medford

Quick life lesson: The less you worry about other people's opinion of your "style", the more freedom you'll have to live your life in the style you prefer. If you find a "fanny pack" convinent and useful, there is no sense worrying what someone else is going to think about it. But if you don't like the fanny pack, here's an idea, go find a zipable small bag that is large enough to carry any possesions you want to have at the park, wallet, ID, phone, keys, etc... and still fit into your pocket. If you hit up a Dicks or golf store, you can find something along these lines designed for golf tees. I'm sure there are a bunch of other similar bags designed for other uses that can be used for a "KI" bag Then find a clip that you can use to hook that bag to your pocket.

True, but the $100 you shell out for that 30 minutes may save you a thousand or two at the craps table

^^^ been there, done that. Set out for the "5 minute walk to Caesar's" only to find myself taking 30 minutes to get in the door, the scale of everything is so supersized that you don't realize just how big things really are.

I will have to let you know, that a Diamondback restraint DID go up by one click during the 2013 season, my mother's restraint went up a click during the drop, and after that, was worried it may do it again. There was no problem with it, it was just that the restraint was half-a-click in. If it was only a half-click in, then can I assume it didn't go up one click, but rather just went to the spot in its mechanicism that its designed to sit in since it couldn't move to the next spot? Something similar happened to me last season, seemed like the bar had come down farther than it had in the past. I had lost some weight, so I just figured it went down farther b/c of that, however over the first hill it the restraing went up a bit, kind of freaks you out for a split second until you realize its not going up any further. This was a bout a week or so before the thread on this topic was posted on the forums. I didn't think much of it at the time, in fact I rerode Diamondback about an hour later; I figured the bar came down a little further, but not enough to actually click into a new spot, so once gravity took over and my body weight pushed back up on the restaint, it "popped" into the spot it was suppose to be at. Perhaps I should have said something, but I figured it was a "me" issue, not really a ride issue, kind of sounds like the same thing with your mother. With all that said, I wouldn't mind a seat belt attaching to the side of the restraint. Safety on top of safety on top of safety? Perhaps. I trust what the people smarter than me on this subject have told me about the restaint system, heck I even trust terps instance that if you had no lap bar the seats are designed in such a way that you would stay on the ride (I said trust, I'm not going to actually test that trust, at least on this subject) however sometimes a visual safety system helps put the mind at ease, even if the odds of that system ever coming into play are lower than the odds of anyone winning Buffet's Billion. Aside from cost, the only downside is load time, which may or may not be significant.

There is a thread about this somewhere from this offseason if you do a little bit of digging. The Beast had prints on the ground, Vortex had the hand gripping the track logo extending out to the middle of Coney (probably about where the sledge hammer game resides) and Flight Commander had a fighter jet painted onto the concrete to extend the line beyond the que. I don't think anyone could remember any other rides having this, though a few could have been missed.

thanks for the pic. They didn't have the sign on around 11:30 last night driving home from the office, nor was it on this morning at 7:00 driving into the office, I wonder why they turned it off last night.

I can't provide pics, but as of this morning, everything was put back together and some of the lights were on (I assume it still needed to be programmed, tested, have software uploaded or whatever other procedures one most go thru from the point where everything is together and the signs start "working") but it wasn't fully operational. It wouldn't surprise me if the last of the programming/testing/etc... happened this morning/afternoon and the thing was good to go, I would assume they would have most of that software put together prio to installation, and they'd have checked the signs to make sure they were operation before they put the top back on. I was going to post something about that this morning, but didn't see the thread at a quick first glance and didn't get a chance to come back until now.

I don't know what's going on in that area, but that used to be the best part of the park to watch the fireworks from. Not much of a crowd, clear view of the fireworks, breezes coming of Delirum and Drop Zone, plus some ice cream to enjoy from the stand next door, all with pretty much no one else sitting at the 3 or 4 tables that were back in that area. I don't think that's going to be an isolated spot to sit and enjoy the fireworks from anymore.

There is something about watching where you've been, rather than where your going to alters the expierence. The lines for the forward Racer were always a little longer/more crowded, but I personally always preferred the backwards Racer. All though, truth be told, with having it run both ways, I almost always rode one side, then got on the other side. Don't find the need to do that quit as often. One possible reason for having both run forward is that on slower days, they can just shut down one side of the The Racer and nobody is really missing out on anything. If one of the trains ran backwards, it would be harder to shut down one side (presumably the Backwards side) and explain that to your customer that wanted that experience vs the other. I'm sure it saves the park money having both sides of the ride run the same direction.

I don't have any data to back this up, but I'm in your corner, I think it rains about 80% (or more) at some point in the day when Good Friday comes around. IIRC, either last year or the year before was a rather nice Good Friday, I was shocked there was no rain.

So for the first time last night, approx 5:35 Banshee was testing during my drive home up 71N. Watching it climb up the hill, then tumble down the first hill is a thing of beauty, its a unique transition, if you will, to KI and fun to watch. You lose sight of it as it passes towards the ground, but catch it again as it climbs up and over the dive loop, another beautiful transition. By this point, I was too far up the highway to safely watch it go thru the vertical loop around the lift hill or anything beyond that. In my opinion, this will easily be the best coaster at KI just to sit and watch it go thru its cycle. Firehawk is fun, but you can only get a good glance from the Tower or on The Racer unless your back in XBase, you should be able to catch good glimpses of Banshee from several spots in the park and a great vantage point from the Tower.

As the father to a 5 year old who adores KI, I can assure you that the Peanuts connection is a good thing for Cedar Fair. You probably don't notice it, but there is a quite a bit of various connections to The Peanuts in marketing campaigns. I wouldn't notice it quite as much, but every time my son has seen a Peanuts character on TV, in an add, on a blimp, painted on the side of a car wash, etc... he immediately shouts out Kings Island. He's been doing that since he was 3 and first started going to Kings Island on a regular basis. But the connection doesn't stop there with a fiver year old, The Peanuts are timeless characters, characters that both parents and grandparents know and can relate to. You know who spends money in the parks? Parents and grandparents. In my household, if you're on Disney, there's a chance I can relate to the character. Chuggington, Jake and the neverland pirate, some new show my son has been watching in the morning about elephants, etc... beyond that, Disney has a wide arrangement of timeless characters like Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Whinnie the Poo, Tigger, the princesses, etc.. as well a solid handful of more modern day characters from the movies like Mater and Lightening McQueen. I think we can all agree that CF isn't getting the rights to Disney's characters any time soon, so what is left? Nick? KI used to have those, problem is, they're less timely than the Peanuts and not nearly as many grandparents are familar with them. The stuff on Cartoon Network? That's even less recognizable to grandparents as well as many parents of small children. So why does it matter? It doesn't really matter if the ride is called The Scobbie Doo, The Beastie, The Fairly Odd Coaster or Woodstock Express, its still the same ride experience. However, when you go into the shops at KI, is a grandparent or parent as likely to purchase a Tshirt with Woodstock on it or the Fairly Odd parents that they've never heard of? I'm going to guess the prior. Buying clothes for small kids is much more about what the parents like than what the kids like. That changes as the kids get older and start to get an identity of what they like, but as my 5 year old develops his taste for what he likes on his tshirts (Batman for sure, amongst other things) he's also grown into preferring to ride The Beast, The Bat, Vortex, etc.... and spending less time in Planet Snoopy. The other issue you have, and I'll highlight The Fairly Odd Coaster name, when was the last time they made that cartoon? Does it air on Nick anywhere? I honestly don't know, but I suspect like the Rugrats and other cartoons of Nick's earlier days, they've lost relavance to today's young kids. There is a cost associated with having to change the names of a ride to bring it back to relavance with today's youths and what they see on TV. They'll never have to change the name of Woodstock Express as there will always be a connection to something seen on a fairly regular basis to multiple generations, and most importantly to the generations buying the tickets and tshirts to the park.

yes, yes he did. I'll point out here, as Terpy did in that thread, that obtaining the rights to Scobby and the gang will be about as easy for KI/CF as it will be for me to win $1 Bill from Warren Buffett in his NCAA poll.

Since Femme Fatal is a Haunt attraction, and the map that they've included in academic days packets isn't labeled (ie its not the final, official park map), I wouldn't read too much into it, they could be leaving off that map since its not part of the regular season and wouldn't be open to any students attending on academic days. It may still show up on the Haunt map, that won't come out until the middle or near end of summer.

I think a Ferris Wheel approx. 88 feet tall would be a nice, historical compliament to the park.

So you're saying people are allowed to have their opinion, but nobody can opine upon said opinion? Now that is what I thought message boards were really for; otherwise it would just be a lot of 1 message threads.

A. Posting from a bouncing Metro car is fun. B. Perhaps Club Blood intervened. Are we back to posting from a bumpy road again? What an offseason it truely has been.

Honestly, then that's on you. Its not like KI did something to miss lead you, they announced their new show on facebook, people shouldn't have been expecting something "big". I think Don recognizes the love of the Eagles in these parts, if something like that was coming back, I'm sure he would have played it up a lot more. Its one thing to hope that a seemingly small announcement is going to be something that you really, really love, but you have to prepare yourself that its going to be something more "standard"

I'm excited by this. I love Cirque shows, I've seen about 5-6 of these. For the person who mentioned them rollerskating over the hill, I'm guessing there is some cool stuff happening on the other side of the ramp. I'm guessing that's a small sample of what will be a 35-45 minute show.

Don't know how the timeline on these things work, but it would be fitting if they the first run of Banshee were to happen on St Patty's day (Monday)

Nobody honored that great man more than I, but they couldn't really do that show forever... Vegas does....or so it doth seem. Vegas also doesn't offer season passes....or so it doth seem. I've heard of people getting a "pass" to go to Vegas; never heard of anyone getting a "season pass" to go to Vegas. As far as replacing Ed Alonzo's show, I think it would be pretty awesome if they could do something like the ShadowBox Caberet in there. For those that haven't been (I'm not even sure if it still exists in Northern Kentucky and Columbus or not) it was a mix of live, part improve part sketched comedy mixed in with live music/singing. The people doing the improve were also the same people playing/singing the music. They'd have to tone it down a bit to make it more family friendly for KI, but I wouldn't imagine that would be too tough. Something like that would be awesome. Personally, if they could find a way to run the Blue Racer backwords again, might be more thrilled about that than the installation of Banshee. It ran that way for what, 20 seasons (guess)? so it obviously works, even if they had to modify the trains. Of course getting new trains or modifying the existing ones to get PTC to sign off may not be a cheap endevour, but I adored the Backwards Racer.

When I see something that says "appeals to guests of all ages" I don't immediatly think "ride" I don't recall if the Eagles or anything like them have a height restriction, but there will be many rides my soon to be 2 year old won't be able to enjoy. And you won't get a lot of grandmas and grandpas on a ride that spins a bunch like the Monster (no height restriction), etc... I could see something like the carousel or more specifically the organ for it as something appealing to guests of all ages. The show lineup would also be something that would work, or perhaps the return of the clown band or something along those lines. I'd love to be wrong, thrilled actually, but I just don't see the return of the Flying Eagles this season. Sometime soon? I think that is very much a possibility.

Obviously you are more up on this than I am, but my viewpoint (perhaps incorrectly) from reading the tea leaves is that Cedar Fair will treat its 5 biggest parts on a 5 year cycle, 1 big ride each over that 5 year park. Knotts is in a different catagory as it open year round (or perhaps close to it, I'm not sure if they shut down for maintance or not) while the others are smaller revenue generators and will see "major" coaster installations on a less frequent basis than the main 5. could be wrong, I'd be happy to hear other thoughts on how they'll spread their development around, obviously return on investment is the primary objective.

I doubt anything Haunt related is specifically holding back development in any of the spaces they currently occupy during the haunt (ie the theater, the Crypt building, the other half of Boo Blaster's building, SOB station, etc...) More than likely, there are no projects that have been floated that they feel would give them a decent enough return on investment to transform those buildings into a new whole season attraction. So while they are no longer being used for regular season events, it makes a convinent place to hold a Haunt where props don't have to put up/taken down every year, as well as a storage facility for the regular season. As soon as a project comes up that can make better use of those spaces and provide them the return on capital that they are looking for, they will move/get rid of the Haunt attraction in favor of the attraction that can be used from April thru October.

Its a beautiful thing when pigs fly, but you do realize there is a huge elevation change in the areas you are propossing for that concourse? X base does need some attention, the simplist long term thing (in my mind) is to do something w/ the maintence shed area and relocate the work done there to other areas in the park or find a way to hide it amongst a handful of flats (and a restroom) back there. If/when they get ride of Dino's Alive, they could use that area for a small coaster with lots of elevation changes. However, my guess before any of that happens is something simple back in Planet Snooopy, the Flying Eagles would work great there, perhaps clear out snoopy junction and put the eagle there, if they're willing to sacrafice some of the picnic area, they'd probably have room to install another small kid friendly coaster as well back in that area. 6 flags ignored that KI calls Surf Dog a coaster and claims to have the most coasters in their kids area at one of their parks (I forget which one is getting an additional small coaster in their kids area). While KI would like to say they are (or will be) tied w/ KI's coaster count (4) in their kids area, why not remove all doubt and put in a small launching coaster, kind of like firechaser express? That area could use a few more things for the in between crowd (ie b/w 42" and 48" where you can get on The Beast, Vortex, Racer, etc...) In addition, the one thing the water park is missing is a water coaster. Even Great Wolf Lodge has one next door IIRC, and based upon the price tag I saw for Mamoth, they are not all that expensive (in comparision to Banshee) The next big coaster addition along the lines of Banshee likely won't happen for another 4-5 seasons. CW got theirs 2 years ago, Cedar Pointe got theirs last season, KI is on the docket this season with Banshee, Carrowinds is presumed to get one next season (Centurian) then Kings Dominion will be due, then back to CW and the cycle will repeat.