PKI_Diana

Ecology Hands down, no doubt about it.

That was the one and only disappointing thing about winterfest!!!!!!!!

PKI does have a warning system. Those of us that are employees know the tones and what they code for. In addition, they play p.a. announcements when a storm is within ten miles. I know that my ride closed for storms as soon as lightning was close. Gotta love calling communications, and they are the best people, and they are able to tell us flat out how many strikes, and at what distance! Good staff!

So did I! It was a blast for the end of the season!

I worked for Kings Island for 6 years. The things I learned working there have given me more assitance than anything I learned in College. So incredibly true. I still use a LOT of what they gave me. In teaching, it comes around quite often, but that's cause I'm still new being away from it, and with time that will wear.

Standing on the Eiffel Tower 07/04/05, and looking down at 35,000 individuals staring up at the Nights of Fire show, and reminising on the 4 years I had with the park, and how scared I was of my up and coming career. Tearing up and reliving great memories.

Nights of Fire. Hands down. There's no smiley that has a single tear. Or I would use it. Most definitely.

A diamond earring, dog treats (whatever for, I dont know!), a bowling pin, and some unmentionables (times like 3 different types, about 6 times).

I pray that his first line in his siggy doesn't mean me....

They already did chose it. pkiboy was showing you the choices.

WCT Field's Untouchables.

Staffing is bad.

I skipped all the rides that we have identicals at PKI.

There is NO pattern. Remember we've installed coasters three years in a row. 99- Face / Off 00- SOB 01- Runaway Reptar So again in closing, PKI doesn't have a pattern.

I will not be there. I will be enjoying my like, only day off this week. Also, I have decided, that after 4 beautiful years, hundreds of rides, 2 boyfriends, countless paperwork, fewer hours of sleep, a few hundred friends, thousands of days, and a thousand priceless memories, August 27th 2005 will be my last official day working at PKI. It is with great difficulty and excitement that I welcome the change, as you see, I begin teaching high school a few days after my departure. Until then, you may stop and say hi, visit, and wish me luck on my journeys while I work at the Tower. Good Luck, and God Speed.

You can't get past security and the rope until 10 am exactly though, unless you are part of a walkback, or part of a Gold Pass Early Ride Time.

I like this year's better. But that is only because my life was 500 times easier, without having just one ride for a week, no disgruntled employees and such. And I had the added priviledge of being one of the 150 who got to see the fireworks from the Tower (as well as look down on a crowd of over 30,00 people from the top- it was a tearful moment), and on the next night, I saw the awesome lighting display. I only wish I had had my camera.

I've ridden MF. I love it. I'm sure I'll love at least trying TTD at least once. I'm game for anything once, but if I don't like it, you'll never get me on it again (lol, Slingshot!)

ABSOLUTELY! Why ruin something that was so expensive to paint?!?!?

I'd been on MF before, so I wasn't that upset about it. Oh well, such is life. It goes on anyway.

No I did not. But now I'm aiming to loose enough weight to return to ride both of those by October.

Sorry this is SOOO long.... Trip Report to Cedar Point 7.6.05 So after 3 years since visiting Cedar Point, I get it in my head, that as a graduation event, I’m gonna go up this summer. So I did so this week. After arriving in Sandusky on Tuesday night, and an early morning wake up call, my boyfriend George (a.k.a. DragonLord) and I began our adventure to Cedar Point, America’s Roller Coast. Getting to the park was relatively easy from our well located and friendly hotel, just a mere 12 minutes away, when you go the shortest route. We arrived at the car entrance toll at 9:25 am, and were inside the main gates at 9:35 am- Ready for our fun filled exciting day. I love pre-purchased ticketing! Seeing TTD and MF having a long line already, and not quite ready to jump on to a huge coaster first thing in the morning, we hop on the Cedar Point Sky Ride for an early morning view of Lake Erie, beach, the park, and its many attractions. After that, we decided to stroll to the back of the park, which was an excellent decision, seeing that it was empty, and every ride we went on back there was a walk on wait! We hit the Cedar Creek Mine Ride, which was quite a surprising ride for a little coaster, although a bit jerky. Then we hit one of the best flumes ever, White Water Landing, which was again walk on, and its cloudy out, so no one wants to go. Of course, no one gets wet, and we just enjoy the trip among the trees. At this point, George and I begin to notice a common theme among the CP employees- No one smiles, or initiates a conversation with the guests. It seems like no one really wants to be at their jobs. Next we head off to The Beast’s rival, Meanstreak, which has an operator texting at the greeter position, and a walk on wait, and a fabulous view of Lake Erie and the park. Definitely a great coaster for a woodie and it’s not nearly as rough as SOB. Then being a fan of the older rides, I decided we should ride the train, Cedar Creek and Lake Erie Railroad, around and look at the crowds, and the small animated skeletons that line the tracks telling a chilling tale. Although PKI’s train no longer has a story, it is longer, but CP’s lets us ride over and over and over again, which is nice. After that as we are walking up to the front of the park, we come upon Top Thrill Dragster, a coaster I have been wanting to see and ride for myself for a while now. We stop to watch it launch many times. The cables smoke when it launches, and the whole tower shakes when the train zooms up it. People looked scared and excited to be riding it. After finally convincing George that we should ride, we go to the tester seat in the front of the line. Unfortunately, I don’t fit in the seat for TTD, so that one is out for the day. I’m upset, and frustrated again, but I soon get over it, because I am just enthralled watching it launch for a few cycles. Then moving on to the indoor roller coaster, Disaster Transport, we have a long wait for a dinky coaster. I had been on this before, and George was expecting more then what the coaster really was. My lap bar wasn’t even pulled, and again, everyone seemed to be in a crappy mood. I don’t know how they call it 3D, when they didn’t even give us 3D glasses to wear. Then it was off to my ride equivalent, the Space Spiral. We went up got the view, and came down, and were not allowed to take pictures while riding, which I thought sucked, because I am a picture fanatic. Then came a pleasant experience, we ate burgers at the Burger Patio on the Midway near the front, where we met a happy employee, by the name of John. He was very friendly, and answered many of our questions. After eating, we walked over to the Wicked Twister, which we found out was closed all day, and instead we ended up riding the Ferris Wheel, a ride I miss from my vacation on the New England boardwalks. I got some great photos there! After that, we watched the maXair run, which is nothing more than Delirium, and I was surprised to see it had such a long line. We did not ride, because we have Delirium down here, and we were not going to ride rides that PKI already has, in the interest of time management. After watching maXair, we went over to Gemini. Let me say this. It was one of the best rides we had that day! The crew was fabulous- saying hi, being cheerful, welcoming riders back, telling jokes to those who were next in line, and smiling a lot. It was good to see since most employees didn’t smile most of the day. Our thanks and appreciation goes out to that AWESOME crew including, Ryan, Jonathan, and More! George and I must admit that it had great airtime as well- which was surprising. I must say though, during our wait in line, we had several smokers around us, which wasn’t cool because it’s such close quarters and not allowed. Then we went into Camp Snoopy to the Theatre, to get our picture taken with Snoopy, how much fun, although I swear we were the only people taller than 44 inches, without kids in the whole area! Great to meet Snoopy anyhow! After then, we wandered upon the Paddlewheel Excursions, where we met another noticeably great employee, Captain Nathan. He was great driving the boat, with the little prescribed story. And although it was probably the 19th time that hour he said his speech, he was happy to be doing it, or at least he acted well about it. And we thank him for it, because we even enjoyed the corny jokes. After the Paddlewheel, we went to the Midway Carousel, in the front of the park, to ride another Carousel, which was fitting, considering I am a Carousel supervisor. I must admit, it was great fun, and they have beautiful horses, and the tails are real hair, how cool is that?? Now comes a shocking part of my trip, we saw one show while there, Livin’ in America. It was absolutely fabulous! Better than School of Rock, Tuned In, and even the gone but not forgotten Tomb Raider Stunt Show! It was awesome with great costumes, dancing, choreography, and even some Vegas style magic thrown in! I give great compliments to those actors and dancers for giving us a hard to resist show for well over half and hour! Then we went to check out our front gate photo, and of course, my eyes are closed because I am squinting due to the sun, so we go back to the front and scout out another Kodak personnel, where we met Scott! Scott is an amazing employee, full of smiles, willing to take our photo so we can have the Carousel in it, even acting like Tweety bird so we smile and laugh for the camera. Our photo comes back in an hour, and Scott is behind the counter, so we help him with commission and thank him personally for our great photo of our trip! Cedar Point needs more employees like Nathan and Scott. After then, we ride Blue Streak, and shopped at the CP Shop beneath the Sky Ride, The China Ship (where we meet another great employee by the name of Ms. Hill), and the Snoopy Boutique (where we met Philip, who was fabulous, talked with us a good 15 minutes after learning where we worked, and gave us the reading of the name tags, so we know who is who, and how to find a supervisor, minor, full timer etc). It was great to see someone so excited about the park, and willing to share in our little amusement world. After this, we decided since we had been up since around 5 it was time to call it quits, go to dinner outside the park and go back to the hotel. So we stopped by Guest Relations to pick up a comment card to mail back to them (which is the next thing on my list after my TR). So the few things that George and I noticed about the park: 1) It is impeccably clean!!!! 2) Ride lines were longer then PKI’s. 3) No one seems happy or wants to smile, even if you smile and wave at them as you pass. 4) No Smoking or Alcohol in Line is NOT enforced, several people walked right past the Greeters at the coasters, and nothing was said. 5) We saw maybe 4 security guards in the 13 hours we were there. 6) We saw First Aid once, which was quite surprising. 7) We really liked that each guest was escorted into a parking spot when they arrived on the lot, instead of having a free for all as PKI has. 8) The food was scrumptious! But expensive, of course. 9) That area of Ohio has no humidity, thanks to the lake breezes. How jealous are we, when it’s humid and hot! I think that’s it. We both had the time of our lives and we hope to do more trips like this in the future, and although it wasn’t cheap, it was worth every penny, even without being able to fit into Millennium Force or TTD. I would go again in a heart beat, and I’m sure George shares that feeling.

I worked this morning Charles, and I needed to do some planning and shopping for my vacation next week, so I did that.

You forgot Reptar and Beastie! Can't have a real poll without all the choices!

I've been told that the fireworks are at 10. Its not even dark at 9 pm right now, so how can you see them? Also, make note, the Tower will be closed from 8 pm each night til nearly 11 pm, for a VIP only party, which people must win tickets from radio contests to see.