XGatorHead 8904

Opening Day Ride Count: Adventure Express: 1 BLSC: 1 The Beast: 2 Boo Blasters on Boo Hill: 2 Diamondback: 3 Flight Deck: 1 Linus Launchers: 1 Monster: 1 Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown: 1 Scrambler: 1 Shake Rattle & Roll: 1 Vortex: 1 Opening Day Show Count: Way Too Much TV: 2

Thanks for all the nice comments! GatorGirl is 5. Your nephew may be fine, you just never know without trying. She didn't like SD&THC the first time she rode it, but it became one of her favorite rides. I'm hoping she comes around on BBoBH, it's a fun ride with some nice effects. Stay tuned to this topic later in the season to find out if she does... She ended up coming out and asking me what my name was. I kind of stared at her, looked at Tom, and back at her. I thought it was pretty funny. I knew she was mixing me up with you, but you and I don't look that much alike, do we?

I'm kind of mixed about this. I LOVE the fact that at least so far, I'll be off to go trick-or-treating with GatorGirl this year, whereas the past two years I was working Haunt on Halloween night since it was a Friday in '08 and a Saturday in '09 and I missed Halloween with her. To make up for it we did plenty of Halloween related events in the weeks leading up to Halloween. But with Halloween being on a Sunday, and the park only open until 8:00, it looks like I won't be on the final Beast train of the season this year. I was on the final trains in '07 & '08, and I believe the penultimate train in '09. It's a tradition I'd like to continue, but between that and trick-or-treating with GatorGirl, I'll pick GatorGirl. There's only so many years left that I'll get the chance to do that.

April 17th - Opening Day My preparation started the night before. We continued our night-before-opening-day ritual of watching the Kings Island episodes of both The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch. Many times when they showed a ride, GatorGirl would ask "Can I ride that one?" It was sad how many times I had to say "No, that one's not there anymore." The day started early for me. Over the off-season, I've gotten used to sleeping in on the weekends, but on this day I got up at 7:30 like I normally would for work. After getting ready and putting on my "Line Jumping is Not a Sporting Event" shirt and my Haunt hoodie, I made a quick stop by BP to get some breakfast and a large cup of coffee, and I was at the park by 8:15. As I got to the front gate I saw people waving me over... and of course it was a huge group of KICers! It was soon time for the ROTB... but I took my time and walked, catching up with Rotag on the way. Passing through PS, Charlie Brown stuck out his hand to me for a high five. As I passed him, I said "I defended you all off-season, man!" First ride of the season was DB, and I was on the third train of the day. Rotag and I decided to head to Beast next, and we were joined by giga, Tom Random #'s, IndyGuy4KI and indianapolisman. Right away we noticed that the front of train/back of train split was moved up to the station... and I complained about no longer having any place to sit. I liked it, but then later that PKIBoy pointed something out to me that changed my opinion. A wider queue makes it easier for potential line jumpers. That quickly changed my mind! I really don't know who thought it would be a good idea for Rotag and I to be in the same seat... with both of us big guys, it was a little tight! On the ride Rotag and I posed for the camera, it was a good picture but we didn't get it. We decided to go to Boo Blasters next, where we were joined by Avatar. What a great ride! I liked the fog projection and the skeletons after it, but I thought GatorGirl might have a little issue with it...more on that later. How I got a score of 1239 I'll never know... I've never seen a score not divisible by 10 before! We started toward AZ, but we got distracted when Avatar said he wanted to ride DB. Giga got excited over this idea, so we let Tom and Rotag make their way over to Invertigo because they wanted to get first train of the season on that, while the rest of us went to DB. After the 2nd ride of the day on DB, Indianapolisman decided to get a pretzel, which Avatar promptly took from him and gave pieces to me, IndyGuy, himself and a just a little back to Indianapolisman. You could tell by the look on his face that Indianapolisman didn't know what to think, but we had a good laugh about it and Avatar bought him a new pretzel. We decided to walk past ET to get to BLSC, and we noticed lots of lights in the area behind ET and BLSC... looks like that rumored Starlight Experience is going there. There were lights on the tower, lights on the trees and bushes. I never saw the one at CP since I was only there for HalloWeekends last year, so I'm looking forward to see what KI has to offer. As I've posted before, the Gator family's favorite spot to watch the fireworks is the little concrete slab between ET and BLSC. This should be an interesting place to watch the fireworks now with all those lights in that area. Next was BLSC. It was probably the longest I've ever waited for this ride, but it didn't seem to take too long. Tom got in line behind us, and giga reverse-line jumped to join him. The trains were stripped of their theming, but we did find one reference to Minis still. In line, there was a speed limit sign that still had the work Mini on it, it said something like "Speed Limit for a Mini 143". Only we would notice something like that... This was the first time I ever sat front seat on this coaster. After we got off we stopped to talk to Ronny, who Avatar pointed out was looking Clark Kent-like in his glasses. We waited for Giga and Tom to exit, and we headed to Vortex. Since the line was somewhat long, and there's only that fence that's easy to hop over, we had an incident of line jumping right in front of me. I took off my hoodie to display my Anti-Line Jumping shirt, but unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to do anything about them since no ride ops or Security were present before we got on the ride. Dang kids! After Vortex we went over to look at the giant hamster balls... er, "EuroBobble". Doesn't look worth $8 to me, but EuroBungy never looked worth the money to me either. It was around this time we were joined by Beast Man, his girlfriend and her nephew, and CoastersRZ. We talked to Ashers and kjkjkj for a little bit before heading to Festhaus for lunch and the 1:00 show of Way Too Much TV. We had to sit towards the back of Festhaus, it was that busy. At this viewing, I wasn't too impressed with this show. I didn't really care for them adding lyrics to TV themes that were originally instrumental such as "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched" (or originally whistled as in the case of "The Andy Griffith Show"). Sure they're iconic themes and I can see why they would want to include them, but it just didn't hit home with me. Because of where we were sitting, I found myself looking at the TV screens more than the stage, so it was just like watching a revue on TV, about TV themes. Kudos though for including photos from the KI episode of "The Brady Bunch"! It would have been nice to do that for "The Partridge Family" too, but maybe they weren't available. And including "The Flintstones" theme was just torture for me and any longtime visitor to the park! I told the guys that Mrs. Gator will love the show since she's into all those classic TV shows. We all pretty much wished there was some dialogue or story line to tie everything together. Instead it was one theme right after another, boom boom boom. But I did get to see it again, and my opinion changed a little. More on that later... We headed to FD next, and waited longer than I'm accustomed to for it, but it still wasn't that long. We got the back car... I love the swinging you get back there! The group was going to ride DT next. I would have sat out on that one since I can't fit... unless I have Stalkerchick and Violakat there to make me fit!... but they weren't with us. But the queue was full, so we headed over to PS to look around, stopped to watch about 30 seconds of Charlie Brown's Hoedown, then went to ride Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown. I guess this would be a good spot to say that Surf Dog looks a little empty without something on it, like the giant Avatar. It would be nice if they had a big Snoopy on there The boat Indianapolisman and I were in had an excessive amount of water at the bottom of it. And it wasn't nice clear water. It was yucky, brown, unidentifiable-things-floating-in-it water. We both kept our feet up on the ledge at the bottom of the inside of the boat, but it didn't do much good, our feet were already soaked. The course of the ride was pretty much like it was when I was growing up... no spitting coconuts, no giant snake overhead, no themeing at all besides around the station. For someone who grew up during the time it was WTRA it may be a little too plain, and actually I wish they had replaced the old themeing with something. At the end of the ride we had a somewhat unexpected surprise, even though CoastersRZ warned us about it. We got spit on by Snoopy! At least it was just a little bit of water instead of a big blast from the elephant. We went to DB to dry off. While on the final brake, I heard my phone ring in my pocket. I knew it was Mrs. Gator, since it was almost time for them to get there after going to GatorGirl's friend's birthday party. I called back and they were on KI Drive. I left the group at The Beast to meet the girls at the front gate. First place we went was PS for the official Kings Island measurement of GatorGirl. On closing day last year she reached the 42" line for the first time. Opening day this year, she hit the 44" line for the first time. PS was fairly crowded at that time... she rode Joe Cool's Dodgem School, Peanuts Off-Road Rally, Linus' Beetle Bugs and Sally's Sea Plane. They wanted to have dinner in Festhaus and watch the 6:00 Way Too Much TV Show. This time we sat in the front and it made a big difference. I enjoyed the show much more the second time, since I was able to pay more attention to the stage. I liked the choreography during "The Brady Bunch", with them acting like the Bradys did during the title sequence of the TV show. GatorGirl was singing along to a few of the themes, and of course Mrs. Gator knew a majority of them. During the show, Mrs. Gator recognized one of the performers, Charity, as having played Belle in the Mason Children's Theater's production of "Beauty and The Beast" that we had seen a few years ago. Yes, Mrs. Gator has a freakishly good memory when it comes to stuff like that. When we were at Dollywood this past November, she recognized one of the performers in "Babes in Toyland" as having performed in a show we saw at Hersheypark a few months prior. Mrs. Gator and GatorGirl went to talk to the performers. We love the fact that they started doing this in Festhaus a few years ago, GatorGirl loves talking to them! While they were busy doing that, and then later busy dancing, I talked to Rotag and Uncle Fester. GatorGirl wanted to go ride some more, so we were off again. We wanted to ride Woodstock Express, but it was down. So we went to Linus' Launcher, then Shake Rattle & Roll which she had just ridden for the first time on closing day since she was just then tall enough. While in line, she asked "Is Shake Rattle & Roll a song?" I told her yes, then she started singing it. I didn't know she knew that song! That just goes to show that between Mrs. Gator and me, we've been exposing her to a wide range of music! While on the ride, she was giggling so much, and I had to laugh when she said "This ride tickles my tummy!" Monster was next, then Scrambler. Mrs. Gator said that since it was getting so cold, they were going to leave at 9:00 after getting a pretzel from the new Pretzel Shop on IS. GatorGirl said "But I need to ride the old Scooby ride first!" She had called me earlier in the day and asked if it was okay for her, and I told her the first part was almost the same but without Scooby, and they changed the last part. So she was convinced enough to try it. We got a cinnamon/sugar pretzel from the new shop, and we were not impressed with it at all. Hardly any flavor to it, and the cinnamon & sugar was pretty much non-existant. Nothing like the wonderful pretzels they used to have in the Candy Shop years ago in the Paramount days. Then it was time for BBoBH. While in line, we ran into Rotag and Fester again. We got on the ride, and GatorGirl was fine with most of it. She was a little scared the first time she saw Boocifer in the first room, so I told her it was just a TV screen. Then she was a little scared of him at the organ, then we soon came to the part that was questionable. She cuddled with me when we got to the fog screen, and we entered the skeleton room... then the ride came to a stop. Of all the possible places for us to stop, this was the worst. Had we stopped in the first part of the ride, we would have been fine. Had we kept moving, it would probably have been fine. But nope, we stopped with the glowing skeletons! They soon got the ride moving again after about two minutes, and she cuddled with me as we passed Boocifer for the last time. I tried to cheer her up a little in the scoreboard room by saying "Look, it's a nice forest now!" As she was getting out of the car, GatorGirl said "I'm never riding that ride again!" The ride op heard her and asked her "Why not?", and she said "It's too scary for me!" She wasn't crying or anything, just a little shaken up. We'll take our time getting her back on it again. Who knows, she may even change her mind later this season. She was a little scared the first time she rode SD&THC, but she got over it and on her own, without any urging from us, wanted to try it again. (The next day to try to get her used to scary things a little bit, but still in a funny way, we watched Ghostbusters. I figured if she was okay with the live-action Scooby movies, she'd be fine with this one. It was her first time watching it, and she ended up liking the movie... and she then wanted to watch Ghostbusters II as well, but we didn't have time. Mrs. Gator joked that maybe we should let her watch Poltergeist next.) Being stuck on ghostly dark rides seems to be a recurring theme with us. It happened on our last visit to MK on Haunted Mansion, we got stuck in the cemetary scene, right in front of a skeleton that pops out over a tombstone... and kept popping out while we were stopped there! I said my goodbyes to Mrs. Gator and GatorGirl, and waited for Rotag and Fester to get off BBoBH. We went for a night ride on AE, my first one in a long time. All the tunnels except the last lift hill were completely dark. I liked the little bit of lighting these had before, hopefully that returns. We then bolted to Beast to meet up with other KICers. The large group of us watched the fireworks while in the queue, and were kept waiting for The Beast to start again... but then a few fireworks would go off and we had to start the wait again...but then a few fireworks would go off and we had to start the wait again...but then a few fireworks would go off and we had to start the wait again... After what seemed like forever the line was moving again. We got the last Beast train of the night on a very cold ride. But what a ride! A good end to a good day. There's just a few things that I missed doing. Mrs. Gator & GatorGirl got there too late to meet the characters, but we did get GatorGirl's picture on the Snoopy bench. I didn't get a chance to get my blue ice cream that I've been wanting for so long. I also didn't get to ride Racer, FH or FoF. Depending on the weather, I'm planning on going this Saturday, and maybe go up with the girls on Sunday. Their flight doesn't get in until late Saturday night, so they might not be up for it... well, actually, I know the oldest and youngest members of our family will be up for at least a few hours there! I realized that I never finished off my XGatorHead's KI Adventures: 2009 Edition. I'll have to go back and do that. I think it will mostly be pictures we took on closing day. My memory's a little hazy as to the exact events of that day since we've had an entire off-season between then and now. And one final thing... giga, my name's not Keith! Ride Count: AdvExp: 1, BLSC: 1, Beast: 2, BBoBH: 2, DB: 3, FD: 1, Linus Launchers: 1, Monster: 1, RFYLCB: 1, Scrambler: 1, Shake Rattle & Roll: 1, Vortex: 1 Show Count: Way Too Much TV: 2

Major failure. Agreed! Wow... I thought I was bad! I just left a five year old and wife at home to go to KI opening day with KIC friends. Of course, after the birthday party they went to that afternoon, they met me up at KI for a few hours. So yep, you're worse than me! Or the middle of work...

I didn't have any more trouble than usual on DB this past Saturday. I have to be stapled on that ride, there's no way around it with my size. I've learned how the restraint should feel on my legs... and I can tell when I'm going to hear my seat number called out before the train is dispatched! But at least I fit, unlike one drop ride at KI and multiple coasters up at CP. I've learned to accept my problems with older Intamins, and am slowly working on resolving them on my end. I need to be there by at least the time that GatorGirl gets to be 48"... as of this past Saturday, she has 4 more inches to go. Newer Intamins (Fahrenheit, which I only got to try the test seat and didn't have enough time to ride, and Maverick, which I actually got to ride) posed no problem for me last year, since Intamin has adjustable belts on those. But I like that DB is a B&M... and even with being stapled on DB, I still get tons of airtime!

I plan on getting there between 8:00 and 8:30, but knowing how I am in the morning, it will probably be more like 8:30-9:00. I'm like The Beast first thing in the morning... we both take awhile to warm up and get moving!

^Good one! I wish I had thought of that...

Well, with the exchange rate American to Canadian and vice versa, then factor in the moving costs, let's see... then carry the 1... yup, $10 million is what I come up with too!

^Ah, thanks! I forgot about those things you pointed out... it's been a while since I've read the first few pages of this topic. OK, maybe he is a troll... or at least slightly troll-like!

^A lot of times those drink giveaways are unannounced to the public, and usually a marketing device for a new product. So far I haven't seen anything about free giveaways tomorrow.

I went last year on a Friday, the day before HW's opening day. It wasn't that bad. Sure, there were lots of kids, but for the most part they were pretty well behaved and the crowd wasn't bad at all. In fact, in my TR, I referred to it as "Walk-On Friday". Here's my TR in case you're interested: http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17238&view=findpost&p=294819. I'm playing hooky from work on 4/30 to go to KI. I'm trying to make it an annual event the day before HW's opening day. We had a good group get together last year on that day, so if anyone wants to go, the more the merrier!

If I came across as harsh in my picking apart of selective's post, that wasn't my intention. OK, well maybe with one comment I made on the "Paramount conspiracy" theory. I don't think he's a troll, just misinformed. I just don't like inaccuracies, and if I see them, I'll try to correct them. And I expect people to correct me if I'm wrong, which they did... Before I made my comment about KC being the first stand-up, I checked rcdb just to make sure I was correct. I saw Momonga listed before KC, but misread... ...as being 1992, and thought it was just listed before KC because it was a sit-down before being a stand up. Oops!But it looks like even Momonga wasn't the first... right after the statement I quoted above from rcdb's Momonga page, I saw this: So I looked up Dangai... http://www.rcdb.com/2691.htm. It looks like Dangai beat Momonga as the first stand up coaster by one day! And thank you, TOPGUN1993! I had never heard of Extremeroller! Very interesting... You can learn a lot around here, just as I learned on here a while back that SoB was not the first wooden coaster with a loop... http://www.rcdb.com/...page=1&order=10

^Come on. You know me, and you know rotag. Who's more likely to have fans? Wait, I'm not sure I want to know the answer... Just kidding, rotag!

Wait a minute... I have fans? And if I do, why are they unfairly being cut out? Looks like tomorrow I need to have a talk with Don or Matt, whoever wrote this. Vive le Gator!

The commericals for American Freight are much, much worse than the Allgood commercials. On the American Freight ads, the guy is YELLING through the whole thing. If I have the remote in my hand when it comes on, I always hit "Mute". Yelling at me to come to your store does not work for me. But GatorGirl loves it when I imitate the guy.

I just had to share this funny story here. Last night, I heard GatorGirl say to Mrs. Gator, "Mommy, I think maybe Daddy should ride the old Scooby ride first to see if it's okay for me, and you and I can ride other rides when he's doing that." Mrs. Gator asked her, "Why? Are you scared?", to which GatorGirl said "Yeah". At this point I jumped in on the conversation. I told her "Well, it's a lot like Scooby, only without Scooby" (yeah, I know, I over-simplified it a bit). She said "But the pictures look scary." (I had shown her the pictures on Facebook). I said, "Well, you have the blaster to blast them away, you'll be sitting on my lap, and you know the ghosts aren't real, they're all fake." She said, "Yeah, I know, but Scooby Doo was in there and he's funny so that was fun for me." Looks like someone might be a little scared tomorrow.

I'm within 2 lbs from where I was opening day last year, so pretty good there. 15 lbs lower than my highest weight ever which was 2/2/09.

^Wow. Looks like a lot of fun! I won't be able to ride it this year, too bad I have to wait a while longer.

Chances are, most days they'll be doing both shows in the same day. One in the early part of the day, one later. This is the way they've done two shows in Festhaus the past couple of years.

Wow... I never realized there were so many ketchup connoisseurs out there... or that there even was such a thing as a ketchup connoisseur! I'm almost afraid to admit that to me, ketchup is ketchup. It's just something I occasionally put on fries, and not much else. No brand loyalty for me. I can't think of any one brand of any product that I'm 100% loyal to. I have preferences in brands, but nothing I absolutely have to have every time. I used to be 100% loyal to Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce, it was the only one I would buy for a long time. But that changed as I started trying other sauces from restaurants down south... there are some yummy ones out there!

But they do have a steel coaster: http://www.rcdb.com/555.htm Paul Revere's Midnight Ride (the "octopus-style ride" is how it's described on their website) and Rough Riders (their bumper cars) are both fun as well.

^ I have to agree with you there. Good analogy with the Dollywood > KI > Coney. I haven't seen a bad Dollywood show yet!

Over the past several years, the shows have gotten much better. You should give them another chance. What about for the people who were pulled up from the audience to be on stage? I was "lucky" enough to be pulled up for that show once. I had to sit on a barstool with a mug of fake beer. And they sat me where Cliff always sat in the TV show... were they trying to say something about me with that? How did they know I'm full of useless knowledge (and totally rock on Jeopardy because of that)? I think that special effects show they had in Paramount Theater (was that the "Magic of the Movies" show that BoddaH mentioned earlier?) and the game show that they had in Festhaus were slightly worse than "Cheers Live!" I'm looking forward to all the new shows this year!

^ERT starts at 9:00 on Saturday for gold and platinum passes.