upstop

Interesting...I am curious, when a ride op pushes the green button and gives the thumbs up on a ride, does this effect the start of a ride, or is this just an indicator type thing for the main operator?

Is that when the ride ops started wearing the headsets too? Holy cow! I was always scared for the ops loading the seats in low level lighting, wondering how they might not be seen from the control booth.

Excellent photo retrospective! These are great memories for your family. You are so right....time is precious and short....my policy is to tell my family and friends that I love them and to be safe whenever we meet....because you never know what tomorrow brings and I'd hate to not have the opportunity to say those things.

reminds me of this...

And they are farther away from the river....makes the park look larger from the road....I would love to see something major, but I don't expect much soon.

A scare zone is an outdoor venue that you can freely walk through in either direction and the characters mingle with the crowd. A maze is usually indoors (not all cases Cemetery Drive is in an outdoor location) and you usually have to wait in line for those attractions.

Yes it was very effective. In the Freddy's Nightmare house, you walked into a room that was on it's side, (very disorienting to begin with) then you walked past what looked like a bloody bed...then there was this loud Freddy cackle and bright halogen lights were shining from the mattress to temporarily blind you and Freddy popped out from the mattress and grabbed this guy in front of me and dragged him into the bloody mattress....it was so unexpected and surprising. A very simple and effective scare.

That video had two of my biggest haunted house pet peeves: "Rawrrrr" at 2:18 and "Where you going?" at 2:42. Both show a lack of originality/creativity on the part of the actors. Other than that, it looked like a decent house. Sometimes no sound at all makes the surprise more startling. I would like to see actors planted within groups that enter the houses, then the "monsters" would grab that actor and pull them out of the line in an "attack". This was done quite effectively in a Friday the 13th haunted house. While people were distracted a young woman would merge into the group and follow with the group further into the house....suddenly Jason would appear and the group would jump back. He would grab this girl and she would go kicking and screaming back into the shadows with him....I tell you...I saw more young ladies jump into their mates arms that night! It was a genius method to instill fright. There were even a couple of young male actors dragged off as well in the Freddy's Nightmare house.

So with CP getting a Flying Eagles.....Hmmmm maybe there is hope that one will come back to KI...

Fresh lake water?

I always wondered that, it seems like a rather good use of water conservation for the time the ride was created, Also, I never understood why the retaining pond was never converted to concrete...I'm sure cost has a lot to do with it, but it certainly wouldn't cost the whole budget to do it...I used to love that ride but in late summer my clothes would dry out and smell like stagnant water the rest of the day....a little water is fine...but sloshing around in wet, pond water clothes is not exactly fun.

I'm assuming Willow Springs is fed by...Willow Springs? Not much of a chance for chlorination. Anyway...I think the thing that completely grosses me out at water parks is when parents take a baby....in a disposable diaper...into the water...how incredibly disgusting.

OMG! I live 20 minutes from East Fork lake and somewhere beneath is a small town....you know there has to be graveyards scattered throughout the covered countryside.....just got the heebie jeebies!

As a matter of fact...in Florida, I will go knee deep on the Atlantic side, and toe deep on the gulf side....yucky, slimy water! Now Hawaii, on the other hand....In Maui, the water is crystal clear...so clear you can't tell how deep you are...but the creatures, and waves are bigger there as well, so my paranoia kicks in and I stay away from that water too....what can I say. I have a belief that the sharks and other fish will think I'm a tasty morsel....LOL

You and me both sir!!! Toilet water is not an option.... I've been called a turd before, but for Pete sakes...I don't like swimming with my own kind...LOL

Like a science fiction movie...yikes!...growing up in the country, we used to go to a creek and swim in open water....its low water now and mostly farm runoff with a county dump (that serves four counties) upstream...no telling what kind of mutated creatures are in it now....including brain eating amoebas.

This just happened recently in Florida.... http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/15/health/amoeba-case-florida-warning My guess is this amoeba is not as rare as they claim it is....I think it is conditional situation that creates the amoeba. BTW, swimming in lakes, streams and rivers is just as hazardous for parasites as anyplace. Also, to a lesser degree, tap water can have amoebas and those using Neti Pots to clean their sinuses are recommended to use distilled water (boiled) to prevent the same thing. I know this sounds paranoid, but what about water rides that use pond water as the source of motion. Is it possible to get that water into your sinuses and allow access for an amoeba? Personally, I'd prefer clean, chlorine shocked water over pond water any day. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57499285-10391704/tap-water-in-neti-pots-behind-two-brain-eating-amoeba-deaths-in-2011-investigation-finds/

I'm sure there is paperwork to prevent lawsuits and the customers know what to expect for the night. There are a bunch of videos on you tube about the Scare Room....apparently they've been doing this years... I like the concept myself! I think now that it must be a few hours after a certain time and not all night long and I also think there is only one show per room on the hotel floor to keep the theme moving.

There is another video where the people come into there room and after settling down, a creature is in their shower, in the closet and under the bed and they didn't know it....I wonder if they randomly invade the room all night long! (to be honest....I think they do!) Hmmm...wonder if something like that would go over well at Kings Island Partner hotels?

You mean like this at Alton Towers in the rental Scare Rooms?

The only time I've ever greyed out on was Tennessee Tornado, cresting the first loop. Of course, this was the last leg of an east coast tour of 5 parks, one per day, in the middle of summer....I was exhausted when we got to the park (first time to go there). Most likely it was dehydration that caused it to happen to me.

And Fastlane passes will be through the roof...therefore....impossibly long lines. No thanks....

The premier cars are just crappy all the way around. On FOF the restraints were changed twice. The first set had the head over the shoulder restraints extremely close to your head. You would actually go airborne at one point a slap the side of your face and twist your neck in the first major turn. Not to mention the furious slamming back and forth throughout the ride. In the second incarnation you had over the shoulder restraints with more neck room....and motion. You had to physically hold your head to the left during launch and through the first three inversions to prevent whiplash from the side to side motion. The third incarnation is the SOB type restraints with the ankle restraints....fun fun fun.....

On SOB you had to sit with your back arched and your feet were on a platform extending your knees upward. The restraint was flat against your chest. I always kept the bar raised slightly so it wouldn't pound into my breastbone. I had a friend and his son who pulled the bar down tightly in their car and both of them came off the ride gasping for air because of the chest beating they got. On BLSC and FOF I have difficult not being able to extend my legs under the orange foot restraint. About midway on both rides I sometimes get painful cramps in my calfs from the awkward seating position.

Yessss...Someone correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm not mistaken (I was at the Travel Channel Video shoot) the woman riding the coaster and describing the ride was from Premier and designed the SOB cars.