Voicetek

When are people going to learn that they just can't enter a restricted area when that ride is running? Kind of reminds me of this brainless maneuver:

My wife and I don't visit the park enough times in one season to make the meal plan worthwhile for us. When we do visit, it's just for a few hours or so at a time. That being said, we've never bought food inside the park except during the Dollar Days. One of the times we were there this past season, my wife was hungry and decided that maybe she'd splurge for some pizza in the park. We walked into LaRosa's and saw the prices, almost $15 for a combo. She immediately turned and walked out. She decided she wasn't hungry enough to pay those prices, and I agreed. We ended up hitting up one more ride then left the park and grabbed some food at Wendy's across the street. There really isn't a happy medium for us. The meal plan doesn't really offer us a deal cause we would not use it enough to get our money's worth and the regular prices are just too high to justify. I'd rather leave the park and eat than pay those prices. We've heard good things about the Reds Hall of Fame Grill, and want to give that a try sometime. Hopefully we'll get to check it out before the end of this season.

I haven't been back there in years. Probably since it became the smoking area. I had no idea they removed the waterfall. I'm curious now what's going on in there.

I knew that! I used to crank that CD in my car and jam to it back in 2000. "If you wanna fly, come and take a ride, take a space ride with a cow boy bay-bay!" Good times

What is camping without a cooler and snacks? My friends and I used to do some hard-core camping trips back when we were younger. We'd drive to a state park, park the car, grab our stuff and hike into the woods for about an hour until we found a nice spot to pitch a tent. Not having a shower...eh, not a huge deal to me. I've been in worse situations. However, a good majority of the fun of camping is sitting by a fire, roasting marshmallows or just eating some snacks and having a cooler with cold drinks (no alcohol for me thanks). The idea of this sounds fun, but unfortunately the cost is way too high and would restrict some of what I find fun about camping. Also, the timing is horrible. I work Mon-Fri, so camping out on a Thursday night will never happen for me. So yeah, looks like I'm passing on this one.

Here's a picture of the fountain. It was added in 1982 as part of the Hanna-Barbera expansion. It featured four control stations that allowed guests to alter water flow and control Yogi on a unicycle, Boo Boo climbing a tree, Scrappy Doo circling around on a carousel, and Jabberjaw plunking into the water. In the center was a jet stream of water that "supported" a ball. a jet stream of water that “supported” a ball. Holy crap I remember this! I honestly had forgotten all about this thing until just now when I saw your picture. This was something I used to do all the time at the park when I was younger! Wow...thanks for the picture and letting me remember a great memory from that time period at the park!

Yeah, I was keeping an eye out for people wearing KI Central t-shirts, but didn't see any. It was so crowded that night and we spent so much time in lines, that I pretty much didn't expect to see anyone from here. Oh well, maybe next time!

Wow, wait amazing role models for their children. Some people really need to learn to practice self-control, especially when our in public. The scene that was caused in that video was just completely uncalled for and crazy. I have no words.

This is SO far out in left field and would NEVER under any circumstances be a reality, but....if I had my choice of a new Kiddy Land, I'd make one based off the Ratchet and Clank series on Playstation. It could be an awesome themed land. First, there are some very interesting characters: They're bright, colorful, and interesting to look at. This is just part of the main cast. However, there lots of various robots and aliens in the game as well that could make some pretty sweet animatronic displays: Also, the scenery in the game is fantastic! From space ports, alien cities, and deserted planets, there would be an endless supply of ideas to pull from when designing the theming of the land itself. Can you imagine a dark ride based on this game? And there would be a lot of ideas for other rides based on other characters or side characters. Like a ride based on Captain Qwark would be pretty neat. Imagine what you could do with that! There is just an endless pool of content to pull from within this game series. I think it would make for an interesting, fun, and unique land within any them park! I know this game series isn't as well known as other franchises, especially Sonic or Mario, but it would definitely be a themed area unlike anything anyone else would have! Oh how I can dream!

My wife, sister-in-law, and I were just talking about these signs Saturday when we were at the park. We were recalling all the different characters used for the different rows. Gosh do I miss those signs! I've always thought they were better than what we have now. I've always been a bigger fan of the characters than the rides.

My wife and I decided to make a trip out to the park Saturday evening and we brought my sister-in-law with us. She hadn't been to the park in a while and decided it would be fun to ride out with us for the evening. First thing's first: The park was extremely crowded. I knew we were in trouble when I got the first glance at the parking lot, then looking up at the sign I saw "Welcome Amazon" and "Welcome Family Dollar (or one of those dollar stores)." First, it was a Saturday and Saturday's are busy enough. Second, it's a midnight closing night, which tends to bring out even more people than a normal Saturday might. Third, there were a couple businesses there with all their employees. Great. 3 individual factors that make the park crowded, and they were all happening at the same time! I knew we were in for quite a bit of waiting when we entered the park! As I mentioned above, we brought my wife's sister with us. It was her first time at the park in a few years or so, and she hadn't gotten to ride Banshee yet. Of course that was the first ride we chose to do. The line for Banshee moved rather quick despite the line's appearance. The ride ops on that ride are really in the groove and do a great time moving people through. One thing we noticed while in line though, the flame on top of the "Son of Beast" memorial wasn't lit. Is it supposed to be on all the time or just at night? Has anyone else noticed that the flame has been out this season? Anyway, amazing ride, as usual and my sister-in-law absolutely loved her first ride on Banshee. Next we decided to hit up The Bat since we were so close. My sister-in-law hadn't ridden it since it had been re-themed and was asking some questions about it. I got to explain what The Bat originally was and why the new name was so important to the re-theme. A great ride and and great park history lesson lol. The line was a little longer than usual, but moved pretty quick. After The Bat, we had an awesome night ride on Adventure Express. It was only about a ten minute wait and was definitely worth it! Even though this coaster isn't huge, it is so fun. It's definitely one of my favorites and I consider it a classic. It's a nice little mine train coaster, but I wish the theming was kept up on! By this time it was pushing 10, and we decided we'd better go get in line for Diamondback since this is my sister-in-law's favorite coaster in the park. Fun TV was calculating a 60 minute wait, but when I saw the actual line, this didn't seem to add up. It looked quite a bit longer than just 60 minutes. We decided to get in line anyway since all the lines were long. After about an hour and 35 minutes, we were finally loading on the ride! Yep, quite a bit more than the projected 60 minutes by Fun TV (we even saw Fun TV show two other 60 minute projections for Diamondback while waiting in line). One thing I want to mention: While waiting to be assigned our seat at the loading station, we noticed the Fastlane line. The guy working that night was pretty much opening the gate for all Fastlane riders as soon as they got there. He wasn't making them wait at all. One time he let 20 people through at once. Then he'd let one or two people from the regular line go through, then as soon as more people got up to the gate in the Fastlane side, he'd immediately jump over there and let them through. We were a little frustrated since it seemed like the worker didn't want the people with Fastlane to wait at all. It's called Fastlane not Instantlane. Heck, even having to wait 10-15 minutes for a seat would be faster than the 90 minutes everyone else was having to wait. There was really no sense in holding up the regular line for 10 minutes at a time while letting a stream of Fastlane people through. It was just frustrating. Oh well, we had an awesome night ride though with some amazing air time! Diamondback is a great ride! After riding, we were very hot and pretty tired so we decided to head over to Planet Snoopy and get some blue ice cream. Gosh do I love this stuff! Now it was about 11:45, and we managed to catch a final ride on Boo Blasters. The three of us loaded into one car, and I was the unlucky one to get a non-working gun. However, I did get some compliments on my Phantom Theater t-shirt by a couple of the ride ops! Yep that's right...representing for one of the best dark rides in that building! Like always, it was a mediocre ride, but nice to sit down and cool off a bit at the end of the night. After blasting some Boos, we decided it was time to leave. We exited the park and headed to our car. Despite all the crowds and only having 4 hours, we did get to ride a decent amount of stuff so all in all, it was a pretty nice trip to the park and we had a lot of fun!

I'm going to add to my list a few comments above. I feel like a dark ride should at least be some kind of ride. It needs to be indoors and for me, it has to move through different rooms or spaces. Like I said with the Alien Encounter, if you just sit in the same room, it's more like a show, not a ride. As far as lighting goes, I don't feel it has to be extremely dark. There are some amazing dark rides at Disney World such as Splash Mountain and Winnie the Pooh that don't take place in completely darkness. Some of their scenes are decently lit so that you can see what's going on. However, they are indoors and they contain just enough light to get the point across.

After reading several comments on here, I want to chime in my with couple of pennies: 1. I never considered Tomb Raider: The Ride a dark ride. I'm not sure what I'd call it, but to me it just doesn't feel like a dark ride. Being inside a big room with special lighting elements, doesn't seem like a dark ride to me. 2. That brings me to this point...I never considered Alien Encounter (or Stitch's Great Escape for that matter) to be a dark ride. I would, however, consider it more of a show. Would you consider the Great American Thrill Show a dark ride? Remember those? You'd stand (or sit) in front of a large screen that would simulate movement? That was a thrill show, not a dark ride. I'd consider Alien Encounter and SGE to be a "Thrill Show" with special thematic lighting and elements. 3. I don't consider walk-throughs a dark ride. The word "ride" is in there for a reason. If you're not riding something (car, boat, train, etc.) then it's not a dark ride. Just like I wouldn't consider The Legend of Jack Sparrow at Disney's Hollywood Studios a dark ride. It's more of a show/walk-through that contains special thematic elements. 4. I DO, however, think that a dark ride CAN have some element of thrill. Would you not consider Splash Mountain a dark ride? I would. However, my mom will not ride that because of the large drop near the end. That doesn't mean that it's not a dark ride. Also, there is a good portion of that ride that takes place outdoors as you go in and out of the mountain itself. That, to me, just adds to the authenticity of the ride. It makes it feel like an actual water way that flows in and around a mountain. In my book, Splash Mountain is one of the great dark rides. Of course, these are just my opinions and are obviously up for interpretation and discussion.

For whatever reason, this summer has seemed pretty busy and my wife and I have only made it to the park once so far. However, with the midnight closing times on Saturdays, we decided to head on over to KI Saturday night. We had some things to do already on Saturday, but figured we could still make it over to the park early enough to get in a good 3-4 hours and enjoy some epic night rides! After we finished running our errands, we grabbed some dinner and got to the park around 8:30 or so. The day had been crazy hot so far, and we were hoping that it might cool off once the sun went down. We walked through the gates and decided to change things up a bit from what we normally do. Normally we go right and go through Planet Snoopy, hit up Boo Blasters, Diamondback, Beast, etc. This time we decided to go left. My wife asked if we should hit up Banshee first. It wasn't quite dark yet and I was hoping to enjoy a night ride on Banshee that night. I suggested maybe we could take a ride on Adventure Express instead and kill a little bit of time waiting for it to get completely dark. We decided that this was a good idea. All day I had checked the weather report by hour. Everything looked good. I was afraid with the humidity being so high, that we'd get crazy storms. So far though, everything was looking clear. We were waiting in line for Adventure Express and watching FUN TV. Interesting enough, a weather report screen came up and pretty much lined up with what my weather app had predicted - clear skies all evening with a possible storm moving in around midnight. A few minutes later we're still standing in line and I notice something through the cracks in the wooden walls....lightning! Lightning? It's only 8:30 and the skies were clear a few minutes ago!!! I was hoping that it might just be some heat lightning and it wouldn't get too bad. Well, we finally made it into the loading station and I noticed that the lightning was getting crazier. Now it was not just flashing, it was striking! I was waiting for them to make the announcement that the ride was closed. However, we continued on, selected our seat, and were seated and buckled. By this time the lightning looked really bad and I was actually getting a little concerned about even riding this ride in that condition. Just about that time, the phone rang in the station. A minute or so later, they were announcing that Adventure Express was now closed due to weather conditions. Dang it! They came by and released out lap bars and my wife and I got up out of the train and exited the station. By this time the wind was picking up and the skies were flashing like crazy. We made a mad dash for International Street so we could get inside the shops before the rains came. We made it just in time! For the next 45 minutes to an hour, we waited patiently inside the shops. They were quite crowded as everyone had the same idea - duck inside the shops and stay dry. After a while, the rain let up and we decided to make our way over to Planet Snoopy so my wife could find a restroom and we thought maybe we could take a ride on Boo Blasters too. After a quick visit to the restroom, we headed over to Boo Blasters and noticed that the rain had stopped and the lightning was back to just flashing. We entered the building to find all the lights on and a queue full of people just standing around. Was it closed? We didn't know. We found a worker and asked them. He confirmed that the ride was, indeed, shut down and that it wouldn't re-open until 20 minutes after the last sign of lightning. After explaining this, a lady, also standing there, asked why an indoor ride would be closed. He explained that when it rains, most people head to that ride because it's indoors. Because so many people pack inside, it becomes a fire hazard so that's one reason why the close the ride. The other reason is because the lightning could cause a power outage and leave people stranded on Boo Blasters. Ok. I had never heard that before. By this time it was around 10:30 and the skies were still actively flashing. 20 minutes after the last flash of lightning might never come. My wife and I decided to just leave the park and try to salvage what was left of our Saturday night. We exited the park without riding one thing. As we headed back to our car, we noticed the lines and lines and lines of people trying to leave the parking lot. We made it to our car and decided to wait for awhile before trying to leave. We watched the fireworks from the car and then decided to snag a place in the lines of cars and patiently wait to exit the lot. 30-40 minutes later, we were finally out of the traffic mess and on the road headed home. In all my years of going to KI (probably around 33 years or so), I have never had such an uneventful visit LOL. The closest we came to riding anything that night was being strapped in to Adventure Express for a minute or two before having to exit. Oh well, at least we got to check out some shops and catch the fireworks show. Also, while talking to the worker on Boo Blasters, he shared with me some info on the building itself and a little bit about the remains of Phantom Theater, so hey, I even learned a little something! I guess we'll have to make another visit soon and make up for this past weekend!

I'm looking forward to watching some on-ride POV videos of some of these rides. Since I will more than likely never make it to this particular park, watching videos of the rides will probably be the only way I'll get to see them. Unless Disney decides to build them here in the US too, which I'm not holding my breath for (ex. Mystic Manor).

^ I'd love this type of ride, but maybe without the inner tubes. I'm not sure how many people would want to get into the water just to ride, unless it was over in Soak City or something. I'd much prefer this type of ride (or as you suggested, a flooded Mayan Temple!) on the dry side with boats like the old Enchanted Voyage had. Now that would be amazing!

I'm not sure. I think it really depends on the person. 11 years ago, I got a back injury from a really bad car accident I was in. It was right at the beginning of May and I didn't want to forfeit my whole summer at KI since I had just gotten a pass. I did, however, take some time off and played it safe. After while working with my doctor and chiropractor I asked them their expert opinion and advice. They informed me to take it slow and sort of judge how I felt. They also advised me to steer clear of certain coasters (Son of Beast was one they mentioned), but felt that some smoother, steel coasters might be ok, as long as they didn't jerk too much. They told me to try one, but if it felt like it was hurting, then to steer clear of others. I took their advice and was pretty much ok. I went in knowing that I was doing this at MY OWN RISK because I was the one who wanted to ride, no one was forcing me. I was fine. I still struggle with some minor back pain to this day as a result of my crash over a decade ago. It's just something I have to live with. There are things that aggravate it - sitting too long, doing yard work, lifting heavy things repeatedly, working out too long, etc. However, I must go on with my life and do the things I like to do regardless of the pain. So I go to KI and ride the rides because it was something I loved doing even before the accident. For the most part my back is fine and I can ride most everything with no pain. However, I'm only 34 and in good shape, so your experience might be quite different. Just wanted to share my story. Do what you think is right for yourself and good luck!

It amazes me that the snapping cable doesn't even seem to phase the riders at all. They remain seated and act calm. Not even a twitch, flinch, or a jump from the sound of the cable snapping and hitting the ground. Heck, it even looks like they're smiling when the ride-op comes to let them out. If it would've been me, you couldn't have kept me in that thing. I would've been clawing my way out and would've probably wet myself. How those two (seemingly) remained so calm is beyond me!

I meant same type of music. I've heard some pop music in Planet Snoopy while walking through. I know it's more than just Kidz Bop. I've definitely heard some Miley Cyrus and wondered why in the world there were still playing her music.

I've mentioned this before in other threads, but I'll say it again here. I absolutely loath the music that's pumped through the park in recent year. It's the same junk all the time in every single area of the park. It's the same stuff you hear on the radio on the ride to the park. Why in this world would I want to come to KI to hear what's blasting on the radio 24/7? I wouldn't. I want music that sets a certain mood. When I walk through the gates, I want to feel like I've left reality behind me and entered a new dimension of fun. I remember back in the 90s, when you walked through the front gates and saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time. They used to play instrumental music and there was something about hearing that music and seeing the fountains and looking up and seeing the tower in the middle of it all. The combinations of those things just made you excited to be there. Not anymore. Now, no matter where you are in the park, you get the same type of pop music. Whether you're on International Street, Planet Snoopy, or Coney Mall, you get the pleasure of hearing Taylor Swift sing about another failed relationship or any of the other similar sounding songs. Now I'm not bashing this type of music. I think there is a place for it and it can definitely be fun to crank the type of music in your car, roll down your windows and go cruising down the highway in the summer time. However, for me it just doesn't seem to fit within the park setting. If I'm in a particular area of the park, I want to hear music that makes me feel like I'm in that area. However, since we are losing the themed lands one by one, I guess it's not going to matter much anymore. I'd really like the instrumental music back though, at least on International Street. I think you need that big first impression when you walk into the park. That's just my two cents.

He actually wasn't a teen. He was 22. Regardless, it's still very sad as this was a completely unnecessary death.

My wife and I each bought a pair of those glasses the first season Boo Blasters was open. They were ok. We rode through once with them and never used or bought them again.

That's it. That's the piece I overlooked. If this was an open car, then it probably wouldn't have been as bad.

"On Thursday, Alton Towers apologized after customers were stranded on a monorail on the hottest day of the year....Around 80 passengers were stranded for an hour on the monorail train in sweltering temperatures of 82F." Wow, sweltering temperatures of 82 degrees! Is it just me, or does 82 degrees not seem too bad for a summer day. Was there something more to that part of the story?

One problem I have with the article is that it makes it sound like it's so miserable to visit a theme park and no one really wants to do it. They mention the sun and waiting in line and things like that. I don't see where those things are keeping people away. I've been to Disney World during one of the hottest months of the summer and it was so crowded you could hardly move. It seems to me like people are still willing to shell out large amounts of money to sweat and wait in lines. Until attendance makes a rapid drop off at parks around the U.S., then I don't see much demand for a virtual theme park. I just don't see how it could truly live up to the actual physical experience of visiting a park like Disney or Universal. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see how it could.