TombRaiderFTW

I was just wondering about that myself, and then I noticed: look at the center-right of the picture, just to the right of the center beam on the closest leg of the tower. Is it just me, or does it look like it's been painted a little blueish-purple? Or is that a lens flare?

"Ridiculous" seems like an odd choice of words. It's a PR campaign for a new ride, which isn't an effort that takes all of management's attention.

Who is their GM these days?

^ Some two cents: I am not an expert, but I'd be very surprised if the sprocket (which is what the cog at the tops and bottoms of the lift hills is called) is custom made. I'd very much expect that Beast (and most coasters, for that matter) uses an industrial chain (e.g. D88K, although that specific size might be too small) and a matching sprocket that many manufacturers could make. They might just have longer lead times given how large everything involved is.

Reading the news article was fascinating. I'm curious what the most expensive roller coaster was in 1995, so I can have some sense of what FOF cost. Also, some things never change: Remember when Valravn was the tallest coaster in the world? Ah, news media.

^ Was it 2014? I was thinking that competition happened in 2013 for some reason.

You just described Halloweekends at Cedar Point. For context, Halloweekends Fridays are notoriously dead, and Saturdays are some of the busiest days of the season. Definitely not. Haunt Fridays and Saturdays start busy and only get busier the closer it gets to Halloween.

I almost wonder if KI is having music license issues this year. It could be a coincidence, but it seems connected to me that Mystic Timbers is having music issues at the same time that the park is known for playing the same 5 country songs on a loop throughout the park. I don't understand why the IMAScore soundtracks would be part of that, though--it seems like that would be a separate licensure from pop music, or I'd even guesstimate that the licenses for those were given to the park as part of purchasing those rides.

^ I actually really like that idea a lot. Grande World Expo and Action Zone are basically indistinguishable to me (read: I think both are boring and concretey and kinda treeless), so it would be really wonderful to see Flight Deck and Time Warp go away and see both areas united and given a gentle retheme a la Frontier Canada. Make it the spiritual successor to Carowinds's newer County Fair by making it a World's Fair-type theme set at the turn of the 20th century. The main attraction would be a dueling Premier coaster like West Coast Racers themed to, like, steampunk drag racing or something. (I'll be daydreaming about this for the rest of today.)

Before last year, I would have made the joke that that's a season passholder in Area 72 when their Hank's burrito hits. But now there are restrooms in Area 72, so thanks a lot for ruining my joke, Kings Island, ya JERKS.

^ The season WHAT?!

Speaking of which, I used the Rivertown Freestyle for the first time Tuesday. It's pretty in there; you should check it out sometime!

^ Maybe there are Crayola markers in the kid on the right's pocket. That way, the original poster is validated since there would technically be markers at Cedar Point.

I tried French Corner for the first time yesterday! I got the berries and cream cream puff. It was delicious and light. I liked Yogurt Plus in that building, but I vastly prefer French Corner. I'd absolutely love to see the park continue to embrace unique, non-chain food experiences. (I get why they can be important to help more finicky guests find somewhere they'll spend money on food, and I guess I can begrudge them that. I just really like it when parks have unique dining experiences that can't be found anywhere else.) I've become a bit of a baking nerd over the last two years, so pardon my nerdiness for a minute: I'm not totally sure if the cream puff was made with choux pastry or croissant dough. It didn't look like it'd been hollowed out how croissant dough might require in that application. But, it also seemed too flaky to be choux pastry. Or maybe I'm just bad at making choux pastry. Either way, it was buttery and delicious.

The idea of someone having their go-to Power Slaw that's just coleslaw with a 5-Hour Energy in it made me belly laugh. I'm imagining Hulk Hogan being like, "Gotta 'slaw up before the big match, brother!" Calling it now: Power Slaw is the official snack of KIC.

I've missed trip reports. Yours certainly didn't disappoint. Thanks for sharing!

He was involved in operations at Six Flags. I find that interesting, and I'm curious to see how that plays out at the SeaWorld parks. Six Flags operations can be a mixed bag, in my experience over the last decade. The Texas parks have been on par with present-day Kings Island. Six Flags New England had the most maddening ride operations of any park I've ever been to, but their food service operations were fine. Six Flags America was bad at everything. In my head, inconsistency like that comes from not enough oversight at the corporate level. Other chains have been more consistent in my experience. What I don't understand, though, is whether the good operations were the standard and the other parks were falling flat, or if the bad operations were the standard and the other parks were exceeding expectations. And that begs the question of whether or not Tom Iven plans to tweak operations at SEAS at all, or if he's focusing on other things. I'm curious what his strategy will be going forward. It'll be interesting to watch SEAS over the next few years, assuming they don't fire him in a year, too.

I'm gonna say The Bat. Adventure Express is up there, too, but I feel like it at least gets recognition in enthusiast circles, whereas The Bat goes almost completely unrecognized.

Diamondback, with Beast as a close second. I like Beast, but it gets a liiittle more love than I feel it deserves. I don't particularly love Diamondback. I don't hate it; it's just fine.

Fast forward 13 years... The park added some elevators where there weren't some a couple years ago, and now the International Restaurant is in semi-regular use, including functioning as an actual restaurant for Winterfest. I'm curious where that leaves things re: the 50-foot platform, if the park were to build some other way of accessing it than the existing elevators. I do like that cafe suggestion that @hans1208 mentioned in 2008.

Poor thing. It's a wonder how he got by at all last year.

^ Oh, duh. That would make more sense, haha. I didn't notice which subforum it's in. Carry on!

Can someone explain what this is in reference to? I'm not sure I follow. Since @beastfan11 is talking about "removal of the rides," I'm assuming this is about Kennywood?

She's the exception. She's allowed to mess with Adventure Express.

^ I have no horse in this B&M versus Intamin race, but I don't think Universal ever said why Dragon Challenge was removed. However, speculating based on Hulk's track replacement, I'd speculate that any B&M operating basically continually for 18 years would probably have reached the end of its service life, and the park had to make the decision between replacing the track and putting in a whole new ride. If we roughly approximate a seasonal park as operating for 6 months a year, that's the same as a B&M operating for 36 years--a very reasonable lifespan for a steel coaster.