medford
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Posts posted by medford
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16 minutes ago, RedSummit20 said:
nice tips, i would say most people on here though have season passes
Probably true, just not the original poster to this thread
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I haven't begun looking into this yet, but wanted to secure thoughts on Platinum + food plans.
Family of 5..Mom, Dad, 14 (in June), 10 (in May) and 6. I'm not sure if the the 6 and soon to be 10 year old can still split a typical KI meal or not. 13 year old definitely would devour his whole meal and whatever is left over.
Typically, we will hit the park once school is out, mid week in the evening, once a week. We will grab dinner, ride rides and leave around fireworks. With the earlier closing times at the start of last season, our typical mid-week evening visit was killed off until later in the summer. B/w baseball and football, we probably have about 6 visits we will be able to work in that way.
We also plan to go to CP for a 2 night-3 day stay like we did last year. 2 mostly full days in the park, 1 day in the water park.
We will also likely visit on a couple of Sundays in the fall, maybe even get the then 14 year old in for a friday night fest in the fall.
So all told, I'm guessing we will be eating a meal roughly 15 times this season b/w KI and CP. I'm going to guess that the meal plan is totally worth the price at that point, but haven't looked into pricing at all yet. Any drawbacks that I'm not considering (short of just not attending as often as I think we will/have in the past)? Any upsides that I'm thinking of? Anything wrong if we just went with 4 plans for the 5 of us, we would likely be grabbing a snack or a dessert that wouldn't be included on many of those trips aside from dinner, so 5 full meals feels like it may be too much food and wasteful.
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I'd venture that you won't find them any cheaper than they are online right now. You can buy 1 day pass and I believe its good for any day you want, don't have to commit to a day at the moment.
Some things to consider:
How old are your grandsons? Are you taking either of their parents along with them, or is this just a trip with grandma/grandpa? have they ever been to KI, or something similar, and if so, do you know what kind of things they are willing/able to ride?
Reason i ask, and I'll assume you are retired or in a situation where you can attend any day of the week that serves your purpose. If you are limited to weekends, then you may want to consider fast passes if a) they will want to ride everything (and are tall enough) and b) you are willing to ride everything with them.
If you go mid week, fast passes won't be needed, but have to wait in a few lines (though typically not too bad).
If they are both on the younger side and you will be mostly limited to Planet Snoopy, another thing to consider is if what hours you would like to attend. Planet Snoopy tends to clear out late in the evening. If you are able to keep them up and in the park thru fireworks that last hour in PS can be a magical time where it feels like you have the whole area to yourself. Woodstock express has often been walkon, and even stay in your seat and reride late in the evening as the remaining families head home or find spots to watch the firework show.
If you plan to go all day, food passes might be a good plan, depending on the age of the boys, they might be able to split a meal. My 5 & 8 year old could last year, my 13 year old....not so much, he would eat 2 meals on his own
If they are tall enough for coasters and its something you want to do with them but they are apprehensive, spend some time checking out POVs on youtube so they can get a feel for what the ride is like.
Have fun, some of my most cherished memories are watching the reactions of my kids the first time they got on a new ride and was able to sit shotgun with them for the experience. Way better watching the joy on their faces than the ride itself.
EDIT:
Another thing I just thought of, is there anyone else aside from yourself that is taking your grandsons along with you? They may want to do very different things. One may want to ride rollercoasters while the other is too nervous (or too short). My oldest was on The Beast, Drop Tower, Vortex, etc... all when he was still 4. My daughter wouldn't touch The Beast until last season when she was 9. Our youngest, now 6 was the kid that would get upset because he couldn't ride the bigger rides that his older brother was enjoying. He's now tall enough to ride The Beast, Mystic Timbers, and Drop Tower once its open on a visit (it was closed the 1 trip we made last year when he finally hit the 48" mark). Begin able to, and willing to divide and conquer the park with more than 1 grownup can make things very enjoyable. Often my wife would take the younger kids and do rides they would enjoy while I took my son on a nearby coaster or two, then once we rode, we would switch and my wife would ride a coaster or two with my oldest while I took the 2 youngest on things they could enjoy. In some areas (like around Banshee) there isn't much for smaller kids so sometimes we would just hang out near the que until the oldest and 1 parent was done with Banshee, bat, etc... but most everything else has something for younger kids close by that you never have to be too far away.
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I think you need a mix of both. Skyline and LaRosa's are your big local chains that may not be available to ever patron that walks thru the doors. Tom & Chee is significantly smaller and my guess is that a large % of the their park regulars have never seen a tom & chee restaurant outside of the park.
Then there is Subway (for now) and Chic-fila Both huge international chains that everyone is at least familiar with, and likely have eaten at. These are good for the people who are picky (little kids maybe) that only want certain things, they know these brands, have had them before and won't eat anything else at the park cause they are not used to it. They are also fairly consistent, you know what you are going to get.
Then there is the KI only restaurants, that offer their own brand of food, things you can only get while in KI and hopefully make the trip special cause you know when you go to KI, you can get xyz that you can't get anywhere else (like blue ice cream, or perhaps a particular dish at the smoke house). There are many people with the attitude that "I can get skyline, Larosas, Subway, etc... any day of the week, this is my one day a month/year at KI, I'm going to the smoke house and getting pulled pork". Personally, I think KI needs a few more places like these, but it makes sense to keep the other brands around as well.
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Anytime I've looked at the POV of Steel Dragon (Never actually ridden it) it has always reminded me of Wild Thing at ValleyFair! (which I have ridden twice (same day)).
I assume Steel Dragon is bigger since its longer, and it appears to be faster on the POV (though i can't say for sure) but it just feels so similar to Wild Thing... Great first drop, epic floater air time on the 2nd hill, a boring figure 8 kind of maneuver in the middle, break run, hit some little ejector air time (similar to Magnum at CP) then continue the small bunny hills into an ending tunnel.
At some point, someone will make a ride longer than Steel Dragon, but to be honest, it appears thru the POV and in comparison to my ride on wild thing to be a far inferior ride compared to Orion, Diamondback, Maverick, Steel Vengence, Millie, Banshee, Lightening Rod, The Beast, Renegade, Mystic Timbers, etc.... basically if not for the length, it wouldn't be particularly noteworthy. Wild thing was enjoyable, but was easily outperformed by Renegade. Only reason I'd ride Wild Thing again is because I'd be willing to go out of my way if every in that area again to ride Renegade; its largely forgettable.
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When I was up there last summer (2 days we were there at early entry, the middle day we were at the waterpark, but could clearly see Steel Vengeance from the water park) It doesn't feel like either of them ever opened up for early ride time, at least not right away, even when the park opened (10:00?) for regular hours, rides like Gemini didn't start running for an hour + Gate keeper was down 9but testing a couple of different times that I noticed) and TTD was down the first 2 days, and eventually opened back up on day 3.
GateKeeper aside, makes me wonder if they had staffing issues (like everyone else last summer) and perhaps they anticipate the same thing this season (doesn't feel like its getting any better in other job forces, so not sure that seasonal park employee hiring would be any better).
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2 hours ago, CoastersRZ said:
Well, at least they are getting a new flat ride along with the additions to Sidewinder. I wish more parks would install more flat rides.
And the flat ride has a name: Mix`d Flavored by Jolly Rancher. https://www.hersheypark.com/explore-the-park/rides/mixd-flavored-by-jolly-rancher Not a fan of that name. I get they are trying to tie into a bran, but seems like a mouthful.
Well of course, if it was any more it would have to be called Hooters; I don't think that is owned by Hershey's however.
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I'm not sure what the above is trying to say.... I'll just add that when I ride with my youngest kids I always make sure they have their seat belt strapped on first then I do mine. The employees do a great job of checking this (and frankly it is overkill on most, if not all coasters) but it gives me peace of mind knowing that I checked it myself as well.
As far as getting kids on coasters, I recommend letting them set the pace with perhaps some gentle nudging where appropriate. I'll never forget taking my niece one day for her first trip on The Beast. As she got off, she looked to her right and asked "What is that?" I told her it was Vortex and she promptly asked if we could ride that. I proceeded to ask her if she knew that it went upside down... She immediately replied "yes" so off we went and she rode Vortex.
My 3 kids were different; oldest has ADHD but has never really minded waiting in lines. We tended always go mid week in the evenings when he was growing up, so the park was never super crowded, but as a 4 year old he was on Drop Zone, Beast, Vortex, etc.... If he was tall enough, he wanted to ride. Our daughter was always scared of coasters. She is 9 now and finally took her first ride on Mystic Timbers and The Beast this summer. She has always been very hesitant, so we've gently nudged her a few times, even offered bribes but she wasn't biting that apple. She has finally learned that she loves a lot of the rides she was too scared to ride the summer prior (though with that being a Covid year, she only went once). Part of the reason why she is more willing; our youngest was still 5 last summer and he was the kid that at 3 was ****ed he couldn't ride the bigger coasters at Dollywood or KI. Thankfully both parks had lots of options, but even on their Dragonfly (similar to FAAC in concept (though much better) at KI) he rode it happily while our then 7 year old daughter stood at the exit side of the station and watched. I think she realized she's too big for much of Planet Snoopy and she couldn't have her little brother showing her up. Neither have been upside down yet, but if the now 6 year is tall enough for anything that will take you thru a loop, he's going to ride it and my daughter will probably grudgingly follow along.
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22 hours ago, KIBeast said:
This is what I found on YouTube
Thanks. That ride looks like it would be really low capacity.
IIRC, it took them a lot of time to get Firechaser express up and running correctly, perhaps there are no maintenance issues since its been going. Either way its a ton of fun. Day I was there, it rained pretty good for a couple of hours early in the morning but once things cleared up the park was empty and everything was practically walkon. Only had to wait a few min for Firechaser express at most, Wild Eagle was complete walkon with less than full trains dispatching. Only thing with a semblance of a wait was Lightening Rod.
I do love Lightening Rod and thankful that it was open and running while we were there, worst thing a ride can be is unreliable; don't want a major attraction to be down when someone has traveled several hundred miles and doesn't get a chance to be on it.
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I was born in 77 and have lived around the park my entire life. Ghoster Coaster is the 1 coaster coaster I have no recollection of. It existed from 1998 thru 2005, which is probably the period of my life that I visited KI the least (would have been a junior in college at Dayton up thru living in the Cincy area then eventually back in the south Dayton area towards the later stages of his existence) but had no kids at the time, nor visiting the park with people who had kids so I likely didn't even enter PS during that time frame. I know I was in the park during its existence because I definitely rode SOB its first year of existence, plus at least once (and I think more than once) post loop. My son was born in 2008 and we started getting season passes as a family in 2010 and have had them since.
I've never been able to find a POV of this ride, would love to see it if anyone has a link. I've seen the pics on RCDB, but that is about all I have.
anyhoo; I'd love to see a fire chaser express clone in PS, or at least something for the 44" or 46" plus crowd, another tweaner coaster for kids to short or too scared to ride The Racer or The Beast, but ready for something else besides FAAC or Woodstock Express. Fire Chaser express is fabulous, but my be a maintenance headache and not worth the investment (or maybe it isn't a headache and totally worth the investment) Relocate Linus' Beatle Bugs and use the space occupied by Planet Snoopy and the petting zoo/stage area. A nice sit down resteraunt and a tweaner coaster plus some other improvements would put that area back up in line with what Dollywood built a few years ago at Wildwood Grove.
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What makes you so confident that its not going to happen? I would think it would take more than $60 per share, but I have no clue at what point the major holders of CF stock would accept such a deal. Lets say it were to happen, would it be a good thing for KI, or a bad thing; perhaps even negligible? If you have an opinion either way, why do you feel that way? Would love to hear people's thought on a potential Sea World takeover and how it would affect KI and other CF parks. Seems like a potentially death blow to King's dominion, I don't think there are any other parks in direct competition.
TIA
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"many believe" is not FACT, is is speculation.
Record breakers are for "fan boys". I get that we are all "fan boys" to one extent or another, but the average KI guest doesn't walk into the park and decide to ride one ride or another simply because its 10 feet higher or 10 feet longer. Cedar Pointe has long been a park that caters to the Fan Boys because it is very dependent on the clientele that will travel from 500+ miles away to spend 3-4 days in the park. KI is a park that very much caters to its niche market, families located within a 50 mil radius of the park who make a handful of trips to KI every summer.
KI and CP serve 2 very different clients. CP gets more bigger investments because it needs those investments to keep the fans boys in Missouri coming back every couple of years for a couple of days. KI gets more family oriented investments cause it needs that family that lives on the 275 beltway to come back 3-4 times each summer.
To get to 3 removals, you have to include SOB. I'd hardly call that fair to call that abomination of a creation CP's fault. So if we are talking about a +3 over 16 years, that is right on par with the typical 5 year development plan you will find at Carowinds, Canada's Wonderland and Kings Dominion, and far better than Valley Fair or numerous other parks in the chain.
You see what you want to see. KI is far more than just rollercoasters and if the Execs are doing anything less than working to unlock the most potential out of each of their parks then they are doing both the company and themselves a disservice. As I said in my prior post, these are no longer the days of Dick Kinzil with a very specific interest in Cedar Point, many of the execs today didn't grow up on Cedar Point specifically, their goal is and should be the company as a whole. I'm pretty sure there would be more than 1 large investor (not to mention SEC regulators) that would be a little more than miffed if it was discovered the executives were doing something other than aiming to provide the best return on their investor dollars. Top level execs typically have stock options in the company, that affects their personal bottom line as well.
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Thanks for that info, that is quite an operation. Do the large "eye" wheels like the London Eye operate on a similar premise? I imagine that would make sense. I could definitely see a scenario where there was something less than a full ride and future riders continually waiting in line.
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On 12/29/2021 at 8:39 AM, IndyGuy4KI said:
My issue with a big wheel is that they are so low capacity. Very pretty to look at though!
Wont argue that point, which is likely why they haven't built on. The return on investment would see to be very low on such a project. Seemingly, it would only work if you had a fancy light package that could be used on it as part of the night time ambience of the park/area it sits in.
I've never been on one of those revolving eyes, how do those work loading and unloading? Would it be possible to install such a "ferris wheel that could just continually slowly rotate, such that you unloaded on one side of the platform as a worker got in and made sure everything was cleaned out, and a new riders would enter the other end of the platform a few seconds later. Kind of like how Boo Blasters never really stoops (or I guess rarely stops). Would that improve capacity? Everyone gets one really slow spin around, and the light package is added for nighttime display?
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The notion that the top execs at Cedar Fair want something less for any of their parks so as to ensure they don't outshine Cedar Pointe is kinda silly. If you wanted to accuse Dick Kinzel of that, OK, I'd get that a bit, he grew up in Toledo and first worked at Cedar Pointe before eventually working his way up to CEO. He has a house just outside its property. Kinzel has since been replaced by a man that grew up in NY, became an accountant and worked for Disney for a number of years. He was later replaced by a man who grew up in Kansas and worked his way up thru the Virginia side of the parks. Meanwhile, there have been rumblings that management is looking to move headquarters out of Sandusky and down to Charlotte. From a pure business stand point, financially I see how that makes sense, its probably much easier to recruit and retain top level employees if they are based in Charlotte rather than Sandusky. One could certainly maintain such a move would take the heart out of the company, but I've digressed from the main point.
The simplest explanation is that CedarFair (not Pointe mind you) game Kings Island a budget and a roughly guideline on what to install. and left it to Kings Island management to take that budget and guidelines and tweak them to what they envision the parks best interests to be. It is in both KI's best interest as well as Cedar Fair's best interest for the park to thrive in the best way possible. CP and KI are two similar, yet very different parks with very different clients. The more complicated explanation is that top level Execs are scared CP would lose its luster to a park 300 miles to its south and therefor prevent that asset from delivering the best return possible.
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I don't know how to cut and paste in photoshop, but using googlemaps, it appears the wheel at Cedar Point would fit rather nicely where the Kill mart building is, next to the 'Tiques and swings
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Seems like we have this debate every offseason now.
1) its not illegal to fly a drone (or a plane) over KI, as KI doesn't own the air space. I believe this point has been put to rest multiple times.
2) KI does not want drones flying over their property, even during off hours to limit any work leaking out to the public before they desire.
3) KI does not want KI Central to allow any posts or links (?) to site of said drone or photo evidence of things going on in the park that have not been made public by KI.
4) KI Central has agreed to this request from KI
Points 1-3 are I believe fact and not up for debate.
Point 4, if the choice of those who run and manage this site, while you may or may not agree to their choice, unless you own or run this site then you get very little say in the decision.
5) Can we just pin this information somewhere to point to the next time this debate comes up?
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13 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:
They're okay, but I just feel that the checkerboards don't fit now as it isn't Paramount anymore. Delirium had its checkerboard removed in 2014 when Banshee opened. Don't want to be negative, but I just feel this is a big missed opportunity to not remove them.
I agree, they have a chance to continue reforming/reshaping that area. With the "darker" themed Banshee and Bat names, they could have repainted Drop Tower something 'darker" and perhaps renamed it something to fit in more with a mid-evil theme. Heck, even the Drop Tower name could have been used, just add some castle theming to the que area.
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Melt at CP had a bunch of the old "you must be this tall to ride this ride" signs around the restaurant. The ones that played up to the them of the ride and were personalized for each ride, rather than a generic "48" marker or whatever height is required. Used to be great as a kid when you could stand next to them eager for when you finally reached the height of whatever character was marking the requirement. I'd love to see those come back to not only The Beast, but many other rides as well. Doesn't have to be similar to the original ones, but something more creative and fun.
Specifically to The Beast, other than some TLC, I'd love to see the water mill work again, at least in some capacity. I also wouldn't mind having its neighbor back as well. Ol' lady was rough (or was it just me) but she was still a site to behold even when they buried her in the ground.
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I don't live too far away (30 min) but far enough away that I wouldn't make an hour visit just to grab a bite to eat and maybe a ride.
However, if I lived in Mason, I could totally see my family swinging in 2-3 times a week for dinner and a quick ride or two in the middle of the week or sunday evenings.
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https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/six-flags-dining-pass
I apologize if this have been posted before, not sure how old this article is. Man got as much value out of his $150 meal plan as possible. I know there are some on here that have snuck in for lunch and headed back to work.
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Is something like this different enough from The Scrambler that it would be a good add for KI? I don't do spinny flat rides, but the breakdance clips I saw looks similar to The Scrambler, but upped up in spinny fun by like a 100 x. Seems like something that could be a good fit, say somewhere themed as a flight simulator program...... If we only knew a park that was hinting at such things
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100% Beastie. Bring back the tunnel!
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On 10/4/2021 at 6:29 PM, ThrillKingsFitzy said:
Flying Ace Aerial Chase. Boring and very very rough. I don’t like The Beast either, mostly because last time I rode on a wheel seat
I believe that is the first time I've ever seen FAAC described as very very rough. I've always found it silky smooth and sneaky fun. Its aim is the 4-7 year old kid and their parents, so I get the boring in comparison to your typical coaster. I've always found it fun.
My worst coaster... Excalibur at ValleyFair! or Cedar Creek Mine Ride.
Meal Plans
in Kings Island
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Thanks for all the responses. Other than our 3 days up at the Pointe, we typically don't spend enough time in the park at any one point to eat 2 full meals. There is the occasional sunday in the spring or fall, but typical summer visit is from 5:30ish to fireworks mid week. With food places often shutting down early mid week, there may not be a 90 min window b/w entering the park and settling in and getting 2 meals spaced out.