silver2005

Holiday World and Kings Island Announcement TR- July 25-28 I left Cincinnati at 1 pm Eastern time. The drive went smoothly until I started leaving the greater Louisville area. A big rain storm just dumped water on the road from there until I was only a few miles out of Dale, IN (which is a good 70 miles or so). It came down so hard that I was forced down to 20 mph in a 70 mph zone. Super hard rain. Pulled up to the hotel around 3:30 Central time, relaxed for a bit there, and headed down to Owensboro, KY to check out Moonlite BBQ that Terp recommended. Fantastic food there. Definitely worth the 40 mile drive. I headed back and went to check out Dale and Santa Claus to see what there was. I'll describe them briefly- Looks north- corn fields looks west- more corn fields Looks south- a few buildings and corn fields Looks east- a clump of trees, more buildings, and more corn fields So yeah, not much else to do in the area. Went back to the hotel for the night. HW Day 1 My main breakfast source was a Denny's down the road from my hotel. After that, I just headed straight for Holiday World. Upon going up to the park, it has a pretty quaint little entrance, I'm guessing part of its days when it was a smaller park, especially telling in the way the parking lots were set up. My thing for the first part of the first day was just to grab a locker ASAP, hit all the coasters once including making Raven #70, and making a bee-line for Splashin' Safari. I started at Legend for #67, went back to the Thanksgiving area for Voyage #68 and Thunderbird #69, then power walked to the entrance to get Raven #70. Crowds were a bit heavy early, but they lightened up later in the day for the dry park. As a single rider, I was a bit limited to what I could do at Splashin' Safari. The Pro-Slide raft rides like Bakull and Zinga were avoided as they had tremendous waits and I didn't want to wait out being a single rider there. Wildebeest and Mammoth were more situated for single riders and Jungle Racer is a mat racer where its only one person so I did those. Hyena Falls was down all day unfortunately. I also went a cycle through the lazy river. I do hope to go back with a group to hit the slides I missed. I rather liked SS. The surfaces don't get as hot as KI's or Beach's does. It was comfortable to walk there. After exiting Splashin' Safari, I went up to Kringle Kafe for a late lunch. One thing I noticed is that the ice machines for all the drink kiosks had trouble making ice mid-way through the day. I think HW should invest in better ice machines for the free drinks operations they run. Other than that, it was nice to know I could just grab something to drink on a whim. Upon exiting, I found Raven and Legend closed, and they would remain closed for the rest of day 1, so Voyage and Thunderbird were my only coaster options. Went up to Mt Thunderbird for one ride there and grabbed a few rounds on Voyage. I took a lot of breathers with how hot it was as well. Later in the day, I managed to get in rides on Liberty Launch, Frightful Falls and Raging Rapids. Liberty Launch is probably my favorite non-coaster there. Its a S&S Double Shot which pushes you up and down with the compressed air that they use. It was very fun. I kept making rounds through the Halloween section to check on Legend and Raven with no luck. I didn't feel much like spinning rides so I held off the flats until day 2. As it grew darker, I just kept going through Voyage. Got 7 rides in as it got dark out. Probably not my best decision with how intense it is, but it was still a great experience. HW Day 2- My plan initially was to just go on a Raven and Legend marathon, but to my disappointment, they put up on the sign in front that Raven and Legend were down. It felt like a punch to the gut as they were part of the main reason I went to HW. I tried to make the most of it until they would hopefully reopen. The dry park on day 2 started out much more crowded than day 2. By the time I got off my first Voyage ride, they opened up the lower queue and it jumped to an hour wait in a hurry. I got one in on T-bird early before it had its queue explode as well. I then did HallowSwings, Scarecrow Scrambler, Liberty Launch, Frightful Falls, and Gobbler Getaway. Storms were nearby all day, but we only got a drizzle at best. The radar showed bigger storms to the north and south, and apparently they were close enough to have the park pull the trigger on closing all the outdoor rides for a few long periods, one early in the day and one close to park close. For the early one, I ate lunch at The Smokehouse located on the top of Mt Thunderbird. The food there was pretty good. I like how they give you decent portions, not too big, but not too small. The food prices were very reasonable. After the early rain delay, I was met with a nice bell ringing from the Halloween area, Legend reopened. I went on a good marathon there to even up my ride total with what I had done on Voyage. Raven never opened unfortunately and I was super disappointed I never got to get more laps on it. Later in the day, I got one more on T-bird, a few on Voyage (got 16 rides on it total in 2 days) and a few on Legend as it got darker. HW then got sandwiched between 2 storm systems where they closed everything down, and at that point it was 8 pm so I called it a day. KI Announcement TR On my way back to Ohio, I hit a nasty snarl of traffic between Louisville and Sparta. I gave myself an extra hour to travel from Indiana to Ohio, and it ate up that whole hour. I got to KI right after 4 after eating lunch in Florence, KY. I did Beast and Diamondback first to bring my hiatus to an end, then met up with malem and company and did Racer, Banshee, Bat, Adventure Express and Firehawk. Most of the rest is covered in the meet up thread. Love what 2017 will be bringing to KI!

Here are some costs of GCI's (info from each park's respective website or RCDB)- Prowler- $8 million Renegade- $6.5 million Apocalypse- $10 million American Thunder- $7 million Ozark Wildcat- $4 million

#restroomsinxbase One can hope.

So you're considering buying a pass that works at Kings Island and is a park in the same chain? CF had some say in this ride, too. You're confusing yourself even within your own argument.

That building also has to have a train shed in there somewhere, so I'm not expecting an actual track element. I think it'll be something a bit more unique. Could they build animatronics that can take the abuse of a structure constantly shaking beneath them when a train comes flying in? I'll admit, I'm legitimately curious.

Not so crazy on the name, but I'll suck it up because we're getting a fantastic looking coaster with some cool theming. It's got great stats for a GCI, love how the layout looks, glad I have a coaster within decent driving distance that has those wonderful Millennium Flyer trains, it uses the terrain quite well, and when those trees grow back in, it'll be a thing of beauty. It interesting with CF getting on board with these mystical themed/named rides (Banshee, Gatekeeper, Valravn, and now this). I'm intrigued to see how far they go with it, especially outside of coasters. I'm also glad to see Kings Island shy away from the big shiny B&M's for a change and build something that will go to show that stats and height aren't always required on a good, enjoyable coaster. I wonder what they'll do around White Water Canyon now as well. I'm guessing there will be some aesthetic differences in store beyond just the awesome GCI flying above it. Who knows, maybe this might open up the park to expand more in that direction as well. There's definitely a lot of potential now with Mystic Timbers in the equation. Also, kudos for the GCI designer for the Skyline reference.

Timbur at Europa Park runs 3 trains and is only 100 ft longer. I'm guessing it'll have similar blocking properties as how Banshee is run, and its only 24 riders to check in rows of 2 vs 32 riders in rows of 4.

In terms of ones of similar size, I've yet to see a GCI go above $10 million.

So Goble, is getting a GCI the equivalent of the Yoda/Dooku showdown in Episode 2? silver2005, ending this thread proper.

Will be posting my TR a bit later tomorrow. Super tired from doing 3 consecutive days at amusement parks with a 196 mile drive between Santa Claus and Kings Mills. And there be some shananigans involved.

Leaving Dale, IN now en route to Kings Island.

Hey mods, why are you allowing this crap?! Do. Your. Jobs. The TOS is only as good when it actually gets enforced.

Voyage- 15 minutes Thunderbird- 25 minutes Legend and Raven- 5-10 minutes when not closed, they've had trouble all afternoon

Need to get back here to complete the water park for the raft slides. Very impressed with it. Wildebeest and Mammoth were great (Mammoth is better). Raven was amazing. Food service blows away Kings Island by a mile.

Legend, Voyage and T-bird all awesome, about to make Raven #70.

I'm kind of on that threshold of being somewhat close (40 minutes away) but I still get whatever guest experience it still has. I also don't go more than a handful of times each season.

Live from Dale, IN it's Saturday Night! Wait... Also, BeastGal- cut it out.

I usually stay in Port Clinton for my Cedar Point ventures. Its a nice area from a visual standpoint, including the drive to Sandusky.

Thunder Run has the single greatest bunny hop on any coaster ever along with a nice row of airtime filled hills thereafter to kind of make up for its roughness.

Can't...resist...music reference...

My Santa Claus Itinerary Monday- Drive to Dale, IN, explore the area, may swing by Owensboro for dinner at BBQ place suggested by Terpy Tuesday and Wednesday- HW&SS, one day at both water and dry park, one day at just the dry park (depending on weather) Thursday- Leave Dale for Kings Island, arrive after 4 for the after 4 pricing, make a bee-line for Beast and Diamondback, ensue shenanigans with fellow KICers, stay for the announcement

I'm pretty sure both those scenarios will result in paying full price for either pass. I'm about 90% sure you can't renew a pass that was previously good in 2015 for 2017.

The only real way I think it would be improved is if they got rid of all those drawn out hills and made a figure 8 course or something. The whole ride from after the first low high speed curve until the brake run delivers a whole lotta nothing.

Random question about Voyage- how many trains is it currently running?

I probably should have went that way. The construction in Louisville is all kinds of crazy. Oh wait...I gotta go through it again twice....