violakat03

I was going to say, wasn't it owned and operated by one of the hotels? I want to say Hilton but I'm not sure.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread was 'sell it on eBay'... In all seriousness now. No the ride ops will not and should not watch him. They are there to ensure the ride operates safely and correctly, not to babysit. If you feel his is old enough and responsible enough, you could plop him on a certain bench or tell him to wait at the exit while the 2 of you ride. Some rides have a specific place for young non riders to wait, but I think that's just Flight Deck and Racer used to but I don't think it does any more. On Flight of Fear he can exit through the handicap entrance gate and there are benches in the exit area. Everything else he should be able to just walk across to the other side of the train and wait at the exit. It's very common, I see it done every time i'm there. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

Call Cedar Point and ask. But chances are no. That being said, I took my opening year Flight of Fear refillable cup back to the park about 8 years after I got it, and they refilled it. Some of the employees were highly entertained by the fact I had such an old cup.

I'll be getting my tickets with my ace discount. They're like $27 for ace members. I don't mind being the odd one out on Friday. So long as you guys don't mind me using the single rider line. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

I ended up talking to that lady later that night, her daughter was telling us the story about it. Apparently last weekend, her daughter nabbed a low-flying hat, so the whole family are now heroes!

We managed to snag a ride on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday it seemed to be broken down non-stop. At least it was every time I walked past it.

I'll be getting one of the designs eventually, but I'm going to wait till I've got the cash to order a couple other shirts I want. I find Cafepress's shipping to be outrageous for a single T-shirt, but it's pretty much the same cost no matter how many shirts you order. So I'd feel better if I had more than one shirt in the order. Congrats to the winners, all three of you did a great job. I also appreciate the addition of the web address to Chase's shirt, that's the one thing it was missing IMO. LMH - I'd love to see your 'completed' design with the Eiffel Tower, I think a little of tweaking and making it more personalized to the park would make it close to perfection.

Regarding sunscreen - anything over SPF 30 really isn't any more effective. 15 is recommended for adults and 30 for children or those with incredibly fair skin. I use 30 and do not burn when I reapply it often. The important thing is making sure it protects against UVA and UVB, because some sunscreens will only protect against UVA, so you can still get burned even with correctly applied amounts. Anyway. Finished with the little science lesson. I carry a small bottle of SPF 30 in my pocket to any and all parks and reapply it any time I begin to feel the sun through my layer of it - you can get pocket sized bottles for about $1.50 at Wal-Mart, they usually have them in the 'impulse items' in the checkout lanes. I burn very, very easily and have had a severely blistered burn on my shoulders from too much time at KI when I was about 9 years old, so I'm super cautious. I also wear a hat when I'm not on rides for added protection. After 3 days in the park this weekend, I am not burned in the slightest (though I did get a little bit on opening day because I failed to apply it to my forearms). Gator should be posting meetup times and places soon, we were just discussing them a little while ago. Only 4 more days left!

None of the water rides really have any G-forces. Congo Falls is probably as close as it gets, with it's drop. White Water Canyon is good clean (and wet!) fun. The bumper cars don't have a whole lot of bump to them, but are still pretty fun.

The left side of row 16 on one of the trains is smaller than the rest, but I don't remember which train we were on now. Either that or the black line is in the wrong spot because I made them release the bar so I could readjust since it was tight enough to be painful on the first try. I had to shove my hips all the way back into the seat and it still was not all that comfortable. That is the first time I've ever had the lapbar be tight on me - usually it is just slightly loose, giving me just enough room to enjoy the airtime.

The same reason people live in Tornado Alley, the San Andreas fault zone, the New Madrid fault zone, on the volcanic Hawaiian islands... Pretty much the entire country is one natural disaster away from Katrina-like destruction. If a major earthquake were to hit the New Madrid fault, Memphis and St Louis would be gone. A major earthquake did hit L.A. and caused massive destruction in the 80's. Fires strike yearly in California and Texas, tornadoes take out entire towns in the great plains, and Hurricane Andrew nearly wiped Homestead FL off the map.

Saturday was a late day. I didn't get to bed until after 3 a.m. and I haven't been sleeping well lately. We slept until about 11, then I went back and took a nap shortly after that. We ended up heading for the park at about 4:30. Conveniently, when I texted John (jrstacy98), he and his family were almost to the park. I was also trying to meet up with some friends from Thrill Network, though that didn't manage to happen until after park close! It seemed like they were always getting off whatever ride we'd just gotten on, or leaving a part of the park we'd just gotten to, without fail. We met up with John, his kids and his brother. That was a lot of fun. I honestly don't remember what order we did things in, but I do remember that we did some Racer (boys vs girls, of course!), and some Flight Deck. By the end of the day I'd only added 2 rides on Diamondback to my count, but one of those was the last train of the night, so that was a lot of fun. Then we finally met up with my friends from Thrill Network and we headed ... back to Steak n Shake! Sunday was another late day. We got to the park around 5 p.m. and I was kind of sad to see that Diamondback had a fairly long line. We ended up meeting up with Elissa (not a KIC member, but a cool chick anyway) and Adam (pkiboy), where we headed for Racer. After two rounds of not racing (BOO!), we ended up meeting up with even more KICers - along the way we collected Jackson (beast1979), Nick (dare-to-fly) and said hi to Brent (rollercoast19). Trooper Mom was awesome and took a group picture in front of Racer. Nick (my husband), me, Elissa, Jackson, Joe (Jackson's little brother - little Trooper!), Adam (pkiboy) and Nick (dare-to-fly) From there, we went to ... Beast! Trooper Mom helped us with another group pic! And look, we collected indianapolisman! After that, Nick (my husband, not dare-to-fly) and I lost the group because his knee was bothering him and so we took a break and rode the train. We then went to Diamondback and saw that the wait was around a half hour. 20 minutes later, we got row 16 (woo!) and Nick decided to see how wet he could get in the back seat by sticking both hands to the right and leaning to the side. He got pretty wet. We ran around to the entrance for one more lap before close. This time we both played "how wet can you get in row 16." My back and one arm got drenched. Nick managed to get the entire upper half of his body soaking, dripping wet. He looked like he just came off White Water Canyon instead of Diamondback! Elissa and two of her friends took us to a local joint called Toot's which was pretty darn good. Nick had to change his shirt first because his was so incredibly wet, and luckily he'd brought an extra shirt with him in the car. Elissa showed us her amazing collection of ride photos from parks all across the country (she has a stack a foot tall!!) and then it was time to call it a night. What a great weekend!

I was spending too much time riding rides instead of taking pictures, so there are only a few pictures sprinkled in here and there. Friday started off with a wonderful, wonderful event. For those who don't know, my husband is a truck driver, and spends weeks at a time on the road. He's been gone for almost 5 weeks, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see him again. Thursday, he and his co-driver got sent on a run to West Virginia and they decided to call it off-time. They headed into Ohio after their drop-off and I saw my husband for the first time in over a month on Friday morning! We'd talked about this weekend and the possibility that he'd be home, and he wanted to go to Kings Island with me if they made it back in time. Friday afternoon, we searched out a pair of shorts for him, our hats that hadn't been worn since park season last year, and any other goodies the two of us needed to get to the park. We made a slight detour to a friend's house because I discovered that my grandma had given away her entertainment book, and I was hoping to use her coupon for the $10 discount on the platinum pass. A friend had an entertainment book and wasn't planning on using the coupon, so we stopped by her house to pick it up and then were on our way. Going through the construction zone on 75 in Dayton, I was REALLY glad we weren't going north. Northbound traffic was stopped from the time we got on 75 near Sinclair, until we were almost to the Dayton Mall exit. Southbound was moving fairly well, though there were some slow downs in spots. I took the opportunity to snap a picture of my husband while he wasn't looking, wearing his KI-essential Corvette hat. He said after a month of driving the truck, driving our VUE feels like he's riding with his bum scraping the ground. I can't imagine what he'd feel like driving my little sedan! Approaching Mason via 741 gives some fantastic views of the park as you crest the hill right before 71. I was giving directions and missed the left turn you're supposed to make. We ended up wandering around in Mason trying to get back to the park, which made us late for the ERT. We arrived at the park at about 5:20 and met up with Gabe and Angie (gigacoaster2k) at the exit for Diamondback. Gabe had taken 1 ride and Angie had taken 2, so they were already ahead of us for the day. We jumped back in line so Nick could have his first ride. The line was VERY VERY short. We walked through to where the queue passes under the chain hill and I took the opportunity to grab a random pic of Gabe. And yes, that really is the end of the line where the guy in the white shirt is standing. We ended up taking 4 rides on Diamondback in an hour. After the fourth ride we met up with Ryan (boddah1994) and headed toward Crypt to take a break from Diamondback. On the way to Crypt, we decided we needed a sixth rider to keep things even, and managed to snag another KICer who was just chillin on a bench! Bryan (CedarPointguyFromCincy) got adopted into the group and onto Crypt we went. Nick sat out Crypt because his stomach was a little wonky from repeating Diamondback so much. From there, Ryan suggested X-base and Coney Mall, so off we went! On the way to Coney we stopped at Backlot Stunt Coaster and then hit up Flight of Fear, beforewhich Bryan split off. I'm not too fond of the lights in the tunnel being on, I prefer the dark tunnel. Oh well. From FOF, we headed toward Racer, but I couldn't resist Monster, which was getting ready to load for it's next cycle. Nick and Angie can't do spinny rides, and Ryan had no interest, so Gabe indulged me. The other three waited at a table outside Subway and Nick surprised me with my favorite flavor of Dippin Dots (banana split). From there, it was on to Racer! Even though only the red side was running, it was still walk-on. After Racer, Nick and Ryan needed a break and Gabe had never ridden Drop Tower, so the trio headed off to Action Zone. Drop Tower was walk-on like everything else, and as we headed towards our assigned seats, Gabe surprised us by chickening out! Bah. He did hit Delirium with us though, so he's still cool. I'll get him on Drop Tower before the end of the season, don't worry. From Drop Tower, we met back up with the other two guys and got my first night ride on Beast for the season. And then it was time for two more rides on Diamondback, to make a total of 6 for me for the day. As we were leaving, we ran into jrstacy98 and his family. We swapped phone numbers for the next day, which I'm really glad we did, as you'll see in the next post! Then Gabe, Angie, Nick and I headed to Steak n Shake in Mason before we split to head for home.

You know Terpy, I was totally hoping to see someone getting booted in this videos. I am disappointed.

Yeah, that's a groundhog. Haha, fat beaver. That made me chuckle.

From what I've been reading, especially from people who've been to the park since the storm, MegaZeph is very much repairable, though it would need to be completely re-tracked due to rot. The other coasters would possibly be repairable too - if SF's insurance company would pay out. As of 07 (no news reports since then) SF was suing, because they were only paying out about 1/3rd of estimated repair costs. The official SFNO website says they are still in negotiations with insurance. Many of the flat ride components (though not the rides themselves) as well as coaster trains have wandered off to other parks as standbys or parts donors. There have been a few interested buyers for the park, the most prominent being Southern Star Amusements, but nothing has come to fruition. Whether that's because Six Flags won't cooperate until the insurance comes through, or the city wants to hold Six Flags to it, or whether it's because with Six Flags removing things and letting everything else sit and rot they decided it wasn't worth it, who knows. Here's the article on Southern Star: http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index....xml&coll=1

Great Wolf Lodge has a convenient walking path off of the main entrance to the park. It's about the same walk you'd make if you were parked out by Kings Island Dr in the parking lot.

Gator, I'm getting excited! I can't believe that in less than a week I will be making my first trip to Holiday World!!

DB was about a 20 minute wait in the last hour of the day, though it was listed at 30 minutes.

Meh, I just scan it. That's free.

It was a bit busier than I expected today, actually. Beast was running a 1 hour wait most of the afternoon and evening. A few rides were walk on. Nothing like last night, but most of the park was a medium sized crowd. Diamondback was anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour depending on when you looked at it.

SFNO really didn't take as much damage from Katrina as they make it out to seem. They've actually moved many rides from there to other parks. They could have opened it with any severely damaged rides closed (why not, they've had Twisted Twins at SFKK closed for no reason for how many years?) and been trying to make some money off of it. It would have been a big help to the local economy too, with the jobs it brought it and with the little bit of relief it could provide. We went past it when we were there around the first anniversary of Katrina. I can't find most of my photos of it, but here are two.

It's in the first helix, pretty much right at the bottom of the curve. It's kind of hard to get a good pic out of it because of the forces at that spot but it can be done! Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

For those who might still be heading out to the park today - I'm wearing a light grey "definition of a coaster freak" shirt with khaki shorts. My husband and I decided to sleep in this morning and stay late tonight, rather than go early and leave early.

All this bad news is making me leery of buying a Six Flags season pass this summer. As long as they hold out long enough for me to make it to 3 parks though, it should be worth my while - and give them one more paying customer. But this bad news does not bode well for the company, as I'm sure I'm the only one having thoughts like that. It doesn't help that so many of the Six Flags parks that are a certain population's home park are in such disrepair that the patrons flee to further away non-SF parks (such as those in Louisville going to Kings Island, those in D.C. going to Kings Dominion, etc). So many mistakes have been made with this chain, it's just sad to see. Usually hindsight is 20/20 but I don't think Shapiro is seeing straight yet.