silver2005

Let me clarify what I was trying to do before in starting with this site for info. I agree that I was trying to use this thread as a 'jumping off point' to get that started. I hoped that I could get a consolidation of that by a few people here more knowledgeable than I am on the KK situation. I was up for a nice intelligent debate with some of my enthusiast friends who are still have the rose colored glasses on. However, I was short on sources. I trust the info from members here, but a lot of it was hearsay. The links I did find on this thread were either expired, or with Business Courier, sent to a archived server which I didn't want to pay money for. I do agree that this year was...decent, and obviously they have a lot to improve upon, especially going into year 2 and beyond. 600K for attendance was certainly more than I expected. I can make sense of the political situation, but I was also hoping to get info on things like park operations, PR, etc. and how the GP may have perceived that which would also affect the park's future,especially due to the fact I don't live near KK, haven't seen ads here in Cincinnati (trust me, no one in Cincinnati knew about KK opening outside enthusiasts, we have gotten ads in the past, I remember the ones for Chang and Twisted Sisters/Twins), and never went to the park this year, thus I consider myself not to be in a position to make too many judgements, hence why I came here to try and pool that info and then make sense of it.

I see. Things are a lot more intertwined than I first thought. Wow. I think I'm just going to give up on that synopsis. Boy, my head hurts.

I'll try to condense what I want to ask then. What things have they done this year that translates to the challenges they face from year 2 and onward? I understand the political stuff that's been discussed, but if we are to give them the benefit of the doubt in that particular aspect, what else is involved? I keep hearing people go on about how this year was supposedly a 'success', but is it really?

Alright, I'll make due with what I can find. Thanks.

I have a favor to ask. I'm trying to put together a synopsis of why KK will probably fail, but going through this thread to find what I want is a bit overwhelming. Particularly, I'm looking for sources about the loan and using the Commonwealth owned land as collateral, any evidence of the bad practices that will hinder the Hartland after this year, and anything else relevant. There's a lot I'm having a hard time trying to connect the dots with things. I keep hearing arguments this year being billed as a success as well as not by some (here and elsewhere), and while there's some merit to that (600K is higher than I thought they'd pull to say the least, even though they projected 1.1 million). I do trust what I'm reading here, but I need the actual source of information for some, I'm having a hard time finding it on the interwebs.

The other thing nice about Hershey's Coal Cracker is how it meanders through the Comet Hallow area. There are some excellent views of Great Bear and Sooperdooperlooper to be had. Still a bit irked they dwarfed Comet though. I don't care how good Skyrush may be, but before its arrival, Comet and the area around it was, IMO, one of the most beautiful areas of any amusement park ever. But alas, the power of Intamin compelled Hershey. The area still looks pretty good, but Skyrush just sticks out like a sore thumb. You may now return to your current Kings Island log flume topic.

During the last 2 Fridays (10/10 and 10/17), I found Vortex to be running as usual, that includes no weird sounds.

Trip Report- 10/17 This was certainly an interesting trip, but for kind of the wrong reason. I had a great time and every ride ran in top form tonight, but there was a little snafu in Diamondback's line that I witnessed, something which required that KI security be called up and escorting said people out of the park, possibly being dealt with by Mason PD. I won't elaborate any further on that. It did tack a good hour on to my intended stay, but hey, it was in the name of justice. Other than that though things went well. It was certainly more crowded than last week's brisk rain visit as it was really nice weather, thus, there was a decent crowd there. Didn't wait more than an hour though despite what the Fun TV wait times said (Fun TV showed DB's and Beast's lines at double the wait time from what they actually were). I compromised and went with seat 1-2 on The Beast as there was a 10-12 train wait for the front seat. It did deliver on the night ride though- had a nice foreboding overcast night sky with a slightly crimson hue, and I also prevented myself from bracing for the turns and let the laterals do their thing. As of right now, my odds of going the final operating day with KIC have improved slightly. Got a lot of work to do next week to make it happen.

This is rather heartbreaking to learn about. Chalk up another reason I now hate Paramount.

1. Beast, no doubt. If I could have Beast for the first hour with minimal lines, I would be soooo happy. 2. Other- I honestly have no clue what ride will leave next. 3. International Street- This was a toss up between Rivertown and I-Street. Rivertown does have my 2 favorite coasters of each type and the area feels pretty laid back, but the overall charm and regal aspects of International Street win me over.

Kings Island Trip Report- 10/10 Tonight was a bit of a gamble. It was raining most of the day here in the Queen City, and with another cell on the way, it seemed iffy to me. However, the rain was light enough for my liking, and I really enjoyed visiting tonight, along with the company of malem, ohiocolts, and others. I'd even go so far as to call the rain cleansing. The biggest downer was that Banshee wasn't open until 3 hours into our visit, but boy did the wait pay off!. Lots of short lines and walk on rides this evening, a much needed release valve to the stresses of 4 straight weeks of band performances and school at UC. Beast and Racer in particular ran superbly tonight. I do have to note the lack of scareactors tonight though. Even I-Street had few of them, and the ones there didn't really do all that much from what I saw. I guess they were anticipating the lackluster crowds. Going next week as well in hopes of slightly better weather, plus I gotta end my season with my last Beast night ride in the front seat.

Just checked the forecast for Friday, and while rain would be fine, t-storms in there as well aren't in my best interests in going. I'll be going the 17th.

Question to those privy about crowds in October- Is the Columbus Day weekend really that much more crowded than, say, the next weekend? I'm debating with myself on whether to go this Friday and/or next Friday, but if its that big a difference with Columbus Day weekend, I'll probably go next Friday (the 17th).

Yeah, I've talked to a lot of enthusiasts through the years, and their unanimous opinion on T2 is that its one of, if not, the worst of the Vekoma SLC's.

The statements put out by Six Flags America are a bit eyebrow raising as well.

My thoughts on the T2/3 paint.

Twisted Colossus looks like it'll have a rather unique pre-lift section. http://www.thecoasterguy.com/2014/09/28/twisted-colossus-pre-lift-track-hills/ Pictures courtesy of thecoasterguy.com. I'm hoping there's a good drop out of the station to give the trains enough speed to really get the right affect with all those little banked humps before the lift. Might turn out awkward otherwise.

I finally got around to seeing photos of T2 in that atrocious all red paint, and next to it Chang in all yellow. All I gotta say is- yikes.

Candy- sour candy- Warheads, Sour Patch Kids, sour hard candy, also any combination of chocolate and caramel and/or peanut butter, chocolate/white chocolate covered pretzels Dessert- Cheesecake with fruit on top, ice cream of most varieties (not really picky with who makes it to be honest), cherry pie, lemon meringue pie, chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven

Yeah, even from our seats across the field, the sound coming from the students in the south end zone felt like a wall of sound. I can't imagine what the players were hearing on the field when the fans started to get into it. EDIT: I promise to have pictures from a few events posted soon. I'm kind of waiting until sometime in the next 2 weeks when I have some free time on my hands to upload the photos to Photobucket.

^I'm going to be headed up that way in a couple of weeks when I go for the Haunt, might try and get a picture.

Noticed something on our way up to Columbus on Friday. The Cliff water slide, the big red one you see from I-71, really needs a repaint as it almost looks pink or magenta now.

http://www.coaster-net.com/news/2502-kentucky-kingdom-touts-very-successful-first-year/ This has to be the one of the most biased things I've seen come from a coaster website, particularly something they tout as 'news'. I for one would not call this first season successful in any stretch of the imagination. This also kind of reaffirms my point of KIC being the only website seeing through the fog to the ineptness of what's really going on. And I'm sure the site I linked isn't the only one. Sigh.

Trip Report- 9/26 and 9/27- Cincinnati Bearcats vs Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus This is a trip we've been preparing for all year, since we knew about this trip in February/March. For veteran band members, it was an exciting thing to see come closer and closer on the calender. For rookies, most of which come from out lying towns, it was a bit of a culture shock, much like I had during my first year when we made a trip to Columbus in similar fashion. We left at 2:30 Friday. Most of that day was much easier than what would happen Saturday. All we had to do is drive up, play at our host's football game, and stay the night with them. We home-stayed with parents of the Olentangy Liberty High School Band's parents, which is about 30 minutes north of Columbus. It was a smaller band, couldn't have been more than 80 members. A couple of our members stayed with relatives in the area, but the rest stayed with the band parents, sometimes as much as 6 or 8 to a room. I got lucky and only had to share with 4 other people, but we also got a big house which helped. Had a GREAT breakfast Saturday morning. Saturday morning started kind of rough. I think the pressure of playing at such a large, high profile venue got to a couple people and rehearsal that morning started in a rather unpleasant way. We settled down by the time we set out for Ohio State though. We also got pizza before we left as well, since we didn't have to be there until 3:15 to set up for the Skull Session.. For those who don't know what that is, the Ohio State Marching Band has a concert session before their games, which they invite their football team to come and help rile up fans for the game. And they pack St John's Arena as well for that, which is about as big as Cincinnati's Shoemaker Center. The pride and support for their band is just phenomenal, which I'll get into more in the marching band thread. Overall, it was just great hearing them live and sharing a stage with them. The Olentangy Orange High School band was also there, so we got to see 2 out of the 3 Olentangy High School bands (the Olentangy district has 3 high schools). They were much bigger than the one we stayed with, and they got a nice standing ovation from the crowd. They were having fun there, that's for sure. We were treated very well there and throughout the day as well. OSU, both the fans and the school in general, really get marching bands. I wish every school would take notes from them. After Skull Session, we just went right to Ohio Stadium and set up for our pregame. Again, the fans along the route treated us very well, we got some cheers and lots of welcomes. This was one of those trips where the rest of the trip surpassed the reason we were actually there, much like the Spokane trip. OSU game days are an incredible experience. Walking into that stadium was neat. You can see it from anywhere on campus, and it just loomed over us as we steadily got closer to having to go in. Now, I have experience in other big stadiums, the closest one probably being the New Orleans' Superdome, but I felt OSU's stadium felt bigger with the entire stadium packed. In fact, OSU had an attendance record from our game, which really surprised me as I thought that honor would have gone to an OSU/Michigan game. Pre-game was intense to say the least. Being on the field, the crowd noise is just this big wall of sound, especially in the student section at the open end of the horseshoe. We had to focus on the percussion and the drum majors for any semblance of pulse and tempo. From what I glanced at on the video board, we held together pretty well. Then OSU's band took the field. Unfortunately, we were placed in end zone seats so we didn't have the best view of the field. But even from the side, the band sounded great. I know they have a small repertoire, but the sound quality is just perfect. I do wish I could have seen Script Ohio from a better angle though. That just gave me goosebumps. Oh right, there was a game... I'll save this speech for the NCAA football thread, but to put it in a nutshell, I really thought we could have pulled this one out in the first half. Then I was aware of the overwhelming time of possession OSU had for various reasons, so our defense was gassed all game. I didn't feel all too bad though. Sitting through the Sugar Bowl loss was much tougher in retrospect. The Bearcats have a lot of work to do. We performed post-game as well, which was only for about 15-20 thousand or so. It was nice to be able to perform for a quieter stadium. We got a lot of cheers and compliments from OSU fans after that. It was a lot better than I thought it could have been. I will have to say I have a great deal more respect for OSU after that game. The arrogant fans are really a minority of the fan-base as most of them were very courteous and good spirited. Sure, they've had their problems, but a lot of other universities do as well. I did take pictures which I'll post soon.

The announcement may be on a Thursday, but its also a school/work day in Fall, when most people don't really think about amusement parks, at least compared to the attention of doing this in August. 1:30 pm? Really?