violakat03

When I went down Sydney Sidewinder last year, something about the way the raft hit the water in the splash pool tipped me backwards and it dumped me into the splash pool completely upside down. I was really disoriented and scared out of my wits for a few seconds while I figured out which way was up and the lifeguard was there helping me when I surfaced. It could have been very bad - if I'd hit my head on the bottom of the splash pool or the slide, for instance, but would that have been the park's fault? So long as the lifeguard did her job (which she did), there's nothing more the park could do. But yeah, the entire point to that story was in response to Ashers - don't feel bad, you aren't the only one that's had an incident on a slide that no one really could have prevented. And in response to having trouble seeing in the fog - my husband is a flashlight addict and always has a flashlight in his pocket wherever he goes. It proved very helpful when walking through some of the darker areas (especially on the path from the train into the haunted attraction) that were hard to see in the fog. I've used my cell phone to provide light on the path as well.

That just made me laugh so hard.

I knew I wasn't crazy. I was thinking that I could have sworn it used to have jungle noises on the first lift hill. Monkeys and birds in particular.

I'm sure if a lawyer would have been around they would have been handing the lady a business card telling her to call! In town here they hand out business cards at the scene of traffic accidents, it's sad! After my sister-in-law and I were in a car accident, we got direct mailings from at least 5 different lawyers offering to take our case. Same after my husband's accident. We did end up suing after my husband's but only because the insurance company refused to pay us a dime. I did my research and chose a lawyer that wasn't one of the shady ambulance chaser types, and he turned out to be amazing.

I was at Kings Island on the last day of Haunt when a lady fell and broke her ankle on the train's haunted attraction. I don't know if she sued, but listening to her talk about it while sitting in the first aid station, she blamed herself for falling on the path rather than the park for putting the fog out. I had a fog-induced panic attack at the park (which is why I was in the first aid station) and think they way overuse the fog machines to the point they can be dangerous (I was having a very hard time breathing and it led to a panic attack) but I personally wouldn't sue the park over it. I knew going into it that the fog machines would be on and it would be thick and hard to see through. You can see the fog from outside the park, so you know there's going to be a lot of it. The biggest thing I'm going to do is wear a dust-type mask next year to cut down on how much of it I breathe in while walking the midways, because sometimes the best course of action is to protect yourself rather than placing the blame afterward. This especially holds true at Cedar Point where the fog was confined to one area of the park, with a lot of warning signs before you got to it. If you thought were going to have a problem with the amount of fog used, you could go around it easily.

Coney is definitely on a must-do list for me. I've never been there, or Stricker's Grove, and I really feel like I'm missing out. I'm going to be hitting most of those parks in one fell swoop - my brother lives just outside D.C. so I'm using his place as a starting point for the Virginia/Maryland/New Jersey parks, then possibly hitting Lakemont & DelGrosso's on the way home, since I'll be passing within a 30 minute detour of them. So I'll be hitting between 5 and 7 new parks within a little over a week.

- Ride DB on opening day and get a first rider shirt - Ride all the coasters at KI (I've never ridden Little Bill's) - Break 100 coasters - I'll definitely break 50 by the end of May, I should get very close or just slightly over 100 by the end of the season. - Get a rollback on TTD!!!!! I've already got trips planned to Kings Island, Cedar Point, Holiday World, SF Kentucky Kingdom, Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens Europe, SF America, SF Great Adventure, Morey's Piers, Stricker's Grove and Coney Island. All but KI and CP will be new parks for me. I'd also love to hit SF Great America, Indiana Beach, Beech Bend, Waldameer, Lakemont and DelGrosso's but those are big maybes right now.

I can't imagine AE without the angry guys in the last tunnel and imitating them as we go up the hill. It just wouldn't be as fun. Though I'd like to see all the theming brought back - I remember when you dropped out of the station and into a cloud of mist or fog as a train whistle sounded. And there were a lot of jungle sound effects that I don't recall hearing last year.

1985. White Water Canyon is added and Tumble Bug removed. My mom could have sworn she'd taken me on Tumble Bug, but apparently that was only my older brother (who was 4 that year) as I doubt that she took a newborn (I was born in June) on Tumble Bug.

You could always do like I did to some of my friends. Promise them that you just want them to wait in line with you and they can walk across the station and leave when it's time to get on, then place yourself squarely in their way so they can't get across. It worked on my husband.

I would say you should start out small. I started on Beastie at 10 years old and I think something bigger might have scared me off. I went from Beastie to Racer in my next visit and the following year I rode everything and loved every minute of it. I also have to say there are people who like the weaker coasters and not the bigger ones. My mom's favorite ride is Adventure Express but she won't ride Racer or Beast. Some of my friends will ride FOF but not other coasters because they don't like lift hills. One of my friends loves coasters and especially SOB but wouldn't ride Millennium Force with me. So the theory that starting them on Beast or Diamondback may not work. Also in regards to the smoothest place on a wooden coaster, I have to say the front seat. Anywhere in the front half of the train and the front seat or middle seat of the car should be good. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

I will be heading there in May for the first time so I too appreciate all the tips given in this thread. Great advice so far. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

Epcot had that too. It was nice to see what the wait times for Test Track and Soarin' were so we could decide which to head towards.

It works beautifully on my BlackBerry pearl. I think it's your carrier rather than your phone, but then I've never been a big fan of Verizon. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

You might be a KIC addict if the first thing you do with your new Blackberry is browse the KIC forums.

I agree, the basketballs are the most annoying thing in the entire park. A lot of people play the games just to be able to get the 'cool' factor of walking around bouncing it - but I fully believe the park should give them a claim ticket and make them come to a kiosk OUTSIDE the gates to collect their basketballs after they leave, but that would probably reduce the number of people playing the games.

Son of Beast reopened after the rain for about 10 trains. Then it closed again. We managed to sneak onto it in the 30 minutes it was open, then gave up and went to FOF. The only other ride open was The Crypt.

As annoyed as I am about the installation of 3-point shootout where the Flying Eagles were, you have to admit, that game is a massive money maker for the park. $10 a pop and a small percentage of people who play it actually win anything, let alone one of the 'top' prizes (a jersey that you could probably buy off-site for $10). I still find it amazing how many people waste their money on that game, because you have to be pretty good to be able to win.

I remember one time waiting out a rain storm on a day the park was insanely busy. We sat it out in the arcade for an hour or so and then walked on to absolutely every thing. Any time I'm there with friends and it starts raining, I try and persuade them to wait it out, because I know how empty the park will get. The non enthusiast friends usually don't go along with this, of course, but it's usually worth a try. I got some non-enthusiast friends to wait it out on an August Sunday this year and we ended up marathoning Flight of Fear because it was one of 3 major rides in the park that reopened and it had no wait at all (it had been running a 45 minute wait before the rain). I was really surprised that so few rides reopened after the downpour, even though there was at least 4 hours of park operation left when it cleared up.

Don't think that going in the middle of the heat of summer will mean the crowds are away. Atlanta residents are used to the heat. We went through the week on the first week of August in 2006 and the park was pretty well packed. We waited almost 2 hours for Superman: Ultimate Flight. There was not a single ride that was less than a 20 minute wait. We spent 2 days there also and on the second day we got a gold Flash Pass, which cut our average wait time to 5 minutes. Using the Flash Pass, we waited 15 minutes for Goliath (it was running a 2+ hour wait all day, both days).

I'd love to see some of the 'abandoned' areas of Coney Mall getting some use. I remember playing laser tag in the former theater back in the late 90's (this was the same day we rode King Cobra at least 15 times) but I don't remember seeing any movies there. There are so many un-used areas in Coney Mall that could really use a good new flat ride. I've always found KI's family-oriented flat ride collection to be lacking.

That never ceased to amaze me either. When I was working in the waterpark, any time it rained, the stores suddenly got jam packed with people trying to stay out of the rain ... in their swimsuits!

I think it looks great and I'm glad the rest of the park is getting some love and not just being ignored because of all the work on Diamondback. On the webcam the orange track now looks very bright and refreshed. Posted from my BlackBerry mobile device.

I drove down the employee entrance road yesterday with the windows and sunroof open and couldn't hear it at all. It wasn't until we found a little cul-de-sac very close to the track that we could hear it. I wonder what the people in the houses nearby think of it. Especially once there's screaming people on it. Although, they moved there knowing there was a huge amusement park in their back yard, so I guess they don't have too much place to complain.

Renewed yes, processed, no. Gator - you may have passed us after all. I'm not sure exactly when we left. We went out through the employee parking lot though, so we could get closer to Diamondback. If you saw a black Saturn VUE wandering aimlessly, that was us.