coasterrz

Really, this weekend is supposed to be the busiest of the year? I know there is a Third Eye Blind concert on Saturday, but I wouldn`t expect this weekend to be that busy. i would have figured the last weekend would be the busiest in the post season since the park gave away a free ticket to anyone who bought a 2004 pass to be used on the final weekend.

I think if PKI added a B&M hyper or a B&M flyer, it would become an instant hit. Both would be good additions to the park, but I personally think that a B&M hyper would go best in the park. PKI already has a lot of coasters that hang from the track, so a sit down hyper would provide some variety.

While Japanese people may be shorter, I don`t think height should be a problem. Also, I certainly hope that the building of this park doesn`t take funds away from PKI. However, as I understand it, the press release was made by Paramount Pictures in order to try and get some sponsorship to ease the financial burden of building a new park.

Very interesting. I also found that they were refering to Paramount Pictures and not Parmount Parks. I`m assuming Paramount Parks will operate the park.

TG:TJC and Vortex at Paramount`s Carowinds were designed by the infamous Bolliger & Mabillard. If only PKI had one of their masterpieces!

I was also slightly disappointed with PKD when I visited it back in 2000. The only rides I thouroughly enjoyed were Volcano, and The Grizzly. I also found the midway to be setup weird back by Volcano, which made it hard to get to the other side of the park. of course I haven`t visited it since they added Hpyersonic or Ricochet. I have visited Paramount`s Carowinds and found this park to be very entertaining, especially Top Gun: The Jet coaster (If PKi had a ride like this with lines that I had when I was there in 2001 and 2003, I`d be in heaven!) The Flying Super Saturator is an extremly fun ride as well as The Vortex, their stand-up coaster. Another extremly enjoyable ride was their version of Ricochet. I don`t like the fact how this park closes so early, and seems to shut down everything when rain is forecasted!

While not a former employee at PKI, I am a former employee at the precurser to PKI. I just finished my second (and probably last) saeason as a ride operator at Coney Island. I would much rather have worked at PKI as a ride operator, but Coney is so much closer to my house. I also know that PKI pays their ride operators more than the meager amount I was makeing at Coney ($5.45 an hour) Maybe next summer I`ll get a job at PKI running the rides, but that might not be possible as I have to try and find a job related to the field I`m going into (architecture). EDIT: Oops, I accidentaly said I was making $6.45 an hour. I would have to be a rides manager or anoperator for ten years to get that much. I only got a twenty cent raise for coming back for this season.

I think its pretty safe to assume that FearFest will be arond for a while. However, I don`t know if it will be included with park admission/season passes next year. The reason being that FearFest was a whole lot more enjoyable when passholders had to pay $19 bucks to get in.

Why would the park invest more money in making the ride taller? It is already the world`s tallest gyro drop. Also, this ride has been immensely popular since the park built it in 1999. This year they even extended the queue line onto the midway because of how long the line can get. This ride is the only ride at PKI that actually still scares me each time I ride it because it is so high.

I don`t know what happened to it. I know that I had contributed the history section to that site and I wasn`t notified why it went offline. My guess would be that this site became more popular and the webmaster decided not to compete witht this site and continue to pay to host the website. One of the best PKI sites, as far as pictures goes has been gone for quite some time, and was only online for a short time. It was islandguide.com and was run by Sean Werley. He finally got it online, and then after a couple months he took it and the other site he ran, coasterguide.com offline. His site had pictures of the Eiffel Tower being built and other rare pictures of PKI`s early days.

I would like a nice, smooth coaster with a ride experience similar to Top Gun: The Jet Coaster at Crowinds. It wouldn`t have to be inverted, and it could be a little longer than TG:TJC, but that ride is awesome. I could ride that ride all day. If PKI built a ride that was better than this ride, than I truly think that they would have a true winner on their hands, and would then have a complete collection of roller coasters, IMO.

Well, you can check out the photo gallery on this website for pictures of DZ and Delirium. For more, there are several sites that have pictures of the park. Negative-g.com (Paul Drabek`s website has lots of pictures from PKI, although I don`t know if he`s posted any pictures from PKI from this season. I know there are some of Drop Zone on there. His site also has a ton of Holiday World and various other parks pictures.

Italianchef, I agree. I would rather pay $20 bucks a visit to have shorter lines and a better atmospher with more theming, than having free unlimited access to FearFest. I even mentioned this in the online survey that they were handing out invitations to take as I left the park this Saturday. Clearly, FearFest is here to stay at Paramount`s Kings Island for quite some time. It is evident that they are raking in the money from concessions, admissions and games during FearFest this year. I don`t know if FearFest will be free next year, but I sure hope it is a pay experience again. I did like the idea of having Fridays for passholders, but I don`t see the park doing that anytime soon. To me, it doesn`t make sense to not have FearFest open on Friday nights.

Actually, last year FearFest closed at 1am and opened at 8pm. This year, unlike last year, more of the flat rides have been open, such as the Eagles, Monster, Zehpyer, and this past Saturday even the Carousel was open at 10 o`clock at night. Some of these rides weren`t even listed on the map as being open during the late part of FearFest.

In addition to the boneyards mentioned above, there is an additional boneyard in the Action Zone, although a very small one. The boneyard lies next to a green building that used to be part of the monorail attreaction. The building/boneyard are stuck beside TimberWolf, behind Drop Zone and to the left of the Top Gun line. At one point there used to be a set of unused Flight of Fear cars there.

The shows to which people are refering to are specials just on one park. I kn ow I`ve seen the SFMM and CP ones. They show things like foodservices, first aid, the communications center, maintenance department, rides operations, behind the scenes areas, etc. I really wish that the Discovery or Travel Channels would do a special like this on PKI.

I`m sure PKI`s executive chef that they hired back in last November (I think his name is David Zellner) is involved in coming up with some of the menu in Boomerang Bay. I do recall in an article in which he said that future restaurants would be coordinated with future additions. I for one can`t wait to experience BB in May, regardless of what food stands or restaurants are added.

The one thing that I feel Son of Beast is missing is a tunnel or two. I think a tunnel over part of the first helix would be fun. I however really wouldn`t want to see a tunnel at the bottom of the 214 foot drop because you would only be in the tunnel for a second. I think they could add a tunnel on the drop or hill right after the station since that area seems to be on the slow and boring side, and that would make the on ride photo a little bit more of a surprise. I don`t think they`ll add tunnels any time soon though.

I think it would be neat to see the behind the scenes of PKI. Obviously there is a lot of behind the scenes work that must be completed to keep all the rides operating for the more than 100 days of the operating season.

Having just visited Fear Fest, I was going to fill out the park`s visitor feedback survey on thrillresearch.com. However, an error message appears when you try to submit. This has happened for quite some time now (a couple of months). Anyone else have this problem or know what`s wrong?

I agree that FearFest was better last season as well. One main thing that seemed to be lacking was the theming. Last year, Coney Mall was engulfed in fog. This year, the only fog was used on the haunts. Also, last year, they changed the lights on the games building in Coney Maul to red lights and the Pizza stand in Rivertown the lights were changed to purple lights. This year, they didn`t change any lights. Also, the area back by Flight of Fear was really congested this year. So much so that you had to almost fight your way to get back to FoF. Also, the line fot Psycho Path was insane, and slow moving, which was probably complicated by the fact that it appeared people who were checking where the line started were actually getting in line ahead of us! I would much rather have gone to last year`s Fear Fest again and pay to get in then to go to this year`s for free with a season pass. I was just generally disappointed after having such an awesome experience at FearFest last year.

Unless something changed since I visited a couple weeks ago, Son of Beast does not have a seat belt. It has the large and bulky lapbars but no seat belt that I`m aware of. The only coaster at PKI that I know have seatbelts are Face Off, Flight of Fear, and The Beastie. Of course there are seatbelts on Drop Zone, Delirium, Tomb Raider and the Scrambler as well as on the Flying Eagles.

It will be odd to pull into the parking lot and not see the sign! I am sure they will build a new sign (maybe not for this year) which includes some sort of message board, like the upgraded one they installed for this season. Also, the new sign will probably have the new PKI logo as well. That sign looks pretty damaged for just having blown over in the wind. It looks like somebody squeezed it with their fist!

The past three FearFests, the park opened for Fear Fest at 8pm and closed at 1am on Friday and Saturday. However, this year, they have changed FearFest to be included in park admission. With this change, they have dropped FearFest being on Fridays.

On Saturdays, the park closes at midnight and on Sundays the park will close at ten. It is my understanding that most all the rides will remain open until the closing hour. However, Nick Central and Hanna Barbera Land will close at seven.