bkroz

Image source. Looks like all they really did to change it was make steel hands coming out of the arms.

Stand-ups do have a low capacity... And consider that B&Ms are actually better at throughput than TOGOs because of their auto-adjusting seats, whereas on TOGO rides, it usually amounts to each seat needing to be done individually, with really odd restraints that are not intuitive and a very unique loading procedure. It takes very patient ride operators. B&M stand-ups, too, are really stragely laid out. I don't know who decided that stand-ups in particular would have the most crazy, nonsensical, odd, twisted layouts one could concieve of, but they do. There's no logical pattern, no flow... It's just strange twists and banking in odd places with unusual inversions. What I always compare it to is when you build a coaster on RCT or another simulator, and you just can't seem to get it to connect back to the station the right way, so you add a curved piece or an S-track and then you need to use a corkscrew to get it over to the right three pieces and then you have to build a banked turn but in the wrong direction so that it can connect to .... etc ect. and you finish and you look back and you go "My God" because you have this twisted, awful looking mess. So all the twists and inclined loops and strange corkscrews, added to the zero visibility, leave you smacking your head back and forth between the restraints. Meanwhile, all the blood is going to your legs, weighing you down and draining from your head... It was certainly a trend coaster, and I'm glad the trend is over. That being said, I find the TOGO stand ups much more enjoyable than B&Ms because of their simplicity. Sure, B&Ms intention was to take the simple stand-up coaster and make it more intense, and they certainly did that. But this may be one of those numerous cases in which bigger is not better. The simple layouts of the TOGO rides allow you to experience the important parts of the "stand-up" gimmick (going down a hill, through a loop, some bunny hops, a helix, etc) and save your legs and head from the extremely superfluous speed and twists.

It would be one thing if it gave you the chance to "walk on water." Instead, half the battle is standing up - if you can even manage to do it, you won't be standing for long. If you could stand and walk around and stuff (which I assume was their original theoretical intention) than I might try it once. But the fact that people just try to stand up for about a minute and then just lay there doesn't inspire much confidence.

No. And I wouldn't expect one. Cedar Fair's "rotation" program had parks getting major additions about every three years. Then, they attempted to sell to avoid bankruptcy, and Terpy can give us all a lesson on the massive amounts of money they owe, despite what they try to sell to the shareholders. So all bets are off, and any past patterns and practices in relation to new rides mean virtually nothing. Basically, Cedar Fair did the three year thing with their legacy parks. Then they came into ownership of five new parks, nearly doubling their family. The rides we've gotten since then have been greatly influenced by Geauga Lake's closure, the need to "beef up" the Paramount Parks, and Cedar Fair's financial woes. We have no idea how things will be once (or if) they settle down. Perhaps a pattern will re-emerge. But anything that's happened since June, 2006 should be not on record as the "way Cedar Fair will install new rides from here on out." If it was three years between major rides back when they had five parks and far less financial trouble, then one can only wonder what things are like at CFHQ now...

Dive Machines are fantastic, and so far from the one-trick ponies that they're often accused of being. Honestly, I can't see an enthusiast loving them, because I don't know that they excel in forces or timing or pacing. But the GP (myself included) loves them and thinks they're incredible, re-ridable, and involved experiences. Speaking for myself, I'd rather ride a Dive Machine than a hypercoaster any day of the week. Griffon is my #2 steel coaster. They have personality, where I imagine rides like Intimidator, Behemoth, and Diamondback as just being very formulaic and rigid. I would love to see one come to Kings Island. The problem is, how do you market it - "New in 2013, a ride that's the same height, speed, and length as Diamondback, but this one's ten degrees steeper and does something different!" That's why I don't see it happening. I think my ultimate coaster would be a dive machine that did its drop, went into an Immelman, and then did five or six airtime hills like an out and back, maybe with a hammerhead turn. Imagining airtime hills on that ten-across seating... Wow. Talk about feeling free.

Right, I know that. I'm just saying, they will likely renew the domain name and continue to redirect it to visitkingsisland.com but my point is, it's sort of superfluous since I doubt many people use either of the two - those who know the site know it as visitkingsisland and those who don't google it. Not many people just continue taking random stabs in the dark thinking "Oh maybe its the initials of the park when it was owned by Paramount" or "maybe you have to put visit in front of it." If they don't already know it, they google it. And if pki.com went to a "page not found" site, they'd google Kings Island and find it very easily.

I think renewing pki.com would be sort of useless in a sense. 60% of those looking into a Kings Island trip probably don't have any clue about the visitkingsisland.com domain and just google it... Wouldn't you, rather than trying out domain after domain (after you find that kingsisland.com is not the site)?

^ You figured it out! And I want to personally meet the genius who came up with the park's current web address. "For deals and promotions, visit visit Kings Island dot com!" Can't get much clearer than that, right? kingsislandohio.com? ohkingsisland.com? kingsislandfun.com? Nope!

Upon investigation, it's possible that the domain sonofbeast.com was once active and operated by Paramount Parks. http://www.webboar.com/www/sonofbeast.com According to this site (which uses the Whois site that Terpy linked to earlier for gathering information), sonofbeast.com is / was hosted by Paramount Parks, Inc. on the Paramountparks.net ISP server. I do not recall it having its own site even back in the day, but I'm just pointing this out so everyone knows. And in true Paramount spirit, the hosting servers are located about one block northwest of S. Kings Drive.

"It may be a mistake?" Or read what I posted above. Son of Beast never had an official site to my knowledge. The fact that the domain was purchased and is now owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company is no mistake, nor is it a coincidence. It may mean good things for the ride - that it may get its own mini-site a la Diamondback in the future. It may mean that the ride's future is bleak, and Cedar Fair wishes to stop anyone else from purchasing that domain and using it to defame or mock the park. It may mean one of a thousand other things, the intricacies of which we could debate for months and never get anywhere. But they did not just accidentally decide to purchase the domain www.sonofbeast.com. Not by a longshot.

Are you sure? How do you know that Diamondback wasn't proposed by Cedar Fair as an invert and finagled into a hypercoaster since that's their "trend coaster"? It stands to reason that, if hypers are what people are after, that's how they're spending their innovation time, and that if someone asked for an "outdated" model, they would try to steer them around to something more current. Firms like B&M make two, maybe three, new rides a year, and oversee just as many relocations. To make SheiKra, Behemoth, Griffon, Diamondback, and Intimidator and then ask to shift their staff into "invert" mode that they haven't worked with in a number of years might take a toll... Not saying they wouldn't do it, just that they might try to work with the customer (in this case, Cedar Fair Entertainment Company) to do something more appropriate for the workforce that they currently have. If you called up S&S Arrow and asked for a suspended coaster, would they do it? I bet for the right price... But would they try to talk you into the new Freefly coaster their staff has been working with and perfecting and building and spending time and money on over and over for the past five years? I don't doubt it.

It's less far fetched than creating on-board audio for Adventure Express... How did The Italian Job: Stunt Track have on-board audio without an audio car?

The only problem is that's a LOT of work for a family coaster, and an old one at that - on-board audio? You're talking about a multi-million dollar campaign to re-design the trains, not to mention to actually create an audio score to synchronize. Switching around the line to create a pre-show area? Making said pre-show? Convincing riders to sit and watch it each and every time they wish to board the little family ride? I think that the opposition you'll be met with (from me, at least) is that there are rides more deserving and more easily fixed. If there's going to be on-board audio added to a ride, why not Flight of Fear, which already has a synchronized musical score? Premier is capable of it (whereas it might be a nightmare on an old Arrow train), and removing the last car of each train to replace it with an audio car would be quite simple in the scheme of things. If the park would ever even dream of spending time and money creating a pre-show, why not make one for The Crypt, which is already set-up with a pre-show room, equipped with speakers, a projector, customizable lighting show, and a screen? You've got to wait in that room anyway, so something might as well go on while you do (whereas on Adventure Express, you'd get families who ride it four or five times a day sitting through the same pre-show while the ride would have a station wait otherwise). And as Interpreter said, if it were anyone else (quite literally - Merlin, Universal, Paramount, Six Flags, etc) I'd say your ideas have merit. But the fact of the matter is, Cedar Fair is not going to fix the third tunnel up like a volcanic explosion. They just won't. And if they did, it would anger a lot of us since there are rides (The Crypt, Flight of Fear, Top Gun, Son of Beast) that could use that capitol and that design work much more than a family mine train that's already better than most of its peers. Not saying a few fog machines wouldn't help, but all of your ideas are better suited for different rides in the park that actually need help.

For what it's worth, you'll often find corporations buying domain names only so that their competitors and critics cannot. Disney buys hundreds of domains a month... For example (I don't think they really own these, but Jim Hill Media often reports on their newly purchased domains, and they are of this genre) they may purchase disneysucks.com, disneyhatesanimals.com, etc. They obviously do not plan on using them. They just want to make sure that others can't, either.

Word on the street (see, Screamscape) is that the only reason Hulk hasn't been rehabed (or repainted, for that matter) is because they're looking into getting new trains, on-board audio and lights (and hopefully, no OTSR - dream on, right?). Basically, that's what it was supposed to have when it opened, and it never did. Then it actually worked out well as a gimmick for Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit, so the thought is that the time has come to use it on Hulk, and do a massive overhaul on the track, paint, launch, etc. In fact, the launch tube just got new lighting effects a few weeks ago. I have been on more than a few B&Ms that are not ridiculously smooth. Many of their hypercoasters are pretty smooth, given the right braking scheme - but then again, so is Magnum, and if Arrow can make a smooth ride, then that model must be pretty-near-intrinsically smooth, if you ask me. But yes, try Kumba, which I found to be one of the roughest, most unpleasantly-dizzying steel rides I've ever been on. Others who visited the park five months later claim it as the godsend of the park. For me, cobra rolls are just too rough, no matter if it's inverted, sitting, standing, floorless... The element looks cool, but I've never been on one that doesn't slam my head back and forth - so many it's a restraint issue more than anything. B&M is a fantastic manufacturing firm with innovative ideas and (as we've discussed elsewhere) a noteworthy penchant for "perfecting" that which the other companies innovate. But like all the others, they have their snags and their problems, and Raptor displays a few of them, for me. I still like the ride, I just don't like how it's supposedly theee example of an inverted coaster just because it's the one Cedar Point has.

Why so many people hold Raptor in particular in such high esteem, I do not know. Inverted coasters can be wild, forceful, and smooth. Raptor certainly has elements of each category, but does not shine above the rest in any single area. For a truly innovative, world-class inverted coaster, check out Montu or Alpengeist (among others). Both are worlds apart from eachother, but absolutely contend for first place in at least a few of the attributes I mentioned. I have had friends swear that inverted coasters are painful, uninterestingly laid out, and forceless after riding only Raptor. A quick ride on Montu, the original Batman, or the Fire Dragon* (or, Chinese Fireball?) quickly changes that. Perhaps it could be that, like Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, Maverick, and yes, even Wicked Twister, Raptor will always be popularly considered the epitome of its model if only because it is located in Sandusky, Ohio. * GYK, who personally prefers the big blue B&M (you know, the one that actually exists) as opposed to the red one in this particular example, but must keep up appearances to keep his friends happy.

[Geauga Lake inspired rant] If this does goes through, I think it might be nice. Obviously I was no fan of the Geauga Lake decision (I live about 20 minutes from Geauga Lake), and the water park that remains today has about three slides, so that's also frustrating. But the worst, I think, is the missed opportunity to salvage what could be salvaged. Because the water-park is located on the former SeaWorld side of the lake, you can stand on top of a slide and literally spit onto the location where Shamu's Happy Harbour was. That side of the lake contained, at one time, Wildwater Kingdom, Happy Harbour (long removed of its Shamu moniker, but still operating the same - a few games, the giant net playset, a pirate ship, yo-yo swings, a 4D theater and a motion simulator). Now why, oh why, was it required that those be removed? And trust me - they were scrapped. The motion simulator building is still there, twenty or so feet from a fence that blocks off that area. Its cabins were stripped. Why? There is no iWerks motion simulator cabin at any other Cedar Fair park. The nets that were once part of SeaWorld were scrapped. How are those not appropriate for a water park? Even with Dominator, X-Flight, and Steel Venom gone, I find that it would've been perfectly reasonable to keep the wooded path open that took visitors between Wildwater Kingdom and Raging Wolf Bobs on the other side of the park. Or (and this actually is asking a lot, but the rest truly isn't) relocate Big Dipper to the water park side, and place it where that "Phase II" expansion never happened. I don't think anyone would complain if a path were set up, completely walled off obstructing views, and carrying guests straight to Big Dipper's station. Would that really be so hard? To have one operating ride, setting up the floating boardwalk that's already there to carry you right to it? It would be a fantastic step in the right direction that would show that Cedar Fair gives a rats behind. I can see why the park doesn't add much. But it's embarrassing that it got ride of so much unnecessarily. Would really be so awful for the park to have a few small flats, a 4D movie, and a motion simulator? It operated with them next to Wildwater Kingdom for a few years. What would be wrong with kids being in their swim suits and playing on the nets? [/Geauga Lake rant] That's why I think it's good to see Kentucky Kingdom keeping some of its smaller rides. It would be a waste opportunity otherwise.

I believe a boardwalk area would be incredible.

Great report! I have never been to Great Adventure, and the more that the summer wears down the more I fear I'll have to wait yet another year. But your report gives me great hope! The park seems like a really nice, stand out park and I loved reading about it! Thank you. I had never heard that Kingda Ka was physically rougher... Interesting!

I do not recall if it was at Kings Island, but I have been to many parks saying that obscene behavior captured in on-ride photography is cause for immediate expulsion from the park. Like many other rules, I'm sure it's not always enforced, but that doesn't mean it won't be on the time that you choose to disobey it. Also keep in mind that rides like Boo Blasters (not just at Kings Island, but on most modern dark rides) are video-recorded through the entire ride. If you decide to "get frisky" on such a ride, the ride will be stopped, either by operators who will tell you what's what and kick you out, or operators who will make a fool out of you, laugh at you, and then kick you out. So watch yourself. GYK, who, if he owned a park, would personally oversee the removal of each individual he saw smoking outside of a smoking area, and having "fun" by exposing themselves on camera, among other things...

The point is, the ride has three launch sections. It has been shown and proven. Your argument was first that it was a brake, and then that there was nothing but track. Now it has been shown that the launch section exists, and your argument has shifted that they "just don't turn it on." Alright. I've said my piece and proven what I needed to prove. Do what you will with the information you've been given.

From the park's official POV video at a screencap: There are two on each side. Recall that LIMs work like magnets - the attract the train and then repel it forward. Adding two LIM repulsions to a train that's already going 25 miles per hour will not make an overtly noticable "launch." It will, however, speed the train up a little bit and provide said feelings of "bursting" forward. Why don't we settle this with the 5@5... Oh, wait... Speaking of operations...

I think it's the same as the sub-woofers and the flames - it's all for effect. Like, there are breaks right after the little bunny hop where the splashdown used to be located. So there's no actual need for a boost there, except to give a feeling of "exploding" from the billboard. That being said, it's possible that it's turned off, or rarely used. But it is there. I personally believe that it's used, and just not very noticeable. I'm not saying it's a 20 mph boost, just maybe a quick "oomph" to get you going. LIMs are unique in that, the more you have, the faster you go. Unlike a cable system or an air system, you can decide exactly how fast you want the train to go based on how many LIMs you install. So the initial launch may have thirty (fifteen on each side of the track) and get you going 40 miles per hour. How many are there on the straightaway coming out of the billboard? Maybe six (three on each side). Certainly nothing to write home about, but it gives the train a little zing to push it out of the billboard. One thing is for sure - it's not a brake.

So what is your proof, that it feels slow right there? Can you get more official than the technical data sheet from Paramount Canada's Wonderland? http://www.canadas-wonderland.com/images/news/IJST%20Data%20Sheet.pdf http://kingsdominion.com/attractions/detail.cfm?ai_id=235

http://www.rcdb.com/2860.htm See the "facts" section. See also, http://www.coaster-net.com/ridegallery.php?action=display&id=268 "...with not one, not two, but three launch sections of its own, Italian Job will also bring the park's coaster launch count up to seven."