jcgoble3

They've gotta cover those credit card and PayPal fees somehow.

Maybe all the king's horses and all the king's men just didn't have enough glue?

PETA is a bunch of hypocrites.

Probably the best time to do it. Before it gets busy, and you have a station full of people complaining. If they're going to do it that early, then why not just add the third train a half hour earlier before the park opens? That way, they don't have to shut the ride down while people are waiting.

Can we get an option on the second question for "This was my first year attending the fall events"? That way us first-timers that can't compare to previous years can vote without skewing the results of the second question.

Gold and Platinum passholders can upgrade to preferred parking for the difference between the current prices for regular and preferred parking. Just tell the toll booth attendant that you want to upgrade when you hand them your pass. At least that was the case earlier this year.

Several of the games have a note on the pricing sign, usually at the bottom, giving a prize limit. I can't remember which ones have a limit right now, though.

I hardly ever buy anything in the park. The only exceptions are Xtreme Skyflyer and the Speed Pitch game in Coney Mall, which usually get a few dollars out of me. I drink water in the park and drive elsewhere for lunch and dinner.

The sheriff is now saying that the owner deliberately freed the animals and then committed suicide. See stories by the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press via the UK's Guardian. This whole thing is the top story right now on Google News, which has over 1,000 stories about it.

Press release: http://thebeachwaterpark.com/PWDA/files/172/BOI%20Cancellation%20Press%20Release_FINAL.pdf

From both their Facebook page and the home page of their website:

The Saturday prices are higher than those on Fridays. Fridays are $20–$30, depending on number purchased, while Saturdays are $30–$40. It's been that way since the start of Haunt this year.

2012 is apparently the Year of the Leak. It's just a login page now, but the Google cache shows what slipped out. I'm at the point now with all the WindSeekers and DA! exhibits that I can only shake my head at this. Your thoughts?

And once again, thanks for that. Definitely try to make it out to Stricker's sometime; it's a small park, but it has a great atmosphere, two good coasters, and great food that doesn't gouge your wallet (or the money compartment of your fanny pack). And you get all of that for (on the Aug., Sept., and Oct. days) just $12 admission. Definitely worth it.

And you get a full 20 oz. of liquid instead of 8 oz. of liquid and 12 oz. of ice.

So for poll number 1,000, I figured I'd do something different. Most polls ask you what your favorite this is or what the best that is or what you want to see in the future. These types of polls are good for discussion, but in the end, they rarely accomplish anything other than wasting time. So I created this one in the hopes that we can take each other's suggestions and enhance our park experience with them. What, in your opinion, is Kings Island's best kept secret? It can be anything at all that you enjoy or that you think everyone should do, but that few people actually do because most are not aware of it. For me, it's night rides on White Water Canyon on a hot summer night. After dark, there's hardly ever a line, yet the ride continues operating. With practically no lights along the course, you can't see when the boat is approaching the waves, so the splashes catch you completely by surprise. I think that, provided it's warm enough, WWC is a significantly better ride after dark, yet it's a complete walk-on. What do YOU think KI's best kept secret is?

Am I the only one who actually prefers daytime rides over night rides on The Beast? I might be. At night, The Beast actually feels slower to me than it does during the day. I'm guessing that's because when it's light out, you can actually see things flying by you (or rather, that you're flying past), which gives you a good sensation of speed. At night, it's so hard to make out what's around you (if you can even make it out at all) that the sensation of speed just isn't there for me. On a hot summer night, I love White Water Canyon. After dark, it's a walk-on, and there's practically no lights back there, so the splashes catch you by surprise. If it's hot out, WWC is IMO the best night ride in the park.

Nice article. Gave me a few good tidbits to add to the "Reception" section of the WindSeeker article on Wikipedia.

Thanks! Whenever I collect redemption tickets in an arcade, more often than not I end up giving them to somebody else. Redemption arcades don't often have prizes that appeal to adults, plus once when I was a kid at a local arcade somebody handed me a bag full of several hundred tickets, and I'm a big believer in "pay it forward", so I often end up giving my tickets away. I play the games purely for the fun anyway.

This was my first trip to Stricker's Grove. I left Xenia around 10:45 and arrived right at noon, thinking I would be able to get lunch in the hour before the rides opened. As it turned out, they weren't going to sell any food until around 1:00, so I walked around, took a look in the arcade (which was open), and basically stood around until they started selling food at 12:50. I bought a 6 oz. ribeye steak sandwich; it was a little on the tough side, but good, and for $5.00, I'm not complaining (I wonder what KI would charge for it?). When the rides opened, I headed for Teddy Bear for the credit. I like how old-fashioned it was in the restraint department: no seat belts, seat dividers, or ratcheting lap bars, just a buzz bar. After that, I headed for Tornado. Taking the advice of a certain poster here on KIC, I sat in the back seat. It was a very good ride, and "The Cliff" caught me totally by surprise. Out of the 10 woodies I've ridden, Tornado ranks as #4 (see my profile for complete rankings). I ended up grabbing about half a dozen rides on Tornado. Other rides I rode included the Flying Scooters, Tip Top, Tilt-A-Whirl, Electric Rainbow, and the Ferris Wheel; in all of those cases except Electric Rainbow, those were my first ride ever on that type of ride. All were nice rides. I also rode their Scrambler, which ranks as the slowest Scrambler I've ever ridden, though that's somewhat offset by the fact that it was also the longest cycle out of those I've ridden with over 3 minutes at top speed. When I got bored with the rides, I went into the arcade and blew $10 worth of tokens on the shooting gallery. I hardly ever shoot guns and had never tried a shooting gallery before, but I turned out to be an instant pro at the thing, hitting a perfect 15-for-15 on my first play and shooting 4 out of 10 perfect rounds with 90% overall accuracy. After five plays, I traded my first batch of tickets for some Tootsie Rolls, and after the next five, I took my receipt (worth 74 tickets) from the ticket-counting machine up to the redemption counter and gave it to the mother of a little kid that was trying to figure out what to do with only five tickets. For dinner I started with a brat ($2), then got one of their chicken wraps. Now, the bowling alley I bowl my league at sells chicken wraps for $3.99 + tax. The one I got at Stricker's cost only $3.00, tax included, and was about triple the size of the one I get all the time at the bowling alley. I mean, this thing was HUMONGOUS. Here's a photo: Stricker's Grove Chicken Wrap by jcgoble3, on Flickr Note the dollar bill that I put next to it; that should give you a sense of scale. What the photo doesn't show is that it was easily a inch thick. Despite normally having an unusually large appetite for a man of my small size, the thing was so big that I couldn't finish it. Next time, I'll order it first and then decide whether I have room for a brat. Overall, $10 total for the steak, brat, and wrap was a very good price. I noticed that Stricker's allows people to bring their own food in, so obviously that helps keeps their food prices low since they have to compete with packed lunches. They were also giving out free soft drinks (which I took advantage of all day, resulting in frequent bathroom breaks), and I ate one serving of the free cotton candy. Overall, it was a very nice park despite its small size, and one I'll definitely go to again.

^ You might be a KI addict when you talk about how you wish the off-season would end when the off-season hasn't even technically begun yet!

Wow. I didn't realize it was at that many parks. I've changed the thread title to reflect that.

http://kingsdominion...rtners_list.cfm Surprised no one has found this and posted it yet. It appears to be identical to KI's version in both function and cost. Thoughts? EDIT: Changed topic title to reflect fact this Fright Lane is available at far more parks than just KI and KD.

I believe that would be Invertigo in the background.

http://editor.ne16.com/vo/?FileID=f6d944cb-d3e8-4d6c-b0b8-e747043a0c5f&m=af973a9c58251e45a0cdf9667aa564a1&MailID=21393234 Want to name the new swing ride? If your entry is chosen, you will win four one-day admission tickets good in 2012. Entries must be submitted by 10:00 AM CDT on October 18. The link above has a form that must be copied and pasted into your email. I submitted the name "Freedom Flyer".