Outdoor Man

We went ahead and bought. I figured after use #25 we start saving money; I'm a little embarrassed to say that yesterday we clocked #'s 11 & 12.

Question. Anyone have pictures of the Snoopy Boutique in its former life as a SkyRide station?

parking lot trams.

Thank goodness. Best. News. Ever. Having been to MK a time or two, question: near the end of the parade, some "patriotic" characters in period 1790's colonial gear march near the end of the parade.... in red. Someone correct me if I'm wrong or misinterpret, but weren't the British the "redcoats"?

I believe my first one was 1987.

thank you for all the opinions. My wife wanted me to call and get details; I said, I have a better idea... enter KIC.

That would be some really expensive teasing. Have you any idea how much even the raw material costs? Steel isn't cheap. Per this site, it would seem that steel is going for $295/metric ton. Let's use round numbers and say your teaser track section weighs 40 metric tons, or 44.09 "short tons" (U.S. units), and that it's a rate of $300/metric ton. 40 metric ton * ($300 / metric ton) = $12,000 Plus paint, labor, etc.. While I'm sure you're suggesting it because it'd be really cool (for them), it's probably not gonna happen. Of course i was serious (sarcasm flag flying).

If i worked there, i'd keep some random track pieces and every now and again, paint them different colors then set the on skids outside the plant and watch the coaster community explode.

agree with Boddah

We are considering buying a meal plan for our family this year. I have read a lot of positives and a significant level of negative. Seems last years plan was pretty decent, but has been cut quite a bit (we didn't have one last year). We have 2 adult, 2 kids to consider. What places aren't included and is there pricing breaks for 4 purchases... if a fe2 families banded together and bought, say, 10 is there an additional discount; do they allow that? And finally, your opinion. I feel almost like 400'ish for 4 seems rather steep and that we'd have to visit an insane amount of times to see any sort of positive gain.

I don't recall who turned their nose up- just remember that the request seemed little off- then again, I probably skimmed the article without reading much detail into it since I wasn't a shareholder myself.

http://nypost.com/2015/03/24/apollo-global-to-sell-great-wolf-resorts-for-over-1-billion/ Remember when that one guy from Cedar Fair tried to sell out his own company to Apollo? Ah, the memories... I wonder how he's doing. and if I remember the requested terms of the same, he wanted Apollo to retain the CF management team in place at the time. I wonder why they didn't bite on that one...

I'm not sure what you mean. I'd still be upset if KI closed then. Geauga Lake was one of the oldest, most storied parks in the country. Kings Island is pretty safe; not closing ANY time soon. GL, on the other hand: no interstate access, no tourist infrastructure, terrible location, not near population center of area. Beautiful park and setting but, but in my humble opinion, it worked so long as SeaWorld, or the Wild Life side was operating. Remove those and then there's only Kings Island and Cedar Point to compete. - The Beast or the Villain? - Vortex or Double Loop? - Millenium Force or _______? - Raptor or Thunderhawk?

Harvard Business School SVP, Saturn CEO, Saab CEO, HFE among others... One impressive background. I'm guessing that is one incentive-laced employment contract. SeaWorld will survive and thrive again- it would have anyway, but stockholders wanted action and unfortunately heads had to roll. This move will serve to calm the 'waters' of what has been a rather volatile excursion for SEAS over the last 12-18 months.

Looks nice. Can't believe that it was that tacky green color all those years. Are they keeping the same name? Shake, Rattle, & Roll never really made sense to me; then again, "Fairly Odd Coaster" never did either.

perhaps its already been talked about or I'm just making stuff up (it has happened before)- but is that a new building across from the Outer Hanks/former Skylab pad?

Its sad that so many brilliant minds in the SWP&E corporate structure botched this so poorly. I understand that in the beginning, these 'knocks' come every few years- don't feed credibility to them and eventually it'll go away. The message that this wasn't going to go away should have been painfully obvious very early on and they should have gone on the offensive months ago. For nearly an 18-month period a rather biased opinion persisted (one that wasn't all false... but not all true either, and completely one-sided)- with no rebuttal from the company. So for over 18 months the opposition controlled the message with not so much as a 'poof' from SW.

I was looking at your post from page 1. And the comment before that was from 2013 and someone remarking about a failed attempt to purchase the Big Dipper.

did I miss something? did it sell or was that just a comment to the thread terp?

Drove past today on my way home from Columbus today... If not mistaken, one of the barracks has been leveled already. Maybe that gap had always been there...

And they were counting on "pent-up demand to sell Season Passes for year #1." I believe that they were right for the first couple of weeks, but once the new car smell started to wear off; bungled messages and poor customer service peppered the response for the rest of the season. Outside of new rides, I don't know that they've invested in any guest experience technology.

I believe a certain college-aged son of a middler-up (and professed SM expert) used to... and make sporadic posts. Schrute, who is not affiliated with KK or reliant upon them for any financial benefit, being oddly specific.

absolutely, 100% yes. Those new kiosks install last year were the signal for me. They will need to solve the problem plaguing Disney at present. All of the analytics in the world gained from data coming in from wall-to-wall "smart" interaction begin to fall off around 2-3pm as phone batteries start dying. They have some recharge stations in Soak City... but be on the lookout for a whole new CF revenue stream coming to a park near you. Charge for a fee...

And regarding Don. Never met him personally, but will attest to the integral piece he is. I can't count the times my family and I have been there on a holiday, weekends, etc... and have seen him walking about.

For what its worth, I don't view anything that was said as a slight to anyone's work or "person." My comments weren't to the person, but to the position. And my comments regarding Jeff were meant as a compliment to where he's taken his career.