violakat03

^ I'm going to have to plan my Coney trip on a day you're working Rock O Planes so I can get a CoastersRZ™ ride!

You're more likely to be denied row 1 than any other row. If it has a long wait (usually more than 4 trains worth) they are probably going to deny it. I've only once been denied row 16 and that was because it had a longer line than the front at the time! The ride op who was assigning seats apologized and asked if I'd like row 15 instead, which I gladly accepted. I've also been granted row 16 when the pair a couple people ahead of me was denied a requested seat with the line "we can't grant requests at this time" because they snootily demanded row 1, where as I asked very nicely "Is it possible for me to get row 16? I understand if you can't." She smiled and waved me back there. It helps when you've ridden it enough times that the ride ops start recognizing you. There are a handful of them that I don't even have to ask anymore, they just point me to the back immediately!

I rode it Friday with the new program. The first words out of my mouth when it stopped were "That was it?" I also heard that it was lame, boring, and sucked from other patrons in the gondola. And I was on the end of the row so I only heard half of them! I'm also not a big fan at all of being able to partially see the ride in operation. I liked it when you couldn't see it at all. For me, I prefer all or nothing. Either completely enclose it or remove the enclosure all together. Even that little peep ruins it for me. Well, the program ruined it too. I actually enjoyed the old program.

Two full weekdays at the park, you should be able to ride every single coaster and every single flat ride if you put your mind to it. We did it in four very leisurely days, three of which were practically half days because we left the park for lunch, dinner and even nap breaks. If you don't have a platinum pass, stay at an on-site resort and take advantage of the ERT. It's the only time you will get a less than 30 minute wait for Maverick and walk-on for Raptor. Even Millie will have a fairly short line. Using the ERT, you might be able to get everything in one day, and use day two for re-rides. I'd say there's nothing you should miss out on. Even Woodstock Express is a surprising little coaster. All the flats are great, my favorites are Chaos, Calypso, Matterhorn and Witch's Wheel. Blue Streak is definitely way smoother this year than it was last year, because last summer I thought it was horribly violent, and this summer it actually bumped up into my top ten wooden coasters because it was smooth and had massive air time.

I like the blog's comment and Tony's reply. A lot of people are always like "how do they get it unstuck" and never seem to believe me when I tell them they just give it an ol' heave ho. You can kinda see it in this video if you full screen it: I think the funniest part is that all the people in the picture from 'after' look pretty darn excited! Must have been a bunch of enthusiasts cause normal people don't get excited about stuff like that.

Yeah, they had signs in the station talking about the history of the coaster, from it's origination to it's current layout. It was redesigned by Herbert Schmeck when the ride caught fire in the 30's, and then again when the SkyCoaster was installed. It's pretty far from the SkyCoaster so it must have been significantly different before to have come close enough to call for a change.

Let's start this off by saying I had very low expectations for this park. I'd looked at the ride list and didn't see anything particularly fantastic. Everything I've ever read about this park has been negative. Between reports of rude employees, trashy paths and even gang problems, I was expecting it to be a short day and not very enjoyable. Just get in, ride the rides and get back out. The truth was very, very far from that. The park was very far from what I expected. I'll explain as we go on. Before leaving, I shot a short video. Arriving at the park with my freshly processed season pass (got it on Sunday) I was surprised at how easy it was to use the parking. I went to hand the toll associate my pass, and he just looked at it, saw the word 'parking' printed on it and waved me on. In the back of my mind I was thinking "kaching, this means I can leave the park for lunch!" Pulling into the parking lot, my hopes sank a little when I saw a row of busses already forming. It was about noon when I got there but seeing six tour busses immediately spelled trouble to me. After snagging a close parking spot, I looked around to realize that those six busses were the only ones there, and only a small handful of cars -less than 100, easily. My hopes rose once more. I left my phone in the car to charge, and then decided to leave my camera there also, as it was still raining slightly and I didn't want it getting wet. I figured I'd go back out to the car in an hour or so and retreive both items. Entering the park, I took a look around Main Street. SFA's is very similar to SFOG's. Very quaint, with brick pavers to walk on and cute looking storefronts. I was a little lost at first but the handy sign posts led me back towards the Gotham City area. I wanted to get both Joker's Jinx and Superman: Ride of Steel and both of those rides are in that section. Joker's Jinx was a complete walk-on, but I wanted the back seat so I waited one train. It was only running one train - along with every other ride in the park except Wild One - so one cycle later I was climbing in for my first ride at the park. It was definitely interesting riding what is basically Flight of Fear minus the enclosure. I have the ride layout memorized and it was cool to be able to confirm that yes, it's the exact same - MINUS THE BRAKE RUN! I did little dance of excitement as we blew through that section at top speed and into the second half. I forgot just how fast it flies through that ending part, including the corkscrew. It was a lot more forceful than the trimmed Flight of Fear is, but I think I prefer it enclosed and dark. From Joker's Jinx, I headed towards S:ROS, where a ride op was sitting in the test seat and turning people away. She said she was pretty certain the ride would be down for the rest of the day, as it was weather related. It's like Millennium Force - it can run in cold windy weather, which is exactly what it was today. I was sad to hear this, but decided I could come back later this week since I have a season pass now. I headed over to Batwing, which is pretty much exactly like Firehawk. Breakdowns and all. In the hour that I stood in a 2-train wait line, it broke down three times. The third time, I gave up and left. From there I headed towards Wild One, where I ended up oh-for-three on the ride functionality, since red train was stuck on the brake run. Cold, wet and windy days have their positives (low attendance) and negatives (breakdown city). I decided to grab a ride on a flat ride, the Falling Star (Six Flags is just as creative in naming as Cedar Fair, as this is a Chance Rides Falling Star), where I wasn't allowed to ride by myself. Luckily there was an uneven group riding so I got a ride partner and away we went. It was a surprisingly forceful for what looked like a very tame ride. Since Wild One was still stuck, I made my way across the park to Mind Eraser. This is a Vekoma SLC inverted coaster with a couple neat elements to it. Just like everything else, it was walk-on. I slipped in next to another single rider and rode second-to-front seat. Even keeping my head planted to the side of the restraints, it beat the ever living crap out of me. It was also surprisingly fast. I was definitely amazed at just how fast it was moving through the track. But with the headache that it gave me, I decided one ride was more than enough. There was a group of girls that were on their fourth straight ride, I don't know how they were handling it. After Mind Eraser, I headed to Roar, a GCI wooden twister that crosses itself 20 times. I'd heard some negatives about this ride also, so once again I wasn't expecting much. Boy, was I surprised when this ride pushed its way into my top ten wooden coasters! There were small pops of air time that really tossed you around as they went around corners. The corners were the correct banking to be fun rather than violent and overall the ride was pretty smooth. I got a re-ride on this one since there was no one waiting for my seat. From Roar, I made my way slowly across the park, stopping at a few flat rides on the way. Their Octopus is a Sartori Polyp, and it doesn't require much to get the cars spinning - in fact they were spinning more on their own than I could get them to spin. I took two rides on this one because no one was waiting and everyone on the ride wanted to go another cycle so he started us up again. After that, I grabbed a ride on the Zamperla Flying Carousel. Just one ride. Making my way back across the park, I saw that Wild One was running again and couldn't get to this Miller classic fast enough! Originally built in 1917 in Massachussetts, I'm incredibly glad this coaster was not lost as so many others of its era were. For such an old coaster, this thing flies! There are a couple airtime pops but it is by no means an airtime machine like Racer. The corners were fast, the random turns were a bit surprising, and the ending helix was.... wow! The banking is very slight and you really fly through it, even with the trim brake before it, so it flings you hard against the side of the car. If you're by yourself and sitting on the right side it can be a little painful, so after that I slid over to the left seat and rode again. After 3 immensely enjoyable rides, there were people waiting for all the seats so I decided I could call it a day for Wild One. By now, I was hungry, so I started walking towards the car. The Tea Cups inexplicably drew me in so I took a ride in a green tea cup. Anyone who's been to a park with me knows that I love spinning rides - the faster they spin, the better. I had my cup spinning so fast that everything was a blur, I couldn't walk straight when I got off and I even felt a little naseaous - which is amazingly unusual for me! I decided to opt out of the reride on that one and headed out of the park. Surprise! I left my headlights on. After security kindly came and jump started me, I hit up the Taco Bell 3.2 miles away. Returning to the park, I took my camera back in so I could snap some pictures as I went. The entrance is very nice looking. Never expected to see this sort of lanscaping at a second-rate Six Flags park. Tea Cups! Daffy Duck was dancing down the midway. Look who I found! Roar and the turnaround of Wild One. The entrance to Gotham City goes under Wild One, which takes up most of the width of the park. You also cross railroad tracks. I crossed them what seemed like a hundred times and never once saw nor heard the train. Joker's Jinx and Superman: Ride of Steel Signs like these were very helpful and placed at each pathway junction. I wanted to catch a ride on Batwing, so once again I went toward Gotham City. Woohoo, people! On my second ride (because they were allowing and encouraging re-rides), I met up with a single rider enthusiast by the name of Scottland. We'd ridden Roar together one time, so it was funny to run into him again. We ended up taking 3 rides together on S:ROS and then he accompanied me over to Batwing. We rode front seat of Batwing. It's the same layout as Firehawk, so no surprises there. The most entertaining part was that I realized as we started to lay down in the station I realized I had change in my pocket, so every time we were tipped back like that, I was trying to hold it in. All $0.90 survived the ride! Scottland had promised me a front seat ride on S:ROS, so we headed back over there and took 2 rides in the front seat (you know the park is empty when you can re-ride front). On the second ride, we were the only people in the entire train! On ride 3, we lost our seats and headed to the back seat. For the final ride of the night, the people who'd ridden front switched with us and we took front, they took back. So a total of 8 rides later, including the last 2 trains of the night, Scottland and I exchanged phone numbers (since he's on a coaster trip too and is planning on being at Kings Dominion tomorrow also) so that we could meet up at KD tomorrow. It was a lot of fun to have run into another enthusiast and ride with him several times. I sum up a lot of my thoughts in the last video. Some of the ride ops were really hyped up, some were just 'eh' but none of them were moody, rude, or otherwise negative. The ops at S:ROS were definitely the most excited and engaging that we ran into. It was funny that at one point, the guy in the drive box asked me why I was wearing a Cedar Fair park jacket (I was wearing my Kings Island pullover) to a Six Flags park. I told him I live in Ohio and he said "good reason!" and we talked a little bit more while two young ladies were checking the restraints. He hasn't gotten to ride Millie yet because it was broken when he was there 2 years ago and he really wants to go back and get a ride on it. The two young ladies were passing out high fives as the train returned and laughing at our antics as we got off and switched seats each ride. Overall, my experience was definitely positive at Six Flags America and I will definitely be returning. Their coaster collection might be small, but it's a great collection with some absolutely outstanding rides.

Beast's tunnel lights are on occasionally. If you ask the ride ops to turn them off, they probably will if they have a way to. On Flight of Fear, occasionally, if you ask super nice and it isn't too busy, they will turn on the lights in the spaghetti bowl. Posted from the still backless BlackBerry mobile device at Six Flags America!

Dare-to-fly, I thought of you today when I felt the trim on Wild One just before the ending helix.

If you are ever spit on at the park or in public, notify security IMMEDIATELY. It is considered by law to be assault and can also transmit infectious diseases. Spitting is a big pet peeve of mine, right up there with line jumping. It isn't just digusting, it can also be very dangerous if the person is HIV positive. If you file charges, the spitter will have to undergo a blood test to determine whether it is simple assault or assult with a deadly.

I love love love love love Witch's Wheel! I also loved Skylab. But, I won't ride viking ships. I haven't been on Viking Fury in at least 10 years and will be perfectly content to never ride it again.

If you ever see this happening, alert the ride operators immediately. That is line jumping and should not be tolerated. If no one alerts the ride operators, they can't do anything about it. Ive always wondered how you alert the rider operators if you are way back in line. Do you just wait until you get to front? Usually you wait till you get close enough to get a ride ops attention. I have seen people actually get out of the regular line, walk up the single rider line, tell the ride op, and then return to their place in line, and I find that perfectly acceptable. It also gives the people in front of you the chance to say "hey, they're complaining about that line jumper. I'm going to tell them "yeah, I saw it too ,they definitely jumped."

Konami usually has some sort of deal for owners of arcade machines to upgrade, so it will probably appear next season. Hopefully X is better than SuperNova. I was highly unimpressed with SuperNova and miss Extreme.

Not nearly as bad as opening day! That's about a 45 minute wait. I'm still avoiding the park like the plague today.

Here's my philosophy. If ALL of us go to guest relations and complain about specific line jumping instances where the employees refuse to do anything (especially when they witness it!), then the park will realize there is a problem. As it stands right now, the word is getting no farther than the closest ride op or security guard, so the park itself may not realize there is such an issue with enforcement of their rules. They can't fix a problem they don't know about. I have had a ride op on Diamondback refuse to do anything about line jumping even though three groups complained and one op was going to kick them off, and that really, really upset me. I didn't go to guest relations about it (this was about a month ago) but I should have, and in the future I will. I will also take down names of the ops or security personnel that refuse to do anything about it, along with descriptions of the person or groups to commit the line jumping to include in my complaint. I have noticed there is a particular security guard that watches the Diamondback line like a hawk. I want to give a big kudos to him because I appreciate that he's there watching it most of the time. I saw him remove two different groups of line jumpers during one of my 30 minute waits yesterday and I noticed that in general, Diamondback line jumping was a lot less prevalent.

Only an enthusiast would get excited about being on a ride when it breaks down. I've been stuck in the pre-station block brakes on Beast. For an hour and a half. In 90° weather. After 20 minutes, the entire train was complaining loudly to be evacuated, but for some reason they didn't. They just kept bringing us cups of water, and by the time they got us back into the station, they had paramedics standing by at the exit checking everyone out. From what I understand, procedures have changed since then. This would have been around 1997.

Yes.

They said no flash photography when the person in front of me pulled out a camera but said it was just fine to shoot flash free video. So I did.

That first one that was in Japan was actually King Cobra, from what I understand. There are elusive pictures of King Cobra set up in Japan as the prototype before it moved over here. It was painted dark red at the time and had TOGO serial number 001. Sky Ride at Canada's Wonderland is 002 and Shockwave at Kings Dominion is 003. And yes, I was referring to overall height. Thus why I said "overall height record." When The Beast was built, it was taller than the former record holder, Gemini, a steel coaster. When Son of Beast was built, it did not top the then-record holder, Millennium Force (or Steel Dragon 2000, not sure which was the holder at that exact point), though it still holds the record for tallest wood coaster and remains the only wooden hypercoaster. Colossus at Heide-Park Soltau in Germany is the second tallest at 196' 10" tall. El Toro is the second tallest in the US at 181' tall.

Stacking a train refers to leaving a loaded train waiting in the brakes while another train is loaded or unloaded. A new crew or a crew who isn't in the groove will stack trains. It leads to lower capacity and longer wait times. Maverick was stacking really badly on Monday. They had all 5 trains sitting in the station brakes pretty much constantly. Two in the station and the other three in the pre-station brakes.

I've always been proud to have KI as my home park, and their ingenuity is one of the biggest reasons. So many firsts. They haven't had an overall height record since The Beast, but that hasn't stopped them from being the first in many other places.

If you ever see this happening, alert the ride operators immediately. That is line jumping and should not be tolerated. If no one alerts the ride operators, they can't do anything about it.

That's one thing that annoys me about the former Paramount parks. Especially KI/KD, as KECO did it too. They have many similar or identical rides. Flight of Fear and Backlot Stunt Coaster are identical. Their Drop Towers are practically the same. Rebel Yell and Racer are similar, as are Anaconda and Vortex and Shockwave and King Cobra (though that one doesn't count so much anymore). Grizzly felt like it was trying to be a smaller version of The Beast, though it was a great ride in it's own right. There are only a handful of truly unique rights at each. KD has Ricochet and Hurler, KI has Son of Beast and Flight Deck. Cedar Fair has added a lot of variation by just adding Dominator, Firehawk and Diamondback into the two parks.

I love skeeball. I don't even care if I get any tickets, I just enjoy playing it. Also, I don't know if anyone else noticed that the price of DDR has gone down. For years and years it was $1.00 per person, per play. It is now $0.75 per person, per play. That puts it on par with out-of-park arcades, which usually charge either $0.50 or $0.75. I will probably play it more often now that I've noticed this. Plus they reset the game every year, so most of the good songs are not unlocked. The more it's played, the more gets unlocked, and I miss being able to play Sakura at an arcade!

This was a difficult poll for me. I thought of Son of Beast and it's amazing accomplishment. It was one of my favorite coasters in it's early years, though it has fallen off my list with it's neutering and jackhammering with the new trains. It was and still is an amazing engineering feat and an astounding structure to just look at. Then I though of The Bat and what an amazing piece of technology it was in it's day. I agree with whoever said that it led the way to more modern inverted coasters and was really a learning experience for all coaster designers. King Cobra was yet another 'first' - the first stand-up. It was yet another learning experience and was a very popular coaster in it's prime. It remains a popular coaster among those who got to ride it. And of course, the legendary Beast. Though the Voyage surpassed it for my favorite wooden coaster (just barely), The Beast is still always going to be a legendary ride and always going to give one heck of a thrill. Being built in 1979 without computers and the technology we have now makes it even more impressive. But in the end, I voted for Diamondback, because the title of the poll is the best roller coaster. I consider Diamondback to be the best, most enjoyable coaster I have ever ridden, and therefore, it is the best at Kings Island.