medford

So you're saying I can only go x times a year? But I live around the corner, I want to come x+y times a year. Why do we have to pay extra money just because our child is special needs? Just playing devils advocate, but in light of the Disney situation, I imagine its situations like these that the park would like to avoid. In all honesty, the policy, as outlined above, is the fairest system for all involved, both those with special needs who find moving/waiting in lines to be a difficult venture, and the general park patrons. the one time I've seen something implemented for someone w/ a handicap, I thought it was extremely well done. I was taking my niece on Diamondback last year, we were waiting for our seat assignment while I noticed a ride op roping off a row of seats. We went to the row directly behind the roped off section, while I was standing there wondering why those seats were ropped off. When we got on our train, we discovered why that row had been ropped off. A femal couple came from the exit area and boarded the seats in front of us. In all honesty, I have no idea what their handicap was, though not all are obvious. At any rate, as soon as our train got back to the station, the rope had been removed and people were waiting in line to board our train (and I'll assume the similar seats on the 2 trains b/w our loading and exiting). The whole process got the couple on board quickly, it prevented anyone from standing in line, assuming they were getting on the next train only to be asked to wait an additional train, and at the end, everything was quickly back to normal. Welld one all around.

My guess why not, is the obvious question of how long would it take for someone to bring someone with an "alleged" disability to get discounted fast pass lanes? As we've seen in Florida, how long would it take a group of 8 to pay a handicapped person $30 to come to the park with them for 30 minutes, get everyone a discounted fast pass ticket, then head back home while the other 8 proceed on their way of fast passing?

I think that is a fair question. I don't know what rides are involved here, but what if we're talking the mid course break run on Diamondback, having to get a distraught, unconsoulable guest down that flight of stairs? or having to get them back to the park from the 2nd lift hill on The Beast? As has been mentioned several times, KI is in a no win policy on this regard, I can see why they've gone the direction they've gone as it makes it the most fair for everyone involved. They are an amusement park, they can't be, nor should be everything to everyone. Reasonable accomidations, absolutely

thanks for sharing; I can't imagine how difficult that situation is, how fustrating it is, how much strain it puts on your family.

Knowing your love of Coney, and learning about your love of trains, take a couple of hours some day and make it a must do. You'll be kicking yourself for not taking the time earlier.

Very severe cases, like my brother, have no concept of time. I guess I'll have to ask, since you said you had a brother, what do you do b/w rides? My thought, if I was in that situation, that I'd go up to the ride, get the pass, while my wife did whatever was readily available with an autistic child, then we'd all go up together in the 15 minutes or hour or whatever. Of course then again, an autistic child may want to do The Racer now, and there is no diversion good enough to satisify them for however long the wait is.

I would say these footer are definitely built for a B&M. Compare the bolt pattern I walked past Sling Shot the other day, paying specific attention to the footers. That triangular footer looks significantly different than the footers for Sling Shot. On top of that, with all that land they cleared, spending money to move Sling Shot about 20(?) feet further east makes very little financial sense to me. If your architects aren't creative enough to use all that cleared out land, well me thinks you need new architects.

I respect the difficulties with the unexpected change; and I've never had to deal directly with an autistic child/adult so I can't say I've been in their shoes. However, with that said, I would think (correct me if I'm wrong) that as long as you know the current policy, you should be able to work around it as a parent. If its a 15 minute wait for The Racer, you go and get your pass, have your child do something for 15 minutes, then board the ride. I can see several difficulties with that, namely I imagine for people with severe cases, you'd have to have one parent go up and get the passes, while the other parent was with the kid doing something different. Its not always possible for both parents, or multiple people to be there w/ the autistic child. Its a no win situation for the park, as soon as you make accomidations for one person, you have to start making accomidations for everyone. Where do you draw the line? You change your accomidations from what people are used to from the past, and people complain.

I think this was mentioned on here in the offseason, though I'm sure many missed it. I'll reiterate, as many did on that thread (could have been on another board, can't remember for sure), if you get the chance to take in entertrainment junction, you won't regret it. I'm far from a model train fan, on the surface, there is little about entertrainment junction that would be "up my alley" other than having a young son that loves trains, which is why we originally went. However, it takes all of about 5 seconds into the display (and at that point you're only seeing like 2% of the total display) to fall in "awe" of the place. The amount of work, the amount of detail is absolutely incredible. It may not be something you need to see annually (unless you're like me and have small kids), but I think everyone would enjoy a trip at least once, and likely a repeat trip every couple of years as they continue to make improvements and changes to the layout.

I would hope that the default fail is to have the riders in the upright position; while the mechanical action will force the rider into the vertical position. If not, well I couldn't imagine hanging face down, 300 feet high for 1 second, let alone 1 hour.

there are some rides i won't ride b/c the spin too much (monster/scrambler/etc...) or b/c of my fear of heights, not related to roller coasters (ie drop zone, WindSeeker) but my least favorite attraction is one that applies to KI's smallest guest. Snoopy's splash pad, I can't say enough how idiotic I think it is to have something designed for 4 & 5 year olds, that isn't exactly condusive to your average adult guest, where the 4 & 5 year old (or younger) enters the attraction on one side, and exits the attraction on the complete opposite side out of view from the parents waiting at the entrance. Which means the parent either needs to walk around to the other side of the attraction (and since my son typically gets out of this before I can walk all the way around, hope that their kid walks the same direction), or wait at the entrance for their child to walk around themselves. Just a terrible setup, something that could be easily fixed.

If you build it, they will come Ray, they will most definently come. this settles it, they're building a hospital for Moonlight Graham, I mean somebody's got to treat those lingering injuries from SOB

yikes, I rode drop zone once, will never ride it again, safe to say, I'm never getting on that thing. Cool concept, hindsite being 20/20 I'm surprised its taken so long to go from a drop zone style ride to something along these lines, though I suspect capacity is much lower on this than a drop zone style ride.

I can't recall if it was google maps or bing maps, nor do I know if this is still possible, but the birds eye view as of last year on Son of Beast would show the loop at some angles, zoom points, and dissapear the moment you turned or zoomed out. Similar story with Diamondback, which was there at some angles and viewpoints, then in the middle of construction the moment you moved or zoomed out/in. I found that kind of fun.

Don't know if this is in the works, or even possible, but one thing he did hit on, that I'd love to see, in a new path behind delerium (and slong shot) connecting AE's entrance w/ the Action Zone reboot.

Assuming Don has seen the layout of this thing and knows most (if not all) of the details, its gotta be fun sitting back and reading thru this thing. I find it interesting that he popped up to confirm, once again, that SOB station will be used for a haunt attraction (and indirectly stating again that it won't be used for this ride) but hasn't perked up on much else. I wonder how many times he's been tempted to tickle his keyboard, tossing aside another WAG, or clueing in when someone might have hit a chord. FUN, FUN, FUN times for him I'm sure, but I'm sure its equally fustrating at times not being able to give too much away until the proper time.

Some things I've learned in life, Everyone's got to have a hobby. As long as your hobby is both legal, and inflincting no harm on anyone else, don't waste time worrying what anyone else thinks of your choosen hobby. Everyone's weird in their own little weird way. If we weren't, life would be boring. Some people like to troll message boards, that's far weirder to me than riding a classic roller coaster 11,999 times, but to each their own.

thanks, good to hear.

Was the ride up and running later in the day? My 4 year old son is ever so close to hitting the 48" mark, he's going thru a growth spurt and seems like he might be on the same track as season's passed, hitting a "key" KI height mark right around his birthday in late June. Unfortunately for me, my wife gets to lay claim for his first ride on The Racers, beast, etc... Adventure Express may be one of the ones I get to take him on for his first ride. Hope AE is up and running shortly.

Son of screamin' deamon? Awesome.

I think it's mostly the same, just made to be mass produced rather than made to order, crust doesn't taste as fresh either which means its not as good, not that it's great to begin with. Sauce is still great

I'm going to take a wild stab and guess LaRosa's Pizza and Prairie Farms ice cream cones. Call me crazy, but I feel pretty confident in those guesses.

I'm guessing there's a large demand for food shortly after the fireworks end. However, inside the park, many of the restaurants start going into shut down mode prior to the fireworks, meaning that anyone with the munchies is left to fend for themselves outside the park. Have you ever see the drive thru lines at Taco Bell & McDonald's around 10:30??? As things worked out, we didn't make time for dinner in the park last wednesday, so when we left around 9:30, we decided it was too late to hit chipotle, which we've done several times in the past after leaving the park, but never that late. We decided to go into McDonald's for a quick bite to eat. When we left, the drive thru line was 2 cars wide, probably 20 cars deep and pretty steady (part of the problem is likely due to the poor service we recieved inside the restaurant which I'm sure trickled out to the drive thru lane, seems like there were a lot of new workers on that shift, probably fresh into summer break.) Pull that thing up to the front of the park around 9:00 and let it sit there serving the masses until the park is done flushing out and they'll make a bunch of money. Smart move, would like to see them incorporate a couple different food trucks. The good news, is that at the end of the night they can be driven back into storage/cleanup-prep for the next day, which will take away from the tacky look they provide when guests are arriving at the park.

A good truck, just outside the main gate for when the park is closing down is a great idea.

Missed it by "that" much...