medford

I swore the same thing happened to me. I was at a 3 star (much earlier than I would have expected), but with no additional rewards above 2 star status. I checked back a few weeks later and was back at 2 star. I figured perhaps I was just imagining the 3 star status, I had no way to prove it as I had thrown away the reciept that said I was 3 star, so didn't give it much tought. Interesting that someone else things the same thing.

Having money doesn't mean you deserve it any more or any less than anyone else, it just means you have the ability to purchase it. What one person can afford is often subjective (throwing out the mega yachts, mansions, big ticket items that the average person can't afford). I could afford to drive something nicer than a toyota camry, I choose to spend my money elsewhere, the camry gets me what I need/desire. I could afford fastpasses, I go on weekday evening with my wife and 4 year old (and 5 week old now) so the fast pass would provide us limited us, I'd rather spend that money elsewhere than getting on Boo Blasters 4 more times a night. Nothing wrong with being frugal, it will serve you well in the long run. It just means you've decided to spend your money elsewhere on things that matter more to you. While some might desire that fastpass on their 1 or 2 trips a year to King's Island, others would rather have an extra trip out to a nice restaurant, or perhaps a few more shares of stock in their favorite company, or put into their kids college savings plan, etc... Or perhaps they just don't see the value in spending the extra money, they're happy to wait in line for an hour and ride everything once a trip to King's Island. its your money, you've earned it, use it however it serves you best.

How are not able to ride because of the Fast Pass program? Bennett...Cramhole? Brilliant retort, I see your point perfectly! Is that even a question I'm able to answer, say you're waiting for DB at night, and all these people with Fast Lane rush in, and your'e right at the spot where the people stand with their measuring sticks, & they say, sorry we're closed. What I was getting at was people who travel from long distances and can only spend one day at the park get skipped by people just because they can give out more money, comprende? If you have 365 days to plan for 1 day at King's Island, you should be able to scratch the extra money for a fast pass. According to the Website, the Saturday fastpass for $45 is the most expensive one you can buy. If you can't save $0.13 a day, then you probably should be spending the $36 it takes to get into the park to begin with.

So you're saying some people can't enjoy something they may have been wanting to do for a whole off season & may or not be able to ride or do it because they simply can not fork out the extra 35 dollars for each pass so they can also skip line? No, I'm sorry but it just doesn't roll with me. Then don't show up at the park, or perhaps attend on a day when fast pass isn't needed, or just wait out the longer lines and ride things a few less times on a visit. Its pretty easy, the more money you are willing to spend on something, the better opportunities you're going presented with for that money. If I spend more money, I can buy a bigger house, nice car, nicer meal and if I'm willing to fork over a ton of money, I could probably even rent out KI for a day all to myself. If you expect the same experience as everyone else, you're going to be dissapointed with life.

Perfect example of how to pad for more dots. +1

awesome picture. Didn't KI used to have an inhouse helicopter tour? How much was that tour? Something I'd love to do one day, if the price is right.

I thought Cedar Fair took out their cruiseliners last season to create a space for Dinos.

I know it was discussed elsewhere in this forum, but I've got to believe losing Potterworld to Universal was a pretty big blow to Disney parks down there. How many families with 7-12 year old kids are they going to miss out for 1 or more days of their Orlando Vacation simply b/c Harry Potter is huge to them? I can't see Avatar having that same lasting effect, though Avatarland itself may be enough to drive visitors if done in true disney fashion, no matter the success of the next 3 films.

To touch on a couple of things, when he said "a wednesday" I'm pretty sure he was just joking around, but we'll know for sure by the following thursday. If rust on steel was a sign of impending collapse, there are some residents in Kenwood and driving down I-71 that need to get out of dodge. Unless you're standing next to the structure, you have no idea how warped the wood actually is (if its warped at all) If I was in the final stages of negotiating a deal to perform maintance or demolition of SOB's structure, I'd likely have a crew of my own employees, on my own dime, walk the site to check for things that could affect our final bid number. If, and I'll say that's a pretty big if, people were seen "working" on SOB, they could have been mearly inspecting the structure/track to gauge their future work on that ride. That same inspection could raise or lower their price significantly enough to for King's Island to further delay their next decision on SOB. Mother nature is most often not the best demolition crew. Mother Nature may destroy something, but it rarely cares about where the destroyed structure lands or what kind of destruction those falling pieces do. The destruction is the easy part, its the clean up that is costly. Only a controled demolition will allow for the cheapest cleanup and re-use of the materials in the ride possible. Well that or hiring David Blaine to just make it dissapear.

If you move WS to be centered in the middle of action theater, it may have slide over far enough so that you could see it in a dead forward shot of the Eiffel Tower when taken from the center of the fountains, hard to tell for sure using bingmaps. which may or may not have been the original intent, could have just been a coincidence. Perhaps the reason it wasn't placed b/w The Racers is more simple than that. 1) it fits into the space where it is today and 2) if action theater is ever ripped out and something put into its place, there is a lot more room to work there. had they put wind seeker in that spot, it could have cut off an area of the park for future instillation. Behind Vortex, there is a lot of uncleared land with a decent amount of elevation change. Behind The Racer, extending around The Racer so as not to interfer with the atmosphere of The Beast, there are 2 decent sized areas that have been cleared already and would be easier to do any site work for a future coaster,should they choose that location. Sometimes decisions are made not by what is best for the present, but by what gives you the most options for the future.

So the mention that the architecture of one of those pictures was 'borrowed' from the Columbian Expidetion got me thinking of "the Devil and the White City" which lead me to go looking for pictures which turned up this picture of the 1st ferris wheel: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/photo/chi-080926-white-city-photogallery,0,3750864.photogallery?index=chi-white_city_004t20080925210941 The book in and of itself is pretty interesting, but if you want to know a little history behind the ferris wheel and how the desier to top the Eiffel Tower unvieled at the previous World's Fair led to its development there are several good pages in that book.

Never been on the aerial chase (but should soon now that my son is 44") but woodstock express has plenty of room for anybody's upperbody I would think, lots of room there, however on the leg side, the cars are fairly short. I'm not the tallest person in the world 5'9"-5'10" but I usually slide my knees over to my son's side of the seat so they're not banging on the seat ahead. I've never tried the pumpkin coaster (the smallest coaster in the park) as my son rode with his mom the first couple times last year, then his cousin that usually tagged along with us before growing tall enough for The Beastie last summer, at which point that ride was pretty much history. Based upon watching him load, I'll assume size wouldn't be an issue, but leg room could be? At 48" and 6 years old she should be able to handle that ride by herself anyways. Finally, you may be surprised what she'll want to ride. My previously mentioned niece is a little older than your niece but just hit 48" this season. As I said, she usually tags along with my wife, myself, mother in law and our kids. She was pretty excited about being tall enough to ride the big coasters, and said she wanted to ride The Beast right away. I was wondering if she's back off once I got her near the station and she could see the lift hill, but she rode it no fear, and as we were walking off, she asked me what the ride next to it was. I told her it was The Vortex, and she asked if we could ride that next. I asked her is she understood that it went in loops and she'd be going upside down, and she gave me that look that said "duh" while expressing no fear. So after dinner, we rode The Vortex. I was planning to break her in on th Racer, stunt job, flight deck, and Adventure Express, but she had different plans to attack the biggest and scariest off The Bat. The other day, we were all back at the park and she wanted to ride drop zone with my wife. I'm not even sure if you can ride that at 48" or if you have to be taller, but she was all set to ride it after dinner until my mother in law was telling her how her and father would never ride that thing, they're too scared of heights. At that point, she decided she was too scared to ride drop zone that. anyhoo, the point is, let her dictate what coasters she wants to ride if she doesn't know to be scared to ride The Beast or flip upside down on The Vortex, or free fall on drop zone, she may have no qualms about riding anything.

For anyone wondering, Surf Dog was up and running wednesday evening for my 3 year old's first ever ride upon it.

Is it just me, or does the gun on the right side (as you enter) seem like it fails to work about 50% of the time?

Dirt is everywhere, however it is neither easy, nor cheap to move.

Its funny because its true?

No idea if an announcement would be made about SOB in the comming months, and I have no idea what Cedar Fairs typical time of official announcment for new attractions are, but it makes sense to me that you would typically announce any large new attraction for a park around August to help generate season pass renewals as people start to make their last visit to the park for the season. it also gives the family that only makes 1 or two trips a year something to be excited about and put another trip to the park on their calender for next year. Then on top of that, as has been noted by many, Action Zone is the last area of the park that hasn't received a significant facelift/improvement in the park. its obviously due, so any annoucnement this summer/fall is likely going to impact that part of the park. I've mentioned by RC3 (ie perhaps unrealistic) plans for Action Zone before, including taking out Timberwolf, SOB, the go karts and amazon falls. Adding in some sort of upcharge zipline and rock climbing wall, a new large flat, and several coasters to the area utilizing the land currently around Action Zone, and behind SOB. Obviously it couldn't all be accomplished in 1 (or even 5 seasons), but I'd love to sit in on a long term planning meeting to get a feel for all the ideas they have going forward for the next 10+ years.

Keep in mind, there could be all kinds of data they can track to alter the reward system. ie, did you renew your card from last year? Perhaps they bump you up quicker the more years that you've held a season pass to reward your longer loyalty to their brand. How far away do you live and how often do you visit? They could be offering quicker rewards to the guy who lives 100 miles away and visits once a week than the guy who lives 5 miles away and visits twice a week but spends the same overall money, or perhaps they could flip that, and figure the more rewards they give the guy that comes more often, the more long term value they'll get out of him as a pass holder. How much do you spend each trip to the park, how consistant is it, where is it spent? Perhaps they want to reward the family that makes 1 trip every 2 weeks and spend $100 in food each trip to the park (lets say $1300 total over the course of a season) more than the family that comes to the park once every 2 weeks, spends $40 in food on each ($520) then spends $390 on souvenoirs on two seperate trips (ie tshirts and what not at the begining of the season, sweatshirts and whatnot in the fall) for a total of the same $1300. In other words, the rate that you earn rewards may depend less on how much you spend overall and more on what you spend that money on, how often you spend that money and how far you have to travel to spend that money. I have no idea if that is the case, but it wouldn't be that hard to program the system to calcuate your rewards based upon whatever variables they deemed important. This type of setup would also give them the benefit of being able to tweak those variables based upon the information they acquire this season. We're a family that typically purchases a pretzel or two to share on every trip, plus dinner. We usually go on tuesday, wednesday or thrusday evening 1 time a week, just about every week once school is out, we rarely (never) play games, we often get dinner at the park, occasionally ice cream while we're watching the fireworks if we last that long. The cotton candy instant reward they gave me went unused. I held onto it to use on the occasions when my neice was with us, but have since lost it, otherwise I'd have given it to a family that I thought would appreciate the free cotton candy. It would be awesome if next season they had the ability to look at their system and realize what we spend on money on and offer that as instant rewards instead. Since this is only in operation at KI, its obvious we're the guinea pigs this season. They'll use our data to track our spending habits, how often rewards are claimed, what the popular rewards are, etc.. so they can tweak it for next season and start rolling it out across all their parks.

Delerium is going to "loop"

This "rumor" aside, Flight Deck does typically have low rider rates, however if SOB was up and running, I think that ride would be as busy Vortex on an average day (or at least close to it) It faces the challenge of being in the back of the park, with few attractions around it to draw you to the part of the park. Its not a "must ride" coaster like The Beast or Diamondback, it doesn't hit you in the face the way The Racer does as you walk thru the park, many people that would ride it won't go on Drop Zone or the skyflyer upcharge, so it ends up out of sight, out of mind. Now, on to the rumor, there are a ton of holes to punch there. They're not adding a loop to Delirium, why would you extend an unpopular water attraction (amazon falls)? More importantly, where would they extend it to? If they did anything they'd tear that sucker out of there. That's a ton of information to "overhear". All that would fit into an extended conversation (who was he talking to?) with some give & take, at some point the dude is going to look at you and tell you to get out of his business.

Might we have this same conversation in 20 years about Son of Beast? Might there be kids as yet unborn saying they're glad it failed b/c it eventually lead to 2 of their favorite coasters in Ohio? All threads eventually lead back to Son of Beast

this gives me an idea of how KI could add a huge value to their season pass holders at little cost. Have a "coat check" or "bag check" in this case up around the international restaurant. Any gold pass holder can check 1 bag up there for free, as many times as they'd like. I wonder how many bins you'd have to have, put a scannable tag on each bag that comes in, connected thru your pass #. make it such that tips are "suggested" to pay the person covering the area. Standard airport disclaimer how KI is not responsible for the bag nor contents left in the bag to give them legal protection and protection against fraud, and you gold pass just got a ton more valueable for those that like to rent lockers for a day.

My wife went in the morning last year, left for a couple of hours, then went back in the evening when i was joining her and my son. She mentioned that she had a season pass when leaving and didn't need her hand stamped, she was informed that even season pass holders need their hand stamped, they won't admit the same pass twice in the same day (though I'll assume customer service would allow it if they believe there was really a misunderstanding and the pass holder wasn't trying to get one over on the park). The twins might be able to get away with it once, but they're not going to get away with it on a regular basis. They could probably get away with it as long as they both didn't use the pass on the same day.

Agreed, plus if they used the area around SOB or behind X-Base or by what used to be The Crypt, they could combine the key hole elements of X-Base with the terrain and woods feel of Wild Eagle and get something better than the most recent winged riders. Something tells me however, with the winged coaster going up at Cedar Pointe, Cedar Fair will wait a few years (decade?) before adding something similar a couple hundred miles down the same state. Would love to be wrong on that count and see a winged rider standing in place of SOB in 2014 or 2015 though.

Sorry for the confusion, didn't mean last one ever (at least I certainly hope not), I meant the last major coaster (or ride) they built, meaning the next couple roller coasters probably won't be a similar go high, go up & down, turn around come back type ride, something with a smaller footprint, likely some inversions, etc... In other words, I don't envision their next coaster to be a clone of Leviathan (sp?) at CW or Millie up at Cedar Pointe. I wouldn't complain if that were the case, just not how I think things will go. I'd love to see a 4th dimension or winged coaster, a B&M invert, a floorless, etc.. Some sort of family style rollercoaster would seemingly fit the new CEO's message, thinking about the size of Italian Stunt job or Adventure Express A water coaster for Soak City would make a nice addition A new large flat or two in different areas of the park an indoor themed family ride (preferrably water based) would fit the new CEO's message as well or even an outdoor family style boat ride where you don't get too wet (think about incorporating all the dino's into some sort of boat ride) All of the above would require a sizeable investment, and IMHO would make the list of additions to King's Island prior to the addition of something like Leviathan.