bkroz

I think flying coasters work wonders for destination parks like SeaWorld, Six Flags Magic Mountain, etc. But, like stand-up coasters, it thrives on a gimmick (though a much more fun and comfortable gimmick, admittedly) that most people don't care to wait for three or more times. In other words, at a park like Kings Island (or, especially Carowinds) that appeals mostly to locals and has since received taller, fastest, shorter-queue coasters, I believe you'll begin seeing a decline in Firehawk's ridership. After you wait an hour for it a few times, you're pretty much done. Diamondback is a little different each time. So if Flight of Fear. Even Top Gun. But if you've ridden Firehawk once, you've ridden it a dozen times, so I imagine that, within the coming years, more and more people will see the long wait and decide to pass on it since they've already done it. The park deals with a lot of repeat customers, and season passholders. They've ridden Firehawk before, and doubtlessly are now going to begin turning their attention to rides with shorter waits, and bigger stats.

With steel coasters, is it possible to replace sections of track that have suffered from too much stress? I'm sure if the same manufacturer is still around in some form, or someone is willing to place their own work into it, and risk whatever that may entail in a faltering steel ride...

Right. And keep in mind, Griffon is floorless - evacuating cannot be easy.

No. It was blown onto the track, and held there by the wind, flapping against the track. So, the train was stopped before the drop (on the MCBR) since it was unclear what would happen if it tried to run over the obstruction.

Plus, I was in the park, outdoors for the duration of the storm. Lots of wind, a little rain, lightning and thunder. It was still in the 80s.

I was there when this occurred. It was a very sudden darkening of the sky and large gusts of wind. I do not know how the riders were 'hurt' since it occured on the second hill, which is the MCBR. The train seemed to be stopped on the mid-course breaks. No one had be unloaded from an awkward position or anything. It was probably just scary and traumatizing for those who were riding for the first time.

And in Cedar Fair's mindset, light on budget = light on advertising. People will come for a B&M hypercoaster, but for an SLC? A Premier family coaster? In some regards, I'm sure there's merit to that thought process. However, Cedar Fair forgets the small, compact, family rides. It's either a record-breaking 200+ foot beast, or a new kids area. You'll never see a ride like Backlot Stunt Coaster at Cedar Point. And you know what? I think Cedar Point really needs something like that... And, I believe Cedar Fair underestimated Prowler. They probably thought, "Eh, we got a small park, let's just give it a little wooden coaster. It'll keep season pass sales up and maybe draw in a few new people." Lo and behold, the "Best New Coaster of 2009." Until that happened, I doubt they would've even given a CGI woodie a second thought when it came to a bigger park like Cedar Point or Kings Island. I truly believe that Cedar Point's plans may be in the process of being edited right now to include a wooden coaster, and a really ridiculous marketing scheme to amp it up.

Or it could be disassembled after the event, like most of the haunted houses... I don't know if or what this could mean for the ride's future. But I do know what it says about the rides present, and its operation through the rest of the 2010 season - it won't be operating. Not today, and not in October. Is that really news to anyone? The station is not in use through the rest of the 2010 season. Why not utilize it?

Intimidator 305 is 5100 square feet in length? Interesting units of measurement all around, huh!?

For what its worth, Kings Dominion's smoke screen did not work yesterday. Something tells me this is one of those Cedar Fair things that they took extra care to keep working for media days, grand openings, etc. and then silently gave the word that if it were to break, it needn't be a priority to fix it.

Hey, I'm also at Kings Dominion this week, and took a picture of that to share when I post my trip report! You beat me!

Plus, to me, it would seem that Kings Island, as of 2010, wants to pretend Son of Beast doesn't exist. To re-route its queue line and draw people up into its station, past the track, into the queue is certainly going to be counterproductive in that sense... But hey, there's a building there. There's already a queue line, waiting to hold guests. Why not use it?

Sure it did. And it didn't fit the theme. But it didn't physically destroy the image of the area. A little cave tucked away in the back corner, with plants all around it? Not quite as distracting as a giant red roller coaster that is added at the expense of a beautiful lake, trees throughout the entire area, blasts right through the center of "town" and more. And until Diamondback changed the foliage in the area, the Tomb Raider show-building was very much removed from view for those actually in Rivertown (and even on that note, if Paramount had built a full fiberglass Indian temple around it, wouldn't you complain even more that it ruined Rivertown?) In other words, I certainly don't agree that Tomb Raider: The Ride destroyed the purpose of Rivertown (isolation, nature, shade, relaxation, water rides) moreso than Diamondback... The Roller Coaster Philosopher site pretty much details exactly what I thought - that Diamondback, like all of Cedar Fair's additions, acts as a big carnival ride, intrinsically built to be bigger, flashier, and noisier than anything else in the park. It's the only roller coaster at Kings Island that crosses over a midway; the only one that's not set off into the woods; the only one that's visible from most everywhere in the park, and purposefully so. For better or worse, that's how Cedar Fair constructs their rides, and its very clear that their goal was dominance of the area. Rumor has it that B&M offered a hypercoaster to Paramount and they turned it down? We can see why... It changed the whole feel of the area. Not that today's crowd cares much about that sort of thing...

Paramount made mistakes, yes. But to say they destroyed the theme of Kings Island? Pick your battles, people... Did they corporatize the park? Sure. But when we had rides like Tomb Raider, Flight of Fear, Top Gun (in its early years) even The Italian Job: Stunt Track... Don't even try to tell me the park didn't emphasize theme. Until Diamondback, Rivertown was an absolutely beautiful part of the park, one of the better "Western-y, frontier-y" areas I've seen, with a beautiful "secluded" feel. Though I love Diamondback, you'd be lying if you said that Rivertown is anything more than an open plaza with a little concrete lake in the center. They didn't even bother to replant the trees that they tore out - there's about three dogwood trees around the splashdown, nothing more. So the area will stay that way. Action Zone sucks, yes. But I actually appreciate the idea behind it. The "movie backlot" theme with the concrete and the bright colors and the targets and the movie posters. Even the "Stunt Crew Grill" is themed to a commissary where we, as the stunt actors, can eat. Yes, the park lost a lot of its original charm when it was bought by a large corporation. Guess what? That would've happened no matter what. If the park was owned by KECO right up until Cedar Fair bought it in 2006, it would just now start losing that themeing, but it would lose it just the same. What it comes down to is, without every single owner Kings Island has had, we wouldn't have the park we have today. Maybe for the better, or maybe for the worse, but without Lindler, KECO, Paramount, things just would not be the way they are.

Who says anyone sent it? He knows where and from whom to sniff out the good news.

http://www.rcdb.com/2491.htm Disney's partnership with Arrow obviously re-defined the industry - together they developed the first roller coaster to use tubular steel track. But Arrow has had little to do with the company as of late consider that they, you know, exist in a much different form than they did in the 1950's. In fact, the Space Mountain in Walt Disney World is the only Arrow one left. It's also the slowest and shortest. When Disney redid Disneyland's, and built Paris' and Hong Kong's, they used Vekoma. Vekoma has also made for them one Big Thunder Mountain, two Rockin' Roller Coasters, Expedition: Everest, Barnstormer & Gadget's Go Coaster, and Casey Jr. Circus Train in Paris. That's 10 Vekomas! In relation, the Disney parks have three coasters made by Intamin and 1 Maurer Söhne (in Paris). Why they don't use B&M, I do not know. I imagine it's because, like Paramount & Universal's recent infatuation with Premier, Vekoma has a certain ability to keep a roller coaster contained in a small, discreet area; to keep a roller coaster quiet; to propel it via LSM and LIM for something "new." I can't imagine a B&M doing what Revenge of the Mummy does, or what Flight of Fear does, or even what Expedition Everest does. B&M has, as we've discussed, aimed to make designs that are bigger, faster, and taller than other manufacturer's counterparts. They take a simple innovation and make it complex and marketable. What they do not advertise their rides as is compact, easy-theme-able family rides...

So in other words, if there was one random roller coaster and it was a sort of "tourist trap" outside Cincinnati? Flight of Fear. It's perfect for billboards, radio advertisements, etc. Then again, it's sort of short. Maybe Beast. Maybe Diamondback.

^^ If your brother hung himself in his favorite Superman pajamas with a green hat and it was all over the news, would you want a skeleton in Superman pajamas and a green hat whose purpose is to parody your brother hanging from a tree at an Ohio theme park's Halloween event? All of the celebrities whose deaths were re-enacted by those skeletons had family and friends who undoubtedly heard about it. It was not funny. It was not intended to be funny. It was intended to be "hard core." Hard core, indeed...

If I built a theme park, I would absolutely stand outside each evening, and morning, interacting with guests. And I would be absolutely adamant that any and all future managers do the same after my time... You wonder if the same can be said of Kings Island's origins, and that that practice has been lost in time?

Inside info? No. I just appreciate the way that Holiday World and other smaller parks tell you when a roller coaster is down, why it's not working, how long they anticipate it to take. Even if they're wrong, at least they're open and honest. Of course, that is also the kind of park where the owners stand outside every night and greet guests, thanking them for their time. Kings Island has far surpassed being a park like that.

Montu, the B&M flyer? GYK, who was about to make a "big blue B&M" joke before realizing that Montu is, in fact, a big, blue B&M... It's definitely not from this angle, but that image is showing the bottom of a pretzal loop (where riders are facing the sky) and a simple flying maneuver that comes after.

My dream? A park owner who is straight up and tells you what's going on. Do you think that, if it were at Holiday World, folks would've been left in the dark about Flight of Fear? The Crypt? Son of Beast? Communication is key in any and every relationship you'll ever have - that includes park management and its guests. When they are open with you, you'll be open with them. The two parties can grow and evolve to each-others needs and wants and create a dramatically sincere and involved business model. When guests are left in the dark with little to no personal, emotional connection (in other words, when everything they hear from the park is a pre-approved, screened, scripted update), guests get antsy and question their leadership. See, for example, Flight of Fear with Paramount, the Son of Beast fiasco (which, until Mr. Scheid's comments a few months ago, had been all but ignored) and the elimination of the 5@5 on Facebook, which was probably the best communication tool of a corporate-owned theme park that I can recall. Communication is key. For example, my complaint about how a simple plastic sign should be erected under the X-Base arch when either Firehawk or Flight of Fear is closed, saving guests the long walk down the bottle-necked pathway. That's a very, very simple version of communication, but would be much appreciated nonetheless, and show that Cedar Fair (or whoever is in charge of such things) doesn't mind dropping a little extra dough to keep the consumer comfortable and informed!

So ride rotation would have seen KI lose FOF. The question I'd ask before calling this a fail is what would KI have received? In all honestly, what from the other Paramount Parks would you be interested in receiving? Perhaps we would have received BORG Assimilator (now Nighthawk) from Carowinds? Oh the unmitigated irony of it all!

Do you really want to know the inner workings of that particular ride? Hey, it doesn't spray metal shrapnel, it doesn't roll-back, it has not ejected anyone from their seat, and thus far, it has not caused an aneurism*. I'd call that a success! * allegedly

Haha sorry T! I tend to do that... EDIT: At least we have the same train of thought?