BoddaH1994

We used to paint our walls with lead paint, and at the 1904 Worlds Fair, such items as Uranium neckalces were on sale while a new invention called the incubator was put on the row of joke inventions instead of next to things like the light bulb. Things change, get used to it. What does that have to do with being hyper sensetive? ....yeah, I don't get it either.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys this again but PKI's annual Niceklodeon Celebration Parade kicks off this Friday, June 9th. Expect an all new dance at those one!

To answer the threads above, I can personally confirm that employees can't be in the shows? Why can I do that? Because they tried to stop me from being in Magic of the Movies two years ago just because I'm associated with this site! Before you ask, no, I don't work for Paramount Parks!! Back to the matter at hand, this show is going to be GREAT this year!! I'm very excited for the entertainment department. The musicians are all very charismatic in this show and will only get better and tighter as the summer presses on. If you turn down the opportunity to see School of Rock, you're really missing out on something special.

With a new cast, a new crew, and most importantly a new attitude School of Rock returns to the Paramount Theatre to rock out a whole new generation of listeners! PKICentral has been given the rare opportunity to peak behind closed doors for a sneak preview of School of Rock! In this update you will see scenes from School of Rock rehearsals as well as various shots of cast and crew meetings. ALSO: For a little bit of insider information, the wonderful people from PKI's entertainment department have asked me to inform you that School of Rock will be opening its doors two days early! Saturday, June 3nd there will be shows at 11:00am as well as 12:30pm with shows at the same times on Sunday. There will NOT be any other shows this weekend after 12:30. Click here to see shots from School of Rock 2006!! A special thanks goes out to Matt Shafer for taking the time out of his day to accompany me to the theatre, Maureen Kaiser for organizing all of this for us, and of course Scott Hayward for allowing us access to the theatre. Thank you so much! Regards, Ryan PKICentral.com - One great rock show could change the world.

I think this has been brought up before, but you do still make a good point. How come 50 years ago when you could smoke everywhere except maybe a fireworks factory it never bothered anyone, but now anyone who doesn't smoke is automatically allergic to it? For some people it's legit, but I'm willing to say that for most it's just a victim statement. The problem with PKI's smoking areas is that they're just designated areas of the midway where you can smoke. So those who REALLY can't stand the smell of smoke basically have to walk through it regardless. I do agree, PKI needs to promote the smoking areas more. I agree with The Interpreter, it's much worse at Six Flags. I was down at SFKK last weekend and there were so many people smoking all around that I didn't even know they had it restricted until i saw a smoking area.

Just wait until you feel the comfort on those trains on Rumbler... you'll want to take a nap in there.

No stepping stones? How about Little Bill's Fairly Odd Beastie AE Racer Beast SOB Vortex Flight of Fear Face/Off

It could use some tweaking, but the overall intention is pretty fair.

Just be glad we couldent get the camera out fast enough...

You still have to ride it defensively, but it's 100x better than even last year.

Just don't forget that free parking/gold passes/buy 3 get 1 passes are there for a reason, and that's the marketing. It's not necessarily because Paramount loves you and wants you to be happy and CF doesn't.

Talk to DirtySteve. He has some interesting stories about his visit to "Knott's Scary Farm". A lot of it involved VERY well themed queue lines where you didn't know if a statue was a statue or a person ready to jump out at you. At least there is an element of hope for Fearfest. By the way, I'm not counting on CF's upkeep of our themed attractions either...

The theme from Pee Wee's Big Adventure on I-Street.

Nah, I imagine that if anyone with the name Pretty Ricky got into some friction, he'd probably be the suave type of guy who could talk his way out of it.

I don't see how you found it disrespectful. Although you could clearly tell that she was Christian, her prayer was almost entirely universal. Personally, I wouldn't care if she prayed to Mohammed or Budda for our safety, it doesn't mean that it's disresptful to anyone. I would encourage you to concentrate less on feeling offended by good intentions and be more thankful for the fact that this family is so concerned with our safety that they would do what a lot would consider going out on a limb of political correctness in today's world in order to "seal the deal" with whatever god you believe in. I would understand being offended if there was some mention of names or devine figures but there wasn't. I stand by my statement before. The fact that there was a prayer was neat and in wonderful taste. Don't worry, you're still my favorite Sky Coaster Captain!

I feel terrible for the Koch family. After the whole SRM fiasco they made such an honest effort to keep their park as safe as possible and then they have a freak accident like this. I do find it ironic that this happened during the Saturday afternoon timeframe of the event, just like what was mentioned above. Sad.. very sad. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Hempfling family.

I've actually heard the gun thing wasn't true as well. Of course, PKI's security was under evaluation after the event so SOMETHING must have happened.

Because your post was racist for no reason. Banned... again....

I seem to recall 2009. but I'm not certain. You could be right with 2009.

Answer to question 1: Yes And your 2nd question?

That monkey was SO cute. I want one in the worst way now.

I think you know I'd do anything for the park, but getting volunteers together in order to fix up stuff is in terrible taste. I'd recommend using this energy to help out the poor or something, and not to give free labor to a multi-billion dollar company. Your heart is in the right place, Paul.

Seriously! If you stopped hitting random buttons, things wouldn't break down on you so much! I hope you have a better trip next time.

This has been quite an adventure over the past few days... SOB_Tom and myself met up with Dane, Zosobeast, TRTRGuy, and DeliriumDreamer down in KY, several miles south of where I live. Zip forward several hours. We arrived at the front gates of Holiday World and I finally got to meet Pat Koch, who was a very nice lady. After entering, we rode the Haloswings which were... well, the Zephyr... then we rode Raven and Legend. I have to disagree with most of you in saying that the Legend was much better than the Raven. I found the Raven to be short and boring, while the Legend offered a ton of fun lateral Gs as well as pops of airtime. By this time, the park was closing to the GP and it was time to meet under the picnic grove for the ERTs. There were over 1,000 people there for this event, filling three picnic shelters. Will Koch took the podium and went over some very important, but obvious, safety rules. He turned the mic over to Pat Koch who said a prayer with everyone and reminded us not to forget that the last time she prayed in front of this type of crowd, it wasn’t' such a happy occasion. I think it's really cool that they operate this way and integrate their type of family values into the park. The prayer thing is relatively unique and is something I totally support. The ERTs kicked off and we headed directly for the Voyage. It wasn't too long of a wait and we were off riding the most eagerly anticipated coaster of the trip. Let me tell you, the ride is AWESOME. You rarely spend any time in your seat due to the constant airtime. The dark tunnels are great, and the ride does NOT let up. From the time you crest the hill to the time when you hit the final break run, it's nothing but an out of control, wild ride waiting to happen. Then we rode it at night... oh my god... after the first hill, you see NOTHING. You are thrown around and have no idea what's going to happen next. It's honestly what I thought a descent into hell would be like. All you can see are the stars. Best ride experience... ever. We rode Gobbler's Getaway, which left a lot to be desired. Imagine if Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle were done just REALLY badly. This was clearly Scooby with half of the budgets and you're shooting at cardboard cutouts with the same kind of targets as the ride mentioned above. Of course you're not SHOOTING at them, you're using a turkey caller to call them out, which actually looks a lot like a Telexon Gun, for those of you who have worked retail. Ariel even dubbed it "Cracker Barrel: The Ride". Anyway, after several ERT rides on their major coasters, we headed back to our campsite at Lake Rudolf where we tipped a few glasses (to say the least) and crashed out for our morning ERT in Spashin' Safari. The ERT was pretty fun. They have a nice little waterpark that anyone can enjoy. The only disappointing part was the new Action River. It's like our Lazy Miami, except less eventful. The best part of the ERT was seeing this guy who was doing the water attractions wearing a full body wet suit... hilarious. Tom, Dane, and I headed back to the campsite only to find Bill completely passed out in his tent. We poked him with some sticks to mess with him for a while then we went out to find the closest Wal-Mart. This ended up being a three-hour fiasco since the next Wal Mart was well over 40 miles away. We went to Wally World and picked up several things that we needed for camping and headed back only to find Bill still passed out in his tent. I went into mine to change my clothes only to overhear a now-awakened Bill yell out "Hey, does she have a Monkey?!?" ::Warning: Sexually Explicit Content:: I got out of my tent quickly to find that a couple that had been walking down the path did in fact have a pet monkey. It really was the cutest thing ever. We took turns petting it, and when it was my turn, it ran up my arm and gave me a big kiss on the lips! Dane of course took a photo of the monkey with its paws on my face with his phone. The monkey then took Dane phone and started to chew on it! The owner had to pry the phone out of the monkey's hand and rewarded its surrender of Dane's phone with a Starburst. We then set out towards Holiday World again. This time we were early enough to hit a few more rides before the ERTs. I particularly like the Liberty Launch and their flume, which we rode twice. We also did the Revolution ride, which was fun as well. After those rides, a few more on the Raven and Legend, and a now-famous night ride on the Voyage, we set off back towards the campsite. The next morning, we kissed Holiday World goodbye and headed out on a two-hour trek towards Beech Bend in Bowling Green, KY. Beech Bend is hard to describe. It's almost like a Zamperla showroom. Almost all of their rides are mobile Zamperla carnival attractions, which puts the whole NU looking like a carnival theory to shame. Seriously, give me a big rig and I can have that park GONE in an hour. One of the first things that we rode was the Kentucky Rumbler. The footprint of the ride is extremely small, but the ride is surprisingly lengthy with all things considered. It has an incredible amount of crossovers and even a station flyby. It uses the new Millennium Flyer trains, which are the most comfortable trains ever. Seriously, it's like sitting on a couch. The ride packs a lot of pops of airtime and is a heck of a little coaster. We headed to our hotel for check in, which is where I typed the preliminary post. We all managed to get showers in and headed back to the park. Once we got to the park, we rode their kiddy coaster, which is similar to Boa Squeeze. The train would barely make it around the track and it seemed like it wanted to roll back constantly. The ride op was clearly experience in what he does and strategically placed people in the train, mainly with heavier people towards the front. Next was their old classic dark ride, which was exactly what you think of with old dark rides.. 2-3 man cars that slam through double doors to find random haunted scenes. This one banked more on you jumping as a result of random loud buzzers that would go off... Dane especially like this attraction. Heading farther down the midway we reached a ride called Scat 2 (no, I did NOT make that up). It's a g-force driven ride with two spinning cages which rotate on opposing arms. We climbed aboard that ride and had a fun little painful experience only to have the ride stop half way through the cycle. The ride op was hitting random buttons trying to restart the ride with little to no success. Finally, we asked if we could get out of our pods (this has HW's 'Revolution' style seating arrangements) and we all sat on the floor waiting for the mechanic. Finally, they managed to get the ride in motion slightly.. enough to get my pod semi-close to the platform. We all jumped off of it and helped physically push the ride in its circular motion so Dane, Bill, and Bobby could get off. All in all, it was a 20 minute ordeal, but the ride op and his sup (who were a man and a woman in their golden years) were very nice about it, apologized for the ride breaking down, and were very appreciative that we helped push the ride. We rode the Looping Star next, and this ride is a work.. I mean a piece... let's say a piece that needs work. Imagine a Galaxy coaster with a loop. Oh yeah, imagine that this Galaxy coaster has some sort of vendetta against you and decided to grab you and beat the living heck out of you... that's the Looping Star. We got on and I tried to hand the ride op my cup of ice.. I really did. He refused to take it when he checked my lap bar so it went off with me. I was able to hold onto it down the first hill, but as soon as we went up the return hill... let's just say I remember seeing pieces of ice floating in the air before they landed in random spots all over the train. Next we rode Moby Dick which is kind of like a Huss Rainbow, except it only has one row and seats upwards of 30 people horizontally. We had a little fun on it yelling 'WEEEEEEEE!!" as it spun clockwise and "WHOOOAAA!!" as it spun counter clockwise. We got the whole ride doing it, and even the ride up got into it and started setting the ride at the top and picking a random a random direction for the ride vehicle to spin in an attempt to foil our plan.. it didn't work. Next we rode their spinning wild mouse, which is always a fun and painful experience. The cars sat 4, but we only packed in SOB_Tom, Dane, and myself. The offset weight of the car caused it to spin uncontrollably for a very long time. Dane got a kick out of the redneck ride op that said something along the lines of, "Boy, you guys got that mofo spinnin'!!" We headed over to the picnic grove where they had a catered dinner that was outstanding. There they also had several door prizes for Rumber gear, but no one in my immediate group won. After that, we headed over for another painful ride on Looping Star and got one final ride on Kentucky Rumber, this time at night, and headed back to the hotel. At the hotel, we tipped a few more glasses and then had a lot of loud fun... mainly wrestling with Dane in the room. I'm shocked we weren't evicted. The next day we set off for our last leg of the trip: Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. For those of you who have been around for a while, you may remember my last trip report from this place, which was negative and lengthy. With Shapiro taking over the chain, I came expecting improvement but of course was disappointed for the most part. Upon entering the park, we saw several walk around characters -- good thing! Then we saw these characters walk in groups right past all sorts of guests, both young an old. The characters were out there for good PR, not to improve the guest experience -- bad thing. We rode all of their major rides, Chang, the oh so wonderful T2 which I always swear I'll never ride again, Twisted Twins, and of course Thunder Run. Thunder Run was great, it's a low capacity, one train coaster that is constantly being delayed because the ride op kept stopping to joke around with her friends. This delayed each train up to about 5 minutes since her friends kept on running around the exit and getting into empty seats. If I were her boss, I would have fired her on the spot, but clearly Six Flags, at least KY Kingdom, doesn't have that type of commitment to quality or safe ride ops. They dispatched and it sent me to the most turbulent ride I had ever been on. If SOB at its worst was your grandma spanking you, this ride is your 300lb father beating you as a toddler. After having one terrible experience after another, Tom and I decided to call it quits and head out. Upon leaving, I went to get my bottle refilled and the Coke machine was out of the syrup. The lady named Jean who worked the booth was very apologetic and changed it out. Her sup, AJ, noticed we were standing at the window for a long time and asked what the problem was. We told him and also told him about how well Jean handled the situation and he told her to change the syrup, and offer us any food item we wanted. THAT is good service. It wasn't even a long wait, and we were far from frustrated with the extra 5 minutes. This shows that Shapiro may actually have made a tiny mark on the park, but the park is so used to being the trailer park of Six Flags that it's hard to set in. Tom dropped my off at my house in the cornfields of Edgewood, KY and we called it a trip. Thanks for reading my rambling! Regards, Ryan

Let me guess, the Dragon coaster? That got stuck (with large riders) mid-course, and up in the air, on the Media day I went to in early May. Nope, that would be the Scat 2. The ride just totally broke down electronically. So the ride op had to spin it around to unload Ryan, Tom and Arial. So when they got off, Tom and Ryan helped spin it the other way around so that Bobby, Dane and I could get off. Was pretty funny. VOYAGE FRICKING ROCKS! Best wooden coaster!!