XGatorHead 8904

Overall, I liked FunTV and think it has potential to surpass what QTV was back in the day. I have one small gripe though: The Raiders/Indiana Jones theme was not playing in the queue of AE. They were playing the audio for FunTV instead, which was curious when we were at the bottom part of the queue ramp because there were no TV's in sight until we rounded the bend to the stretch right before the station, there were two TV's there. With as quick as that line usually is, I don't think it needs FunTV since there's not much time to watch it, especially since there's only two TV's and they're both in the "home stretch" of the queue. And Boo Blasters has FunTV too? Ugh. As good as the park is getting with adding themeing, why take away/detract from what little there already was in the queue lines of these two rides? I particularly appreciated the weather updates that were on the TV's and enjoyed some of the videos in the Banshee line (always good to hear Dropkick Murphys). Banshee & AE were the only two that I rode opening day that had FunTV, so I'll have to see what the other content is at other rides.

And that's no longer an issue. Wow... that shouldn't have happened. Whenever I go to the station, I just tell the ride op that I need row 4. I haven't had an issue with them denying me yet, but then the first three times I rode it were on Media Day and the only other time was opening day. Of course, the GP wouldn't automatically know to do this. Hopefully I won't ever get any pushback from a ride op for requesting that row, but if I do I'm ready to enlighten them on why I need it.

I agree! Waiting anxiously (still)... Mrs. Gator & GatorGirl got to have Cane's on Monday when they drove back through Lexington. They were nice enough to bring me a cup of the sauce back. I have to wait until June when I drive through Louisville for my Cane's fix though... but I plan on having it twice that weekend, once on the way to IL and again on the return trip. I had Chicken Shack during Media day and thought it was pretty good. I described it like this: Just like Hank's Burrito Shack is a pretty good imitation of Chipotle, The Chicken Shack is a pretty good imitation of Raising Cane's. They're both not quite as flavorful as the originals they're trying to emulate, but it's close enough to not make me want to go outside the park to either of those restaurants (that is, if Cane's was closer to the park). I have yet to make my decision on The Chicken Shack's prices, but Hank's prices (as of last year) were fine with me.

I've officially registered! This will be my 3rd year participating... it's a fun way to raise money for a great cause, and I love spending the day with some really great people every year. GKTW does a lot of good work. I love reading the monthly emails I get from them, and once GatorGirl's old enough, I'd love to volunteer down there sometime. Feel free to donate to my page if you would like! http://support.gktw.org/site/TR/CoastingForKids/General?px=1015750&pg=personal&fr_id=1236

They've changed it from way back when. The times listed on the website are the time the rides start. Gold & Platinum season passholders can get on Banshee a half hour earlier than the listed times.

Well... it kind of had Bell Biv Devoe in it. One of the songs in the show is "Mr. Telephone Man" by New Edition, which a very young Bell, Biv & Devoe were a part of (along with Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill & Ralph Tresvant, of course). LoraX can tell you that I know that song! When we heard the announcement for the show over the PA in the park, we were wondering how many people would think that One Direction was in the park performing. Ah, the naivety of youth... Personally, I enjoyed the show more than I thought I would. I like how it started with songs from my high school years and worked up to the present. Of course, I liked the first part of the show slightly better since I actually listened to some of those groups back then. As I told BoddaH, I even saw two of the groups in Timberwolf back in the day: NKOTB twice, because somebody had to take my sister to that (and I was more than okay to sit there and watch Tiffany, who was the headlining act the first year then was demoted to opening act for NKOTB the next) and Boyz II Men, who opened for MC Hammer. The middle part of the show is alright with 98*, NSync & Backstreet Boys. The newer stuff... Jonas Brothers I couldn't care less about, I can't stand The Wanted's "I'm Glad You Came," but One Direction's stuff is catchy. Production wise, the lighting was very well done, the singing was good and like devarious, for some reason I tended to watch the dancers more than I looked at the singers.

It was racing when we rode it around 3:30/3:45 on opening day. Blue crew was moving faster than Red, so Blue was always waiting for them. That is until my train, when the Blue crew had to do something with a restraint towards the back of the train, Red waited a while for Blue to be done but then went ahead and dispatched the ride. So by the time we got to the bottom of the lift hill, Red was at the top of the lift. My first ride on Racer for the year was a just a qualifying lap, not a race.

For my pass this year, the guy taking the picture wanted to get the Banshee logo on my shirt in the photo. I was hoping for that, but the way it turned out my head looks distorted. I thought my associate ID picture was bad the past two years, but this one is worse. I guess I just don't take good pictures on KI equipment. I dread seeing any on-ride photos now!

It's always better to renew/buy your passes in the fall before the park closes and the prices are cheaper.

We went to the park to have our passes processed yesterday and with the way my picture turned out, I'm glad it's not in my wallet looking back at me!

"It was red and yellow and green and brown And scarlet and black and ochre and peach And ruby and olive and violet and fawn And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve And cream and crimson and silver and rose And azure and lemon and russet and grey And purple and white and pink and orange And red and yellow and green and brown and Scarlet and black and ochre and peach And ruby and olive and violet and fawn And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve And cream and crimson and silver and rose And azure and lemon and russet and grey And purple and white and pink and orange And blue" This song has been going through my head a lot lately with Mrs. Gator and GatorGirl starting rehearsals for Joseph. And amazingly (ha! see what I did there?) GatorGirl has all those colors memorized in order already, and the show isn't even for another two months! Shaggy, you were right, it's in my head!

But... but... but... Slaughter House is in second?!? All kidding aside, Madame Fatale's is a very good one. It's my second favorite on the list (out of the ones I've been through). Final product looks good! Great job!

Seems as though you will get the most benefit at KI than the other two parks, because CP, and Canada's Wonderland don't have gold passes, so i wonder how they will justify you having a Gold Pass. I'm not sure what you mean by them justifying me having a Gold pass. I'm going there as a general admission ticket holder, which does not entitle me to any perks they may have for any tier of season passes. I know this, and I'm completely fine with it. There's no way I would try to use my KI Gold pass for any perks at another park. Any perks those parks may have are not worth it to me to justify the additional cost (see my math below). I wholeheartedly disagree. A HUGE chunk of KI's visitors are season pass holders, and they are resistant to change. I can just imagine the uproar that would happen if they were to discontinue the Gold. "Yes, we realize you paid $70 for your pass last year, but you can have the same perks with our Platinum pass for $192. Oh, I'm sorry you don't like it. Well, there's always the regular season pass for $84, but you don't get the perks, you have to pay for parking each time and it only lets you into the park through Labor Day." Small incremental increases over time are fine and are to be expected, but forcing passholders to pay an additional $100 over what they paid the year before to get the same benefits would absolutely kill their season pass sales. Wow - for us (family of 3) it never works to buy day tickets (plus parking each day), but we usually do more than a day at whatever park we go to (we've done KI, CP, Kings Dominion and Carowinds to date). I still think for us the Platinum pass is the best bet - we usually do Halloweekends at CP each year too - but it pays to do the math. (who said you'd never use that from Highschool?!) Multiple days is a great way to get the value out of a Platinum pass, and I agree it certainly does pay to do the math (so you can pay less!), but we're only going to each park one day each. I forget the exact amount we paid for our 2014 Gold Passes, but let's say it was $70 each. $70 x 3 people = $210 If we bought Platinum passes: $192 x 3 = $576 Tickets to Canada's Wonderland are available for $39.99CAN online, allowing for the exchange rate that's $36.42US. When we go to CP for Halloweekends, we'll only need two tickets since I'll have another form of admission into the park at that time. CP tickets are currently $49.99 online, but we can get CP tickets at AAA for less than that. Unfortunately, AAA doesn't have their 2014 pricing for CP up yet, so I'll use the higher $49.99 rate to illustrate and it will still work out. CW: $36.42 x 3 = $109.26 CP: $49.99 x 2 = $99.98 So take our totals: $210 KI Gold + $109.26 CW + $99.98 CP = $419.24 $576 Platinum - $419.24 from above = $156.76 Any perks that we might get at CW & CP are not worth the additional $156.76 to us. (I just love figuring out stuff like this!) Mrs. Gator & I were just talking last week that we might go to KD & Carowinds next year. With those two parks plus our yearly CP Halloweekends trip, a Platinum might be worth it... but that's a math problem for another time.

We're visiting two other Cedar Fair parks (Canada's Wonderland & CP) this year, and I calculated that it's still cheaper for us to buy one day tickets to these two parks than it is to upgrade our Gold pass to Platinum. So depending on how many times you go to other parks, it may or may not be worth it.

There are tons more Platinum passholders at Cedar Point than at Kings Island so it makes more sense to have different tiers. I'm sure that the ERT and free parking not being included in Cedar Point's regular pass probably prompts many to upgrade to the Platinum, even those who don't travel to other Cedar Fair parks - KI included. I'm not sure how well Cedar Point's season pass model would go over at Kings Island. To that effect I don't think that a Platinum pass only ERT - particularly in the morning - would be practical at Kings Island. Kings Island's ERT is usually lightly attended as is with passholders - the vast majority of which have Gold passes and not Platinum. I will agree that it would be cool if Kings Island did a Platinum ride night or two during the year, but I would consider that a bonus. Plus, consider the fact that CP does not even have Gold passes. Your options are regular or Platinum. That's it. Many of CP's Platinum perks are equivalent to KI's Gold perks. The Gold pass works well for this market because that's what the public is used to.

"Hey Banshee, Do you want to build a snowman?" "I'm Eve and I like loud screams!"

Look at you breakin' out the old Kafe K name. You're showing your age. Once upon a time at Kings Island, that would have been a Chevrolet. The Heartbeat of America. Now I'm showing my age.

I skipped out on my fair share of classes in my day, but one in particular stands out. I was taking a Sociology class, I forget the exact name of it but it was about people/groups who were outside what a majority of people considered to be the norm. It was a nice, sunny spring day, this class was an early evening class and I was enjoying my time outside too much. We were to have a guest speaker that day who was a recovering drug addict. I figured I would skip out rather than sit in a room and listen to someone's stuggles with addiction. I went to the following class, and it turns out that the recovering addict was a friend of mine that I had worked with two years prior. We had drifted apart, and this was before the time of social media making it easier to catch up with someone. When I knew him I would never have guessed that he was using drugs (if he was at the time) or that he ever did or would. To this day I kick myself for missing that one.

I voted Slaughter House. I know this comes as a big surprise to some of you, but I am extremely biased in my opinion.

I had a dream last night that I went to Cedar Point with my mom, just the two of us, and was finally able to fit on and ride a coaster that I had never been able to on my previous visits. I forget the model name (someone else can help with that), but it was one of those that looks like a vertical circle, like taking the spikes of Wicked Twister and making them meet in the middle to form a complete circle. It had the same restraints as Gatekeeper & Banshee. I was so excited to finally fit and I said to Mom, "I shouldn't have a problem with any seats on Gatekeeper now!" Then my alarm went off... I probably had this dream because I finally watched the series finale of How I Met Your Mother last night, so that's probably why I was there with Mom who in real life never expressed a desire to go to CP. I've also been doing the 3-day Military Diet/Cleveland Clinic Diet (today's day 3), plus I'm a little concerned about being able to ride Banshee in a week.

Say Intamin, and most people would probably mistake it for Entenmann's. "When did they go from coffee cake to coasters?"

I asked Mrs. Gator last night if she had given any thought to what she and GatorGirl will be wearing to Media Day. Mrs. Gator knew what she was planning to wear (Banshee shirt, just like me) but hadn't really thought about GatorGirl's. Mrs. Gator mentioned this nice shirt that under other circumstances would be perfect... bright blue with the word Ohio in big letters, with that Ohio encircled by CP's Corkscrew's corkscrew. It's not a specific park shirt (I bought it at Meijer for her), it just happens to have a Cedar Fair coaster on it promoting our state. But, I told her we better not chance it. Luckily they were already planning on going to Once Upon a Child this weekend, so if it turns out she doesn't have any plain shirts, they can find one there for cheap. Heck, in the past few years I've had to get plain shirts for when I went to Bert the Conqueror at Holiday World and for Gatekeeper's Media Day. They always have them at Target for less than $10. I never saw the need to complain, it was just great to be at the parks for a special event. All this talk about Delirium being painted made me think, I can't wait to ride that next week. With Banshee right next to it now, that will provide a great new view from the ride.

I have a black pullover windbreaker that says I'm a Cedar Fair VIP.

^Or 11:30 for gold & platinum pass holders...

Hopefully this was installed in a designated smoking area. Otherwise, the frog is in clear violation of the park's rules and regulations.