Steveo3631

Oh No..... Not knowing what happened yet. Having been in ops for over 15 years, I know any incident is unplanned and disturbing for all involved. My thoughts are with the riders and with the staff at PKI, many of them my friends. Hopefully it was nothing major.

Shaggy, you recall me well.

WHAT, No Beret!!!!!! Miltary uniform, you mean Boy Scout. I think I only had to wear it once! By the way, remember the guests who were concerned which of the 52,000 sipper cups was theirs.

I disagree. There's really no issue with the 50' level of the tower. I'm not evening mentioning Tower Johnny. One KI team member told a story of chasing a woman through the park from Health Service (or Security, I can't remember) and the guest bolted for the 50 foot level of Tower. She started climbing up the leg and the staffer had to pin her to the leg until security could arrive. This is from a source from which I would not question the existance of the Loch Ness Monster. Johnny was just S T U P I D The last time I was up on the platform, I saw from an ops point just what a problem that area could be.

Man, that would just freak me out. I am not afraid of heights or anything, but man thats scary. Just think if you made someone mad and they decided to throw you over. Or if someone was suicidal and jumped or something. *spine chills* Also, if you look, there are people on the bottom level too. You can even see people walking up the steps. I think that would be neat. They say they dont open that level up anymore, because they are understaffed. I have a hard time believing that, but who knows. It was no big deal having just the fence up around the top levels on the tower. It really was not a big deal. The 50' level on the tower was always cool. I used to just go up there and sit to watch folk walk by. KI History...now here is something to sink my teeth into. Tower was darker originally. It does look better in the lighter color. The 50 foot level was a nightmare. Not only was it not accessable for guests with disabilities, it was a safety hazard. It was easy to climb the legs and get onto to the roof, as at least one suicidal guest tried.

The big balloon was a theater located on the spot of Paramount Gardens. It collapsed during a snow storm and was removed. The HB picture was taken just behind the skyride station looking toward the Enchanted Voyage and tghe backside of the HB rainbow. If KI does sell a video of the park, a video of the original Enchantage Voyage would reduce me to a quivering mess! That ride was part of my childhood!

I know for a fact Zodiac ended up there. The park was built with several cast off rides from KECO parks. Zodian appeared on park maps. As for Flight Commander, I was under the impression that all of them were junked.

It always seemed that Mean Streak was over supported, leaving the trains to bounce from one side to the other and washboard in the dips. I certain amount of "give" makes the ride more comfortable. I wonder if this is so, if KI woodies will be subsequently over supported to try to reduce maintenance costs.

different rides have different lock out areas, for example, at The Beast and employee may go to the bottom of the first drop and retreeive something as long as he/she is arm's length away from the track. The best thing about a Beast track walk was that it took about 45 minutes. You soon learned that you always went against the direction of travel or else you find yourself climbing that huge hill along second lift.

FOF has this system because of the separate load/unload area. It's a nice system unless you're checking the back load side with arms full of items, placing them in the bins, AND getting back in time to signal controls to launch.

IOA and Universal do try very hard, but are losing, still shaking off the stigma of the cursed opening of the Studios and the bad press that followed. They've been talked of as a knock off park sponging up the excess of Disney. This the furthest from the truth. Their training and orientation (three days worth of orientation alone) is some of the best. As with KI, and unlike Disney, they do not train operations staff to controls within five days. At KI and IOA you must know the ride to run controls. Universal Express no longer has tickets from machines, but the purchase of one Express ticket can greatly improve a visit, especially so for those with hotel cards!

So...they treated the event as a capital expenditure and depreciated it over ten years? That would be difficult to do with today's IRS cap ex rules... Yes, I guess. I see you finished college with a major better than mine.

Racer North for the girls, Racer South for the guys. No matter the gender, they better know how to check a lap restraint. Doesn't CP have a policy to push everyone down the exit after the ride? That would benefit KI alot with guests waiting at the exits for friends and family, if anything for the safety factor.

The rumor I had heard was that the original Winterfest was set up to lose money and that it could only be claimed as a loss for ten years on the books. That was from someone who worked at the park who could potentially know that information. It is an interesting concept. A popular tourist event designed to lose money to reduce taxes.

We had to do that at KI one time on King Cobra. The guest had lost a cigarette pack with a substantial amount of money claimed in it. We were significanly concerned at that time that a guest may be so insistant as to climb a fence into a lockout area that we did close the ride for about five minutes. (The article was not money, but money in the form of an illegal substance and security was called from under the loop. We were locked out with the appropriate permission from full time operations and security staff) We didn't do that often, but after the guest got hurt at PGA by climbing a lockout fence to retreive a hat, with some guests we'd rather err on the side of caution. At Universal we had to shut down Dragons to retreive a fanny pack with insulin that the guest needed. Sunglasses, maybe not worth a ride shutdown, if it was sunglasses at all?

Australia's Wonderland closed several years ago and demolished. Paramount was not involved with it at that time, and I can't imagine what happened to the KI Zodiac Double Wheel that ended up there. I'd heard that AW was never profitable.

Not speaking from knowledge, but perhaps the gender specific crews at CP have to do with the dorm situation. Having people date on the same crew is a difficult situation even when you are not housing them on property. I would imagine that at KI, the staffing is so tight in the Spring and Fall that such a system would be impossible to maintain. You have to put the staff on the rides no matter what the gender to get everythihg operating for the guests.

At IOA, any visable loose article had to be taken to a locker. Bags, even hidden, could not be taken on, or left on the platform. Glasses and cell phones had to be placed in a pocket (which may have changed since a pocket is less secure than a hand in my experience). We had very few lost items, all from pockets and very few instances where a guest was hit by a flying article. I can't imagine that loose articles should even be allowed on any coaster. The gentleman allegedly hit by a snow globe on space Mountain can verify that!

Winterfest grew over the years. It didn't happen overnight, and each year it operated, it grew larger with more entertainment. While the offerings last year seemed limited from those in the past, I was hoping that it would get back to where it was when it closed in 1992. The park had junked or given away many of the decorations they had back in 92, and it would be no small feat to replace it all in one go around. When Wintrerfest opened, it was the only place to go for the Holidays. After a while, they got competition from the Zoo and other events around the city. Guests stopped coming out, and for those guests I ran across who missed it, as many didn't even know it was gone. Paramount listened to the guests to bring it back. It's sad that those that missed it didn't support it. I'd somewhat heard that Winterfest was originally designed to lose money which could be written off as a loss. I may be incorrect on that, I used to push the green button, not the green bucks. Still I miss WF, and if CF suspends it, I will mourn I didn't come up to see it last year!

Forgive an oldtime ride opeator but, can we start a thread to keep up with the changes in operations policies. I've heard that policies are already changing at KI. I've worked at Universal IOA and that park was run by many old time CF ride operations staff. I imagine things are run there much like CP. How is the no bags policy working at KI? Do they provide lockers at the rides? (It's been five years since I've been to the park) Are bags allowed in the lines or are they being stopped at the Greeters? These policies can only be good. Bags and loose articles have always been a safety issue, and the "no loose article" polices at IOA caused a lot of headaches for the staff, but reduced injuries significantly!

Sadly, like HB, how marketable are the Peanuts characters anymore? The Nick characters seem to be doing well, so why change it. As much as I treasure HB, and the original Enchanted Voyage, they are not viable in today's market.

Express always had the Indiana Jones music in the queue. It was always sold as an Indiana Jones type of ride, even if not in name. One interesting fact was that it was built during the Lindner years. Lindner owned stock in Paramount, perhaps because Taft originally did as well through Entertainment Tonight, and I always wondered if the theme was foresight to selling the park to Paramount. That does not though explain Phantom Theater.

I always felt that three seater cars worked best on Beast and Racer. The SOB trains are so heavy, that evern them being three seathers does not help. (The only smooth ride I ever had on it was just after they removed the water dummies). Has anyone ridden the Millinium Flyers on any of the GCI coasters with the single bench seat? I know the two seaters on Gwazi and Mean Streak really hurt .

Because it took away one of my favorite rides to work...and most unfavorite rides to clean in the Spring! Long live FLOP!

Jill is the best. Only one person I know at Universal comes close. She kept me in line, always amazed me, and was truely the person whose respect I wanted to earn. She knows her job and does it well.