RingMaster

I want to know which of the "newly acquired parks" didn't "perform to their expectations" last year.

You mean like Drop Tower and Back Lot Stunt Coaster?

I would say that they could rename The Beast to The Woodie and Son of Beast to Son of Woodie. ....but that sounds wrong on so many accounts, so I'll just leave it at that.

But even with past owners before Paramount, there were original and interesting/creative names: - Wheel of Fortune - Skylab - Bavarian Beetle - Adventure Express - Thunder Road - Vortex - Der Spinnin Keggers - Flying Dutchman - Shake, Rattle, and Roll Not to mention Paramount gave us some pretty wild names for some pretty wild rides: - Drop Zone - Face/Off - Delirium - Top Gun - Flight of Fear - Boomerang Bay - Tomb Raider: The Ride The thing that bothers me is that Cedar Fair had well over a year to come up with new names for the Paramount rides; it feels as if they only had a day. Maybe less. And to think that this is from the same company that came up with the names to: - GhostRider - Sierra Sidewinder - Silver Bullet - Millenium Force - Raptor - Top Thrill Dragster - Maverick - Renegade - maXair - Wicked Twister, etc.

......talk about a lack of imagination/creativity. The least they could do is rename the ride ACROPHOBIA, based off the phobia involving a fear of heights. Anyway, no matter what 'name' they give Drop Zone, people are still going to call it DROP ZONE.

.....so why does ONE park get a different name for Top Gun, while the others stick with the same Flight Deck name? If it's to make clone-ish type rides seem different from one park to the next, then they need to rename at least ONE more Top Gun from Flight Deck to something else. Which doesn't make sense, because, as of now, there are three Backlot Stunt Coasters and two Crypts in the ex-Paramount Parks.

From Screamscape: 2008 - Yo-Yo - (1/29/08) Carowinds has confirmed that that they will be installing the old Geauga Lake Yo-Yo for the 2008 season. According to the park the ride will be installed into their old Wave Swinger (Whirling Dervish) location in the County Fair. From Carowinds website: Family Rides Yo Yo DESCRIPTION: A whirling swing ride for adults and children LOCATION: County Fair RIDE GUIDELINES: Riders must be at least 48” tall OPENING: 1978 at Geauga Lake, Ohio March 2008 at Carowinds MANUFACTURER: Chance Morgan Wichita, Kan. RIDING TIME: 1 minute, 32 seconds HOURLY CAPACITY: 700 NUMBER OF SWINGS: 32 RIDERS PER SWING: One

That big, six-armed statue in the preshow room, the stone monkeys in the antechamber, and the weird gargoyle things that are right behind the queues in the preshow room are based off of/from the movie. I just noticed this bit of weird information: ^ That's the statue that's in the ride building right now. ^ This is a statue of the actual goddess, Durga, of Hindu religion. Notice the resemblance? I never noticed Durga was a real goddess until now. All they would need to do is just sandpaper off the two heads on the side of the statue and voila! Of course, the real Durga has ten arms instead of just six. So I doubt they'd really want to add more onto it. Unless they took off two arms and did the same sandpaper-to-the-face(s) to make it resemble this Hindu god: ^ Shiva, the god of destruction. Also, seeing as how there's a battle between two different entities (fire and ice in the ride) present, they could also use this god: ^ Kali, the goddess of death/destruction. They could have the preshow room set up to have these two gods at opposite ends of the room, like how they already have the Durga statue at one side, and those weird gargoyle things on the other. Well, Shiva could be at one end (white as snow), and Kali at the other (black as night), and they could use the fire and ice aspects against each other, as one big huge mega battle. Kinda like what Universal did with having Poseidon and Zeus fight in that Lost City show at Islands of Adventure. Here's a crappy rendition of what the preshow room looked like before: And then a crappy rendition of what the preshow room would look like with two statues:

Now THAT'S a cool name for a ride like Top Gun. I can only hope that this is an 'unofficially official' name change that will occur for the rest of the TG coasters, including Kings Island.

Yes, a company that's still in financial debt planning a $25+ million roller coaster sounds VERY realistic at this particular moment. Especially if it's a B&M 'cause that's what we ALL really want to see. [/sarcasm]

Someone managed to sneak a few seconds worth of ride footage inside Scooby's Castle of Haunted Doo-ness and posted it up on YouTube, but I'm not sure if it's still on there or not. And, seeing as how there's quite a bit of POVs of Italian Job (I'm not calling it Backlot Stunt Coaster) Son of Beast, its father, and even Wild Thornberry's floating around the 'Tube (trust me, I've seen 'em), there's no way that there can't be a video of the insides of the Theater. .....unless.... ...there's plans to bring back the Maestro for another show come this October in the form of a haunted maze. It would be a great way to bring back the animatronics in their full glory rather than off in a dark corner of Coney Mall. Not to mention it would bring in some much needed creativity and originality to the Haunt.

Advice: Never bring your backpack with you onto Flight of Fear. I can't even remember the number of leg cramps I got before even hitting the first trim brake. Those things HURT at 50+ mph with sharp turns and sudden drops.

I'm surprised he didn't know Face/Off was a movie seeing as how there was a big frickin poster of the movie on the side of the Paramount Theater facing the ride.

I dunno....to me, 'Flight Deck' sounds more suited to be the nickname for the ride's station, not the whole ride experience itself. I don't know how, but the name 'Sky Pirate' popped into my head just now.

I think more kids are starting to grow more attached to a certain Ms. Montanna than to a certain Mr. Mouse.... Either that, or they'd rather watch a musical involving high school students instead of a musical involving household furnishings, undersea creatures, and/or magical lamps and flying carpets....

They could've at least renamed F/O QUAKE, seeing as how the ground, station, and queue line roof shake every time the coaster's in motion. Not to mention it sounds like a literal earthquake at certain points of the ride. I wonder if there was a chance to rename the whole Action Zone area to Disaster Zone, or Disaster Alley, what with Delirium making you feel like you're in the middle of a twister, 'Invertigo' sounding and feeling like an earthquake, and Congo Falls is like a massive flood.....type....ride. Then they could've re-named/re-vamped Top Gun into a ride based off of a forest fire or something (insert Smokey the Bear jokes here), thus calling it WILDFIRE, or for the more extreme folk, WYLDFYRE, with Y's instead of I's. Yeah, that's extreme to the max. Delirium - stays the same Face/Off - Quake Congo Falls - Monsoonae (weird African-type way of spelling it), Maelstrom Drop Zone - stays the same Top Gun - Wildfire (non-extreme to the MIN), Wyldfyre (totally extreme to the MAX) Son of Beast - stays the same Days of Thunder - stays the same as Thunder Alley (sounds good to me) Skyflyer - ....I got nothing. The only problem is Universal just "refurbished" their Earthquake attraction into DISASTER! A Major Motion Picture Ride...starring YOU! So, yeah, that pretty much just killed that concept right there.

....I'm gonna miss hearing 'Highway to the Danger Zone' every time I walk up to Top Gun-er, I mean-Flight Deck. I don't care; from now on, I'm calling it JET, PHANTOM, and/or KAMIKAZE.

And to think they could've at least held a contest to see who could come up with the best names for the rides. Isn't that what they did when they first opened the park back in 1972? .....besides, they could've just re-named Top Gun (KI, CGA, & Winds) JET. Or Project PHANTOM. Or KAMIKAZE.

Since Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Dorney Park and Michigan's Adventure didn't state that Firehawk, Dominator, VooDoo, and Thunderhawk were used attractions directly in their press releases or on the official websites so that the general public would know they were, in fact, used rides from the get-go, chances are that Celebration City isn't planning on releasing information that it's a used ride to the general public anytime soon. That is, IF it's actually from Geauga Lake.

-note- I'm not exactly sure if this is the correct way to add extra words/punctuation in an attempt to paraphrase quotes; I just wanted to highlight and reword a part of your post. This was, by no way, a means to correct punctuation and/or grammar, as I had no idea how to do it right, and I've probably made a few mistakes of my own. -/note- Anyway.... I just wanted to add the fact that Cedar Point, within the past few years, isn't necessarily the tidiest amusement park around, compared to Kings Island or SFGA, for that matter. No, this isn't a 'I'm just defending my home park' comment, it's truthfully intact. CP has been a mess almost every time I've been up there. Even old work buddies from KI can attest to this. Especially a former manager of mine whose infamous picture of him standing next to an overflowing Cedar Point trash can is hanging up in the Rides Office. Or at least, I think it still is.

Not to mention they also have to remove that inlaid stone tile thingy on International Street that says "Paramount's Kings Island Welcomes American Coaster Enthusiasts" or something like that. It's in front of the Girl Space and Lotsapalooza stores, but I don't know the exact term for what it's called.

One of the dirty secrets of the theme park business is that virtually all the food is so dramatically overpriced that the 'less expensive' places in a park will cost very little less and can often cost you as much or more than the 'expensive' places. This was true back in the International Restaurant days and is just as true now. A soft drink will cost you the same anywhere in the park. An order of fries is just as overpriced anywhere in the park. It's even true, to an extent, in the Disney and Universal parks. That's a very loose interpretation. (Pun not intended) Well, think about Skyline, for instance. A plate of Skyfries (Chili Cheese Fries) at the Skyline next door to the Beach and Island Golf or the Skyline on Reading Rd only costs 3.69. The Skyfries from the Skylines inside Kings Island are 5.69. Of course, this is coming straight from memory, but I do know it costs more at the park than at the beach.

It's Cedar frickin Point, America's Roller Coast. Nobody's gonna complain about a few hand-me-downs from another park when you've got the massive variety of rides (not to mention the fame and notoriety of being a world-class amusement park) like Cedar Point does. ....well, except maybe some ACEers or thrill junkies who were expecting another awesome thrill ride like SkyHawk or maXair.

Looks like a sign that you'd see out in front of little church. You know the kind that they put "motivational" messages on. Unfortunately, now that just reminded me of the Solid Rock Church in Monroe:

Or a [/sarcasm] at the end of your sentence. [/sarcasm] For example: "Britney Spears is a great mom and should have her kids given back to her! LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!" [/sarcasm]