homestar92

Sometimes experimenting is good, but the three GG woodies I've ridden (Voyage, Hades, and Ravine Flyer II) are all very rough rides, and while I really enjoy two of them, one of them has taken the title of my absolute least favorite ride at any amusement park. Oh, and when a self-proclaimed Dinn-Summers fan says that he thinks a coaster is rough, that should really say something.

Okay, so a review is only good if it's honest, and while my opinions may not be popular, I'm not going to sugar coat it. Not by a long shot. I don't think it's even in the same league as Cirque Imagine right now. And I realize that Cirque had two years to evolve and grow, but even compared to my initial, first time reaction to Cirque Imagine, this didn't wow me in even close to the same way. Don't get me wrong, there are things I liked too. I'll give more info in the spoiler tag. Overall, my ranking of recent Kings Island Live-E that I've seen is as follows: Cirque 2015 > Cirque 2014 > Ed Alonzo 2012 > Ed Alonzo 2013 >>>>>>>>> Origins >{insert any musical revue here}>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Skeleton Crew For what it's worth, however, all of them are better than All Wheels Extreme, so at least I'm glad they haven't brought that to KI yet. If we're going to have an acrobatics show with no story elements, I've seen much better at other parks. The Peking Acrobats show at SFGAm fits this bill, is fantastic, and is more along the lines of what I'd like to see if we can't have the story elements that Cirque Imagine had.

What times are the shows today? The park's website doesn't seem to be updated yet.

When I worked at Cracker Barrel, we once had an entire BUS full of elderly people arrive at 9:58. We closed at 10. But, we served them, per the company policy, because they arrived before close. All with a fake but convincing smile on our faces while we resented every moment, mind you. But, the servers who were asked to stay thankfully got tipped handsomely and I got an extra hour on the clock, of which only about 10 minutes involved actual work (I was cashier, and technically not allowed to leave my post, and as cashier, they don't interact with me until the end of the meal). So I guess all was well that ended well. * This poster is no longer in any way affiliated with Cracker Barrel Old Country Store other than as a customer thereof. The opinions expressed in this post belong solely to the poster and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store or its employees nor any current or former employer of the poster.

Sigh... I liked Predator... Then again, I also like Mean Streak and find Diamondback to be unbelievably tedious, so...

There aren't any cars. It's just a little aluminum model of the track. And I couldn't find a quarter, but I had a nickel in my desk drawer. Hopefully you can work with that.

10-15 minutes tops. It's only a few pieces. Nothing too crazy.

Found a minor issue with The Beast model. Turns out the helix on the model is a downward helix while the real life Beast has an upward helix. Other than that, I'm very happy with it.

Another tip: If the line is very long at the pass processing center or for any other reason, you don't want to process right away, you may use your printed voucher to enter the park ONE time, and then process your passes later in the day.

Hartland allows snapping. Or rather, I've never been yelled at for it. And sometimes, once in a blue moon, you might be lucky enough to catch them running theirs on the high speed setting, in which case they are snappable. Also, the set at Conneaut are snappable and snapping is allowed. And, when park attendance is low enough to count on one hand as it seemed to be when I was there, they'll let you stay on as long as you like. Of course, this matters little if they don't ever open again...

I have visited SFGAm on about five different occasions now, and only on one of those was Condor operating... Fortunately, I seized the opportunity to ride it and it was one of the best flat rides I've ever experienced. Now, I wonder, HUSS fault is it that the ride has seen so much downtime?

OK, just to preface this, as always, I don't have any more info than any of you. In fact, since I didn't attend Coasterstock, I probably have less. However, I think it's time for me to stir the pot with my own wild speculation. Parks have 5 year plans, as we all know. I have heard, though I have no source to back it up, that Kings Island once considered building a replica of the Rye Aeroplane instead of building what would become Son of Beast, and owned (and presumably still owns) the blueprints for it. In 2013, Great Coasters International posted a virtual POV of a recreation of the Rye Aeroplane, as seen here: Let's say, hypothetically, that KI wanted to build a recreation of the Rye Aeroplane now. Once they knew what they wanted to do (which, if they were aiming for 2017 as the opening year, would have to be at least a couple years in advance), they could conceivably reach out to potential vendors to ask if they could design such a ride. A vendor might provide a proof-of-concept design to show that they can do it. - homestar92, who has no insider knowledge, but likes to stir the pot anyway. And who also wants something similar to the cowboy coaster, but only if we're talking about the cowboy coaster in Shakopee, MN instead of the one in Sandusky.

Especially considering that all of the parks in the chain have the same cup colors... Somehow I doubt Cedar Fair is putting in a new B&M at every single park in 2017.

Enterprises are right up there with Drop Towers on my "nope" list.

And Mr. Trump is a resident of New York. Which means if he showed up, he'd be an out-of-state visitor, which the Hartland loves* *some exclusions apply (Interpret that as you will)

Valleyfair had the best customer service I've ever seen at a non-Herschend park. I wonder if perhaps the reason for this is that there's another decent theme park within the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area so they have to actually compete... The fact that my visit lasted only four hours and yet I find it so memorable and place the park on such a pedestal should speak volumes about my experience.

Had a decent enough experience using my dining plan at Worlds of Fun on Monday. Walked up, placed my order, they scanned my card, I got fresh food and walked away with it. My only complaint is that Chickie's & Pete's didn't open while I was at the park (though considering it was a rainy weekday in May, I totally understand it even if I don't like it). Unfortunately for Cedar Fair, had they opened Chickie's and Pete's, I probably would have sat for a while, had a drink or two (which are very high profit margin items) and spent a couple more hours in the park. As it was, I rode all the rides I cared to ride and then left, and enjoyed my drink later, not at a Cedar Fair property. Shoutout to the bartender at the Branson, MO Buffalo Wild Wings, who recommended a slight tweak to my usual drink of choice that made it even tastier than usual. Last year, I ate with my dining plan at Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Carowinds, Cedar Point, and Valleyfair. Of those parks, all but Kings Island offered great service, and all but Kings Island and Kings Dominion offered great food (KD had very efficient service, but the food was frankly terrible). Heck, at Valleyfair, they had difficulty getting my dining plan to scan and in the name of good customer service, they just went ahead and took my word that I had one and comped the meal. I don't know what the issue is, but I'm not 100% sure that it's purely because of dining plans. If that were the case, you'd see issues at the other properties, but other parks seem to get by fine with dining plans. But Kings Island seems to have a chronic issue with foodservice that has gotten worse and worse every year. If anything, dining plans exacerbated what was already an issue, but I don't think they can be blamed solely or even primarily for the issues we're seeing. And frankly - dare I say it - for as long as I've been going, Kings Island's food options have been lackluster at best. Sometimes I'll get good food at chicken shack, and I've always got to have my blue ice cream, and I like Potato Works well enough. But other than that, there's not a single food item at KI that I feel like I HAVE to have. The closest would be Potato Works, which absolutely PALES in comparison to similar options like Potato Patch at Kennywood or Happy Friar at Cedar Point. But look at other parks and you've got Cedar Point, which has Pink's, Cheese on a stick, Chickie's and Pete's, Dragon Inn corn dogs, I could go on and on. Or Carowinds, where I've literally never had food that wasn't fantastic. Or Canada's Wonderland and Valleyfair where you can get poutine. We have nothing that really screams "Kings Island" to me, and what we do have is usually served up slowly and without a smile. Something's gotta give. And I'm a shameless Kings Island fanboy. When I even stop defending the park, you know that there's a really bad problem.

Ever since Sonny's demise, Tornado and Teddy Bear are the youngest wooden coasters in Ohio...

Sigh... For most of my life, Stricker's was VERY conveniently located as it is only about 10 minutes from my parents' home. Now that I'm on my own, I'm much closer to KI than I used to be but Stricker's is a major chore to get to. Oh well. It's only a few days a year, so I can handle the drive.

Ah. Just looked it up. I suppose it was only four. Still, point stands [emoji14]

I mean, it was in a different era under different management, so as always, past behavior doesn't always help predict the future... But they did buy five WindSeekers when the ride had literally never been installed at any other park and having no idea whether it would be popular with guests.

"Khaled" backwards, sounds similar to "Dalek" so clearly, these tweets must mean that we're getting a Doctor Who ride. Hypothesis confirmed! (sarcasm, lest anyone without a sense of humor think I have insider knowledge... I've seen people take more absurd things as fact) If all you need are screenshots, you can use your browser's developer console to vandalize your locally cached version of ANY web page even if it isn't normally editable, so there's that too.

Storm Chaser is indeed awesome. My favorite RMC? Not quite. Goliath is definitely better in some ways. But, for a park of KK's size, Storm Chaser is a spectacular addition. No complaints from me at all. T3 finally has a second train, I don't know if that had been mentioned yet. It was tremendously helpful to the ride's capacity and throughput. The Angry Birds movie in the motion theater is decent. HUGE improvement over the Wizard of Oz, but not quite as good as the Rio movie that they had in 2014.

^2008 was, IIRC, the de-Paramounting of ride names. I don't recall anything else being added. 2013 was Reds Grille.

My, how a few short years can change the palate. Updated list as follows: Racer: 5-2, all day long. Blue side if it's running. Beast: 1-1 or 6-2. So this one hasn't changed. Flight of Fear: Whichever seat a female companion I've chosen to bring to the park with me wants to ride in, because I've found such occasions are the only times I'm willing to wait in line for it anymore. Drop Tower: See Flight of Fear description above. And the aforementioned female companion would have to REALLY want to ride it for me to get on this infernal machine. BLSC: Uhh, 2-1. Not sure why 2013 me had a preference for the right side... Diamondback: Row 16, still. But only if there's a very short wait. AE: Whichever has the shortest line and gets me on this wonderful ride the fastest Vortex: 7-1 or bust. I can begrudgingly ride 5-1 or 1-1 if I must, but all the way up the lift hill I'll be longing for 7-1 and its glorious airtime. Firehawk: Any seat, I like them all. I used to hate this ride and now it's one of my favorites. Fancy that. Bat: Until a couple weeks ago, I'd have said 1-1. But after a ride in 3-1, I think I have a new favorite. Great Pumpkin Coaster: I'm now qualified to say that the last row is the best one I've ridden in. Invertigo: That beautiful blue roadster in what is now The Beast section of the parking lot. Banshee: Row 1 or 8, right side.