BoddaH1994

I like them best when you actually have a story to tell. I mean, if this is your fifteenth visit to the park this season and you had ridden a couple of rides, great but put some excitement into it! I really like it when you guys include humor in it, and especially like it when you rate the rides. Just remember that the Trip Report section is all about your story. Tell us about your visit to PKI or any other park. Heck, tell us about your trip to the Newport Aquarium, just make it fun to read!!

From what I understand, the lower gate coasts has not helped their attendance. I really need to go to Cedar Point. Geauga Lake put a really bad impression of Cedar Fair on me.

I don't see where that's a good idea at all. It's a very popular ride, both at PKI and PKD still. I think removing them from those parks would upset a lot of guests.

hehehe... Fillhardt... It's about time that KY boy got a voice in the mass media!

Too bad you didn't go one day earlier or we didn't go one day later... we could have finally met!

I think the SOB thing was intentional... maybe a "sounds dirty but isn't" kind of deal...

Having PKI on your resume' is one of the best things you can have. I just got word that Bill Balford was released by Cedar Fair with this restructure. PKICentral wishes him the best.

I think Cedar Fair has had more than enough time to fix the problems which we have listed above. ...and no, PKI isn't perfect. I don't agree with all of their decisions, but let's face it, we're fortunate to have it as our home park.

I guess it's time to throw in my two cents: I disagree about the "lifelessness" of the park entirely. I think that they did have a lot of neat ideas to get crowds pumped up, kind of like how the games people would run around with a prize when someone won one. I also found the look of the park to be amazing. The structures, as well as the coasters, were all beautiful and it had trees everywhere. The rides were really painful for the most part. The Villan puts SOB to shame. Imagine riding SOB while being beaten by an angry mob. Dominator was cool, but didn't live up to Bill's hype of the ride! Their SLC wasn't as bad as T2, but certainly wasn't very good. X Flight was amazing, but load and unload takes forever, and it didn't help that they sidetracked a car on almost all of the coasters a little after 2pm. Great thinking. The whole time there, we only found 2 bathrooms. One of which we searched for a half hour for. The no rerides thing was dumb... can't we utilize the fact that the park is failing to our advantage at least?? One thing that was left out was when we asked the ride op why you could take pictures in line he replied, "It's another stupid Geauga Lake rule." Couldn't have said it better myself. I'd say a good 60% of the food and merch stands were closed. We wanted to buy drinks when we were over by X-Flight and walked down an entire midway of closed shops. I guess that's where the lifelessness kicks in. The park had some perks, but overall it was pretty bad... not SFKK bad, but bad. Ryan

Today the Great Wolf Lodge next to Paramount's Kings Island opened its doors to the members of the press for the first time! This update allows you, PKI fans, to get a first glimpse into the actual construction of this huge and elaborate hotel resort!! In this hotel, expect to see rolling corridors full of happy families, wonderfully themed rooms and an extremely homey front “living room†lobby. I’m telling you, with all of the warmth and hospitality we were shown at the tour, I can only imagine the world-class service that this place will offer when they finally open in December! This $100+ million dollar waterpark resort will feature 401 all-suite guest rooms, a 93,000 sq ft indoor entertainment area featuring a grand-scale waterpark, Elements – an Aveda Concept Spa, 100+ game arcade, a themed family restaurants and bar for the public to enjoy, Pizza Hut Express, Starbucks Café, gift emporium, an animated Great Clock Tower, and over 40,000 sq ft of meeting space! The Great Wolf Lodge is scheduled to open in December of 2006 and the conference center with the conference center is slated to open in February of 2007! Click here to see photos from the tour! Regards, Ryan PKICentral.com – Stomp, Stomp, Clap, Clap, HOWL!!!!

And then take the same area. Rip out all signs of vegetation. Toss some gravel, concrete and steel in and you have Italian Job. Ohhhh The Humanity! How could we have sacraficed one of the most beautiful areas of the park to put that ride in! Repeat process to all of the park. Take out almost all of the trees and add concrete walkways and 300-400 foot tall coasters with major downtime to the mix. Include bad entertainment (excluding the Halloween Haunt at KBF) and high season pass and parking prices. And what do you get? ....shouldn't be TOO obvious. Let's be honest here. Regardless of what may or may not happen in the future, PKI seems to have an irrepressible spirit. I doubt any large company can destory that... heck, it's almost like CBS tried to this year but couldn't.

My guess - Circa $100 for PKI, Circa $200 for all of the CF properties.

It conflicted with offseason rehab.

Granted, I've never been to any other Paramount Park but from reading your trip reports it seems as though the other parks don't share PKI's problems with themeing, even if it's the same ride installed. Do you think that PKI has less of a budget for that sort of thing, or does this mean that maybe the people who are responsible for the upkeep shouldn't be the people responsible for the upkeep...?

I like the idea of going north. We should start with PKI and finish with CP simply because CP would be a little more climactic since it's not the home park for a lot of us.

I wouldn't waste everyone's time going to SFKK. I really hate that park... I really do... I think PKI to Geauga Lake to Cedar Point would a a little more reasonable, don't you?

Whether or not his knowledge is legit or not, I don't know but we do know that the enviornment is far more important to guests than the houses themselves. With that, I would expect more outside decorations and perhaps some improvements to the Scare Zones.

Sounds feasable, but you're looking about $50 million when all is said and done.

I don't recall a TV special entirely on Phantom, what I do recall is that Phnatom opened on Kings Islands 20th anniversary season, and the park did I think an hour long TV special. Let me see if I am thinking of the same show: It was the Kings Island 20th Anniversary Special, starring Jason Priestly. Had a lot of bad jokes. Showed scenes like * Jason arriving at the park for supposedly a private VIP day at the park, gets followed by two kids who ask if he wouldn't mind if a few freidns join him, cut to a big park opening scene. * Jason standing under Eiffell Tower trying to find the rollercoasters, the clown band disappears and when he ask some nerdy scientist type character where the coasters are, he lifts up his trench coat to reveal drink coasters. * Jason and kids talking about what sort of animal they would like to be, Jason turns into a giraffe, which is used to sequee into a segment on the Wild Animal Habitat monorail. * A segment on the show at the American Heritage Music Hall, the show had a pirate theme that year, * A running gag where Jason would eventually ride all of the parks coasters during the course of the show, each time runnig into a group of guys all dressed in black with dark shades, who eventually get intorduced as ACE members. (I wonder how ACE felt about that representation) Oh, and the coaster footage was nowhere near accurate with cuts of the same parts of the ride appearing over and over and in different order) * Jason climbing the stairs on Adventure Expresses second lift hill carrying a torch * A feature on Waterworks, then Jason appears to slide down a closed water slide with no water runnin down it, but winds up on the giant slide in HB, thats starts the HB segment. * Phantom was of course the new attraction of the year, so was almost the last segment, right before the fireworks, cause if its about a day at PKI, it has to end with fireworks. They showed a few scenes from Phantom, and I want to say they might have even talked with a couple of the people who helped design the ride. * Segment on Coney Island * Segment on the guys who keep the carousel horses in top shape. * John Allen intorducing The Racer. My how the park has changed sicne then, remember in 1992 the coaster collection was King Cobra, Adventure Express, Racer, Vortex, Beast, Beastie and Scooby Zoom. I have a copy of this on VHS, taped off the TV, and includeds the commmercials, dunno if anyone here would like a copy for the park history archival material or not. The other Kings Island tape I have hidden somewhere (read I would have to really search for it) is a 1989 era 15 minute tape they used to sell in the gift shop with coaster footage (Racer, King Cobra, Vortex and Beast). that's also on VHS, but that tape has a huge warning that it is in Macrovision and any attempt to duplicate may damage the VCR or the original. Ready for the ultimate PKIC easter egg? Click here to see the 20th anniversary video. Just a little thing I've been sitting on for a few years.

Has anyone ever tried out before? What kind of stuff do they make you do? I'm actually really interested.

Just trust me... the Holiday Fest thing at the Beach isn't all that great. If you went to Winterfest don't even waste your time at it.

Has Six Flags ever built a park from scratch?

When the ride first opened there was a special on it on network TV, although I can't remember which channel. It showed a lot of the ride footage. If anyone can find a copy of this they'll win 1,000 PKIC Bucks. As you guys know, PKIC bucks are good for.......nothing, but still try to find it.

A ride op told me that you can see the Carew (sp?) Tower in downtown Cincinnati on clear days, but I have yet to be able to see that.

I'd KILL to take a tour of the boneyard but I don't know how kindly PKI would take to that. Would you let me root through your trash?