violakat03

It leads to the maintenance roads for The Beast, Diamondback, and I believe to the field where the fireworks are set off. We walked down part of it during The Beast backstage tour.

Avatar said it was a joke...but if we are going for honesty here, I just barely got to meet Justin at CWW...and he was definately a very nice guy...and I think the photo of him in the pink wig is hilarious...but I would not want to see a bunch of guys running around the park like that on a regular basis...it would ruin the atmosphere of the park. Nor did Justin run around in the pink wig all day. He basically wore it for photos and it spent the rest of the time in my messenger bag, along with most people's boas. I was very insulted by the remarks about those of us in the glam rocker party. Nothing we wore was obscene, revealing or in any way disturbing to the people around us. The two of us who were wearing short skirts had black leggings underneath them to keep from showing everything to those who didn't want to see it. All of us were more conservatively dressed than many park goers are.

I'll be at Kings Dominion on July 3rd. I just got an email from KDFanSite a couple hours ago and they are having an event that day, plus I've always wanted to go to the National Symphony Orchestra concert and fireworks in D.C. so my husband and I will be enjoying the fourth at our nation's capitol!

Yeah, right now the biggest focus is that big huge wooden gate to the right of the entrance. They could do something with that other than slap a small 30th anniversary sign on it. That seems like a great place for artwork or even flower boxes hanging from the top of it.

I'm not an employee so I can't say I miss it as much as some, but ... returner bonus pay. I heard this was phased out in the last years of Paramount, but I'm not sure when it officially ended. I know when I did my second season in 2003, I got a returner bonus of 50 cents an hour over a first year associate.

I thought that was the case but wasn't sure. So now it annoys me even more that it wasn't ringing yesterday.

It was a caramel apple, not a candy apple, and I noticed I had your fudge as soon as I carried the bag inside but figured we were both too tired to mess with it at that point. I also have your beer still somehow. And I only took the one picture. I took my camera in the park but was so focused on enjoying myself, combined with the fact after the water park it was buried under all my water park stuff, that I never dug it out. So no PTR from me, sorry guys. The only thing I was disappointed by yesterday was that they were not running the sound effects on Legend. I absolutely love the school bell ringing as you leave the station and the wolf howl as you come down the first drop and was incredibly sad that I didn't get to hear them yesterday. When I go with my husband (it'll be his first visit), I'm going to ask them to make sure they have them on!!

Lol I'm glad I'm not the only one who wonders why that speaker needs to be so loud. The only reason the separater even needs a mic is if they need the attention of someone that's across the station. Mute it otherwise. I'm annoyed by the handstamps. I'm allergic to many kinds of ink and unless it's on the back of my hand, I'm likely to react to it. KI puts it there to start but then it'll smear all over and I'll wonder why the side of my face is itching like crazy, only to discover I've got ink on it! I discovered last week how easy it is for me to re-enter without a stamp due to my skin reaction and probably will not get a handstamp again unless they switch to a non smearing ink. Every other park I've been to so far this year, including Cedar Point and Kings Dominion, has used the non smearing invisible ink, so I don't buy the top expensive line. They buy it for their other parks, why not KI? Trim brakes. I'll leave it at that. Lack of rule enforcement. It's a dead horse on this board, so I won't continue the bludgeoning. And finally, food prices. People buy more if it's a reasonable price. I have yet to buy a single food item at a Cedar Fair park this year. At Holiday World yesterday, I got a funnel cake, a full meal for lunch, a caramel apple and 5 things of fudge. All of that was less than $20 combined. And that's $20 more than Cedar Fair has gotten from me for food. I will not pay almost $4 for a fountain soda and now that they've done away with the wristbands (which seemed to be always going up in price) I will most likely not drink a single soda at KI again this season. That's a lot of nickels they're missing out on from me. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

I've never personally seen them re-measure a kid with a wristband. However, I firmly believe that it's still a possibility. Cedar Fair takes safety very seriously. You will NOT be able to ride if you do not meet the height requirement. Period. People can (and have in the past, I'm sure) lose their jobs over that. It is a major safety issue and is taken very seriously. If you are so much as a millimeter below the required height, you will not be permitted to ride. No one has ever died on a roller coaster at Kings Island. As far as I'm aware, no one has ever fallen out of one at KI either. There have been limited instances of it happening at other parks, but those cases are pretty much limited to user error, such as not correctly utilizing all safety devices or not fitting in them correctly such as the man who fell out of Superman: Ride of Steel. You are safer riding a roller coaster than you are walking in from the parking lot, where you might be hit by a car or a bolt of lightning or any other number of things could happen. Many people say they 'feel like' they were falling out of their seat. This sensation is called air time (or hang time if you're upside down). There is nothing wrong with air time, in fact many of us are addicted to the sensation. Your restraint is going to keep you in the train just as it was designed to. Flight of Fear is one of my favorite roller coasters. Most definitely ride on it. The very very last seat of the train is amazing. Vortex is good, not the best Arrow looper I've been on, but still good. Seat 5-1, as was recommended earlier, is the smoothest. Don't forget Racer, a very underrated wood coaster full of great air time (red side is the smoothest) that is almost always walk-on, and The Beast, still the world's longest wooden coaster and celebrating his 30th birthday this year.

Yep, that was me! I was wearing a shirt from Epcot DiveQuest. The guy in the TTD shirt was pkiboy. I totally agree with you on everything you said about El Toro. Including that Voyage is the only thing that keeps it from being the best wooden coaster.

I noticed most of those mistakes too. Sadly. And El Toro is most definitely a wooden coaster. It is not a hybrid like Gemini, it's rails are wood. They're just designed differently than most wood coaster rails, which makes them much smoother. A prefabricated wooden track feels like a steel track but is still most definitely wood.

I voted for The Beast. As much as I love Millie and TTD, I have to vote for my hometown favorite.

I think the train crew's been doing great this year. Way more excited and animated than last year. There were many times last year where they didn't seem at all interested in what they were doing, but this year I have not seen that. I like to ride the train for a break, just to take a few minutes to get off my feet, and I always enjoy the interesting views of Diamondback, WWC and the water park. Earlier this year on my first train ride this season was the first time the bear had ever been pointed out, I thought that was pretty cool. My only complaint is the same as one of PhantomTheater's. There are too few songs on the playlist and it gets annoying pretty quickly. I personally find Cotton Eyed Joe to be an incredibly annoying song, and I've heard it every single time I've ridden the train.

Currently? Yes. For how long? Only the powers that be know that.

I'm one of those people who gets sunburned even on cloudy days, so I keep a bottle of sunscreen in my pocket and reapply any time I start to feel the sun on my cheeks. I also get water nearly every time I pass a food stand (much to the annoyance of many people, I'm sure). I do not eat park food due in large part to how greasy it all is, and eat significantly less than I do on non park days. A combination of these factors keeps me hydrated and energized all day! I didn't follow my own rules and ate a large greasy meal during RWW, and as a result ended up sitting out most of the night ERT on Diamondback. It's a mistake I've been careful not to repeat! Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

Good catch on that Tom. I shot a good video of Volcano's fire but it was at night so you can't see the smoke ring. It definitely leaves a distinct ring, not a puff or cloud like you'd expect. I thought it was pretty cool.

I rode the Crypt earlier in the season with the old program. A kid in the row behind me had a bunch of quarters in his pocket and I think every last one of them hit me as they fell! He got off the ride and said snootily to the ride op "I had like $3.25 in my pocket when I got on here, can I have it back?" I overheard this and told him "no, because it all hit ME as it fell!" He shut up after that.

TTD's flexibility is a little frightening to observe. Stand next to the Guess your Age booth near the bottom of it some time and just watch the track after a train goes over. It sways back and forth like a jump rope! Son of Beast is an awesome coaster to just watch. Especially during the back-stage tour we got during RWW. You can see the whole first hill flex and sway as a train comes down it. As to other things I've noticed. They need to clean the sewers out. Many of the storm drains are starting to reek of raw sewage. Especially the one behind Festhaus, near the water gun game and smoking area. It stinks from a considerable distance!

^ Yep, they're about $200 at KI. I don't know what their normal cost is so I don't know if it's more expensive or not. They also had a CoasterDynamix model 'of' Alpengeist on sale at Busch Gardens Europe. I put of in quotes because it wasn't actually an accurate model outside of being an invert and the right color scheme. The layout was the same as the Scorpion model, I believe. I took a pic of it with my cell phone, I'll post it as soon as I email it to myself.

Agreed. I think this is a case of a slow news day. If you ever watch Volcano's fire, it always leaves a smoke ring just like that, but normally it dissipates after a couple minutes.

I adore Chaos but it's losing popularity. Even on busy days, they can't always fill up a ride cycle. Don't know if that's because it's such an intense flat ride and not many people's stomachs can handle it, or if they've heard of the past problems and accident, or what. I'm not overly surprised to see it go, but it makes me sad as I really enjoy it.

Strobes have a high chance of causing epileptic seizures. I've heard of one happening recently just from the flashing of daylight through the boards in the helix. I can foresee that being a big problem. They get away with it on Raptor because they aren't in your face.

On Drop Tower yesterday the ride up made us hold our hands up palm out to ensure that we weren't holding anything that could be dropped. I found that rather interesting and I asked if that was a big problem on the ride. She said it happens all the time.

Only added 3 to my count yesterday, bringing me to 56. I wonder how many I can get before my birthday on Thursday.

I have no idea. She has no idea. She remembered Flying Turns because it was unusual. She only knew she rode the Shooting Star because she rode all the coasters at Coney. As I said, for someone who doesn't like coasters, she's ridden an awful lot of them... Heard a good one from a certain KICer today on Beast. "Guests boarding the train, please don't feed The Beast! It's favorite snack is loose articles, so please secure them now."