Gordon Bombay

The Park wasn't sold to Paramount until August of 1992. Oops! Thanks for pointing that out! Usually I'm putting this stuff together at 2 AM and not all cylinders are firing. You wouldn't happen to have those family photographs available would you? I would LOVE to see them.

I think Towne Properties is trying to build apartments there. My understanding is that the property has to be rezoned first.

Also, thanks to Boddah1994 for letting me use his scanner that's currently sitting on our kitchen table. I hate printers and haven't owned one for two years, if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't have bothered to scan that brochure.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out. From talking to people at the site, the biggest problem with the hotel's viability seemed to be mold in the building's closest to the highway. They were built much differently (and probably far cheaper) than the initial two resort blocks in order to meet an increasing demand in an era where hotels weren't too common on that exit/in the nearby area, not to mention in a time when finding a hotel meant lots of research and no internet to sort our best prices and deals. In all reality, I'm sure the problems could've been fixed and someone could've kept it running, but at what cost? The facility is huge and only used the majority of its rooms during a single peak season. It's convention and reception halls are not unique and rivaled even by nearby options at regular chains such as Holiday Inn and Marriott not to mention the convention areas of the Great Wolf Lodge. On top of all that you're trying to maintain two full service restaurant and an indoor pool. The Kings Island that facility was built to serve in 1972 was vastly different - truly a full, resort and entertainment destination (one that was intended to be year round). Now, while Kings Island is still great, it's simply a regional theme park. I always wondered about "Coasters," the bar at the hotel. It seems these days that hotels have drifted away from offering their own restaurants and bars. Even so, having those kinds of facilities within a lodging establishment raises the question: "Are these for guests or outside visitors too?" As someone who enjoyed sharing drinks with coworkers after a shift - "Coasters" was never on our radar when it came to area bars. In the times I've been photographing abandoned places it's always interesting to see the emotional reaction people have to the photographs. At times I share the disappointment in seeing a place close, especially if it's place I had the chance to visit when it was open. Other times, If I've never been to that location, it's more of an objective thing. With KIR&CC, I had never been when it was open, but it was still tough to see it go when you take into account the history it shares with the park next door. It's truly something of a bygone era, where regional parks of the 70's were thought to be Disney class rivals with bold ambitions and dreams. Thank you for the kind words and taking the time to check it out! It certainly ended up being a far cry from what it was in the 70's, but in the end it seemed like a reasonable and halfway decent hotel (then again, I'm someone who's perfectly fine with Motel6 or sleeping in my car if need be). Did you ever play the Call of Duty that takes place in Chernobyl? It's great. Best game of that series. Reviews seemed to be mixed. Did you ever stay there?

So I recently had the chance to check out and visit the Kings Island Resort & Conference Center (formerly the Kings Island Inn) after it had closed. It's currently in the process of demolition, but I thought you guys might enjoy seeing some photos from the inside: I used to post a lot of "Photo trip report" threads here on KIC. Eventually that evolved into the kind of writing I do on my website where you can see all of the photos in a new article I put together: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2015/02/last-guests-of-kings-island-resort.html And I wrote another story back when it closed in November, detailing some of its history here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-end-of-suburban-cincinnatis-alpine.html Also, as a special treat for KICentral I thought you guys might like this. I picked this up amongst the trash on my way out:

It's a gun range.

I don't think it was a vendetta, so much as it was pretty much a win-win opportunity for Cedar Fair. If you want to buy your competition and shut it down you do that, you don't buy them and try to pretend to keep it running just to make a show of things. In terms of GL I saw it as this: The park clearly couldn't make a run at competing on a Cedar Point scale. CF bought it at a fire sale price and was able to remove the Six Flags threat in Ohio and keep any one else from contending with them. They then had a new park that had more than enough rides and attractions to suit itself. If things turned around and it made money: great. If it doesn't work: threat gone. In the end, they kept the profitable side and removed any slot for competition to move in. It was a smart move, although a sad one for GL fans.

I think Cedar Fair has made it clear they're not going to do that while said "riff raff" are buying Fright Lane, Skeleton Keys and eight dollar pretzels.

Disney probably has access to several more, higher quality drones operated by adequately paid people. Also, speaking of Magic Bands - I'm glad to see they're not made out of paper. I mean, who would use paper on a wrist band you pay for?

I believe they were all redone when Hannah Barbera land received an expansion in 1998. Additionally, as new attractions were added you would see new parking signs arranged with the same color scheme and new logos. I.E. Drop Zone and Face/Off were added as well as Son of Beast in their respective years. Eventually, these were all gone too.

I believe the are correct. In fact, I think they were removed before the end of the 2013 season. This is correct, the footings are long gone. They always reminded me of some sort of ancient ruins.

At the same time though, one example is more extreme than the other. And is the "GP" really upset over this? Let's be honest, aside from KIC and PointBuzz who even really remembers or will care whether or not Cedar Point makes good on its goofy promise to rename a roller coaster after LeBron James?

Wait, that scrambler is gone!? My best friend talked about it all the time and recently just took a job in Atlanta. At his going away party, the indoor scrambler was all he would talk about.

Social Media is a double edged sword. On one hand, it's the most efficient and easiest way to reach people - on the other hand, a lot of those people are complete morons.

No you won't, you'll just come over and hang out at the Waffle House with the rest of us after the park closes.

I get it.

If that were a speech Boddah, I'd start the standing ovation. Gravy gets tickets and I bet a lot of gravy was poured hoping Banshee gets best new ride.

Sometimes those claims are validated, like when a guest claims their son rode a ride earlier in the day and has an on ride photo to prove it. That's an interesting situation to try and smooth over.

They did for a short while, you would've never realized it though. It was barely noticeable. If you look at the back of the cars, you can still see the springs that allowed it to sway. You can also see where they've welded the car chassis to the sliding mechanism to keep them from doing so in the future. This effect was negligible, I think the hope was that throughout the season it would "loosen" up and become more noticeable. It didn't.

From my understanding of some folks who opened the ride, the "stair bump" was installed, but amounted to nothing more than the feeling that you were rolling over a rough piece of track. I.E. Imagine sitting on a vibrating cell phone. The "effect" didn't translate well.

So back in 1988, Amazon Falls made its debut at KI. An Intamin "chute the chutes" ride, it's giant splash has been an iconic view in the park. A few years after the initial Paramount acquisition, the area surrounding Congo Falls was re themed, remodeled and became the "Paramount Action Zone." AZ was intended to come off as an area that was like a Hollywood backlot featuring rides themed to Paramount's films. Of course you had "Top Gun," the company's 1986 Blockbuster that came to life as a roller coaster in 1993, but you also had two new attractions that took on Paramount themes. "Face/Off" and "Drop Zone" debuted. Aside from sharing names with lackluster action movies, the "themes" pretty much ended there (Drop Tower did have an automated spiel from a "director" for awhile who gave you safety instructions under the pretense that you were filming the climactic ending to a forgettable Wesley Snipes film). Amazon Falls, whether you knew it or not, also joined the movie lineup by becoming "Congo Falls," named after Paramount's commercially successful, but critically panned film "Congo." At the time, and as a 10 year old, I saw Action Zone as Paramount (technically Viacom) really making an effort to tie in their movie properties into a true theme park ala Universal Studios. Looking back the "theming" really just came off as lazy and cheap, although the ride additions were great. I've never bothered to watch Face/Off or Drop Zone, but last night I noticed Congo was on Netflix. "What the hell?" I thought and queued it up. Maybe it would bring back some late 90s, Action Zone, ten year old nostalgia. Maybe the movie had a climactic ending on a waterfall which is why the ride was themed that way? So, I watched it and here's a review. Warning: Spoilers Ahead, but really I'm saving you time, trust me. The movie starts out with some cinematic music and these great, beautiful shots of a safari heading through Africa. The safari begins an expedition, finds some diamonds, uses techno babble to video link with a communications headquarters back in the USA and report on the expedition's progress. The whole scene takes a lot of time to convey what seems like primitive technology now, essentially they're using old school "FaceTime." Then the expedition is mysteriously killed. Ok, cheesy 90's action, let's keep watching. Yeah, so, then there's this elaborate plot revealed with a communications company wanting to steal diamonds and some professor teaching a gorilla to use sign language to talk. This whole part makes no sense and takes about 30 minutes for everyone to get to "The Congo," but they have to bribe a guard and parachute out of a plane for some reason. Also, the one black guy from Ghostbusters shows up and is in this movie. I fell asleep after that, woke up and read the rest of the plot on Wikipedia. Apparently I slept through the climactic laser fight with the super gorillas at the end. TL:DR - Don't watch Congo, it's bad, and not a cheesy but loveable 90s action flick bad. It's like one of the crappier of the crappy Sci-Fi channel original movies. ...and Paramount "themed" a ride to it. All in all, I think the true theme if Action Zine wasn't movies. Like Congo, the theme was, how poorly can Viacom make something and expect people to buy into it? Congo cost a lot of money and people paid to see it. It wasn't good, but it made money. Much like how Action Zone had cost money and people came to the park to ride some good rides, not "experience" the movies like at other theme parks. The lesson to be learned: Congo Falls theme wasn't "Congo," it was actually "Viacom Corporate Strategy." Edit: This isn't to say Paramount/Viacom didn't do great things for the park, they certainly did and Cedar Fair follows a lot of their "themes" to this day.

Speaking form similar experiences, back to school and the fall is always the toughest, especially when a company promotes the federal minimum wage going up as a "raise" for its young employees, then scratches its head when they can't retain anyone.

You were a warm body.

Thanks for sharing some insight about the Dutchman! I'm not sure how long ago Bill saw it, but I don't think it was the covered bridge. he's pretty certain that this was built on someone's property, much like a lawn ornament. If we ever find out, I'll be sure to let people here know!

Hi everyone, For those of you that don't know, I run a website dedicated to urban exploration, photography and history throughout the midwestern United States - particularly Cincinnati. Recently, I posted an article about an abandoned restaurant in Waynesville, Ohio that another photographer and I went to visit (The "Der Dutchman). After sharing a link to the story on our site's Facebook page, longtime friend and KIC "old timer," zosobeast, shared something he had seen in the nearby area awhile ago: Apparently while driving with some friends, he had seen a property that had an old roller coaster station and partial lift hill on its lawn. He wasn't sure which coaster it had once belonged to and they didn't double back to check it out, but he is positive he knew what it was. They came across it after eating at Der Dutchman (the abandoned restaurant featured in our latest article) and thinks it's nearby. The restaurant was in Waynesville, Ohio - northern Warren County. If anyone has any idea of what he's talking about, we'd love to find the owners and contact them to maybe do a story and uncover some amusement park history. If you have any tips or info, we'd greatly appreciate it! For some more details and some of our work on abandoned amusement parks, you can visit the site here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2014/06/in-search-of-partial-roller-coaster-in.html Thanks!