medford

Perhaps I shouldn't share our fireworks watching spot, and I'm not sure how the construction/demolition has affected this spot, but we found sitting at the set of tables that sits outside the snack stand next to delerium and before what used to be thunder alley was a great spot. We'd get an ice cream, we were often the only people there, you'd get a nice breeze off of delerium, had a great view of the tower and fireworks. On top of that, we have a young boy that is pretty squirmy, so there was ample room for him to room around where we could keep our eye on him and he wasn't bugging anyone else. international street offers a better view, no doubt about that, but its incredible crowded. This offers a little seclution, still a great view and your pretty short walk back to the front gate.

It looks like there has been a ton of clearing done back in that area. For what, is anyone's guess, but it would appear that a lot of trees and/or brush has been removed out past the old parts graveyard.

I suppose a title along the lines of "the music never dies" may not PC enough considering these artist have all passed away, but something along those lines would have been much better than Rock n' Roll never forgets considering that Whitney and Jacko were not Rock n' Roll guys. However, while I can't say I'm a huge fan of everyone they've included, it certainly seems like a great collection of great performers/singers to emulate, which should make for a great show. I'm sure I'll catch the show several times while eating in there, and I have little doubt that the quality of the show will be strong as always.

I would think a luminosity type show in Action Zone would be better recieved once the Action Zone revamp has been finished, or at least moved a few steps forward.

with the weather being what it is this week (about perfect from my frame of reference, but far from poor in just about anyone's mind), whatever kind of site work and/or foundation work is being performed behind the fence should be humming. Could be a lot of clues comparing the work seen saturday to what is seen this weekend. Heck, may even be able to spot work in progress on friday depending on how they're running their construction schedule.

That would be one giant scuplture to require all of those footings. If you think the board would have remained quiet and patient as signs of new footings show up, then you stumbled into the wrong thread.

I heard they're using the wood for the wood fired grills at the new Reds Hall of Fame restaurant. I kid, I kid. Anyone who saw the videos of that thing coming down realize most of it had to be scrapped, recycled or sold off as souveniors to the general public. Not a ton of it would be in good enough shape at that point to reuse it as part of a new roller coaster design. Given the bad press (as well as the significant cost) associated w/ SOB, the park would be wise to avoid any semblance of the ride going up in the same place, otherwise rumors are going to run rampant in short order that "thats the ride all those people died on" even if no one actually died, its debatable if the ride itself caused the significant injuries dictated by the lawsuit or if it was a pre-existing conditioned worsened by the ride, and the ride it self was completely removed. Put up something steel, and something reliable. The time will come for another woodie in the park, that time is just not today.

An additional comment, I liked how recently (perhaps last week in a season preview article) KI was quoted as saying they had no immediate plans for that area, that they were still weighing their options. Not that I'd expect them to leake out any information at that time, but I didn't believe it then and obviously they were lying, or perhaps diverting as I doubt they're putting in footers, hopeing it works down the road.

if you look at the google maps picture from I believe last season, you'll see that there would have been footings for the 2 light poles in the center of the track, and probably some footings for the canopy area where you loaded. That canopy area sat just north of the traingular grass area that remains. I don't see any signs of any footings remaining, all those other ones are new, and look to be significantly beefed up to support something more than a canopy covering.

I'm not sure if thunder alley would even need footers, aside from the little canopy, the track certainly wouldn't need anything like that, besides in the clearing of that area, the rebar supports sticking up out of the ground wouldn't look like that, they'd be bent and broken for the most part.

bring your pass from last year, pay at the ticket office, and I don't think you have to process anything in the season pass processing center. At least I didn't when I renewed at the park last season.

Another review: http://www.espn1530.com/pages/mo.html If you scroll down you'll see the review as well as a link to a handful of pictures.

Another media review of the Reds HoF Grill, with lots o pictures: http://www.espn1530.com/pages/lancesBlog.html

Nothing against selective, I have no idea who he is and if his offer is legit, but a gold pass can be purchased on line for $100.50 right now (including tax, i don't know?) that's a $20 savings. While that may be a significant price to some, its most definently not worth buying a pass for $80 from someone you don't know unless there is a way to absolutely verify and confirm that it will work for you. Its what some people like to call, penny wise, pound foolish. One should never assume all the risk on an $80 investment for a $20 savings.

sorry for the quote, then failure to put my thoughts after that quote, can't get it to work right, anyhoo: I can't speak for everyone else, but I assume their dissapointment is similar to mine. Its a dissapointment not so much for what fun perks was last season, but for what fun perks had the potential to be going forward. I think most of us understood and accepted that KI was the test market and were willing to put up w/ the kinks in the system for something that only added benefit to us if we used it and cost us no more money than we had originally agreed upon w/ the purchase of our season pass. with that said, he was my vision of what funperks could have been. We'd typically come to the park on a tuesday or wednesday evening. We'd get there around 5:30, head over to Planet Snoopy, my son always wanted to ride boo blasters first. So while one parent took him on boo blasters, the other wheeled our then infant daughter over to the snack line, bought a soda to split, a water for the boy and a couple of pretzles for all 3 us to split. Fun Perks had the potential to track that we bought a couple of pretzels on about 75% or more of our visits. Rather than offering us a cotton candy perk (which was both one of the perks and one of the instant rewards last season), they could have offered a soft preztel perk knowing that we'd get definent benefit out of it and consider out gold passes to be that much more valuable. Now that is our family, another family may have stopped by and got ice cream on 75% of their visits and perhaps one of their rewards would have been tweaked to fit their spending habits. And that is just a small sample of what they could have offered, not only to enhance our experience, but to also encourage us to spend more money in one of their perks. As time marched forward, I could have envisioned a "few tickets w/ a night's stay at breaker's hotel" being one of the potential rewards for a gold pass holder that visited KI as their main park. They also could have further enhanced it, and allowed people to scan their pass each time they got on a ride, perhaps they'd get instant rewards for a front of the line pass. They could have used by combining it with text updates, and perhaps sending text messages to people they know are in the park that they can have an instant "front of the line pass" on a ride in a part of the park were traffic is light, or perhaps a discounted slice of pizza at the festhause if they notice the lines there a bit shorter than they'd like, etc... There was a ton of potential for the system, that would benefit both the park and the end user.

I'm dissapointed that funperks is going away. I never made full use of it, and I realized there were kinks in the process and things that could have been improved, but as the test market for the idea, I accepted that as "part of the process" on something I expected to eventually be rolled out thru the entire chain. In the end, I found the tracking of visits and money spent to be, well "fun". Seeing myself creeping a bit closer to the next level, seeing what kind of perks were available at the next level, became part of my experience while visiting KI. truth is, the cost of many of the rewards associated w/ the perks were minimal. the Free popcorn, popcorn is pretty darn cheap, sure they lost out on the revenue, but the costs associated w/ that popcorn is small. Same things w/ the free fountain pop. Bring a friend for $10?? They're probably going to make more than $10 off that friend once they're inside the park. the behind the scenes train tour, was I gathered a simple trip up to meet the conductor and see the engine up close. May have been a pain the butt to the engineer, but honestly you saw them doing this very politely for small kids all the time. I'd be shocked if this doesn't come back at some point in the future, perhaps branded under a different name, and hopefully incorporated thruout the chain much better, but it seems like a no brainer to me if implemented properly.

The dino blew over in 30 mph winds? How does that happen, that thing should be made to sustain much higher winds than that. We typically get 30 mph winds a handful of times a year, I know we've had them since that Dino was put up front, seems strange that it would fall down now. I wonder if they did something to clean it or repair it over the winter and failed to bolt it down properly.

perhaps we can have a 1 day only, canoe in the internation fountain attraction, the first one to find the lost blue prints wins season passes for this season (or next if they already have one). OK, so not going to happen, but it should be interesting.

Based up the view of the roof joists in a couple of those pictures, I'd venture that its a good bet this is located to the North (?) side of the observation deck where they used to have a circus display (I'm pretty sure this is where SOB is talking about as well). Its been a year or so since I've there, I can't remember if there is an elevator to get up to the observation deck or not. For anyone wanting to go specifically to see this display that may have trouble getting up/down steps (its about a flight of steps if it makes a difference) they may want to call ahead to check that they can get up there for sure. For anyone w/ difficulties getting up/down stairs, the observation deck is pretty small, but gives a great view of the display. However, the place is still well worth it and easily accessable outside of the observation deck. Everything is flat, aside from the steps up/down to the deck. violakat03, if you enjoy model trains, you will not regret a trip to Entrainment Junction. You can probably drop a couple of hours in the place if you do a couple of their scavenger hunt sheets.

I'd highly recommend entrainment junction to anyone. Yes I have young children and my now 4 year old son is the reason I first attended, but the place is remarkable. I'm by no means a train enthusiast, so I think I can safely say that you don't have to be "into model trains" to appreciate the place. You may need to be a model train enthusiast or a young child to enjoy multiple trips, but I think it would be impossible not to be in awe of the scale and effort that has gone into this place. If you have young kids, then you definently want to go, but I think its something just about everyone would enjoy once or twice, no matter how much or how little you care about trains, model trains, etc...

I like how the press release on KI says Dinos Alive allows vistors to "literally" step back in time. I'm pretty sure they mean figuratively, otherwise lines to get into KI are going to be extremel long.

FWIW, WindSeeker at KI was sitting about half way up this morning around 10:00 am. I'd assume going thru testing in anticipation of opening day or perhaps a later opening at some point this season.

You mean like funperks, which is aimed to reward the people how come to the park often and spend more money as oppossed to the people that come once a year, spend a whole bunch of money and never come back? Fast pass isn't about greed, its about giving their customers an option to alter their experience while minimizing the effect on those that choose to bypass the system. If you want a new 300 foot coaster, the park is going to need to turn a profit, otherwise the best they can do is the status quo. Cedar Fair's primary goal, is the same as any well run company...namely to keep their customer's happy. If you can't keep your customer's happy, you end up hurting the bottom line. Fast Pass gives its customer's a chance to enhance their experience, one that their customers can take advantage of, or pass on. I've never noticed significantly longer wait times for any ride b/c a bunch of fast pass users were hoarding a ride. Since the new CEO has taken over, communication has improved, a lot of the small things have been handled better, they provided options to enhance the experience of all different types of guests.

Disney & Cedar Fair run different business models. Disney Parks cater mainly to people that make a once or twice in a lifetime visit with their young children. Trips that are often planned out and budget months, if not years in advance. Cedar Fair mainly caters to people that attend every year, often more than once a season. If you ran a Cedar Fair style upgraded flash pass at Disney, I suspect you'd get many people to factor in the upgraded fast pass into their "cost of vacation" such that the fast pass would serve little use. I visited Kings Island about once a week last year, fast pass was in effect all season long, I never noticed any fast pass user spitting on anyone as they moved to the front of the line. In fact, most of the time, there was little to no line in the fast pass line. One thing I've learned, is to never say never. I may likely never purchase a fast pass at King's Island; if the line for The Beast is too long this week for repeat rides, well there is always next week, however if I were to visit Cedar Pointe, I may consider a fast pass option to get as much bang for my buck for a park I haven't visited in about 8 years. Fast pass does more than "reward people for having extra money" it gives the park goer an option to upgrade their experience. I'm willing to BET there was more than 1 person who cut something out of their weekly budget for a couple of months in order to purchase the fast pass at King's Island for their once a year family visit. I never purchased one last year, but IIRC the cost of a fast pass was roughly the cost of a family diner out to a mid level restaurant (like a chili's or friday's or something), so that if the family of 4 cut out a trip to some local establishement once a month from march thru june, they fit the purchase of 4 fast passes into their once a year trip to King's Island at the end of the July.