violakat03

Well, I'd be interested in going, but I have a SF season pass so I wouldn't count towards your numbers goal.

Yeah, he scared the crap out of me by saying my name over the PA! I'm climbing out of the train and I hear "Kat. Kat." Pause. "Kat." And I'm looking around like .. wtf, is God calling my name?! And there's Ronny in the drive box waving at me! I love when the Diamondback crew dispatches a full train. The person in the drive box will say "A full train is a cool train!" and the rest of the crew does the wave and goes "Oooh!" They also say "Kings Island, Where else?" (crew response) "No where!" at the end of some of the spiels. I've heard the world's longest water ride on Beast before, as well as Son of Beast, the only ride guaranteed to give you a headache. There's a ride op on Beast that used to work at Cedar Point and was entertaining us during the fireworks shutdown one night. He was doing some of the Dragster spiels, and then he'd try and edit them for The Beast's specs, that was pretty funny. He also did Beast/KI trivia and general crowd-entertaining things like who in the station was from the farthest away, who was the youngest, etc. I've heard some really good ones this week. On Flight of Fear at KD, the op in the drive box always says something, either a countdown or "goodbye!" as you launch. During ERT on Griffon, the ops were having a ton of fun and coming up with all kinds of things to say like "watch out for that splash!" They also used the ride's specs such as "enjoy your flight from 205 feet" and stuff like that. During the Apollo's Chariot ERT, they were having races between the employees on each side of the train to see who could clear their side the first (and as a result had like 45 second dispatch intervals!) and were just generally having a lot of fun in the station. At SFA today, the ride ops were doing countdowns and "goodbye!" on Joker's Jinx and on the shoot-the-chutes ride (which DROWNS you) they were like "this is a nice full boat, enjoy getting drenched!" and would do the "On the count of three, how loud can you be?" and wouldn't dispatch the boat until they got a good reaction.

My favorite so far has been "we call them handrails, not buttrails so please take your butts off them and put your hands back on them!" I've also heard the one about sitting on our friends, that's a classic. Hadn't heard the one about them sitting on you, that was a pretty good one!

I'm sorry to take this so off topic but I just couldn't let this stand uncorrected. There are only bones below the stadium at UT Knox. No full bodies. These bones are the remains after a body is fully decomposed at the Body Farm, which is the only forensic research laboratory of it's kind. The Body Farm is used to study the decomposition of the human body under a multitude of conditions so that forensic scientists can better pinpoint a time and cause of death in real world cases. The bones are then used for anthropology studies. Bodies can only be donated through a grant made while the person is living. Believe it or not, there is actually a waiting list to be a donor for the Body Farm! Sorry but the Body Farm is absolutely fascinating to me. I'd love to see it myself and study there if I do continue to pursue forensic biology and anthropology as I'm currently doing. I've read up on the Body Farm quite a bit. There are several documentaries dedicated to it as well, sometime you can catch them on Court TV or whatever their current name is for that station. We can now return this discussion to it's regularly scheduled programming! Posted from the BlackBerry mobile device.

In no particular order and not really just 5. X2. Because seriously. It's X2. Do you have to ask? Tatsu. I enjoy B&M flyers and this is supposedly the cream of the crop. Coney Island Cyclone. It's classic, it's famous and it's endangered. Big Dipper at Geauga Lake because I never went when it was open and kick myself for it regularly. Dueling Dragons. It just seems too cool to miss out. Incredible Hulk. Intensity factor. Thunder Run because it's in 2 states at once. Rock n Roller Coaster. Seems like a very cool experience. Expedition Everest, same as above. Space Mountain, a unique and classic ride. Boulder Dash at Lake Compounce. Can supposedly give Beast and Voyage a run for their money and I want to judge for myself. Kingda Ka because it will be broken when I'm there and I have yet to ride any of the tallest coasters while they still hold the record! Last but not least, Screechin Eagle. I was too small to ride it the last time I went to Americana and sadly never went when I got older. I can only hope this wonderful coaster finds a new home where I, and many others, can continue to enjoy it. Some that were on my list and I've ridden for the first time this year or will soon ride include Voyage, Volcano, Joker's Jinx, Griffon, Big Bad Wolf, Nitro and El Toro. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

I kind of doubt they'll sub Mantis because the rides chosen were based off voting on the Coastermania site. If Millie is still down they will probably add in whatever is next on the list. I also hope that holds true for your brother because he probably can't ride or has a hard time riding Mantis and it'd be sad for him to have to miss out! Also, there is a thread in the KIC meetups forum with a roll call of who is going from KIC. I'd post the link but I'm using my phone so that makes it more difficult. You guys should have plenty of opportunities to meet up with people for sure! Posted from the backless BlackBerry mobile device.

I'd think the waterpark bathrooms are safer as they are solid masonry all the way around. Though the underground shelters are the best of course. I've seen other shelters that haven't been mentioned but can't remember where. I want to say there's one in SD&THC? Posted from the backless BlackBerry mobile device.

Yes it's labelled. The entrance to it is in one of the trailer props by the exit area of the station. There are also shelters in the waterpark. The back store room of the small shop inside the gate serves as one, along with the changing/bathroom areas.

There is one problem with the theory stayed earlier that stating that line jumpers will be removed will stop it from happening. There ARE signs. At the beginning of all lines and often times stand alone signs throughout the queue. It is also in every map brochure. People choose to ignore these warnings, just like they ignore the no smoking warnings. Until people start seeing and hearing about these rules being strictly enforced, they will continue to ignore all signage pertaining to the park's rules. Posted from the backless BlackBerry mobile device.

Well, I got rained out today. It's been raining since about noon and is supposed to continue till 9 ... park closes at 8. So .. no second visit to KD for me, right now at least. We'll see what next week holds!

Is this a Cedar Fair policy, or is this a new policy? I don't ever remember this being the case after a rain storm? I don't understand it either. I believe it's a Cedar Fair policy. Probably for safety reasons that would make more sense under the skid brakes (where there was a possibility to shoot through them when they were wet) to keep trains from crashing into each other.

What you can't see (that I could when Rex was shooting this) is that Jackson was standing just to my left the entire time and practically dancing up and down waiting for his chance to do that!

^ Exactly. I'd absolutely eat in the park if it were more reasonable prices, more like the equivalent of what you'd find outside the park, especially for the chain restaurants. If you were feeding a family of 4 at LaRosa's, you'd actually save money by leaving the park and paying the $10 parking fee again to go to an off-site LaRosa's! I have no problem at all buying merchandise in the park because things like t-shirts are very reasonably priced (I haven't paid over $18 for any of my shirts, and I tend to buy multiple shirts at every park I go to) but they'd make more money off me if I ate there too. I spent quite a bit of money at Holiday World. I bought a shirt and a handful of other souvenirs, two snacks, a full meal, and fudge. I don't even get snacks at Kings Island. I'm not paying $5 for a soft pretzel that I can get at the cafe in Sam's Club for under $1 or $6 for a funnel cake, but I definitely will pay $2 for a caramel apple, $2.50 for homemade fudge, and absolutely $2.50 for a funnel cake!! I will be buying funnel cakes (probably in multiples) every time I go to Holiday World! Speaking of every time I go to Holiday World - I'm making at least two more trips this summer, and I think next year I will be getting a season pass there. The only thing right now stopping me from going there more often is the cost of admission. Though the ACE discount is very good, a season pass still takes at least 3 visits to pay for itself and I wasn't sure I'd make it there at least three times this summer, but now I know that I'd make sure I got there enough time to make it pay for itself since it's such a great park. And they will make more money off of me with each trip than any Cedar Fair or Six Flags park will make this entire year from me.

Grr, now you've passed me on Diamondback rides!! I'll have to go a bunch next week to make up for it. It feels weird having not ridden it in over a week when I've been at parks all week.

Ride it at night. I was really surprised at how different the experience is at night.

Goodness, she's tall for her age! Average height for a 3-year-old girl is only 37 inches! Those two rides have a 40" requirement. So she'll be a pretty tall girl when she grows up! Just think, that means by next year she'll probably be enjoying Runaway Reptar and Shake Rattle n Roll!

Yeah, I was expecting Drop Tower or Skyflyer or something, lol. I especially liked the comment about a child landing over by Chick-Fil-A. That made me chuckle.

For the most part, I don't eat anything at parks. I usually will either leave the park and drive thru outside the park, or take a cooler and leave it in my car. The latter is what I did at KD on Wednesday (though I didn't really eat anything out of it since I spent 3 hours in the park - I just snacked on strawberries on the way home) and will do again tomorrow because I'm trying to save some money. I am vehemently opposed to spending outrageous prices to eat mediocre food that can usually be found outside the park within just a few minutes' drive. Holiday World has so far been the only park that has been able to attract me into eating there, with their low prices and good quality food. I do not eat in the park at Kings Island or Cedar Point either.

Lightning behaves in mysterious ways. It may have hit a part of the coaster not designed for that - just because the top of it is the tallest thing doesn't mean that's necessarily where the lightning will go.. Anyway, looking at the Sandusky Register's webcam, it looks like they're already hard at work on Millie. There's a crane up at the lift hill. As long as it isn't something they'll have to order and wait for parts for, I wouldn't be surprised to see them have it up and running for CM. http://www.sanduskyregister.com/registercam/

^ I was hoping to try that but my mom wasn't up for it.

Well, I just looked up some GAdv fansites and it looks like I will not be getting a ride on the world's tallest and fastest coaster. It's expected to be down until mid-June.

GAH!!! I hope they have it up by Monday because that's when I'm supposed to be at SFGAdv!!

I'll probably be back at KD tomorrow (took a coaster break today to catch up on lost sleep) so I'll try to go up the Eiffel Tower and grab some photos of that area.

I've been assigned my seat on Millie pretty much every time I've ridden it. Must just be when I visit! I've never been assigned on Magnum and been assigned once out of 2 rides on Maverick.

That was a highly entertaining video! I especially love the ending. And Jackson's random "Best coaster ever!"