hard? Do they not realize that people look at the website when planning a visit?

Borg is a LOT closer to the North gate than the South one. Especially if you are not there at opening, I'd just go in the North gates. Have a great time! Carowinds is one of my favorite parks!

Borg is incredible in my opinion. It is well worth the wait, and if you are going to ride it, I would go in the North gate, the first one as you come in after the parking booths. And yes, they have guest relations at both gates. The North gate is normally the busier one, but it will put you closer to Borg. You could also use the south gate and hoof it up there, but with kids, I'd probably use the north gate. If you and/or your kids end up liking Borg, the wait for X-Flight at Geauga Lake is usually very, very short! How much do I like Borg, Top Gun and Carowinds? Well, my Paramount pass is to Carowinds!

Saturdays at Carowinds can be VERY busy. If you've ridden X-Flight at Geauga Lake, as much as I hate to say it, you can skip Borg if you must, and you probably will have to unless you go straight to it at opening. Top Gun: The Jet Coaster, the park's B and M, is an incredible ride and not to be missed. It is one of my favorite B and M's. In fact, I think of the B and M inverteds, the only one I like more is Raptor. Thunder Road is the park's version of Racer, and still has quite a bit of airtime, though the back seats of the cars are rather rough. The Hurler there is also a bit rough, and otherwise identical to Hurler at Kings Dominion. The Scooby dark ride is fun, and, though shorter than Kings Island's version, I like it better. I love the mouse, Ricochet. If you haven't ridden one, you surely do not want to miss it. The Super Saturator will get you very wet, if you are in to that! Vortex is their B and M standup, it's quite historical and never has a very long line, in my experience. I actually like Goldrusher, the minetrain, a lot. The line is usually very short, as apparently most people do not share my regard for that coaster! If both entrances to the park are open, you can save a lot of time in the morning by going to the South entrance (the one furthest from the parking toll booths), and starting at that end of the park. Sometimes, they do not open Top Gun at the same time as the rest of the park, but I believe they usually do on Saturdays. If you are getting in with a PKI pass, don't forget to go to Guest Relations first and get a ticket. Your pass will NOT scan at the gate.

Somehow I suspect you (given how often you express your love of thrill rides) would be disappointed, but I may be wrong. The Coney Island Cyclone is both the granddaddy of wooden roller coasters and perhaps the most overrated wooden coaster of all time. Part of what I say here will be seen as blasphemy by some, others will agree. The trains on it nowadays have been heavily modified. If you are of any size other than that of 170 pound, 5 foot 10 inch tall male, they can be painful. The coaster itself has been modified time and again. Even compared to when I started riding it, it is now a much tamer beast (but that can be said of a great many wooden coasters, from Rattler to Beast to Riverside (now Six Flags) Cyclone to Colossus). That being said, the Cyclone endures and gives grand, historic and somewhat expensive rides in the relatively inaccessible, for most, Brooklyn. The layout itself is found elsewhere, sometimes even improved, such as at Six Flags Over Georgia and the Georgia Cyclone. Beware, if you don't like rough wooden coasters (and I do mean rough), you will not like the Cyclone. The back seats, and especially THE back seat, can be brutal. I actually enjoy the thing, but I know many, many people who have been greatly disappointed with it. And as much as I like it, I prefer the one in Atlanta. Most of the time, that is my favorite wood coaster in the country. Sometimes, though, I prefer Tremors in Idaho, depending on my mood. The Coney Island Cyclone has had some very good people marketing it for a very long time. It is in the largest city in the country and gets lots of media attention. It is the only wooden coaster in New York City. It was not, however, by all accounts, even the best roller coaster on Coney Island. That would have been the Thunderbolt, which, sadly, I got to see but never got to ride. The Thunderbolt was unexpectedly dismantled after a long period of standing but not oeprating....while the industry trade group was meeting at IAAPA, and virtually everyone who could have stopped it was at the meeting.

You couldnt take pictures of the ride yet they allow you to POV? Nope. They didn't allow that, either, except in controlled media events. That's not to say that some didn't do it, because they did. . .

The thermometer is still there????

Oh, they are apt to. And when they do, the prices will go up even more!

And you are allowed to, too! Back when Six Flags owned the park, taking pictures of Superman would get you thrown out of the park, and, if you tried it from outside the park, security would try to have you arrested for trespassing. Why? I have no clue. But it happened, and more than once. Preposterous!

For most people, the admission price to Disney is only the beginning of what they spend. I am always amazed to watch families drop as much as four to five thousand dollars in a week at Disney. And they all seem to come back happy. These are the same people who get majorly upset over $15 parking at Six Flags or $17 lunches at Kings Island. Disney, along with Dollywood, is excellent at getting people to HAPPILY spend scads and scads of money.

I don't agree. If the Son of Beast incident had occurred in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta or any major city, there would have been far more coverage, and on a continuing basis, than there has been here. If anything, the news media here has underplayed the situation. You know nothing about this situation other than what you have learned from the media. And there is much more to this than is currently publicly known. The lawsuit, soon--no doubt--to be lawsuitS, will change all of that unless settled. And in all my years of going to Kings Island, I have NEVER seen Son of Beast packed. Not even when it was only running one train. Packed is a relative term. Remember, they never added the third train, and in fact this year they had removed one car from each of the two trains they did run. This saga isn't going to be over in a week or a month. Maybe not even a year or two. . .

Sure about that?

How could/would bad wood be beyond the control of the park? Especially since, in this case, the general contractor who built Son of Beast was one Paramount Parks, AND the ride was rehabbed over the last winter, again by one Paramount Parks?

mutter...Hercules?....mutter

Excellent points, but every large, steel hypercoaster I've ever been on has airtime, usually lots of it. Perhaps Son of Beast was designed to not have any in an attempt to mimic its Dad, The Beast. I certainly agree that the design itself makes the decision of whether to save this ride, how and how much to spend doing it even more frustrating. If Son of Beast were not painful, it would, in my humble opinion, be painfully boring. It is a most impressive LOOKING coaster, but riding it without pain would be, at least for me, a snore. Without major modifications changing the essential nature of the ride, I am not sure there is a whole lot of point to spending major money on Son of Beast. But then, you have this problem. Not fixing it also requires spending major money. Demolition will not be cheap, and not even in just monetary terms. One plus in this regard is that if a decision is made not to save it, the people who make that decision can rightfully say they had no part in deciding to build it. A very large wooden coaster can be fun. (Like, say The Beast). And, it can have airtime AND be incredible. It could be, for instance, an Intamin plug n play, like Colossos, Balder or El Toro.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=...610&sec=apworld Saturday August 5, 2006 Disney World to raise ticket prices for 2nd time this year ORLANDO, Florida (AP) - Walt Disney World is raising the price of a one-day, one-park ticket to $67 (euro52.), the company announced. Disney does not release attendance figures and declined to comment Friday on why they raised ticket prices for the second time this year. The $4 (euro3.10) increase, which includes entrance to all four theme parks, will go into effect Sunday. When the park, owned by Walt Disney Co., raised its price from $59.75 to $63 (euro46.70 to euro49.25) plus tax in January, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando also raised their ticket prices. Price wars have become an annual rite between the three major theme parks. SeaWorld is owned by a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch Cos., and Universal Orlando is part-owned by a unit of NBC Universal Inc., a unit of General Electric Co. - AP

And, they were at many major parks. After Kodak stopped sponsoring them, in at least some parks, Fuiji Film took their place, in the exact same locations with similar looking but green and white (instead of Kodak yellow and red) signs. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember that this happened at Kings Island, too. And I'm pretty sure I remember one of those Kodak signs at the floral clock.

Why do I keep seeing this image of my dog when I was a kid...coming in after being out in the rain?