TraderJake

Put me down for Kings Island's version of The Smiler.

I very much want Les Taxis and the Ohio Overland Auto Livery to return. I was very sad when they were removed. What made me most sad though, was the removal of KCKC. Rivertown needs more water rides!

Who else wants the Crypt building to come down and for KCKC to be returned to it's rightful location in Rivertown?

I never had a problem with the music behind cycled through over and over again in the four years I worked in the Waterpark, but then, perhaps I did. Might explain my insanity. Jacques, Jacques, Jacques Cousteau, how low can he go?

Here is a link to a map showing the the city of Sandusky Owned Roads: http://www.ci.sandusky.oh.us/engineering/d...reetMap2005.pdf Hope that clears up some confusion on this issue of who owns what. If I am to trust what the engineering department tells me (and being a traffic engineer for the state of Maryland I do), it certainly would show that the City of Sandusky controls the Chausee. Given that houses line the Chausee, that would be further proof that the road is public domain. Is there any proof to show otherwise? The truth is... it really, really doesn't matter who owns the road. Just because a private entity built a road doesn't mean the private entity continues to own the road. Do you live in a subdivision? If so, I bet the developer, a private entity, built the road, and I know for a fact that in Butler County subdivision roads remain the responsibility of the developer for generally a year after build out. Good Lord, this is a fun aside into subdivision regulations and road records, it's certainly been fun.

Sadly, there is nothing unusual about a fatality on any road. Sure there is. It may seem like people die on roads every day (and they do), but the road network is gigantic. It's much more than one road, and each fatal accident occurs under its own special circumstances. No agency wants a fatal to occur on their roads, but unfortunately they do. They'll study every fatal in great detail to see if there is anything that can be done to ensure that the accident never happens again. That said, sometimes there isn't anything that can be done (Drunk Drivers, etc.), but we (traffic engineers) still want to study the accident to figure out what could possibly be done to keep it from happening again. Also, the Chausee is in fact the original access to the park (seen as Cedar Point Rd on google maps) As such, it is definitely not a private road, and is of major interest to the City of Sandusky. Learn more about it here. /End Traffic Engineering Spiel

Talk about a blast from the past. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

1.) Kenton's Cove Keelboat Canal 2.) King Cobra 3.) Adventure Village 4.) Attention to Theming 5.) Trader Jake's Seaside Supplies (Mic's has nowhere near as much theming / atmosphere as TJ).

That's a really interesting comment about waterpark profitability. As someone who ran the Waterworks and Boomerrang Bay Merchandise Locations in 2003 and 2004 (and was out there in 2002 and 2001), I think his comment about margins with waterparks is bull. As Satoru Iwata would say, Boomerrang Bay Resale printed(s) money. It probably has a lot to do with Kings Island core demographic and how these people tend not to realize there is a waterpark, but then when they find out they want to go, and then they have to rent a locker, buy a swim suit, get some towels, eat, etc.

This makes me a sad panda. I can say that now that I am no longer an agent of the park (and haven't been for 3 years). Yay!

Without getting into specifics, the waterpark has normally been a financial boon for the park. Given that the waterpark prints money, I seriously doubt the waterpark is going anywhere, unless of course we are talking about something similar to what happened in 2003.

Merch Maintenance... have fun repairing those lockers and ECVs. Also, be nice to Michele and Karrie, because they are awesome. In fact, be overly nice to them. It always is a good idea to be nice to the bosses when a large part of one's day can be spent in the back of the Rock Shop / Attitudes / I haven't been to the park since I stopped working there in 2004.

Why is this girl talking? At PKI there is this... let the media people talk to the media. It works well. Apparently Six Flags lawyers are not proficient in keeping employees and people from talking about these types of incidents.

Nice to know that the Merchandise Department is still perfect. We always were. Glad to see that tradition continued even three seasons after I was gone.

The River behind Kings Island is the Little Miami river. This River flows from about Clifton in Greene County to Cincinnati, passing behind Kings Island on its path. During the summer, in Milford, the depth of the river hovers around 4.5'. The Great Miami, on the other hand flows through From Indian Lake to the Ohio River flowing through cities such as Sidney, Piqua, Troy, Tipp City, Dayton, Hamilton, and western Hamilton County. In the area known as Miamitown, it has a last recorded depth of 1.75'. Anyways, being a National and State Scenic River, there would need to be a lot of permits secured to have a canoe launch or pier on the Little Miami. If it was a pier that was built, it would also have be designed to withstand flooding, which on a River is not necessarily an easy task. For Kings Island to be interested in such design and paperwork would be somewhat surprising.

This desire to tax sounds as though someone on the Mason City Council wants to paint their gold toilet with porcelain. It is unwise to bite one of the hands that feeds the city coffers. Mason already brings in enough taxes to pave their roads with gold (or bike paths, medians, and street lighting), perhaps they should examine how to fiscally spend money rather than spending so much money on services that don't necessarily need to exist. What do I know though, I only have been taxed by Mason for the last 6 years, and as a nonresident what do I see? I see a city in excess, and their excessive ways are likely not to end anytime soon. The question they need to answer is do they really need to have this tax? Are people really asking for this removal of the income tax, or does someone on council want to keep from being taxed twice? Perhaps Mason should view the 50% credit was an incentive for residents to live and work in the city, rather than a burden.

Huh, I could have sworn the enquirer had the inspectors comment about cracked wood, but I can't find it now. But, looking at the WCPO article, they have the investigation's comments about cracked wood stated. I know they have a bad track record with getting this story right, but I don't think a structural failure would stay on WCPO's website for too long if it was not true.

Wow, if what the Enquirer is reporting is correct (Structural Failure in one or more timbers), then I would be really surprised if you see SoB reopen this year. Structures are designed with a certain factor of safety, and to have a failure of any sort will require a thorough investigation as to determine how and why the failure occurred. Was it fatigue? Was the wood not up to grade? Did the live load (the train) cause the failure? Those are all possibilities that will need to be examined, and some options will have more devastating repercussions than others. I hate to say it, but the civil engineer inside me equates failure with a really thorough investigation, and I can't help but think something, somewhere, went terribly wrong.

It is a huge deal, sir. We (employees of PKI, past and present), were or are in the business of making people happy. An accident of any magnitude ruins what should be a happy day, and in doing so we fail to live up to our mission statement: To provide people with fun, excitement, and memorable experiences. No one deserves to be hurt at a place that specializes in making people happy, and it is terrible when something like this happens at a place which is meant to create fun, excitement, and memorable experiences.

This is terrible, and I hope that everyone that was injured, whatever the extent, are able to make a full recovery.

I think a fire sale is contingent on the will of Cedar Fair and whether or not they change the park's name. It's going to be really hard to market PKI merchandise if the park is Kings Island. But, should PKI stay PKI and all properties stay for the immediate seasons then I would not see a fire sale coming, but rather a gradual phase out and mark downs that fall in line. Should the park change names and should they need to sell out all of the Park Name merchandise, expect a sale that is similar to what happened when Waterworks "closed." All WW merch was heavily marked down up until the closure of the park, and after WW was gone I believe the remaing merchandise was given to chartity or transferred to other properties with WaterWorks parks still in operation.

Oddly enough, I was a manager in the department and I don't even know why the fudge store was run by merch; however, I know why the Candy Store is run by Merch. I'll let someone not from the department figure that one out. Another great question, why was Merchandise specifically picked to run Cabanas when it is extremely food service oriented?

That comment, as far as I am aware, is actually incorrect. Although I never was sent to the campground, and people from the campground rarely got sent to the main park (and vice versa), the campground was owned by the park up until it was plowed over for the Great Wolf Lodge. Merchandise ran the campground up until it closed. It is just one of the few nonstore related locations the department runs, the others being the Cabanas, Locker Rentals, Wheelchair/Stroller Rentals, and Candy/Fudge Store. I don't think I've ever commented towards this, but I am sure in the long run the Great Wolf Lodge sure will help not only the attendance of the park, but also the revenues of all revenue generating departments. It will also be a good thing for Mason, and will further allow the city to pave its roads with gold.

Since someone commented on seasonal employment, I guess I'll touch that topic. Seasonal Employees by law can only work 1820 hours or ten months of the year, whichever comes first. This is a big number and most employees will never hit either of those numbers. However, there is an extremely important group that does touch both of those numbers in several departments -- management. If a employee worked every week of the ten month seasonal terms, they would only be able to work 45.5 hours. This to most people is a large number, but wait a second-- most managers work much more than 46 hours a week often pulling 50, 60, or in extremely rare cases 100 hour weeks. As such, towards the end of the season there are managers who are forced to quit for the remainder of the season because they have hit their hours. Currently this is not a problem though, because should someone hit their hours there would still be a multude of managers still with available hours. However, should the park switch to true yearly operation, many more managers would risk hitting their hours, and thus having to quit. If too many managers have to quit, then it becomes extremely difficult to run the departments. To combat this managers in many departments are forced to take at least December and January off so that they remain seasonal (or January to March). But, in a year round operation persistent weeks off would be extremely disruptive to the operation. Who knows what might happen to your location while someone else is at the helm for a week or more? Most managers would rather not find out. The truth is, a lot of management would have to be hired full time to sustain a year round park, and with full time status comes full time benefits. This includes overtime, and if managers work 60 hours a week it would really rack up. To keep managers and supervisors from working these long hours certain departments would have to either hire more managers or fundamentally change the operations of the department. Both of these cost a lot of money in the end, and I don't forsee the park committing to changing the operations of their departments, or adding more people to a management payroll.