homestar92

I like Chance coasters, but I don't particularly want any Chance flats. Too much potential for... Chaos?

Wait, I'm confused... How do you know there are better options than Scrambler if you haven't ridden it?

Not to mention, you don't hear much from the "boring" reporters. They aren't in the spotlight usually. Plus even if they were, the negative stories are going to stick out in your mind more than the positives. It's just human nature. We think nothing of it when all is well, and it makes the bad things really stand out. The mainstream media knows this. And they are, first and foremost, a business. So they capitalize on it.

I've learned my lesson. I manually pay my cell phone bill and car payment every month now. Unfortunately, the car payment requires me to actually go to the credit union... But it's not a long drive so no biggie. I have written exactly 21 checks in my life (which I know because my checkbook is on number 22) and 12 of those have been car payments...

Cancelling our Comcast service was without question the worst experience I have ever had with any company. Time Warner is definitely no better. I had service through them in my dorm at college. When I moved out, I cancelled it. I have service at home already, so I didn't need to move that service with me. I called up the representative to cancel and I was assured that my service had been terminated. No equipment to drop off because I own my own cable modem (which cost me $20 on Amazon and saved $5 a month from my bill. Highly worthwhile) The next month, my credit card got charged by them, precisely the amount of my old bill. So I called again to ask what the heck was going on. They refunded my card and assured me that it was cancelled again. The next month, I received another charge from them. So I called again. And demanded another refund. And another cancellation. And told them to go ahead and cancel my home internet and cable, too. By the end of the call, I got my money back (again), was assured that it was cancelled (again) and got off the phone with my home service intact (which I really didn't WANT to cancel anyway, but I needed a bargaining chip and was willing to switch to Cincinnati Bell if absolutely necessary) and my bill on the home service cut in half for a year. Finally, the charges stopped. But I watched my statements like a hawk for months after that. On the one hand, I guess it worked out in the end. On the other hand, it was cumulatively HOURS that I spent on the phone sorting that out, and time is money...

I think, years down the road, it could be an interesting story with a lot of educational merit. I don't believe that ANY event in the history of humanity, no matter how tragic, cannot be a learning opportunity. After all, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. That said, there is such a thing as "too soon". This example is going to be on a totally different scale, but say it were 1946 and somebody wanted to make a documentary on the Holocaust. That would have been completely unacceptable. The trauma was still fresh in peoples' minds, and they didn't need reminded of it. But now, decades later, wounds have started to heal a little, and we can reflect and try to learn something so we don't ever get into that kind of mess again. Now, even the most infamous of coasters is in a totally different league than something like the Holocaust, but you get my idea. Should a documentary on Son of Beast be made? Sure, as long as somebody feels inclined to put in the research and do a good job with it. Should it be made now? I don't think so. I say give it at least a decade from the events in question, then evaluate if the time is right. Besides, everyone who would be in the target market for that sort of thing right now would have been around at the time that the events were unfolding. Wait it out and you have a whole new generation of young coaster enthusiasts curious about the only wooden hypercoaster in history who would be a prime target market for such a thing. Fact of the matter is, just look at this site, which is full of people who would be interested in such a thing. Anyone who has an account here (at least, anyone following the TOS) would have been alive the last time Son of Beast operated and would have been old enough to have been capable of remembering it. So in that regard, it seems more logical to wait purely from a business standpoint. Now, if someone were to make a documentary on Kings Island, then Son of Beast should absolutely be brought up. But to make it the focal point... No, not yet.

I've stayed at decent ones too like I said. I suppose "avoid like the plague" isn't entirely accurate. If reviews are good or if I've had a pleasant stay at that location before, I'll give it a shot. Right now though, I'm all for the Motel 6s until one of the newly renovated ones fails to deliver.

For my forthcoming KD/BGW trip, I did something many here probably don't like doing. I went with a Motel 6 in Richmond (well, a suburb of Richmond technically). There was a time not long ago that I would avoid that chain like the plague. However, several years back, they started renovating a lot of their hotels. If you look on their website, you'll see that some of their locations are marked as having "Modern rooms". This is a guarantee that within the last several years, the hotel has received a complete renovation (I think the first such location was converted in 2008). The ones with the modern rooms all feature hard flooring, which is a huge plus, because they are far easier to keep clean. I've stayed in the "Modern" Motel 6 locations in Coraopolis, PA for a Kennywood trip and in Palatine, IL for a SFGAm trip and I had no qualms whatsoever with either. I can't personally speak for the one in Richmond (though, I will be able to in one month's time) but I've had good luck so far, provided it is one of the locations with the modern rooms. They never have the best amenities, but I'm the sort who needs nothing more than a clean room with a clean bed that has a roof over it and a hot shower. One member of my group is former military and as such, can get a discount, so we're paying less than $50 a night and splitting it four ways. When/if they ever disappoint, I may reevaluate my stance, but so far, if you want a place on the cheap, I can at least recommend that you consider it as an option and check out the reviews. You can also cancel a reservation up to 5:00 PM the day of the stay, so if you were planning a trip in June, you could, conceivably ask me what my thoughts were after I've stayed there in early April and then cancel if it turns out to not be what you're looking for. Now, Super 8, I still avoid like the plague. I've stayed in decent ones, but I've also stayed in dreadful ones, and there doesn't seem to be any consistent gauge that I can use to judge a particular location's suitability before I drop my money. I'm not going to outright recommend you stay at a specific hotel that I haven't personally stayed at yet, but if you aren't one who cares much about the amenities, don't dismiss it immediately. I'm sure a hotel review will be part of the inevitable trip report. - homestar92, lowering his lodging standards and doing the potential dirty work - so you don't have to!

I miss T9. For some unknown reason, the predictive text on my old LG enV² was far better at guessing what I meant to say than any touch-based device I've ever used. And I've, at various points in my life, owned an iPhone, an Android phone, and a Windows tablet. So as the stock keyboards go, I've used all of the prominent ones. Smartphones are awesome. But I really do miss my dumbphone at times. It did very few things, but it did them very, very well and I could go nearly a week without charging it. I've never had a smartphone that could make it more than a day and a half. And yes, the LG enV² had a full keyboard and I ignored it and used T9. That's how good its predictive text engine was. And I was fully aware how good I had it. It wasn't until that phone gave up the ghost and I realized how difficult it was to find a feature phone that was half as good as it was that I moved to a smartphone.

In my completely non-expert opinion (which should be taken with a grain of salt) it seems to me that FUN would have more to gain from buying the two Busch parks than SIX would. First off, it would expand their market area geographically.Their southernmost property outside of California is Carowinds. Get BGT in the portfolio, and now you can market to Florida residents. Plus, you get another year-round park out of it to offset the winter months where most of their parks would bring in very little revenue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that FUN has only one year-round park (KBF) currently. Another could help that revenue stream. Second, if they get their hands on BGW, then it stands to reason that sales of Platinum Passes in the Virginia market would skyrocket. If you lived in, say, Richmond, and loved amusement parks, it would be a no-brainer to buy the platinum. Of course, that increased marketability might lead to a price increase, which (if current trends continued) would lead to a price increase on Platinum Passes at every park in the chain. That said, SIX Gold Passes (more or less equivalent to a FUN Platinum) are not always priced the same at every park, so that could always change. The other question is, if a hypothetical sale happened, who's to say the parks stay together? The Great America parks didn't.

I looked at the tours and noticed two options. What's the difference between the "participant" and "observer" tours?

Ah. That would be the obvious answer that I was missing, then.

Honestly not trying to be snarky, but asking a legitimate question: how would that differ from if, say, there were a raging fire in Banshee's station? (There's probably a really obvious answer that I'm missing...)

I have heard great things about each of those parks from a lot of people, and that leads me to believe that there's no "wrong" answer here, and I'm sure you'll have a great time regardless. I personally am taking a KD/BGW trip this summer. However, my reason was that I wanted a Toomer-designed looper to be my 100th coaster, and Loch Ness Monster seemed a fine choice. But that's just me. YMMV.

I think Stricker's is a different animal though. Yeah, it's a permanent installation, but it's still not a place that just anyone can go to at any time, so the "exclusive" aspect of it still kind of applies.

Why come to the fair to ride anything when you can see a poorly maintained relic from a bygone era? And no, I'm not talking about the Vekoma in the back of the park, I'm talking about this travesty: Of course, if you want rides that people actually want to ride, and a better maintained version of this old relic, Huntington, WV is only about 3 hours from Louisville...

Every time somebody disses on Mean Streak, I die a little on the inside. People make such a Dinn over that ride...

Lock the phone. It's not completely bullet-proof, but it will probably be enough to stop the casual dishonest teenager. Won't do much against a "profesional" no-goodnik, but at a place like Kings Island, I have a hard time believing that would be the group you'd need to be most concerned with.

On a semi-related note, for people who wish to depend on the "Find my iPhone" feature, make sure your phone is locked with a passcode as well. It won't do any good if it isn't locked, because there are lots and lots of ways that a dishonest person can disable it.

Now, to be fair, Kings Island once had Flying Scooters, then they were removed, and now we're getting new ones. Of course, Kings Island is now owned by a different company than they were when said scooters were removed, so the analogy isn't quite perfect.

I have to get there in 2015. There are two rides that I really care about, and they're both still there so far. Besides, then I can drive to Waldameer and experience an amusement park much more on-par with what I'm used to. Coincidentally, I have little doubt that the mentality expressed in this post contributes, in some part, to the state of things at Conneaut now...

I'm not sure how I feel about their strategy of calling themselves the "New" Conneaut Lake Park. After all, we must never forget... (image from http://behindthethrills.com/2013/06/kentucky-kingdom-to-re-open-in-2014-with-new-attractions/ )

There was no Facebook, but a yearbook is a book of faces!

My college yearbooks were free! (or more accurately, included with tuition whether you wanted one or not)

Maybe one of the new "attractions" is an automatic door on Swampwater Jack's...