TombRaiderFTW

^ Great video, Don! Thanks for sharing! (I managed to avoid 99.5% of all the pictures of the event, somehow, haha.) Hey, so I did make it into some form of documentation of the event... Haha. Got my own closeup and everything!

THIS. They could copy and paste that entire area (yes, even Avalanche) at Kings Island, and I'd buy a pass from now till I die. Easily my favorite park area in any park I've been to. But that's mostly because it all feels like an extension of Tomb Raider: The Ride to me (even though their Tomb Raider: Firefall was one of the last additions to the area.)

If you look on Google Earth, you can actually see what's left of a few old gravel roads from the campgrounds. Like several people said, it's behind Great Wolf Lodge and beside the small gray/tan building (whose name escapes me at the moment... It's a Kings Island building. I want to say it's part of the landscaping department.)

I'm so glad to hear someone appreciate Magnum. It's one of my favorite coasters and EASILY the best hypercoaster I've been on. I rank it slightly above Millennium Force, as far as Cedar Point coasters go, but to each his own--I happen to love Gemini when it's racing. (Then again, I also think Blue Streak and Wicked Twister are some of the best coasters in the park, so I'm a little abnormal.) Then again, the reason I rank Magnum as such is because of the rainy, trimless rides I once had in 2008 (or 2009... Can't remember.) You thought the airtime was intense on a regular day? Thanks for the TR. It was great!

I'm 62.5% to 3 stars. Really glad they gave us this--as much as I like the system, the whole "just keep spending money until it happens to change" aspect wasn't my favorite thing ever.

I mean, if Holiday World wants to make Voyage into a looping coaster, I'm pretty sure I'd be okay with that. (Just kidding... somewhat. For some reason, I've always thought a loop seemed like a natural progression between the ride's final two "crossovers"--there'd be the same leap over the lift, then a loop starting at the current tunnel elevation and encircling the ride's entrance, then essentially the same leap over the second brake run/transfer track. It's a stretch, but... I don't know. It's a random thought that hit me once, and it just stuck with me. Imagine entering the queue, and just before the line enters the building, the roar of the train rushes up and around you. It'd be a unique photo opportunity, and it'd give The Voyage another record. That's ignoring PTC's and TGG's say on the matter, of course.) Random thoughts aside, I have a hard time reading just about any amusement park- or roller coaster-related Facebook page anymore. People are going to share their gripes, which is fine, as long as there are positives mixed in there, too. Both Cedar Point's and (especially) Kings Island's Facebook pages, once structured like that, have devolved into a guest competition to see who can most hurtfully use the phrases "the worst visit I've ever had to the park" and "never wasting another dollar with you" (or some other variant), among others. Holiday World's page inexplicably (to me) doesn't seem to have this problem. Nor do Kings Dominion's, Conneaut Lake Park's, Dollywood's, Waldameer's, or even some Six Flags'. Kennywood's page occasionally has this, but it's never to KI's concentration. And that's kind of a mystery to me, because, at least to me, it doesn't feel like Kings Island does things anywhere nearly as poorly as people try to say. They have their pluses and minuses (as does any park), but they're at least decent in most aspects, save for the horrible luck they seem to be having with ride breakdowns this year. I actually think the park excels in areas like operations, and the staff friendliness has noticeably increased from last year, at least in my experiences.* It just seems like you could do a lot worse than Kings Island. Am I being an overly supportive fanboy, or is it just the clientele the park attracts? And don't even get me started on the "Save Son of Beast" page. *On hot days, employees have actually finished interactions by smiling and saying something to the effect of "Stay cool out there!" Maybe it's just been luck of the draw, but I've had more memorably friendly experiences with staff than in previous years, when I got an eye roll for ordering fries. Has anyone else noticed this?

Terpedoed in 1 post or less--er, sorry... Seriously, what is up with KI's rides this year? At this rate, they could open a new Haunt this year called "Maintenance Worker," because it sounds like their lives must be nightmares this season.

They did tell us, though. Granted, they didn't explicitly say "it will be used for Haunt 2012," but they said it will "be used as an exciting new Haunt attraction for seasons to come," or something to that effect.

I'm inexplicably more excited for this year's Haunt than in past years. The things I'm absolutely dying to see make a return for Haunt 2012 are the Cemetery Drive props/actors on International Street, Holiday Horror/Nightmare Alley, and Slaughterhouse. (Maybe Wolf Pack, too, if it can manage to retain the awesomeness it had towards the beginning of Haunt 2011.) The rest I'm hopeful will return, but I'm also excited about the prospect of them changing and being updated. And, of course, there's the new Haunt coming to the Crypt building... I'm stoked.

The video's from GCI. They posted it first. I'm guessing Coasterforce reposted it. It's funny to me how B&M rides, at least until very recently, were generally perceived as increasingly tame, while GCI seems to be working in the opposite direction. I've been on Wildcat at Hersheypark, which, while originally designed with PTCs, is much more about grand, sweeping turns with a sprinkling of abrupt pops of airtime. Gwazi appears to be similar in that aspect. Thunderhead toys with sweeping turns but relies much more on stuffing as many moments of airtime and changes of direction as possible in the area. White Lightning looks like it's purely about getting chucked out of your seat and caught off-guard by many swift direction changes. (Prowler and Wodan look to be along the same lines.) I like where GCI's going. This ride looks really good. If I make it to Florida anytime soon after this opens, it's pretty much going to be necessary that I check this out.

In this case, I can also say I've gotten "stuck" on The Raven's lift hill. Someone tried to take video of the ride, and the ride ops caught them on camera and stopped the lift. It's actually really surprising when it happens, because that lift goes from 8-ish miles per hour to zero very quickly. The chain dogs caught us with a loud thunk, which delivered a little shock when you're, say, busy talking to the person beside you. It was quickly restarted once the offender had apparently complied. But besides that and the AE thing, that's pretty much all I've got.

^^^^ and ^^^^^ It would astonish you how much of that conversation I heard last week when trying to convince my friend, a Six Flags St. Louis regular on her first KI visit, that that was the case. She was at a loss for where the coaster was located until she finally saw herself in the mirror. (She was also mesmerized by the British Invasion show... Apparently they don't do live shows at Six Flags?)

Of the parks I've been to this year, it's a tie between Holiday World and Dollywood. For Holiday World, the rebuilding of half of The Voyage's turnaround does wonders for that ride, and Sparkler's a very fitting addition to the Fourth of July area. I haven't ridden Mammoth yet, but considering the lines it's garnered (and removed from Wildebeest), I'd say it's more than fulfilling the purpose the park had for it. For Dollywood, Wild Eagle is clearly very popular (as it should be, in my opinion.) It's a very fun, thrilling ride (particularly for a B&M) that no park in the region has anything like.

I enjoy the videos Don and the rest of KI's PR team makes for various purposes, like the Dinosaurs Alive teasers, the Haunt job advertisements, and yes, even KI Enthusiast Guy. I'm also a big fan of the PR for Holiday World, Cedar Point (especially Tony and Tyler, though Becca's doing very well), and Kennywood.

Never been stopped on any KI coaster before, except for once or twice on Adventure Express's second lift due to blocking, back when I was young enough to have been terrified enough to remember. The second lift was the scariest thing that ever happened to me as a kid at KI--so much so that getting stopped there was memorable to both me and my family, who rode the ride with me. (Or I assume the stop on that lift was due to blocking, anyway. This would have been in the mid-90's--did the ride run 3 trains at one time?) Oh, and even though it's not a coaster, I once had a sensor misalignment (or whatever you want to call the control system losing track of the gondola) on The Crypt back in 2008. The ride very slowly lowered itself back to the loading position, with the music and lights still doing their things all the while. The thing took forever to finally park, and once stopped, the ride ops acted as if nothing had gone wrong and told us to enjoy our day. The ride was declared down immediately afterwards.

Check this fact out: Cedar Point hasn't gotten a new coaster since 2007 (Maverick). Valley Fair got a kids' coaster last year, but it's been 2007 for them too. Michigan's Adventure got a coaster in 2008 (Thunderhawk). And Worlds of Fun got one in 2009 (Prowler)! Not to mention that, at least at Michigan's Adventure, the biggest draw is clearly not the roller coasters. It's the waterpark. Before Thunderhawk, the last coaster additions were a wild mouse and a steel kiddie coaster in 1999--if the park needed coasters to survive, I think they'd have gotten another sooner than 2008.

^ I feel like it should be pointed out that Holiday World proceeded to use the Banshee name until 2002, if that has any relevance. Maybe the name was a factor in the ride's removal? I'm excited about the possibility that it's a B&M 4th dimension. I wonder if Walter and Claude are feeling especially adventurous and are going to include the launch system their company's been rumored to have been designing for a while now. Also, Cedar Point just posted this to Facebook: EDIT: Darn it, Colonel_SoB_fan just beat me to it!

Don't forget to paint it red and yellow. Sell food in the queue... because, y'know, people gotta eat. Oh, and it'll probably cost a lot, but it will run pretty well--it's an operations ride, not a financial one.

With the large bouts of downtime this ride's had this year and last (and now and again in prior years), I wonder if they're considering removal. It would seem that that was reason The Crypt bit the dust.

I can understand that they're disappointed. Considering the price of admission to Universal, it's probably incredibly frustrating to not find out you can ride a ride until you're trying to get in line for it, even if the details of the qualification are available online. However. If there was actually a change in policy, I'm willing to bet it's probably been influenced by the Darien Lake Ride of Steel incident. And, honestly, if Universal errs on the side of caution, I can't say I blame them. From an engineering standpoint, designing for disabilities seems like it would be a bit of a gamble--there aren't any standards for body dimensions for amputees, etc. that could be used to design trains and the like. I don't say this to be mean, but with a leg amputee, what if there happened to be a position comfortable for riding in, which the person had never sat in before, that put the person in risk of falling out? Wasn't that the cause of the RoS incident? Seems like it's a gamble of a liability for Universal... I guess I'd have to side with them on this one.

How many Arrow multi-loopers have you been on? I'm not saying I disagree, I'm just genuinely wondering. To be honest, of all the Arrow loopers I've been on, Vortex is one of the best (second only to Tennessee Tornado, which is pretty much in a class of its own as far as Arrow rides go, as far as I'm concerned.) I'd have to agree with stashua. Granted, only two others (Anaconda and TT) have actually been custom loopers, while the rest have been variations of the standard Corkscrew model, but Vortex is the only "classic" Arrow looper I've ever actually enjoyed in some capacity for the duration of the ride. On that note, the praise for car 5 (and especially row 1) is justly deserved, as it's pretty much the only row I end up riding in anymore. Car 7 is an acceptable alternative, but the front of the train headbangs pretty strongly. I find I enjoy most other models from Arrow even more than the loopers, though--particularly the mine trains I've been on.

^ I got the impression that it was to verify that you were, in fact, a single rider, and not someone jumping out of the line in an attempt to cut, I think. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it was to discourage groups from jumping from the regular line to the SRL and then attempt to sit together? It didn't last the duration of 2009, as I recall.

^ Maybe I've missed something, but I don't really see anywhere in this thread where people are blaming a loss of park atmosphere on teens. I've arguably raised one of the biggest stinks about the age of passholders (at least in this thread), but mine's moreso directed towards the fact that kids younger than the teenage years are apparently being dropped off without adult supervision (should I have understood the situation I witnessed accurately--and Browntggrr presented a good possibility of the opposite.) That's not an effort to reclaim lost atmosphere; it's about safety. (Plus, it's kind of hard to hate on the teen crowd when almost all of my KI experiences took place when I was part of that group.

Yes, but then you have kids like me, who can easily be mistaken for someone a few years older then they really are. You'd be surprised at how many people think that I'm 15 or 16 when they first meet me. Sure, but that could easily be fixed by adding age info to the season pass data system. They're already non-transferable, so if someone under the age limit tries to use their pass, there could be a prompt on the screen to the effect of "Is this person accompanied by an adult?" An adult, of course, would be someone who appears to be above the age limit. You may appear to be 15 or 16, but if you're 13, which I'm assuming from your username, that might still be close enough to the age limit that it would be okay. In general, you're probably not going to find many kids significantly under, say, 13 who look like they're well above it, though I'm sure there are exceptions. I keep also thinking there could be a prompt, once the young guest's pass is scanned, for an adult's pass to be scanned. It'd be easier than having to guess if the person accompanying the child is within an age bracket. But then I keep thinking that maybe there are kids out there who have passes but whose parents/guardians do not... Maybe there could be a combination of the two ideas? Or maybe I'm seriously overestimating how much the admissions folks would want or care to repeat this process on a regular basis. It would probably slow the flow of people through the front gates noticeably. I'm pretty much just thinking out loud here. Being a parent of kids near the same age, and knowing how my kids will answer a direct question without being 100% clear, the child may have been with another adult that was not his parent.One can only hope that was the case here. I really, really hope you're right.

^ Even then, that's a little safer than dumping them off at the drop-off area. There are security guards inside the park, but the parking lot is more or less free game.