coasterville

Looks like they are building the order page as we speak! So far your options: A) PKI ONLY - Adult - $74.95 PKI Only - Jr./Sr. - $49.95 C) Maxx - Adult - (good at all CF RIDE parks) - $125 D) Maxx - Jr/Sr - $79.95 E) Maxx PLUS - Adult - (All Maxx benefits, plus waterparks and Bofante Gardens) - $149.95 F) Maxx PLUS - Jr/Sr - $79.95 (Anoyone notice Jr/Sr Maxx and Maxx PLUS are priced the same) No word on parking pass prices, or if renewals get courtesy parking next year. No mention of Gold for that matter. Descriptions of passes: The best entertainment value around just got better! Now, there are three great Season Pass options to choose from: #1 -- Kings Island SEASON PASS * Enjoy over 80 rides, shows & attractions, including the award winning Nickelodeon Universe and the award winning Boomerang Bay Water Park Resort! Get unlimited admission for the rest of the 2006 season and all of the 2007 season. #2 -- Cedar Fair MAXX PASS – NEW! * A Cedar Fair Maxx Pass gives passholders access to Paramount's Kings Island for the rest of the 2006 season, and all of the 2007 season! PLUS, this pass also gives guests access to all 12 Cedar Fair ride amusement parks (including 3 in Ohio) for the 2007 season, including: Paramount's Kings Island - Cedar Point - Geauga Lake - Knott's Berry Farm - Dorney Park - Valleyfair - Worlds of Fun - Michigan's Adventure Paramount's Carowinds - Paramount's Kings Dominion - Paramount's Great America - Canada's Wonderland #3 -- Cedar Fair MAXX PLUS PASS – NEW! * Upgrade your Maxx Pass to the better, wetter, version and you’ll enjoy access to the same great parks listed above PLUS all five of the separately gated Cedar Fair water parks: Knott’s Soak City: Buena Park, Palm Springs and San Diego - Oceans of Fun - Cedar Point Soak City - Bonfante Gardens

Progress to report! I just surfed over to the pki.com season pass page. While the notice about passes not being available is still up, it looks like they are starting to put the page together. Currently the online store has the Cedar Fair Maxx Pass listed. It sounds like the same Maxx Pass deal as was earlier communicated, yes still priced at $125. I did not click "Add to cart" to see what would happen. Edited to add: Oh well, I guess they were just giving it a test run. Seems to be gone again, but as I said it looks like they are working on the page, not that they are ready yet.

I'm going for the Maxx Pass. If Cedar Point and Geauga Lake repeat their offer of letting coaster enthusiasts in FREE to their coaster events with a Cedar Fair season pass, I think I can recoup much of the extra $50 in one weekend.

Methinks it is becoming more and more clear that Kings Island and Canada's Wonderland "let the cat out of the bag too early" as it relates to season pass sales. Consider that both parks were at the ready to start selling passes, and one park had in fact started selling passes, but none of the other 12 parks have even hinted about season pass 2007. That line in Bodda's post about prices and all being subject to change has me worried. If Cedar Fair has any integrity at all they will honor (or beat) the offer that was already announced. To backpedal now and jack prices up or strip perks away will appear unprofessional and amateurish at the least. Remember, to the casual park going public, Cedar Fair's one achievement in Cincinnati so far is cancelling WinterFest, do they really want their second achievement to be "We don't have our act together, and so now we are welching on the season pass announcements already made in the paper and on our website"

Too late for that if they decide to negatively change the season pass program after releasing the details in the primary markets primary morning newspaper, and on the parks website, they may risk upsetting some fans even before the (modified) passes go out the door..

Add to the mystery, Canada's Wonderland, which had started selling 2007 passes has taken down their already functional 2007 pass order page. Just a blank page ther now. Computer problem, or is their a last minute "let's rethink season pass strategy" meeting going on in Sandusky as we speak.

Well, I think the State has the trump card here. It's called not issueing Son of Beast a permit. Then I suppose the park could sue the State, but by the time thats heard the season wil be over.

It's official! If you look at todays Enquirer article regarding Son of Beast, the seasonp*** info is presented as a small sidebar. Enquirer Article titled "Son of Beast out for rest of season" The goods: Adult PKI Only P***: $74.95 Child/Senior PKI Only P***: $44.95 Adult Maxx P*** (includes all 12 Cedar Fair parks, including Cedar Point and Geaug Lake): $124.95 No Child/Senior price listed. FREE Parking P*** for those that RENEW a season p*** by October 29. Otherwise - Parking P***: $34.95 (Okay, it looks like the language filter is going a bit nutty this morning)

I would not be concerned about the use of the word Paramount's in front of the park names, remember that as of today the parks are still officially dba Paramount's <insert park name here>. I do find it interesting that we seem to be the only park of the chain of 12 that has a hint as to what the new season pass program will look like. PGA has a "2007 season pass information coming soon" message, and all 10 other Paramount/Cedar Fair parks are still plugging their 2006 passes with no mention of the 2007 program. Did somebody at PKI goof and release some details early, or <shudder> did somebody hack the PKI season pass page? I just find it quite odd that out of 12 parks, they would only release a hint of whats to come one 1 parks website. If the page is true, we'll find out more details come Friday. Perhaps, this means that Cedar Fair is letting the various parks be autonomous with their own in park season pass program, so PKI is going to continue doing what they feel has been working for them, then do use the pass at other chain parks will involve the extra fee to the MaxxPass.

Cpt. Picard: Not really, I just want to turn it back into what it was before Paramount took over. Coney Mall is supposed to be reminicent of the old Coney Island which was a prime example of a 50's/60's style midway lines with rides. If that so happens to sound like the Main Midway at Cedar Pioint, so be it. Coasters diner is just an obvious overlay if they need to remove the Happy Days theming. IIRC correctly, the Columbia Palace (now Wings) did have a saloon style show early on in the parks infancy. I just want to bring that kind of stuff back, and if Cedar Fair already has a theme package and vehicle for it, then why reinvent the wheel. Besides, the OP asked what do you think they should do, and I don't think its out of line to expect that once they get their hands on the rides operations office, that they will run things like they do in their existing parks. Any similiarity to Cedar Point is purely coincidental. Besides if I wanted to to be like Cedar Point, I would have said they needed to add more coasters.

Lets' see: * I see the Gold Pass program as it exists today going away. * Along with the point above, I see the Gold Pass and Premier parking areas going away. * I think we have already seen the start of utilizing larger ride crews, I know the speed at Beast and Vortex and some other rides has already improved. * Greeters in front of every ride checking heights, screening for loose articles, answereing questions and/or "guest relating" * Groupers at the major rides like the coasters, note I didn't say seat assigners. CF parks like to ease congestion on the obarding platform by only allowing a trainload or teo of riders into the loading area at a time. They are also good at pairing up single riders in this method. I would not be all that surpriised to see mechanical turnstiles installed at every ride at roughly the grouper point. * Re-evaluating (and hopefully lowering) the food consession prices. Please, pretty please, with powdered sugar on top? * At this point, I would take quantity over quality in regards to live entertainment. Sure, Paramount put a lot into School of Rock, but look at all the other live performance venues the park has sitting dark. * Along those lines - let's do a massive conversion of Wings into a Red Garter Saloon, it would fit into the classic Rivertown feel, we could replace the cafeteria lines with table service, giving the park a sit down restaurant, and like the Red Garter, we could put a stage at one end, probably the more enclosed (less windowed) end nearest Nick. The saloon show is a Cedar Fair staple, why not import it. (I realize we may need to modify Wings to allow for proper emergency exits as the stage would go about right where the fire doors are on that end) * Cedar Point style frozen custard stands a plus * Restoring the Train Ride - I believe that another board member is championing that cause. * Happy Days Diner can easily become a Coasters Diner * More flat rides for Coney Mall - the area is supposed to look like a 1950's-1960's classic amusement park midway, it needs more rides. We can knock down the abandoned food stand next to the Skeeball building, basically tearing out the Euro Bungy and the old Cinema 180 building. We could fit maybe 2-3 flat rides in that area. Maybe the mostly disused store between It's Fried and the Scrambler could be demolished for another ride or two. - You might find it wierd, but I am not advocating a giant new rollercoaster, though I surely would not complain if one were installed. I guess I just want to turn back time to the Taft Entertainment days. Of course a cool long term plan would be to sacrifice Son of Beast (hear me out now!), the we run a new midway from about where Days of Thunder is, through the old animal habitat area, looping back around and rejoining the park next to the Flight of Fear building in Coney. I mean we could fit a couple nice coasters in the space Son of Beast is taking up, and that animal habitat was what, almost 100 acres? Prime expansion area for more fun. Of course perhaps we could sacrifice Days of Thunder and keep Son of Beast, but I'm not quite sure how that midway connection would look. Oh, and I suppose the midways could use an extensive powerwashing and cleaning project, but I understand that might be in progress. A clean park is a happy park!

Hmm, I wounder if the Paramount's Kings Island-Opoly game will become a collectors item. Consider that the park rolled it out for WInterFest and has had it available for sale for less than a year. I don't know how brisk sales of it are, but I don't see the park reordering any more once the current stock runs out. Interesting keepsake of the end of this era in the park's history. $19.95 huh, I seem to recall shelling out closer to $30 for it earlier this season. Just have to get it off the living room coffee table sometime soon...

Why are people sounding shocked or offended that the riders on Son of Beast would file a lawsuit? Yes, I will give you that we do live in the land of frivilous lawsuits, but still what did these people do? They visited an amusement park, not just any amusement park, but a highly rated major amusement park with a great safety record. While at that park, they decide to ride on the rides. During the course of one such ride, about 27 people sustained injuries serious enough to warrant leaving the park to be examined at a hospital. It has not been shown that any of the riders acted in anyway to cause their injuries or to worsen their injuries, they simply rode the ride following all verbal and written directions. They boarded the ride under the beleif that the ride was safe to use, and instead found that not to be the case. Therin lies the basis of a lawsuit. There is that little thing called "implied warranty" When a person receives a product or service, it is reasonable to expect that that product or service will be fit for use for its inteded purpose. In other words, when a park opens the ride to the public, it is implied that the ride will be safe to use for its intended purpose. Sure the tickets and passes say that you assume risk of personal injury, but at the same time the tickets and passes also indicate "No rainchecks, No refunds" Yet, just Sunday the park did in effect issue rainchecks to anybody who wanted one to come back another day. Put another way, if the park could get off sott free with a legal disclaimer, then why would they be paying the hefty preimiums on millions of dollars in ride liability insurance. I'd think that the firm that insured Son of Beast as an amusement ride will be the ones paying off the claims, which will probably be passed back to the park in the form of higher ride liability premiums * Note: none of the above is intended or implied to be legal opinion. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

Depends on what day you go to Kennywood - I went last Saturday and the Swingshot had a full queue. Of course that was on a Saturday. "No one goes to an amusement park on a Saturday, it's way too crowded" I did think the ride itself was really fun, and would make a great addition to any park. That is a wee bit unnerving at the top of the arc when the swing starts to go back down, and your body wants to keep going up.

Front gate ticket booths vanished in April of this year. Ticket sales have moved to the season pass building, apparently to minimize congestion between the security checkpoint and the turnstiles. Last I saw Flight of Fear and Scooby were not the harsh bright work lights, but the rooms were brighter than they used to be. This might just be a safety precaution as those queues do involve stairs.

I have a theory that Disney isn't much interested in the 1-Day/1-Park crowd anymore. Ever since 2005 Disney's ticket structure has greatly rewarded those who buy a 5 or more day pass. Its all part of their plan to book you into a weeklong stay at one of their resorts, then since you have the tickets for their parks perhaps you will spend the entire time at their mercy. They have even dropped the fee for the airport shuttle in hopes that you won't get a rental car. That said, Disney quotes ticket prices without taxes, this could put the actual price of a ticket closer to $70 once the tax man is satisfied. No matter how you look at it, that is high.

Speaing of that Floral Thermometer, how did that one work? Did the landscaping crew set it to whatever the days projected high was, or did it actually have some sort of mechanism that updated it in real time. IIRC it had red and white flowers that simulated where the mercury would be.

I'd expect a similar situation as happened with Flight Commander. Adter the Flight Commander incident that ride reopened to almost walk-on waits. The park did let it operate there for a few more years but when it became clear that it wasn't going to regain its popularity, it was yanked. Thanks in part to how today's news media works, Son of Beast has been murdered in the news outlets (possibly with merit, perhaps not, too early to tell) and my small window into public opinion on the ride is not good. I'm still on the fence in the demolish it/reopen it camp, I think though that if it does reopen it will never play to a large queue, then again I don't often recall seeing large queues for the ride before the incident. For myself, I have already passed judgement on the ride, I didn't really like the ride before the incident, so just speaking for myself, I have taken my last ride on it. Oh, and you suggested giving the ride an overhaul and removing the SOB name before reopening it, legend has it that the late great famed Riverview park in Chicago did that when they had coaster incidents. Let the coaster sit SBNO a couple season, then give it a new paint scheme and a new name and reopen it as a new ride!

I don't recall a TV special entirely on Phantom, what I do recall is that Phnatom opened on Kings Islands 20th anniversary season, and the park did I think an hour long TV special. Let me see if I am thinking of the same show: It was the Kings Island 20th Anniversary Special, starring Jason Priestly. Had a lot of bad jokes. Showed scenes like * Jason arriving at the park for supposedly a private VIP day at the park, gets followed by two kids who ask if he wouldn't mind if a few freidns join him, cut to a big park opening scene. * Jason standing under Eiffell Tower trying to find the rollercoasters, the clown band disappears and when he ask some nerdy scientist type character where the coasters are, he lifts up his trench coat to reveal drink coasters. * Jason and kids talking about what sort of animal they would like to be, Jason turns into a giraffe, which is used to sequee into a segment on the Wild Animal Habitat monorail. * A segment on the show at the American Heritage Music Hall, the show had a pirate theme that year, * A running gag where Jason would eventually ride all of the parks coasters during the course of the show, each time runnig into a group of guys all dressed in black with dark shades, who eventually get intorduced as ACE members. (I wonder how ACE felt about that representation) Oh, and the coaster footage was nowhere near accurate with cuts of the same parts of the ride appearing over and over and in different order) * Jason climbing the stairs on Adventure Expresses second lift hill carrying a torch * A feature on Waterworks, then Jason appears to slide down a closed water slide with no water runnin down it, but winds up on the giant slide in HB, thats starts the HB segment. * Phantom was of course the new attraction of the year, so was almost the last segment, right before the fireworks, cause if its about a day at PKI, it has to end with fireworks. They showed a few scenes from Phantom, and I want to say they might have even talked with a couple of the people who helped design the ride. * Segment on Coney Island * Segment on the guys who keep the carousel horses in top shape. * John Allen intorducing The Racer. My how the park has changed sicne then, remember in 1992 the coaster collection was King Cobra, Adventure Express, Racer, Vortex, Beast, Beastie and Scooby Zoom. I have a copy of this on VHS, taped off the TV, and includeds the commmercials, dunno if anyone here would like a copy for the park history archival material or not. The other Kings Island tape I have hidden somewhere (read I would have to really search for it) is a 1989 era 15 minute tape they used to sell in the gift shop with coaster footage (Racer, King Cobra, Vortex and Beast). that's also on VHS, but that tape has a huge warning that it is in Macrovision and any attempt to duplicate may damage the VCR or the original.

Let me answer the easy question first. On busier days the blue engine was used in prior seasons to provide two trains. I have not seen two train operation yet this year. I did find it interesting though, that it used to be the green engine pulled the green passenger cars, and the blue engine pulled the red passenger cars. This season they have the green engine pulling the red cars. The train ride used to really be something. I can remember passing tipis and other native american dwellings approximately where you pass White Water Canyon, maybe where the platform is for the pumpkin patch, then there was a trappers shack where the tracks split off to do the loop around the fort. The fort set up an Indian battle scene with the soliders in the fort engaged in gun battles with indians places around the fort. I don't remember there ever being a train robbery scene, but others have posted that there was one. I also forget what all hapened as you passed by the western town. I guess the one memory I still hold from the train ride is the soldiers vs. indian battle that took place around the fort and where the boomerang Bay station is now. Somehow I am optimistic about the train ride. Paramount only saw the train ride as transportation to/from Boomerang Bay. (Just look and see what Paramount did to the train rides at their other parks). Look at Cedar Point, their train ride still has some animated tableaux along the course, particularly on the leg from Frontiertown back to the main midway. True some of that is shared with Paddlewheel Excursion but it might just give us hope that just maybe that sort of thing interests Cedar Fair, and we can have some nice animations, or even just repaired/upgraded static scenery along the train ride.

Another food price point for you: Wing's Diner Montgomery Inn Ribs (served with two sides and a dinner roll) 1/4 slab - $12 1/2 slab - $17 Full Slab - $22 Pulled Pork Sandwhich (w/ cole slaw and 1 side, dinner roll) $9 Their other basket meals are about in the $9 range and include fried chicken (3 pieces). Hmm, perhaps with team work we could create what AllEars does for DisneyWorld - a Menu's webpage with all the menus (with prices) for that entire resort.

I can fully relate to your question. Unfortunately there is no simple answer. I think it was Maureen who said in a recent post that "it depends on how (or where) you wear your weight". In my case (6', 270) the rides I have the most trouble with at the park are Drop Zone, Flight of Fear,and Reptar. I can ride (as verified on 7/9/06), any 'adult' ride in the park but Drop Zone is very tight.

Thanks, I just saw that tonight. Don't know quite what to make of it. I have not done the climb yet, but I want to, sounds like a should consider booking myself for weekday climb. Last year someone pitched the idea of geting a group together (I think they can handle 12 at a time). Anybody still up for that?

Yeah, let's review the Live Shows page at pki.com http://www3.paramountparks.com/kingsisland...ry.cfm?ac_id=17 Let's see you have School of Rock which didn't open for the season until June 3rd, according to the park guide it is dark on Tuesdays, and I would not be surprised if it closes down on or before Labor Day Weekend. PKI's other 'live show' s a karaoke show, which doesn't really count unless you like laughing at people totally ruining good songs. Not to mention the same cast from School of Rock must have been somehow involved in the Nick Parade, because after the Nick Parade ended on July 9, School of Rock sported a new 5:30 showing. So, in response to the original poster, yes Cedar Fair sends out guest friendly emails to its customers telling them when the live show season ends at the Point. I'll be waiting for my PKI email informing me when School of Rock ends. If Cedar Fair mounts live shows in Paramount Theater, International Showplace, Back Porch Stage, Enchanted Theater, Nick Slime Bowl and the Bandstand I think the park will be better off for it, even if the quality of the individual shows goes down a bit. Time the showings where a person going to the park to see the shows can have a full days worth of entertainment, and you are set. P.S. I also find it interesting that since the announcement that Cedar Fair is taking over, two concerts have been booked into Timberwolf for August. Could we be seeing the return of a real concert series to Timberwolf as well?

Maybe I am reading too much between the lines, but I was taking a look at the order of the States. The States are not listed in alphabetical order, and I was taught many years ago that you don't list things in random order. So I tried to figure out a logical order for the States. I thought it may be order of acquisition by Cedar Fair, but then Michigan would not be at the end of the list. Then I thought of maybe they are alpha by park name, but no that doesn't quite work either. Would it be going too far off the deep end to suggest that the parks are listed by order of importance to Cedar Fair. I.e. Cedar Point is their flagship park so Ohio is listed first, and possbly they don't care as much for Michigan's Adventure, Worlds of Fun or Valleyfair so they fall to the bottom of the list. Then it came to me, I noticed that since Cedar Point got its own direct mention, it seems that they listed the locations of States that contain a Paramount Park before they listed the States that only have a "Cedar Fair" park. Again could indicate just how highly they regard the Paramount Parks, or it could be nothing other than they took a stock paragraph out of a Paramount Canada's Wonderland PR template and added their parks on to the bottom of it...