medford

pretty much what GYK said. I have trouble envisioned any Avatar sequal doing well in the box office. The visuals were incredible and at the time a new experience for most. My wife and I were like many, we saw the film, but mostly for the visuals and when we saw it, we made sure to see it at an IMAX theater. While the visuals were great, they weren't so off the charts, movie experience changing that its now the only way we watch a movie, in fact I haven't seen a 3D movie since, nor do I have any particular desire to own a 3D ready television for home. In the end, movies remain relative in pop culture, survive time if you will, based mainly on good acting, great story telling and directing that doesn't get in the way too much. Avatar was a well hashed out plot line and mostly predictable about 30 minutes in. Did anyone walk away thinking, man they just have so much further to go with this story? I'll be surprised if they end up making all 3 sequels; I really don't know why Disney is intent on sticking to this story line.

I miss the tunnel. I greatly miss the tunnel.

I've mentioned this many times, but if you have a young son who blurts out "Kings Island" every time he sees a piece of advertising using the Peanuts, you quickly realize just how often you see the Peanuts gang. Car washes, blimps, life insurance, TV specials, etc.... its around a lot more than I ever realized. There is also a certain element that relates to the Peanuts that Nickelodeon never could, namely grandparents. There are many grandparents who hand out in Planet Snoopy with their grandchildren. Many (most) grandparents can relate to snoopy, share an experience and tell their grandchildren Charlie Brown stories from their youth; few grandparents can relate to Sponge Bob, fewer still (probably something close, but above "none") can share stories of Squidword (sp?) from their youth. The Peanuts create a connection that spans across 3 generations (and in some case 4 generations). While the rides in Planet Snoopy are designed around 3-7 year olds, the names and themeing of those rides are designed around 25-80 year olds. My son calls Woodstock Express The Beastie, FAAC is "the yellow coaster", Snoopy's Splash Dance is "the splashpad", etc... He could give a rip what the name of the ride is and few are highly themed. Its the parents and grandparents who care, who name evokes memories of their youth, who's souvenirs they consume, etc.. Since Disney related theming isn't in the picture, The Peanuts is a great property to by associated with. Its still occasionally relevant to today's youth and will become even more so with next season's movie, and its incredibly relatable to the generations who proceed them, the people actually spending the money in the park.

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yeah that is bad as well, but at least the line is always short.

The difference with Disney, is that they have many more sit down restaurants to offer, many of them with reservation lists and tiers. KI has 1 traditional sit down, table service restaurant. Get a handful more spread across the park and perhaps you can figure something out. Another possible snag, do the Reds collect a % of the revenue in exchange for the tie in to the franchise? If so, that could complicate the system a bit. I agree that something "could be worked out" but it may not be in the best interest of the park and/or their patrons.

The Beast often runs well past 10. They stop the ride during the fireworks due to the proximity of the launch site, but once they they're run the ride until the line has expired. I'm not sure if the line closes right at 10 (when the fireworks go off) or just after it. The first time our son rode it last season, I was out in front with our daughter while my wife took our son. They were still in the que when the fireworks went off, they let people enter the que for a few brief moments after the fireworks before the employee slide the trashcan in front of the exit indicating that no one else was allowed in line. I don't know if that is standard or if that is just the way it works that day. In either case, if you're in line by 9:59 you'll get 1 more ride on The Beast. If you try to get in line at 10:00, well no guarantees. On a similar note, I believe all other dry side rides work in the same manner in that they're lines don't officially close until 10:00ish and everyone in line gets 1 more ride to finish out the night. Obviously some rides, like The Beast or Diamondback have longer lines than others.

I enjoyed the kiddie pens back in my under 48" days, honest. My pet peeves are: -People's lack of knowledge on lightning -Guest (typicaly high schoolers) who think the midway is a fashion rumway. I once saw someone replying her makeup while walking as her friend guided her through the crowd. -The need to bring ones whole life into the park. -People who don't pause for the playing of the national anthem Those kiddie pens... I can't stand seeing a child in those, it almost looks like they are in jail, like KI Fanatic said, I just want to go give them a hug. I couldn't imagine my child having to sit in one of those just so I can ride a roller coaster. I could... and did. Rode the helicopters in Planet Snoopy enough times, there was much give and take in the family relationship. It wasn't exactly 'traumatic' for my sons, who grew up to love roller coasters. Perhaps because they got to see that they were FUN and not so SCARY, who knows? I've never used the kiddie pens, but I completely agree with you that the helicopters in PS is more than a fair trade off. I've said this more than once, but I'm extremely thankful that the helicopters off very little interest to our children. 6 year old will out grow (54") much of PS, we'll see what the 2 year old demands next year when she reaches 36", but if I have my say, those helicopters will just be things for her to look at. Combine the slow moving line and heat box environment and there is nothing I find appealing about that ride. Now, if I could just convince the boy that White Water Canyon is really just a once or twice a year ride, not something that needs to soak you every trip to the park I'd be in good shape

The one problem including Reds HOF Grill (in any fashion) is a potential increase in customers. Being a sit down nature variety restaurant, I assume it can't handle crowds the way most other food stands can in the park that offer a smaller selection with few items being made to order.

I liked somebody's idea to paint it red and rename it the Big Red Machine. Perhaps a Red base and arms, each of the cars are white with red "stitching" painted along the sides of the car. Then each car would get a number of one of the Great Eight, Sparky or one of the pitchers from the 75-76 Reds to identify it. (They may just have to install a separate line for the #14 car). Who knows, if its presented by your local Honda Dealers, they may just be able to get it done.

My favorite memory of my last Disney trip was on this ride. Our son had just turned 1 and this was his first "thrill" ride. I'll never forget him throwing his hands up in the air (uncoached) on the portion of the ride that you go backwards down the hill.

great description of the Drop Tower thingy. There is no way in heck I'd ride it (hate hates; coasters don't bother me but 1 trip on Drop Zone was enough for this guy), but your vivid description left my palms a little sweaty. Enjoyable read.

I may have erred, perhaps the $24 is for 2 hours, seems much better now. However, the website is confusing, so I could be wrong upon double checking. Probably should have cleaned up that portion a little bit more and made it clearer prior to announcement so as to not turn off potential customers before a single snow flake falls.

IIRC, the prices for a single rider at Beach Mountain was $24 for 1 hour(its on the website, but not easy to find) If that is the case, and the prices for Mad River are similar to the prices above for Perfect North they are going to alienate a lot of their potential customer base. The kind that would have made the 20 min track to The Beach, but based upon prices will turn the other direction and drive an hour plus for more tubing at a lower cost. They should also probably have some sort of kid disscount (at least during certain times) I'd consider taking my 6 year old and 2 year old (assuming it was something safe for a 2 year old, don't know if that would be or not) but at $50 for an hour for both of them, plus another $50 for mom & dad, forget about it. I'll find a local hill on the days that it snows and get in 30 minutes of sledding for free. Perhaps that is just the cost of doing business and they'll find a line beating down their door, but from my perspective, you probably won't get me in the door.

Fall sports in Ohio started practice Aug 1 (or at least that was the first day football was allowed practice, a local hiking trail was packed on Saturday as well with local HS kids practicing for cross country), that may put a sizable dent in weekday crowds the rest of the summer.

This is great news; simply under the belief that Murphy's Law always applies, and realizing that the greatest threat to a snow tubing park is weather too warm to create your own snow, having a winter with those conditions beats the snot out of what we had last winter. My dreams of a no sub freezing conditions winter aside, best of luck to The Beach, sounds like fun; may have to check it out and sounds like it will fill a void in that part of the state. Only other tubing I can think of is up in Mad River and out at Perfect North. While I'm sure those tubing coarses are significantly better than what The Beach will offer this winter, having something that South Dayton and Eastern Cincy can reach in half an hour vs the hour + trip to each of those respective places has a chance to be a big hit.

Now them's be fighting words

The first time my son road Racer, that was a concern of mine. The restraint all the way down left a decent amount of room b/w the top of his legs and the bottom of the restraint. Strangely, he was jealous that the restraint came down and touched my legs (and then some) while I was jealous that he gets to experience it like it used to be with the buzz bar. While he was getting used to the ride, his head would dip pretty low. If he could actually make contact w/ the restraint or not with his nose, well thankfully I never found out, but about 1/4 of the way thru his first lap, I extended my arm out over him to keep him from moving too far forward. He's grown a bit since last year, plus he's learned how to ride coasters now that he's taken several laps on each of the 48" coasters, so its no longer a fear, but trust me the fear was real (though I'll admit perhaps unfounded). While at 11 years of age, I'll presume he was a taller than my then 5 year old, stronger as well, but perhaps not, both would have shared the lack of experience riding a coaster. I have seen someone walk off The Beast with a bloody nose before. He may have been Fabio'd for all that I know, or perhaps he banged his nose on the car/restraint or perhaps there was another reason all together.

I just looked at a POV for the first time; as far as one can tell from a POV it looks like a fun woodie. Lots of bunny hills and I"m guessing a good amount of ejector air time; definitely worth taking a ride on. I don't know how a relocation of a wooden coaster would work exactly, let alone one that has been standing neglected for as long as that ride has been neglected, but once you take it appart, by the time you go back to reassembling it, I would think you'd be using a ton of new pieces, dare I say significantly more than a majority of the pieces required to rebuild it would be new. If that is the case, it made me think, wouldn't it be cheaper to just be an identical or nearly identical ride, however who owns the rights to that particular layout, if anyone? Could someone come along and build a clone or near clone of a ride that has been around for a while? If you can't just build a clone w/o permission, how different does the layout need to be in order to claim it as your own? Certainly there are similar elements in many coasters around the world, so there would have to be some degree of separation.

Is this a challenge? I would have assumed one of the branches of the military would have unofficially held this record at one point.

In news cycles, it seems that we have evolved from factual to "first and factual" to just plain first. In this day an age of twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc... its a rush to get the news out the door and into the public's hands as quickly as possible, truth be darned, because if you're not first, its going to be old news 10 minutes later. The general public likely won't remember where they heard the news first, they'd be lucky if they eventual get the whole, factual story before they've moved on to the next news item. Not so much that as the way the news is delivered has changed. Every news organization should be going for the truth. There are a few places who have an ulterior motive when leaving out details or delivering the news with a slight slant (see FOX for a pro-conservative view and MSNBC as pro-liberal). But in reality, the news cycle has changed so so much. 10-20 years ago, you had a relatively long time to get information to the masses with all of the details. If a story broke at 10pm, you gave out some information and followed up the next morning on your morning news or at noon. Now, everyone is clamoring for details and a story needs to go up. Its the truth, but it may not be all of the details. The way you make it sound, is that the journalists are lazy. I can guarantee you that, that is false. Unless you have spent time in a newsroom, you have no idea how hard it is to get an official statement. medical evaluations are often very much speculation when taking eye witness accounts. Very few eye witnesses are equipped to offer up an accurate medical evaluation, let alone when they are standing 5 or more feet away. I dont disagree with this, but by this logic no one but a trained medical professional is equipped to offer up a medical evaluation. Even then, I would say the only person who can say something is broken, is a Dr looking at x-rays. BUT I get it, its easy to comment on the ability of the news people for not having a full story or ruining parks because it fits what most on here want to think is that the media is full of people who are not smart, dont like the truth, and looking to scare people about the parks. Continue on with the news people bashing, I dont want to stand in yalls way. I agree with much of what you said, particularly about news reporters being lazy. I think its the exact opposite, as news is so widely dispersed thru so many different mediums that every story is on a time crunch. Essentially every person walking around has the ability to be a news reporter. Many of us have cameras or video recorders built into our phone, twitter and instagram are often a fingertip away. If you want to be relevant, you have to stay in front of the "man on the street", in that rush, its much, much harder to be accurate, to back check and double check your leads. While technology has made many jobs easier, this is one case where it has made a professional's life more difficult.

medical evaluations are often very much speculation when taking eye witness accounts. Very few eye witnesses are equipped to offer up an accurate medical evaluation, let alone when they are standing 5 or more feet away.

In news cycles, it seems that we have evolved from factual to "first and factual" to just plain first. In this day an age of twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc... its a rush to get the news out the door and into the public's hands as quickly as possible, truth be darned, because if you're not first, its going to be old news 10 minutes later. The general public likely won't remember where they heard the news first, they'd be lucky if they eventual get the whole, factual story before they've moved on to the next news item.

Not a coaster, but since others have mentioned Drop Towers, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Congo Falls. Some say it offers the best air time in the park. Its a point I won't argue against (though I may not fully support either) Ton of fun packed into a short circuit, but well worth the usually non existent que.

OK Terpy or anyone else who knows, how close do the rides above get to their listed capacities at peak times?