Gabe

well 100M will buy you roughly 4 Diamondback-esque coasters..I would spread it around..put in some more exciting flats, demolish BLSC and put a new giant topsin in there..fill in former paramount story with a cool new flat, see if Delirium could get a new even better ride program, bring back the smurf ride (hey they're coming back on TV!), put in another big coaster and use the rest to upgrade landscaping around the park--more trees!

I would have said Crypt before they tamed it down, so my vote now goes to Delirium. Drop Tower is too one dimesional for me.

My soon to be 2 yr old daughter is about 32" right now, and I'm debating bringing her to the park this summer..the wife would rather me not, but I know she'll like the stuff she can ride (though I think wild thornberrys is prob too scary right now). By next year, she'll def be at the 36" height req for most of the Nick/HB/Snoopy/Helbigland/whatever you want to call it. I usually win these types of arguments (and as most guys know, I lose just about every other type!) so I'll post some pics when we do go .

I'm not sure things have changed much, but the food was just ok when I worked at Disney..they served the same hamburger for 3.00 in the employee cafeteria as in the parks, only the price was 8.00. Even the food at the epcot restaurants was average at best, with the possible exception of the french rest. Rides are what bring people in, so why spend a lot of money on really upscale food when people don't expect it? I don't think it would generate that much extra income. As for the post earlier that mentioned knocking down the front plaza of KI for a year round restuarant, I doubt people will drive from miles around just to eat outside of a closed amusement park in the dead of winter. If they really wanted to provide a unique restaurant, why not renovate the now-closed lower platform of the Eiffel Tower and make that into a restaurant?

Coming from out of town (well Indy) I also vote for Sat/Sun and also agree with Terpy that the sunday shouldn't be on Mother's Day and agree with Kat that the park shouldn't try and schedule any other events at the same time.

Unless you're grading the MBE portion of the Bar Exam, where a muktiple choice test asks you to pick the BEST answer, meaning there is more than one right answer. I'm glad I never had to take this test as I took the Bar the year before Indiana required this! Those lawyers on this site will know what I'm talking about!

the lifespan for concrete parking lots like KI is suppossed to be about 20 years..half that for asphalt. I recall that the lines were repainted a couple of years ago. I'm not sure when the last major fix for the parking lot was, but my guess is its prob due for a major offseason overhaul in the next couple of seasons.

esp with the land being located in the ohio river floodplain..I highly doubt any developer would be interested in buying the property if it closed.

According to area papers, Pilgrim's Plunge in Holiday World has been closed quite a bit as of late, due to malfunctioing sensors. Will Koch, park president, was quoted a ssaying that he hopes the ride will be back up soon after some 'tweaks'. I know this is a first of a kind ride and that all such rides experience some downtime, but could this be another example of poor reliability from Intamin? In any case, If anyone on this site is considering a trip down there soon, I'd contact the park to see if the ride is open.

I agree that greed is the root cause for charging what they do, but a lot of it is the fact that most people won't bother to go outside the park to eat, so they are willing to pay a premium for what would cost a fraction outside the park. HW, while a small park, is a well-run and family owned establishment and has been for years. They must figure that giving away soda will entice people to pay for food they otherwise might not buy. Or, perhaps they have a deal like Disney does with Coke-i.e. Disney pays about a dollar a year for all the Coke syrup used all over the world in its parks..in exchange, Coke gets its logo on every Disney napkin and cup used in the parks..a win-win.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. HW is a small, family owned park with much less overhead then KI/CF. HW can afford to charge less for food and give away sunscreen and drinks b/c it doesn't have to worry about shareholders and debt loads and licensing rights, among other things. If anything, the comparison should be made amongst large park chains like six flags, universal and disney.

when the coaster formally known as Italian Job first opened, there was a sign and i think still is that says singles will be paired..rather than a SRL, the ride ops asked who were singles as they neared the front of the line..as noted above, it caused the coaster lines to back up more, since those people then had to squeeze past 10-20 other people to the loading platform. I didn't see it used much after that first season. give the park credit for trying to tweak the db srl while the park is open, rather thanw ait until the offseason to address it.

If you can get to the park right before opening, FH is def a ride to hit first, when there is no line. There is usually a line going back a couple of rows at least within 15 mins (on saturdays anyway) of the park being open. With FOF next door, you can easily knock those 2 out within your first 30 mins at the park on busy days.

I won't be as quick as Terpy to say the SRL will be gone before the end of this season. Keep in mind that this coaster is a first for the park in many ways, so the park staff is likely trying out diff ways to manage the SRL in the hopes that one or a combination of some efforts will work. My guess is they go with Terpy's suggestion and retrofit the end of the line to prevent hopovers at some point. The passes, while a good idea, were simply not an efficient way to manage the line. The way the passes were used, the greeter was at the mercy of the loaders as to when they would get a new supply of passes..when the ride was busy, it was easy to put that task on the back burner. Give it some more time, and I'm sure the SRL will (hopefully) be a huge success.

Another easy fix would be for the greeter at the SRL to have a clicker, like some other ride ops have (Firehawk, some flats) that count how many people enter. Once the count reached 50 or so, the greeter would close the SRL for a few mins until the line emptied. This, in conjunction with a loader assigning one train out of say 20 or so to nothing but single riders would, in my mind, go a long way towards solving the problem.

While some may lament the lack of themeing KI has compared to KD, the fact remains that CF chose to locate their most innovative coaster yet at Kings Island. If I want a theme park, I'll go to Disney or Universal. An earlier post correctly mentioned that CF was in the amusement park business, not theme park business. I hardly count a little waterfall in the DB splashdown themeing. Paramount was able to do themeing at a relatively low cost due to the built in movie and TV properties it owned (no license fees). CF has never had the desire to compete wih that. I like the fact that each CF park has a different style to it--it encourages people to try each one. If I want cookie-cutter parks, I'll hit one of the Six Flags parks.

That's disappointing to hear about their attitudes..I know in this economy, I can think of worse jobs than being in shorts all day, outside, interacting with people and doing a fairly easy job. sure, the pay may not be the best, but it's just a summer job and if you like coasters, what's better than free admission? Not to mention the friends you'd make.

As Terpy and I have both said, parking garages are feasible when the time comes. Disney had NO land in CA to build another park and they couldnt buy nearly enough of what they needed for CA. so they used the DL parking lot for Cali Adventure and built parking garages at the edge of property and used trams to bring people to the front gate. Im sure I could look up how much of KI's acreage is dedicated to parking, but from just eyeballing it, it would be more than enough for a new area of the park. I'm with Terpy that given a choice between developing flat land and developing rolling terrain, flat land wins (and they can always carve out of the woods what they need for another coaster down the line like they did with DB). Never say never.

i daresay Manhatten express could be the lamest coaster ive been on ever, not counting kiddie ones (and while I love coasters, i'm not a hardcore ethusiast like some on this site)..and to think that MGM (the co that owns NY NY not the casino by the same name or movie studio!) charges 15 bucks to ride it..lol! Son of Beast is still rough but nearly as much as it was before and it's still a ride with a lot of legs imo.

I personally have found the SRL line to be a short wait, even when the main que is only say half full. It all depends on how many odd numbered groups you get..by my unscientific count while in the srl, it seemed that about every 5-6 groups were odd numbered. true, the capapcity is tremendous, but that should serve to make the srl line short as well. as for the passes, i can understand how they want to keep the line to no more than 50-60 at a time. In my many rides thus far I've mainly been in the srl.

when there are no srl passes, the gate stays shut to prevent people from going in. once passes reappear, they open the gate again. It was not closed at all sat except durting the above noted times.

as the night wore on for the sat night ert on db, i noticed hardly any trimming on db..by the end of the night you were literally flying through the ride. Speaking of db, I noticed sat that the single rider poicy was being loosely enforced in that groups were splitting up and being allowed to get into the single rider line. They also need a better delivery system to maintain an adequate supply of single rider passes at one time, as I often had to wait 10-15 mins for some to appear during the day on Sat. I also saw some devious people stuff them into their pockets, then going to the main que, thereby 'banking' if you will a shorter wait the next time they rode. I overheard many of the ride ops grousing that a fair number of passes were MIA. On busy days, I think one of the ride ops should act as a runner, delivering single rider passes to the que line every 5-10 minutes. If they're already suppossed to do so, they weren't, as I noticed the greeter having to physically go up the ramp to collect passes when ones weren't being brought down.

I second Ryan's shout-out to Don Helbig and Co. for staging this event! I truly enjoyed the DB ERT Sat night, logging a lot of rides in some 2 plus hours! Hopefully this sets the stage for more enthusiast events in the future, including a hopeful 3rd annual KIC Day later this summer. I was able to meet a few of my fellow KICers and look forward to saying Hi to many more of you during future visits.

Nice TR Kat! I'll def look forward to going with you at some point this summer! I want to hit Splashin Safari too.

Maybe Kat has some superhuman mutant powers we don't know about?