jcgoble3

For those who care about such things: The new Starbucks at Kings Island DOES accept Starbucks Cards, and you DO get Stars toward their rewards program for purchases there using a Starbucks Card. I purchased a passionfruit iced tea on my way out yesterday evening, and according to the Starbucks app today, I indeed received a Star for that purchase. Next step: wait for my first Lucky Dozen free drink reward (currently five Stars away), and find out if they'll redeem that.

Back on May 1, the first dozen or so dinos on the trail were non-functional, and yes, I attempted multiple times to trip the "eyes". It wasn't until I got about 10 minutes into the trail that I encountered ones that were working.

Plus the cost of his meal plan. Indeed, since the dining plan itself is not part of my regular park budget (which hasn't changed), but is shoehorned into my overall budget separately. And I do that on occasion also.

I would guess (key word: guess) that it's more likely to be a violation of the credit card companies' own privacy policies, coupled with the average person's expectation of privacy, i.e. the expectation that you're not going to freely give my complete contact information to any person who comes asking for it. Same way I've given my phone number to several people on here, and expect them to keep it private and not randomly give that number out to anyone they feel like. I don't know if there is a law regarding this, but you don't need a law for people to get angry and feel violated.

They would love to, but they wouldn't love their customer's angry responses when they found out about that violation of their privacy.

I don't think the credit card companies send that information to the merchant. I would assume that when an online merchant verifies your billing address, they just send the billing info to the credit card company, who simply responds with a yes or no as to whether it matches (example). I wouldn't think they'd actually give your address to the merchant, especially with a card-present transaction, since that information is not strictly required to complete the transaction.

I do not recall being asked for my ZIP code when I bought a single-day ticket at the park last July.

Huh? Is Cedar Point now an entirely smoke-free park?

To be fair, I was surprised to see the floral calendar planted, with date, this evening (the clock is still empty). Usually those aren't planted until around Memorial Day, both to avoid the possibility of a hard freeze at night, and presumably to give the flowers time to grow (the date pieces in the calendar this evening looked like they had barely begun growing, which made the numbers hard to read). I think by June, they'll look much more like what we're used to.

LOL! I remember that takeover!

I made an impromptu run to the park for about three and a half hours this evening and used my dining plan while I was there on a burrito at Hank's. Everything went as smooth as possible, and the cashier correctly handled both the burrito and my soft drink purchase, even asking if I wanted the chips and salsa that comes with the burrito dining plan meal (I said no thanks). Had I not had the dining plan to save that money, I probably would not have stopped at Sweet Spot on my way out and bought a five-pack of buckeyes. In general, I find that I'm still spending about the same amount of money in the park as I would if I didn't have the dining plan; it's just being spent on different things. (On another note, that was the single largest burrito I have ever seen. The trainee that prepared it packed it so full that neither she nor the supervisor training her was able to wrap the shell completely around the ingredients. I carried it around to the back porch and watched PTI and SportsCenter while I made the whole thing disappear. Burp.)

For anyone that is doing this Saturday morning, I talked with the ladies in Guest Relations at the park this afternoon about parking, since the Color Me Rad people didn't send out any information on that. Color Me Rad 5K participants will enter the parking lot at the traffic light at Soak City Drive (this is the light immediately to the south of the regular south tolls). That entrance will open at 5:30 AM. I did not ask anything about the race course or anything else; however, I'm assuming that the race course will be different this year since Coasterstock participants will be starting to show up, park, and check in prior to the race beginning, thus the main part of the parking lot and the entry plaza will obviously be unavailable for the 5K.

^ Huh?

I'm not saying that there are tons of these people, just that there are enough to cause massive headaches that KI would be better off not dealing with. A relatively small number of people can ruin things for the masses. And I never said that KI will never get a wooden coaster ever again. I just think they need to wait another 15 to 20, maybe 30, years to hopefully let the rumors die off before building another woodie.

There are people out there that you could beat with a hundred clue sticks, and they would STILL confuse the two coasters. These are the type of people that hear one rumor, latch on to it, and flat-out refuse to believe anything else regardless of how much evidence to the contrary they are presented with or have shoved into their faces. Sadly, there are too many of these people. It's the same reason the anti-vaccination movement is so strong (ugh); people choose to believe one unsubstantiated rumor over reams of hard evidence disproving said rumor. This is why I fear for the future of the United States.

...and all of that is rendered irrelevant by the fact that I have heard people misidentify the Rivertown woodie as Son of Beast. It doesn't matter what you do if distinguish a new woodie, be it unique elements, building in a totally different section of the park, whatever; too many people in the general public will firmly believe that it is simply a modified and/or relocated version of Son of Beast. And I'll bet some of these people likely never even rode SOB (or weren't even around while it existed) and haven't a clue as to what elements SOB had, and will believe that whatever elements the new woodie has must be the same elements that SOB had, and therefore this must be SOB.

I broke the tie. No way in the world should KI put in another wooden coaster this soon. There are too many people that genuinely believe that riders died on Son of Beast, and it's fact that dozens, plural, were sent to the hospital. And the general public's propensity for misidentifying rides and perpetuating false rumors is huge. People still think that there were deaths on the original Bat (despite the lack of the internet back then to spread rumors with), and I can only wonder how many have now attributed those deaths to the former Flight Deck. Build a major wooden coaster, people are going to think it's Son of Beast and think that people died on it, and that rumor will spread like wildfire on the internet, and that's not a good thing. For another example of this, see Kentucky Kingdom and drop rides.

If so, heaven forbid an accident. Lawyers would have a field day with that.

I didn't care for Harry Potter and knew almost nothing about the franchise when I visited in 2012, yet I found Hogsmeade to be one of the more enjoyable areas of the park. With Diagon Alley now open, and with me now reading through and enjoying the series for the first time, I would love to go back.

...and good riddance.

If you're using Internet Exploder 11, there is a known issue with the forum software that prevents the quote feature from working in that browser. The only workaround I know of is to use a real browser like Firefox or Chrome.

Indeed. I also did not find it funny when I watched it last summer.

Want to get a good look at a major airport? Climb the stairs to the top of Deep Water Dive's tower at Kentucky Kingdom. You will literally be as close to the airport as you can get inside the Hartland while standing on the open-air top of a 120-foot-tall tower. And with prevailing winds, airplanes will come over the park and right past you to land on the runway across the highway. The day I was there, I didn't stay at the top of the tower long enough for a plane to come through (plus I think a different runway was being used that day due to calm winds), so I can only imagine how low the plane would be. And I can imagine it practically at eye level.

I saw that video last year, and assumed that it was meant as humor/parody. The uploader's own comments on the video on YouTube clearly indicate that he's just making stuff up.

I was under the impression that the coaster, and only the coaster, was sold to someone by Cedar Fair, who failed to ensure that the sale contract included a clause requiring removal of the coaster from their land within a set period of time, and that the new owner of the coaster has been content to sit on his or her hands ever since, with Cedar Fair powerless to force removal of the coaster and unable to do anything with the land while it sits there. I invite someone to correct me if I'm wrong here.