Hoeter

Thanks for sharing Avatar! I had an awesome time seeing familiar faces and meeting new people on Saturday. Here's to more KIC events in the future!

I've posted this in one of my trip reports but there was something that was said while in Diamondback's station by the person wearing the mic. "You are about to climb 230 feet into the air, and drop 215 feet and pass the world's largest indoor ferris wheel on the way!"

Sounds exciting. Can't wait to see what it is!

This is all starting to make sense to me now. We know that Kings Dominion is getting a NASCAR themed coaster and it's rumored that Carowinds is as well. Remember the website for Whyte Lightning? It said that Lightning Strikes Twyce. Then I just read an article that said NASCAR originated from the running of moonshine, also known as "White Lightning". Forgive me if I've come to the party a little bit late.

I've actually had the opportunity of riding The Beast with Gary earlier on in the season. Talked to him quite a bit and he's very friendly. Actually, that Beast ride occurred before I rode Diamondback for the first time, which was in early May. He had around 150 rides or so at that time. Congrats to Gary and to Andrew for reaching 1,000 rides on Diamondback. Darlene still has a way to go to catch up with her being around 650 rides.

When I was in the sign shop on Saturday, they had the sign for Son of Beast turned towards the wall.

I've never been to Cedar Point so I'm not familiar with Blue Streak. Obviously, I'm going to go with The Racer. Both sides are the same except for the turns, which are in opposite directions. Red seems much smoother than Blue on my recent experiences. And please keep in mind that The Racer sparked the second golden age of roller coasters, and it has an ACE plaque to show for it.

The menu boards in Rivertown Larosas changed from actual menu boards to LCD TV's. I've seen these throughout the park as well the entire season.

I think WCET is going to be at the park asking for your donations getting off of every ride since that's what they always do between shows. "You've just ridden The Beast- the longest wooden rollercoaster in the world. We here at WCET love being involved in the community, and if you make a generous donation to this station, we can make more events like this a reality. So please, support our involvement in the community, and support our fine programming such as Antiques Roadshow and Nova. Donate now, and we'll throw in this handy craft bag. Please support WCET and our efforts." Just kidding.

Also wanted to add that I took some videos yesterday and these can be found on my YouTube page.

Hey....I totally forgot about that guy! I saw him over near The Beast when we were finishing up the tour.

Ah...the place where the good ol' iPhone/Blackberry debate took place between you and Ryan. Hookyboysb, It might be Facebook just acting up. The link I posted was for public view of my photo album.

Same here Jesse! I had a lot of fun meeting you yesterday and getting to know you better! KIfan1980- I don't know if we met yesterday. I met a lot of KIC people and can't remember all of their screen names.

Over by Boomerang Bay. To be more specific, it's right across from the Picnic Grove and you can actually see it while you're on the train.

On Saturday, August 22- I had the pleasure of attending Mid Summer Scream, presented by the Great Ohio Coaster Club and KICentral. This marks my 10th visit to the park this season. I arrived at the park at about 8:15am and proceeded to the registration window to get legalized for the day’s events. After I was registered and set to go, I joined the line to get into the park- about 100 or so people in said line. At approximately 8:30am, security let us enter the park so we can get our ERT underway. Got in line for Diamondback and noticed Gabriel (Captain Nemo) is working the controls this morning. First ride was in Row 4. When the train returned to the station, there was nobody waiting for my row so I squeezed in one more ride in the same seat. When we returned to the station after my second go-round, I decided to move up to Row 3 and got 4 laps in without getting off. After my sixth ride, I decided to get off of the ride, take a little breather and to use the little “Ride Warriors” room in Nick Universe. After I got finished tending to my business- I saw Gary (Beast79) walking towards Diamondback and joined him for a ride in Row 14. After this, me and him got back in line to ride again- this time he went towards the back of the train and I got in line for Row 8. Got another re-ride in this seat upon returning to the station. After this ride, everything started spinning. I sat down for a little while and got back to normal. At this time, I saw Jesse (Avatar), Makayla (Ogrmac), Ryan (BoddaH1994), Tom (CoastersNSich), and Sean (Indianapolisman). Talked to them for awhile and decided to get one last ride in during ERT before the general public filtered in- so me, Ryan, and Tom get on and I sit in Row 11. Then the masses arrive, and in a matter of minutes- the line is already extending back into Nick Universe. After this, the three of us head over towards the splashdown for the group picture. After the picture was taken- Jesse, Ryan, and me decide to leave the park to grab some breakfast at Perkins. We ran into Makayla at Perkins as well and enjoyed a delicious breakfast. When we left Perkins, we had to take a quick trip to CVS to get some allergy medicine for Ryan. We returned to the park around 12:15pm. Coming back into the park, we run into Darlene and we talk to her for a little bit and ask her how many rides she has so far on Diamondback. So far, she is at 648 rides. After this, we head over to the Kings Island Theatre for the Columbus Blue Jackets Q&A and we run into Don Helbig along the way. He asked us how we liked the ERT earlier on in the morning and how we were enjoying our day. Shortly after, Rachel (StalkerChick), Justin (Justin_M17), Dustin (KIruler102), Sean (Indianapolisman), Danielle (keiko_coaster), and Jackson (Beast1979) join us for the 1:00pm show. Before we were granted entry to the theatre, Jesse and Ryan had an interesting debate against the Blackberry and iPhone. As soon as we get out of the Q&A, all of us head up towards the Festhaus to see County Line. As soon as this show was over, all of us headed over towards the Picnic Grove for lunch. We were treated to a delicious lunch of salad, macaroni and cheese, barbecue sandwiches, bratwurst, and ice cream. I’m really not sure what all they had, that’s all that I really ate! They had unlimited soft drinks as well- and my only complaint about this was the mass amount of bees around both Coke machines. Every time I tried to get a drink, I got attacked. That was the only drawback about the whole picnic, everything else was great. After everyone ate, Cathy Schwab spoke about the event and presented Don Helbig with a plaque. After she spoke, Don spoke himself and KICentral’s very own Ryan Suhr spoke for a little bit as well. At 4:30pm, everyone met outside the entrance to the Picnic Grove for the Sign Shop tour. We start going backstage and it starts pouring rain. Everyone made a mad dash towards the sign shop and we finally got inside. I’ve never been inside the Sign Shop until now- but that place blew me away! Just seeing the old signs, including the ones for Top Gun and King Cobra, brought back memories of these attractions. Upon checking out all of the signs in the shop- I found the Son of Beast sign. I got a picture of it, but it’s not all that great. After we toured the Sign Shop and the rain stopped, Don made a phone call to see if we could go back behind The Beast. He got the okay and we made our way over to The Beast. I’ve never been back behind The Beast and it was quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever done while I was at Kings Island. I’ve only seen the ride while actually on it, and it was a treat to see it from a different perspective. We only went to the second lift hill, but they were originally planning to take us all the way back to the tunnels. Since the rain hit, that plan got put to the wayside. It was a lot of fun nonetheless. After the tour, Don reminded everyone to meet back at Diamondback at 9:45pm for the last rides of the night. Me, Ryan, Tom, Sean (Indianapolisman) and Jesse went towards Putz HQ for Marty’s Party. We met up with Dustin, Justin, Rachel, Danielle, Tracy, and Sean (Beast Man). After Marty’s Party was over, all of us headed over towards Drop Tower. Everyone except for Ryan, Tom, and myself didn’t go on Drop Tower. Ryan stayed behind to videotape Tracy on the ride while me and Tom went to the Eiffel Tower to get some pictures and to check out Flashback: Totally 80’s. A little while later, we reunited with the group and proceeded to get a ride on Adventure Express. Waited about 15 to 20 minutes for the last rows on the train. After this, we headed towards The Racer. About half of us went for Blue, the other half for Red. I did the Blue Racer, and waited about 5 minutes before getting on. Our side didn’t win unfortunately…. Immediately following The Racer, half of the group split up and headed to get something to eat and to get a night ride on The Beast. The other half, consisting of Jesse, Ryan, Dustin, both Seans, Tom, and myself headed towards Flight of Fear. They reopened the ride just as we were coming up to it. I figured there wouldn’t be a line since they just reopened the ride, boy was I wrong! All of the switchbacks in the hangar were completely filled and we ended up waiting about an hour before we got on. When we got into the station, we found out that they were only running one train. We boarded and found that the MCBR was still turned on and cranked up even though they were only running one train. After we got done with Flight of Fear, we headed towards the train. Enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing and cool ride on the train. Upon returning to the station, all of us headed towards Diamondback for the last rides of the night. They actually had the line closed to the general public starting at about 9:50pm or so and were only letting GOCC/KIC people in line. Waited maybe 15 minutes for the last ride of the night and got Row 3. This is the first KIC event that I have attended, and I have to say that I absolutely had a blast! Major thanks goes to Cathy Schwab of the Great Ohio Coaster Club, Don Helbig of Kings Island, and to Ryan Suhr of KICentral for planning such an amazing event that was enjoyed about 100 people or so. I can’t wait to hear about more KIC events in the future because I will definitely try to be there. I took about 70 pictures of the event, and I’m surely not going to post them all here. If you would like to view my pictures, you can check them out here. Thanks for reading- I had an awesome time and if you were there, I hope that you did as well!

I'm far left in the picture wearing the black shirt near Adam (PKIboy) and Ryan (BoddaH1994).

I was there too and I had a lot of fun. I am currently working on my PTR and will have it ready soon.

Gad198, check out this thread and specifically check out Post #5. Delirium_Guy, one of our members living down in Orlando has already had the pleasure of experiencing this new attraction and lists some pros and cons about the ride. Moving right along....I was down at Universal in April/May and visited Islands of Adventure for the first time. I got the pleasure of riding The Incredible Hulk and Dueling Dragons: Fire and they were absolutely amazing. Then again, they're B&M's so what can you expect? Thanks Josh for sharing your experience with us!

It looks like an awesome ride. I was down at Universal at the end of April, first of May and they were still doing trackwork and general construction of the ride itself. I'm already looking into planning my trip down there for next year and definitely want to do Universal again. I'm also thinking about Sea World or Busch Gardens.

Looks awesome and it looks like they're going with a Dale Earnhardt theme as well.

On the left hand side of the CF page, click "My Add Ons" and that's how you'll get the code for your signature.

I always make sure to sit in 5-1 no matter what the wait is for that particular seat. That is the very seat in which Ron Toomer designed the ride around.

The schools in my neighborhood (Bethel-Tate Local Schools) resume classes on Monday August 24. Interesting thing I came across in my local newspaper yesterday- there's no bus service to the high school and their schedule is weird now. High School (Gr. 9-12) 7:45am to 2:45pm Middle School (Gr. 6-8) 7:00am to 2:00pm Intermediate School (Gr. 3-5) 8:20am to 2:50pm Primary School (K-2) 9:15am to 3:45pm Doesn't this kind of schedule seem odd? I think so....

I must be color blind, but I did see you. I should have said something.

Think I may have seen you in line for Diamondback. Did you have a black Saturn ball cap on? I was in the SRL about 5:30 or so....