King Maple The Tree King

So quick to blame Paramount, it was actually KECO who only saw the train as a means of transportation to and from the water park, considering they built the park in 1989 and ran the train jsut as transportation from that point on, Paramount didnt take over untill 1993.

Man, when this ride opened I thought: "Yes, PKI has delievered a Universal/Disney quality themed attraction". It was great, the themed que, the ante-chamber, the pre-show, the doors and lighting effects, the ride, the sparks, the water that used to soak you, the fog, all the amazing lighting effects. Sadly, now when your outside the outdoor que is covered by torn nets that have trash and change thrown all over them, the indoor ques have trash thrown all over the bottom of them, the ante-chamber is no longer used and when it was used the lighting and door effect stopped working after one season. The pre-show still works ok, but as the screen lifts up you can see all the scenery shake. Then the ride, what used to sit massive amoutn of people, now has half its seats closed. There used to be amazing lighting effects. Now the only lights are the eyes (which were broken and not replaced untill thsi year) and some random colored spot lights. Theres no fog, no sparks, and the water that used to get you relatively wet has almost disapeared. The skeletons hanging from the stelactites are falling apart and appear to be haning there when there held up by thin wire. The crew of the ride the maintenace crew do a terrific job keeping it up and running, and I still enjoy it and I realize there are other reasons for the themings downfall, so I'm not trying to knock the terrific employees, but I just miss when theming rocked.

The author makes a fantastic point about how certain offers do not attract the best people who can be let loos un-supervised. Relatively, I've seen employees and security apply discipline very stricktly, however, its very hard to do sometimes on packed days, especially bring a friend free days. Last bring a friend free day I saw countless Mason police cars driving out of the park with people in the back seats and security constantly questioning people throughout the park. Last year when they did that promotion during the final days "RENEW YOUR GOLD PASS AND GET 5 FREE TICKETS!" on the final night of the year I witnessed a fight break out in The Beast station and saw two employees effectively put an end to it, they did so within in their means, rules, and restrictions, and security as well as polics promptly came and took care of both parties. I think all parks need to re-focus on the family and take a stronger stand on discipline.

Valid points. However, Klockster I know you are a former employee who may or may not be familiar with evacuation procedures but do you really think managers evacuating a ride would force a guest to jump 8 feet, especially a 13 year old girl, no offense to the original poster but I think he's exagerating a little bit. I know he wants to complain.....but what does he really have to complain about? The power surge that caused the outages were not due to the park, even surrounding business suffered from the same plague, rides break down and suffer technical difficulties, the details of these difficulties arent always revelead. The temporary closure of rides can happen for many reasons, yes they are machines and suffer mechanical difficulties sometimes, but there are lots of things guests can do to temporarily **** a ride down, the fact is, ride closures can happen every day without warning, you should take this into consideration when going into any park, even in real life, what guarantees your car is going to start every morning? Also, original poster, did you look to see if it was a bring a friend free day or if there was any type of event? I know it was listed on the front page of www.pki.com and advertised on their marquee. As for the water park, how are you sure they were having pressure problems, and how are you sure it was the park's fault......whose to say the beach waterpark down the street wasnt suffering the same problems? I'm sorry your family had a bad time, as KI is a place for families to ahve great times, but we must think sensibly here or maybe I should just work for CF guest relations with my attitude. Interpreter? If theres one thing you and I can agree on shephed, its that BAFFD must be stopped. King Maple The Tree King.........trying to believe in the average guest.

^What I mean is, CF hasnt directly put people into the park who have said "START DOING THIS! and I WANT YOU TO DO THIS NOW INSTEAD OF THAT!". THey havent changed any regular policy at all, more emphasis has just been placed no rules that were laxed before the sale, not cause some CF boss told anyone to, but just because maybe someone wants to make a good impression.

No, CF is not the ones making these changes, it is current PKI management (which has not been shaken up that much by CF as much as many seem to think). The current re-emphasis on dress code is just a brush up on all the tules that were set in stone already but not enforced well, and the clean up of some of the ride areas and stuff is just because certain CF (not just Dick Kinzel) executives have been visiting the parks almost daily throughout the past month over-viewing it. Kudos to the Operations area managers who are brushing up on the rules.

^I would like to see your proof that the capacity of rides has suffered under the Paramount name. While certain areas of theming and details have suffered others have improved, Paramount did not ruin the parks, it put them on the map, especially Kings Island. I dont know how well you remember the Taft/Keco days CoastersNsich, depending on your age, but they werent as grand as you think. Paramount did a lot of good for the park. You are just spoiled and I think most of you take for granted how wonderful Kings Island still is, it has been more profitable and performed better than ever before and had more money put into than Carl Linder ever would have cared to put in it. Paramount put so much into maintenance, especially for the coasters. Also CoastersNsich, what makes you so sure that CF will treat KI so well? Granted KI has beat CP in attendance lately and does gross over 3 million visitors per year, but CF now has a monopoly on the major parks in ohio and I'm pretty sure they dont view SFKK or HW as big threats. They're guest relations employees have the mentality of "your a guest in our park, you should be lucky to be here, dont whine so much". True KBF and CP get treated well but what about the other CF parks, I can vouch that they are good, but not CP and KBF good. Granted Dorney and WOF just got B&M's recently, but so did any new park the SF corporation aquired, and now look at SF. I think its safe to say that we need to take the CF aquisition with a grain of salt, they may not be the savior on the big horse leading us towards a Disney esque quality park.

The paramount parks are getting whatever paramount park's management had planned for the 2007 season, what is planned is nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either!

Yes they should re-store the train back to its cowboy and indian theme, cause you see old wild west battles all the time when you go to and from water parks! The theming of cowboy's v.s. indians will not come back because it will be labeled politically incorrect and the theming went downhill when they built the water park, now the train serves mostly as a means of transportation to and from the two parks.

^The incident Eagle One is talking about is the same incident PKIBeast is refering to, there was a small collision of two trains due to the skid breaks (now removed) being wet from the rain and failing to stop the train as it came off the ready breaks and into the station and collided with the station train. It was a small collison, no one was hurt, people were just taken to the hostpital as a precaution, just like with SOB, everyone was taken as a pre-caution. The media way over-hyped the SOB incident, while it is definently a serious issue, it is stilla bit exaggerated.

^WKRC said "its the biggest roller coaster in the world, but is it worth losing your life over?" and WCPO claimed that last month The Beast was "emergency stopped and evacuated due to scares over a fire" while The Beast just cycled off its riders and went through the proper precautions to check out the complaint of a possible smell of smoke by a guest. The news in Cincinnati is ridiculous.

Ok, having jsut been at the park and speaking with some people, this was not as serious as you think, the people taken to the hospital were taken just to make sure everything was ok and I'm sure they were fine, the SOB crew did what they were supposed to in the situation, this wasnt reallly an accident per say, and it has been extremely over-hyped by the media, I saw the WCPO news report on tv, they got A LOT of details wrong, the ride is perfectly safe as well as the whole park, the news is just over hyped, most at the park had no idea anything happened!

Your statements have no validity and you have no idea what you are talking about. Many times I have seen trains on Arrow multilooping coasters such as The Vortex and Viper at SFMM run without one of their small guide wheels that fell off or was worn down. It's very loud when this happens but does not slow down the train, make it unsafe, or cause it to be any rougher. Now if The Vortex can run a trian multiple times that is missing a wheel without any trouble, why would a chip in one bring the train to a halt. Cant we ban people for pretending to be someone who theyre not on the internet?

The exit signs in there are required by law and must be illuminated, theres nothing the park can do about that. The only fog that was ever in the tunnel was right at the entrance after the helicopter scene and it still continues to run. Every effect built for the ride is currently working except the sound track in the cars and the lights on the cars. The fishtailing and bumping stair experience were never installed. You may think its a bad coaster however it performed well enough with the GP that another was built that has performed well in guest satisfaction surveys.

^The Policy went into effect and took place today.

It seems no one can seem to think logical these days (Except the Interpreter). As many people have stated already, the original post made by coaster king shouldnt even be taken with a grain of salt. 99.9274% the respectable and hard working men and women of the blue shirt and often times white shirt clad men and women of the PKI rides department and various other departments do not have any idea what the parks capital plans are for years to come, especially these days when the park chain is currently undergoing a sale. It has already been confirmed and stated on these forums and others by reliable sources that PKD's FOF was slated for removal and relocation to Paramount's Canada's Wonderland and that Paramount Parks would begin a full ride rotation program to begin in 2007. However, due to the current sale going on of the CBS owned Paramount Park chain to Cedar Fair, those plans are up in the air. Flight of Fear is still at PKD although not in use, and there is no train from PKD at PKI.

^If you read the before posts, it has been mentioned that the ride is powered by electricity along its track not gravity. According to rcdb this is not listed as a coaster, nor are any diskos. If a disko is considered a coaster, then Lazytownsporticopters can be considered a coaster. However, they are not. Avatar is a fun thrill ride similar to a coaster but not a coaster.

No offense, but I doubt that an employee as low on the chain as a rides associate knows for sure if FOF is staying or going, I'm not disrespecting your job but I doubt you know what a few people higher up know as much as you think you do. Shaggy, a member on here who has proven time and time again to be a reputable source, told us that they were planning to relocate PKD's FOF to PCW and eventually relocate PKI's, he went on to say that, that is still up in the air due to the sale now. It is known that Paramount Parks had planned to start a ride rotation program for 2007, although now the parks will soon be under Cedar Fair rule. Just because a line has a long line doesnt mean it WONT be relocated, there are many factors that go into the decision. Stealth at PGA had long lines and it is now at Carowinds.

^Thanks for clearing everything up maureen! You and the rest of your staff do a fantastic job!

That brings back memories of 2001. And as for The Beast, why didn't they just have an associate ride and inspect it like usual. Why take the chance? Whenever there has been a threat of fire they dont risk it by having some ride theough a potentially dangerous situation to inspect it, maybe when someones complaining about a rough piece of track an associate will test ride but not if theres a threat of a fire. When a guest complained of smoke one train was in the station and the other two trains were directly behind that in the other sets of breaks. I saw the associates cycle off the guests then managers come to the situation after that.

^The Beast crew is one of the finest, if not the finest, among the great ride operating crews at Paramount's Kings Island.

They are getting rid of the parks and I'm sure they want to get rid of of all their paramoutn branded inventory too to make the bottom line look better.

That information was wrong, it was The Beast that had the fire scare. I was in line at the time and over heard two area managers speak of it. The crew and management team handled itperfectly and kept all guests informed. They were ocnstantly guest relating, they were efficent and I felt they handled the situation perfectly. Not something I've seen at KI in the past. But yes, this was on The Beast not the Son of Beast.

"Your full of beans". If the details havent been released yet why ruin the surprise for everyone Deliriumbeast?

With some of the people who come there, you might actually think that.