bzahlong

As someone who enjoyed the Diamondback ERT quite a bit last year, I can honestly say I'm very disappointed that it may not continue in 2011. I agree that while adding WindSeeker makes sense from a marketing standpoint, I could care less about another tall flat ride and wouldn't come to the park early just to ride it and Vortex. Beast and Diamondback are two of my favorite rides anywhere, and there were a lot of days last year where my daughter and I would come over, ride those in the morning and be back home by 11 AM. It was a perfect way to start the day. I hope they rethink this decision, and since we haven't renewed our passes yet, maybe I'll wait a little and see what happens.

So, I'm still a little unclear on how a tax on guests that will benefit the city of Mason will make Kings Island more safe. Last night's little presentation from Mr Stoneking seemed like propaganda that had little to do with the issue at hand. Leaving immediately afterward without a look back seemed cowardly, and having a staffmember posting on here as you also seems cowardly. If it was so important that you come to the meeting, one would think you'd want to stick around for the actual vote.

I attended the council meeting with my daughter, and it was great to see the support for the park from all the members of the community. Council all voted no, with the exception of Tony Bradburn who voted yes, and one person that abstained who serves on a board with KI's General Manager. Big win for us all!

Something tells me this may not happen now...

Here's a thought. This is a golden opportunity for Kings Island. They could extend an offer to the season passholders of Kentucky Kingdom to "trade up" to a KI gold pass for a special discounted rate. They could make whatever the discount was back from day spending (parking, concessions, games), as well as bring in some out of market traffic to KI. I hate to see that park close, but it's been trending downward for a long time, and just like any business, if it's not making a profit it's not worth having open. I feel badly for all of the folks impacted by losing their jobs though. Decent jobs for teens in Louisville are pretty hard to come by.

Some more old photos of the Diamondback shop, which used to be my old time photo shop from 1992 till 2005, and a few of the Antique Cars too.

I've got a ton of old photos from the park, but many are from negatives which are still waiting to be scanned. Here are a few from HB right before it became Nick U, in honor of it becoming Planet Snoopy. I'll keep digging for older ones too...

in line for Diamondback on Wednesday: Man to his girlfriend: This is the tallest coaster in the world. Girlfriend: How tall is it? Man: about 300 feet, and it goes 100 miles an hour. Girlfriend: Is it safe? Man: Well, someone died on it a few weeks ago, but he had a heart attack. Girlfriend: Maybe we should go on the Son of The Beast instead. It's in the kids area.

I went up tonight as well from 7 till 10, got 1 ride on FOF, 2 rides on DB, one on The Beast, & one on Firehawk with no more than a 5-10 minute wait for anything. Gotta love that inclement weather.

Less than 10 minutes on Sunday, 4/26 in the single rider line.

We headed back over to the park after dinner, went back to Diamondback so the Mrs could get her first ride on it. She waited about 15 minutes in the SRL, then we took our 7 yr old over to ride Danny Phantom, Reptar and the Wild Thornberries. Our daughter (who is 48" tall) was feeling pretty brave by then and declared it was time to try The Beast. After making sure she didn't mean The Beastie (or Fairly Odd Coaster, depending on who you ask) we said OK. We were obviously very excited, it's something every themepark junkie parent lives for! We headed for The Beast, walked onto the middle of the train and she LOVED IT! I looked back at her on the 2nd lift hill and she was grinning ear to ear. We finished up with a ride on the blue Racer and called it a night. Looks like we'll be spending a lot less time in Nick this season after all. I'm so proud.

Thanks, Dane. You rock!

Overheard some people in The Beast station talking about how the "Son of The Beast" is "sooooo much better". I was wondering what constitutes "better" in their world.

In the interest of safety and security, I'm glad they added the lights over there. Everyone should be able to feel secure walking through any part of the park at night.

Personally, I thought the SRL worked great Sunday morning. I managed to arrive at the park at 9:30, got three rides thru the SRL on DB in about 20 minutes, and was back out in the parking lot by 10:30. Worked great for what I had time to do.