deb

I'm gonna be looking forward to being able to do something different on a day at KI, instead of riding rides and shelling out $20 for chicken and fries. Plus, I'll get some quality time with my husband, since he's been working nonstop for 2 weeks. deb

I saw a commercial about 3 times this evening for Kings Island and the $24.99 admission. Within the commercial, it shows Firehawk, Delirium, Son of Beast (the old trains), Vortex, Scooby and the parade, and Italian Job. It shows a coaster that we don't have (yet????), but I'm not sure which one. Maybe this is a "premonition" of things to come within the next few years??? deb

Oh, ok. I had no clue. I had only ever seen/heard of Joe Cool being in the cig ads. Learn something new every day! deb

I just noticed something... CF is worried about sales and attendance.. yet they use a name that was originally associated with cigarettes... Joe Cool was the Camel cig brand camel... And they had to stop using him because it targeted children. I have to say as a parent, I definitely would not want my kids associating with something that was once a cig icon.. But that's just me. I can see other parents being the same, cigarettes are one of the most controversial habits in the world these days. That alone could possibly have parents taking their children elsewhere. How can they enforce the designated smoking areas (if CP has them) when they have that camel as an icon? deb

OMG. someone thought *I* said something right! deb

Honestly, I think the decline could be in season tickets versus single day tickets. I know that in the long run, if you go more than once, KI is potentially losing $50 a day per person. We've been 7 times this year, and there have been days when we went with only gas money, and took our own food. Single day guests tend to "make a day of it" and buy souvenirs, eat well, and buy lots of $3 sodas. Lots of families with passes load up the car and pack a lunch, and keep $$ spending on the cheap, buying only necessities while inside the park. I know having a season pass, I've spent less money (that's including BOTH gold passes and our parking pass) in the 7 trips we've taken this year than I did in one or two in previous years. As far as CF goes, I know that Cedar Point turns a lot of their revenue. I just think that families are sticking closer to home these days, and trying to make the most of their time without spending a lot of $$. And I also think families are trying to be healthier, inside and outside the home, and truth is, an amusement park is not the healthiest place on the planet with the food choices they offer. Many are thinking "green" and "whole foods" and you can't find that at an amusement park, at least that I know of. deb

Assigned seats, that's pretty nifty. I think that is one of the main reasons IJ:ST runs so quickly, they keep the trains full and pick the odd groups out. We have yet to ride it and not been pulled from the queue. deb

I think that our KI commercials here say Firehawk is the 14th coaster. I couldn't figure out how they came up with 14 either. They could count racer/recar as 2, since they have different trains and completely different tracks. deb

Even though it says sold out, I still got to order and pay for my tickets (today...). My husband and our bil/sil are coming but they aren't members. What should we do about their lanyards? deb

Here you can see my bag fairly well... cool, comfy, and more than enough room. sorry about the fuzziness. but you get the idea. deb

scratch that, I'm an ID10T. deb

With the kind of stuff a lady MAY need with her, a bag of some sort is usually in order. Cargo shorts filled with stuff gets pretty bulky, and uncomfortable. If you've got a bag of some sort, you can change arms, sides of your body, whatever, and there's less discomfort. My hubby wouldn't carry half the stuff I need if I didn't have a bag... I'd have to pocket it. For me, a bag just makes more sense. deb

Just like everyone else said, rain only makes your day better. A lot of people will take off when it starts to pour. We had really good luck on a very busy day. It started POURING horrendously one day, and the rain lasted about 45 mins. We'd been waiting in line on nearly everything this particular day. After the rain, almost everyone had left. We went to BB and I got sunburned. Then we walked onto everything else we wanted to ride. Rainy days are good! deb

The first few times we went, my hubby wore his cargo shorts and got to tote all my stuff. Then I saw this great little belt bag from TokiDoki for LeSportsac, and fell in love. Not like a reg fanny pack, but it's flat, and has a length of about 20", plus a zipper front pocket, a cell phone pocket, and a couple of slit pockets. Plus, on the inside- where the long zipper is, there is a carabiner on a stretch cord for my keys. It's made of ripstop nylon (the same thing parachutes are made of) and seems to be mostly waterproof with the exceptions of the zippers. I can stick a zipper baggie in there, and when we get on the water rides, I stick my phone and anything else I don't want wet in there, and it all still fits. They are expensive ($108 retail, but you can find them on eBay cheaper, I got mine for under $70), but if you go to KI a lot like we do, it's well worth the $. As for towels, we go to BB everytime we go, and we have yet to take towels. We usually ride some rides, then mid afternoon go to BB and ride over there, lay out, whatever. By the time we're ready to go back to the main park, we're dry or almost dry, and when we stay until the fireworks, you'd never known we had been wet. We do however take dry clothes to change into just in case we need to. deb

Last time we went with my bil and sil, they switched passes on purpose to see if the gate keeper was paying attention. He looked at the pics, but not at them. He let them through with each other's passes. deb

I knew that, that's why I posted that it was a bad joke... I thought everyone else MIGHT find it amusing. It stemmed from the nascar driver... *shrug* deb

Like all amusement park chains, Cedar Fair is always on the lookout for a new profit center, whether it's on-ride pictures, premium parking, or paid line-jumping. Earlier this season, they thought they had a sure winner at Kings Island, one that might even make up for the bad press related to the loop removal on Son of Beast: Heroin sales in the parking lot. "It'd be perfect for calming patrons down before they come in," said park spokesman Roger Machina. "And you haven't seen our fireworks displays until you've seen them on crank. Or so I'm told. I certainly don't know." So the park started its new project, retrofitting a Dippin' Dots cart, now called the "Rolling Smack Shack." Business was good, until unfortunately a NASCAR truck racer was arrested for possession of illegal substances. "Turns out it's illegal," said Machina, shaking his head. "We had no idea. And we had huge future plans, including a celebrity tie-in, where we were in talks with Courtney Love to make the cart 'Kurt Cobain's Rolling Smack Shack.'" Plans to sell actual handguns at the "Shoot 'Em Up" midway game have also been put on hold. --GP LINK I found this, and found it HILARIOUS! Really didn't know where to put it... deb

hmmm, I'll have to pay extra close attention so I can pick you guys out of the 080407 event.... deb

All this week at 10 am I've been able to watch a show on the Travel Channel called "Theme Park Secrets". I missed Monday, but on Tuesday it had West coast, today was Vegas, and tomorrow is East Coast. Here's what my DISH program says about it: "Extreme East" King's Island, Hershey Park, and Busch Gardens It's from 2004, and I think it might have that video that is lurking on youtube that has Tomb Raider: The Ride on it. I've not seen it before, thought you guys might be interested. Here's the link to the listing on the travel channel site, says that TR:TR is featured. Enjoy! deb

Went went yesterday, and for the first time, left almost when we planned to. (8 am) Had to make a few stops, but got to the park at about 10:15- 10:30 ish. Walked back to go to The Beast first thing, but saw the lines on IJ:ST were short, so we stepped in line. We had a friend with us who had never ridden it, so it was fun seeing her reaction. It was really odd, but the lights were on in the tunnel. Almost ruins the tunnel effect for me, but it was neat to see the track. Then we got on The Beast, great ride as usual. My pic looked like I had never been on the coaster.. (I had a bad day) Since we were by TR:TR, we stopped in there, another one our friend had never ridden. I asked the op as we were being checked for OTSR secureness if the music was working, to which she replied yes. I got excited! And then we got going and guess what? No music. And most of the lights over the lava wasn't working. I was upset that the music wasn't working, felt like I'd been lied to, and all the emotion came out in giggles when I saw those lights out.... From the TR we walked around aimlessly before deciding to head over to The Racers and ride the Recar. I had never ridden Recar, and I must say, I never will again. I thought Racer was rough, but Recar has me still in pain today... that's a lot of force for my neck/back. We then split the group for a min, as some wanted to ride Delirium, some didn't (ME). My hubby and I caught a ride on AE. We got stopped at the top of the hill at the end, I think someone vomited in the train before us, because the loading station was wet when we returned, just after the other train got the all clear. By now we were starving. After we got off AE, we went to the stunt crew grill and got some waffle fries with cheese. Caught back up with our group and walked back to Top Gun to catch a ride. We waited 3 extra cars for the front seat, but it's always worth it. On the way back I saw that the red train on SoB had been cycled, because it was now on the brakes before the loading station whereas before it was stopped midway up the lift hill. We all got back together (they rode separate of us and were in the smoking area) and headed to Festhaus for some lunch. They all wanted pizza, I wanted egg rolls. Guess what I didn't get? Egg rolls. They didn't have any at Panda Express, and I think it had been all day because it wasn't like there was crumbs in the metal, it was clean. So after my hubby at his pizza, he walked to over to Chick Fil A and I got some food there. It's amazing how slow a restaurant can be. They had 5 people taking orders, and one filling the orders. I find it odd that they take your order, take your money, then stand there like a zombie until the order filler guy hands him your food. It would make more sense for the order taker to get your food. And it'd create less lines. We went out to the car to get our suits and head over to BB. Again I got sorta crispy, because I didn't use the sunscreen. We rode Snowy River Rampage and the Crocodile Run, then played in the wave pool for a bit. We were going to try to wait out the massive line for Tasmanian Typhoon, but it never seemed to get smaller.... So we got redressed and went back to the car to unload our stuff. On the way back we saw the neon stating FoF was temporarily closed. Couldn't figure out why, but it wasn't there earlier when we came in. 2/3 of our group wanted to ride Face/Off. I wasn't feeling up to it, so I sat out with my brother in law. Then everyone else wanted to go ride Vortex, but neither me nor my husband enjoy the ride, so went to the Attitudes store and then rode Monster and Zephyr while we waited on them to return. They rode Vortex and Shake Rattle N Roll in that time. Next we went to Firehawk, but the line was CRAZY, and we didn't feel like waiting forever, so we didn't. I walked over and asked the ride op at the FoF gate if it'd open today, and she told me not tonight. So we then went back to Spongebob 3-D after we discussed what to do since we had about 1 1/2 til closing. The door to row 3 was blocked off, I don't think it was working properly. And there were multiple seats that were tied off. The one we were in made some weird squeakies.... Went to Scooby Doo and I got my tooth chipped... hubby wanted the pic to show him shooting at me, and as we rounded a corner he accidentally bopped me with the gun! lol. I'm ok. All in all, decent trip. deb

I was there too. I was a bit disappointed that SoB wasn't open, as it was the main motivation for going. I did see the red train stopped about 1/4 the way up the lift hill as we were walking back towards Top Gun. I did not see the blue train at all. The other HUGE disappointment was that FoF was closed, and when we rode IJST the lights were on in the tunnel. And the music in TR wasn't working even after a ride op TOLD me that it was.... deb

I thought the park was insanely crowded for a Tuesday, but it was the SSC. As for the fireworks, granted they were larger and there were more than there normally are on any given day at KI, but after seeing our fireworks on Sat (rained out on wednesday) I was disappointed in KI. To be the supposed largest fireworks display ever in KI history, it was tiny. I live in a town that's about 75000 if that, and all we have is a walmart and a goodys... and our fireworks show beat KI 20 to 1. It was nearly twice as long, and the fireworks were larger and prettier. deb

Speedway DID have tickets for $24.95. One of our friends bought one. And I believe that if you purchase one, you can use the amount of the ticket towards a season pass IF you want to. Also, keep an eye on Wendy's. They often have coupons on their cups. And locally, Coke cans sometimes have coupons. Right now our Mt Dew cans have Holiday World discounts on them (I know, you're not going to HW). deb

Hi Jessica! My hubby and I took an impromptu trip to KI a few weeks ago and ended up staying the night. We went to every hotel in Mason, looking like idiots, until we found one that was reasonably priced. We ended up at the Ramada Limited, at the Mason Fields-Ertel exit, and it was $79 and tax. Plus it's about 10 mins from the park via the interstate. We used the map and went through Mason and up the back of KI, from the North, and got to see a great view of Mason. Also, esp with kids, the Wal-Mart is about 15 mins west of the Ramada on the same road as the ramada. As far as eating, the best price IN the park that we have found, was at the Nick Universe Central Grill. Everything COMES with fries. It was about $8 for a 1/4 lb burger with cheese and curly fries. My 5 year old is VERY picky (the burgers are grilled, so he wouldn't touch them) and he liked the fries. We took him on his birthday per his request. (trip report here). Also, if you like hot dogs, you can go to the Skyline Chili on International Street. It's got AC. And a chili dog with cheese is just under $2. Hope you guys enjoy your trip and find a great place to stay! deb

These pics are fantastic! I had never visited KI until the early-mid 90s. It's really neat to see all the things that were there before I ever saw it. Thanks to you guys for showing me the changes between then and now. deb