BoddaH1994

Holy shnikeys! Look at the roster of people planning on attending! If this many people turn out, it's going to be great!

I said Coney Mall because it has a great assortment of rides, but I'm with you guys on the peacefulness of Rivertown. I hope that never changes.

I went through that same line a few weeks ago. Mainly people tried to hand their passes to the employee thinking that they were supposed to scan it. I don't think it will work. Plus, how could they check the picture?

Universal would have to pay me a lot of money to agree with something like that. I'd get there at open and stay until close. Hopefully, this would be a slow day so I could do everything. I'd ride all of the rides that I could, and even ride my favs like The Vortex, Beast, and FoF several times. I'd even cosider going to a few of the shows. This is hypothetical, because Universal couldn't pay me enough not to go to PKI. -Ryan

^ Not a bad idea with the lubricant and the saw. We just so rarely use it. We have brand new cutters that work really well. I can only think of once that we've used a saw, and that was during a training excercise. Where is the entrance to the elevator? Is it underground, or somewhere at the base?

Yeah lets take the nogo strap off now. Once again You better be able to torch cut my seat out because I would be too scared to move. If it really came down to that, it is always a possibility. The USAR truck has exothermic torches, concrete saws, and reciprocating saws on it, that can cut through just about any material around. Anymore, we use reciprocating saws a lot for auto extrication. True, but talk about big time last resort. If you use a resipricating saw, it throws out sparks like crazy. We only use it on auto extracations in situations where the cutters won't work for some reason. I think a cutter would snap right through that OTSR, and would probably be a lot less stressful than having a saw with sparks flying everywhere right next to your body. I actually read a story on the internet of a guy who was stuck on DZ during an approaching storm. I believe he was stuck up there for upwards of an hour or so, but they managed to drop the ring. I tried looking for it again, but couldn't find it. Apparently, they poor, soaken few that were stuck on the ring were treated to a free dinner as well as complementary "I Survived Drop Zone" shirts. I think that no matter what, there will probably be a way to drop the ring. The reason behind that is, if they had to remove some old lady from the ride by cutting her restraint, and she went into shock, Intamin would be liable for any lawsuits resulting from it. PKI would just have to prove that their people did their jobs correctly, which wouldn't be too hard. So Intamin more than likely made for darn sure that the ring will drop 99.999% of the time perfectly, and the other small percentage it will drop eventually. As far as the rescue team goes, I'm willing to say that using them is more of a "what if" situation. Like someone said, there's probably a manual release for the ring. I'm sure they have accounted for every imaginable situation for tragedies on DZ. It's not like if the power went out that they wouldn't know what to do. Have faith in your PKI team, they know their stuff. p.s. where is this elevator that you guys are talking about? Is it within the tube?

Well, it seems like the Paramount tradition isn't to try to top the world necessarily, so I didn't vote for a recordbreaking coaster. I think we'll get a coaster, but it'll be something that will put PKI back on the map. It seems more cost efficent to make something innovative.

Ok, guys, you're going to hate me for this idea, but here it goes: I think we should get those stupid "Hello, my name is.." name badges for the off-season meeting. I mean, I know it sound stupid, but we could put our first names as well as our user names on them. The reason why I'm thinking this is because I know a lot of you were at the TR:TR filmings but I never had the opportunity to meet you because I didn't know who you were. That's really a shame. I mean, the only people that I can remember from it are Italian Chef, DanielRadsgrl, and Dragonlord. I know there was a pretty decent handful of you guys there. If we know eachother personally, maybe it can help continue this wonder peace that we've had on this web site. Just let me know what you think, Ryan

Calling it a sales gimmick is a little harsh on our friends at PKI. It would be one thing if they never had FearFest before, but since they have, and charged for it every year, I'm willing to say that saying that Fearfest admission is free is a fair statement.

Yeah, they're really not losing money per se with bring a friend free days. I'm sure the money spent on food alone makes up for the lost revenue for admission. Keep in mind that if you're bringng a friend, they obviously don't have a pass so they'll probably want to stay all day, which is two meals and countless drinks. It all adds up. I wouldn't go so far as saying that the perks are lame. The park does do a lot to try making having a gold pass worth the effort. The only real down side is that for a lot of them, you have to get there bright and early, which is not my cup of tea. I know that it's nearly impossible, but I would love to see PKI stay open late for gold pass holders. Actually, it would be AWSOME if they would have an overnight, like 6pm to 6am for gold passholders. I know that due to ride maintanance and needing to get employees to work, etc would make that improbable, but hey, it's a cool idea.

My guess is that there is some sort of manual release on the ring. If all else failed, they could send someone up to pull that lever or whatever it is. I'm guessing that there is also something electronic that pulls the ring down once the brakes stop it, if it got to that point, a cherry picker would probably be used to get people down if necessary. Now, if that thing was stuck, as in there's no way that it could drop, I think they'd have a platform suspended from a helicopter which could retreave the people. I'm guessing that there's some sort of emergency release for the OTSRs. They could individually get people out that way. I can't imagine them trying to get people to jump to a landing surface below... just not reasonable.

I used Two ride Tuesday once on SoB...ouch Other than that, just parking.

Hey, I want to thank you guys for your responses! Whether you agree with me or not, these editorials are only worth writing if you guys actually read them and have some input. First off, I think I need to defend myself a little bit. I want to tell you guys straight up that I love PKI more than life itself like many of you out there. I doubt Kings Island would have been able to grow exponentially the way it has without the Paramount takeover. In my opinion, Paramount is the only company that is worthy of "my" park. I'm not a big Six Flags fan at all, but I think that a lot of you might agree that they would not have done nearly as well with it as Paramount has. At that, the intention of my editorial piece was in no way to bring down Paramount or Paramount's Kings Island. As far as my 'warm fuzzy memory' goes, that was simply an example. Obviously you can't make any money if you're just giving things away (although Video Professor seems to be able to do it ). I don't expect any park to give anything away really. The point of the story was more the mood-setting which it created rather than the actual act of giving things away. It was like, that guy did everything he could to make sure we walked away happy. A lot of PKI employees are the same way, but to a different degree. There is only so much an individual can really do, but if you think about it, that 'only so much' can really make or break an experience for another individual. For example, if say, The Beast were down, and there was an employee blocking the queue line, and I asked him what was wrong with it, he would more than likely say something along the lines of, "The Beast is experiece some maintanance problems and will be open as soon as the mechanics decide the ride is safe for our guests." It's generic, but respectful. Now imagine the same situation, but the employee said, "Well, obviously it's broken! It's really none of your business what's wrong with it. Now go away!" Both of which answer my question, but how would I feel had I walked away from either of the situations? Americana did have several problems. Essentially, it was an over-worked, under budgeted little park for the better part of a century. PKI had the goods to go and stole all of their business. Not that PKI did anything wrong, but people are naturally attracted to winners, so it was obvious from day one who the winning team was going to be. If they reopen it, will I go back? Maybe some day. Who knows? I do see your point though. I didn't exactly go home and tell all my friends to go to Americana because they gave my girlfriend a stuffed animal. As far as big vs. little, with big being the bad guy, you'd have to look at the situation. For the most part, you are correct though, the reason why big businesses are big is because they started small and did things correctly and built a small empire. I mean, is it wrong for McDonald's to drive a mama and pop family burger place out of business by opening a location right next door thus driving mama and pop into bankrupcy? Hell yeah, it is. But what are they going to do? Stop expanding? Would you stop expanding if you were them? Probably not. Would I? Probably not. Jimmy Jamz, you mentioned that most people around Kennywood say that the park was better 10 or 20 years ago, that seems to be a rather common comment in the amusement industry. I don't know if it necessarily has to do with big business takeovers, though. I mean, how many times have we have threads on these boards about how great The Bat was? I mean, serious, how many of us had ridden it? I'd guess MAYBE one or two. The same goes for Phantom Theatre. Probably no one would have posted anything about it before, but not that it's gone it's mentioned in a thread atleast weekly. Ufortunately, it seems that park-goers really don't appreciate something until it's gone. Well, I'm working on my next editorial right now. It's going to be about why we haven't gotten a coaster in several years, and how coasters affect the industry. I'm just waiting on a few e-mails from a few people. You guys will probably really like it. Thanks, Ryan

I totally agree. I have thought the same thing many times. Just think about the potential with Delirium. Chasers on the bottom of the Frisbee would be really cool, like neons or something. All coasters should have chasers going up the hill, it should be a state law. -Ryan

I'm in Fusiondude (You're in, right?) BoddaH1994

You'd be a fool not to go with that.

Delirium stands on the grave of the old King Cobra. It's a Huss giant frisbee. Pretty much everyone agrees that it's a blast. It's not extrmeley thrilling, but it's a really fun ride. Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle is in the same building where Phanton Theatre used to be. It's an interactive ride in which you hop in the old Phantom Theatre cards and shoot cardboard cutouts with a laser gun that doesn't shoot straight. Not my favorite ride in the park, but give it a shot if you like Scooby Doo. The ride gets mixed reactions. Two new noteworthy resteraunts are, in Oktoberfest, where the old Beer Gardens used to be now stands Bubba Gumps Shrip Shop. Obviously it's a seafood place with a Forest Gump theme. A lot of people on here seem to like it. The other is Manderian (sp?) Cusine on International Street. It's an Oriental resteraunt right there in PKI. It easily has some of the best food I've ever eaten at an amusement park. Have fun at the park! If you're interested, there's a construction walkback for Boomerang Bay meeting at the FestHaus on the 2nd at 3:00. -Ryan

This discussion has circulated the the PKI online community for months now. We've pretty much determined that if it were sinking, they probably wouldn't let people on for safelty reasons. Now, it is possible for The Vortex to sink, as it is for anything built above ground. If Arrow didn't know what they were doing when they built The Vortex, it would be possible because the area was a lake. Then again, have you ever really heard of a rollercoaster sinking into the ground? -Ryan "A roller coaster designer visited LeSourdsville Lake in the early 1970s to view the Screechin' Eagle roller coaster. We were standing at the base of the lift hill when I asked him, 'What's the life of a coaster?' Without batting an eye, he seriously replied, 'The first big accident.' Of course, I was referring to the forces of nature acting on the wood structure but he gave me a better answer than the one I was looking for." Alfred Freeman, former coaster operator

Nah, it's ok. My other thong is still good.

That's very interesting. Do you get to drive a golf cart around all day? I mean, are there specific tasks that security does at night, or do you just patrol? Sounds like it would be fun for a while but then get old. I would find an excuse to drive the back roads around the rollercoasters and stuff. lol -Ryan

Or a PKIC bib. Seriously, people. I think of it more as a donation to the site. We all come on here and enjoy the forums, etc. Why not contribute? lol.. heck, I'm not even staff on here and I'm pushing this.

Hey, Dane and Dan have been really humble about pushing their merch. I have a link below to their e-shop. Everything is extremely reasonably priced and more importantly, it helps support PKIC. So if you want to give back to this community, and want something really nice in return, please follow the link below. Thanks, Ryan http://www.cafeshops.com/pkicentral

From what I remember, they removed the web cam a long time ago and have no intention of bring it back. Kind of a bummer. -Ryan

Nah, not interested, sorry. Holy sh-t! I'm in! Boy can you guys deliver! -Ryan

How much does it cost at CP?