silver2005

Look, you're going to have to take away some features for this to be more efficient for the food lines. I'm trying to compromise between variety and speed/efficiency here. It isn't going to be perfect, but it would be an improvement. I'm not going to nitpick every little detail about what's being taken away.

Well, put the Freestyle machines behind the counter like they do at LaRosa's restaurants and stop letting customers fiddle with them.

For the umpteenth time , the coaster wars of the late 1970's through early 2000's were pretty much dead once SIX filed for bankruptcy. It's not a thing anymore. CP couldn't care less what happens in Valencia, CA. Kinzel isn't involved anymore, that mindset is gone.

^The non-Freestyle drink stations as well as all the stands still offer Powerade and/or lemonade. I have to avoid pop at the park (though I might have a Coke or some other pop for dinner when it starts to get cooler) as well and get by on those just fine.

The Freestyle machine locations are why I prefer to do drink stop at the Eiffel Tower or the station around the Rivertown/Planet Snoopy boarder, or even at one of the less busier food stands.

Excavation doesn't automatically mean removal as you implied in your original post of this thread.

As much as I like the Freestyle machines, I don't think they're the best choice for a theme park setting. They only need to look to Santa Claus, IN to see how drink stations are properly done, even if KI charges drinks.

How does KI not know how to stock its restaurants properly? Can KI have Dorney's, CP's, or KBF's food department manager(s)? Please?

I think I'll have the car situation fixed by my trip, so I'll finally be booking this week. Keeping to my original schedule. EDIT: I've also chosen my guess-timated dates to visit KK and CP. I'll be doing KK either on June 4th or 11th and Cedar Point on July 23rd. KK will be a day trip while CP will be head up and go the day of (leave Cincy around 5-6 am), then stay a night up there and drive back to Cincy the next day. I am bringing extra money to splurge on a FLP at CP if necessary. Hopefully, Steel Vengeance will be running multiple trains by then and no power outage like my visit last season. I wouldn't mind doing a meet up with someone at KK and CP either.

Because some people like to jump to conclusions.

^Near the end of the day, we try to make sure that there isn't a lot of either, at least enough for one small kettle of chili and one crock pot of spaghetti. We keep just enough stuff from the night before to get through the first few hours of opening in the morning until kitchen catches up with the cooked products we need to have when the lunch rushes hit.

And people keep asking me why I haven't bothered with a getting a meal plan. I'm not incentivizing bad food department quality. Sounds like the Skylines are extremely understaffed if they're running out of chili (or mismanaged when it comes to stock). Our kitchen guy is in charge of spaghetti and chili (and some other hot food that the KI Skylines don't offer). Though, we do have table people actually go back to bring chili out. We usually cook enough chili at the beginning of the shifts to cover them, and spaghetti is cooked around the clock (at least, proportionate to how busy we are at the time). I hope KI has workers that focus on that at the Skylines. Just be glad the Skylines at the park don't offer the full menu because THEN it would a real nightmare. I wouldn't trust the park with making wraps, chilitos and deluxes in an efficient manner.

^Also, shorter lines and/or rain soaked woodie rides.

^Pfft- In the mid-90s when there was less of a ride line up, Vortex would often stretch all the way to Dodgems and be 90 minutes with all the switchbacks.

Via webcam- the lower DB queue is opened up, which is usually a good indication that its on the busy side.

Its acceptable to have the bar up a bit to allow for airtime yet keep you safe, right? That's what I'm getting at. I try to keep it up a few notches where its still completely safe yet I get ride ops on those rides that consistently insist on stapling me. That's why I didn't feel much weightlessness on Valravn. Call me crazy if you guys want, but I experienced what I experienced. Personally, Valravn is my least favorite B&M at CP and 2nd B&M from the bottom overall with only Mantis pre-floorless conversion below it.

Ride ops seem to be encouraged to push down more when they check the restraints when I try and leave it up a notch or two. Every single time on Banshee, Thunderbird, Valravn and GateKeeper.

Being a smaller guy, its hard for me to not get stapled in the seat by those newer B&M vest restraints like on Banshee, GateKeeper, and Valravn.

So what's it like to have been upside down on a coaster 3,000+ times (including the other coasters you likely ride significantly less with inversions)?

With a little tweaking, you could just do a straight end to end route. Just move the Action Zone station a bit to the left and the Rivertown station a bit to the right. Just enough to avoid Drop Tower and the Eiffel Tower.

If I take entirely back roads, it'd be 60-75 minutes with all the lights and slower speed zones and poorly timed lights I'd have to navigate. I do know a way to skip I-71 going up Madison Road and getting on at Red Bank, which takes me past the bigger bottleneck areas during rush hours. Madison Road, though, has a LOT of lights and 25 mph zones. Driving through Oakley and Hyde Park is nice though.

I live on the west side of Cincinnati in Delhi Township. On an empty highway with forgiving lights, I can make the park in 35 minutes. However, more realistically, its about 45-50 minutes. Going up in the mornings or evenings gets me into rush hour traffic which probably bumps it up to an hour at times. I go US Route 50/River Road, follow it to the 6th Street Viaduct, and get on I-71 around downtown Cincy. I have 2 alternate routes though. I can also take a bunch of side streets through Green Township/Dent and take I-275 from the I-74 split and either take it all the way around to I-71 or get on OH Route 126/Ronald Reagan Highway to I-71. Those 2 are about 40-55 minutes. Mileage wise, its about 30 miles for me. About 8 to get on I-71 and 22 to Mason.

Because the bigger acts want some pretty big cuts. For example, I hear Riverbend loses money on Jimmy Buffett concerts.

Valravn's problem is the restraints. There's no room for them to allow any sort of weightlessness since they pin you down to the seat. Only the back seat had anything close to weightlessness. Griffon and SheiKra have the old school B&M overhead restraints, and they have more wiggle room than the newer vest restraints.

^There's been interesting things that KK has done in Cincinnati as well. I've noticed billboards near the less fortunate neighborhoods in Cincinnati (mostly on the west side) and NKY. But those areas are places KI likely doesn't have much of their demographic from, at least on a multi-visit basis. Add onto that the out of state discount and they make it work. However, that was when KK initially reopened. The billboards insanely rare to find on the Ohio side of the river now.