disco2000

Wow exclusive photos - were you the only one on the tower or got an exclusive trip up prior to park opening and have now blocked off anyone being able to go up and take the same general photos? (and I know it is may seem petty lol, but "media" outlets should try to be accurate in what they present or risk not being taken seriously...)

Given it will be closer and taller than Diamondback to all the homes being built to the north, I would be surprised if sand is not added...

And other than properly disposing of trash in trash bins, they would rather it be in the parking lot than tossed out on the interstate or along any other streets...

The 2014 season started without seatbelts but were installed on Diamondback within the first operating month that year. Initially there was a delay, but it has improved since. The seatbelts were installed for valid reasons. The first reference of Diamondstack on this forum was June 16, 2013, but was used prior to reference here and had stacking issues long before the seat belts were installed. One can search this forum and find where people have done some unofficial timing of dispatches and see that the seatbelts have not increased the dispatch times...ride op records would confirm this as well...as many have said in the past, for the most part delays are guest driven with issues other than seatbelts... And as Brad has said, we really are spoiled at KI in terms of ride ops pumping out the trains...I have seen many on here that haven't been to other CF parks and purchased a platinum pass to visit other parks next year...wait until you see other parks and compare. It will give you a newfound appreciation for Kings Island.

Copperhead Strike closed due to apparent rider injury while on ride (probably trying to find something to hold onto during one of those inversions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBEWGoDcNZ0

I saw a similar issue in Mystic a couple Saturday nights ago - some young punk lit one up and was a very strong smell. An older man asked him politely to put it out and the punk basically told him to buzz off. When they passed in the queue again the older man asked again in a more vocal voice to put it out and again the punk was like buzz off. Then people started chanting "PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT" and after one cycle of that his friends he was with shamed him into putting it out. So, seems like "PUT IT OUT" shout needs to start to get people to back you up!

As long as the net decrease in revenue from switching to game cards is less than the "loss" when they had to handle cash, you will see cards continue...

I think the previous reward program FUNperks was better than this one in terms of rewards, but it was based solely on how much you spent in the park and not visits alone. This current version is basically what was available in the app for those that used it while in the park - at least those you actually got if you opened the app while in the park. This current one has provided rewards to people that haven't visited the park and provided nothing to those over 40 visits, offering deals on meals to those with meal plans, etc. As someone pointed out above, better to have no reward program than this one that just comes off cheap. I guess if they keep Beta testing, eventually something good will come out of it.

Already more offerings here than the Pass Perks And the season pass since 2008 obviously goes back to the Cedar Fair acquisition, even though someone may have been a passholder longer lol...

This happened to a very good friend of mine after riding The Beast last year - spent 3 days in the hospital. It is called spontaneous pneumothorax and apparently tall and skinny people are more susceptible to it, which this person certainly fit that description. To be clear, people susceptible to this it can happen for no reason at all or it could be a car ride, running, jumping, etc. and may never happen again. Happening while on a roller coaster is simply wrong place wrong time and was going to happen anyway it just happened to be there.

Again true lol - math is harder in the morning...ok those so obsessed with 2.999 versus $3.000 are the same ones that say give me "$10.00 on pump number 3" instead of just filling 'er up lol

True lol and further validating my point that if you purchase 10 gallons you will pay the same whether it is $2.999 or $3.000 per gallon as our money does not go to three decimal points lol, yet most will seek out the $2.999...

They also have a lot of wax on those floors so they do look wet even when they aren't...and the floor pattern really exaggerates this look.

In the words of Terpy, 100% is an absolute and not accurate representation either. You can tell which staff are completely sold on selling this coaster and which ones feel like they are selling something short (no pun intended lol). Even ride op spiels are making fun of it lol... Yes, all they have to do is mention the 300 foot drop, but almost all their marketing shows the various hill heights, which then raises the question. Go ride Eiffel Tower and there is a stat sheet posted for Orion showing all the hill heights and that is what the people riding the tower focused on instead of the 300 foot drop. Marketing 101 - don't give them reason to question something - so don't mention the lift hill height - leave it off! Focus on the positive and simply say 300 foot drop in big bold letters and be done with it. There was a reason why the announcement video didn't mention lift hill height! The general public doesn't care about the heights of the other hills unless it was SOB where two of its hills held the record for tallest wooden hills and taller than any other wooden lift hill lol! But as I said at the end of my post, people will still buy passes and people will still come to the park, and this ride will be a crowd pleaser with some of the longest lines in the park for years to come, so it doesn't really matter...

I get that they can't please everyone, but if their 5 year plan in 2015 called for a 300 foot tall coaster in 2020, then a 300 foot tall coaster scope item for this install should have been nonnegotiable from the very beginning. I highly doubt the 5 year plan called it a "300 foot drop" coaster. When B&M came back with 287 feet in a schematic design meeting, KI should have questioned that and maybe suggested lowering some other hills to make that happen within the budget. They made it a harder sell for the marketing team. Especially with stat sheets pointing at the obvious. Engineering it 300 feet tall from the beginning and shaving 30 feet off the 207 foot hill and 20 feet off the 174 foot hill would have provided a better ride experience in my opinion on those two hills and would have been cheaper and would be more marketable.... We got the floater air Diamondback already, so shave off the height of some of those hills to give us a different experience. But it is more than "just to keep enthusiasts from arguing." Perception is everything and this is one item I believe within the budget could have been accomplished more so than lots of other complaints and not sacrificed ride or theme experience. From a psychological standpoint, $2.99/gallon of gas seems less expensive than $3.00/gallon to most people. One of the reasons why everything is priced just under a threshold number - businesses know that people tend to round down when looking at a number, thus a car is $24.9k instead of $25k - sounds a lot cheaper. Same with this... Most of us will never be privy to those discussions and most here are armchair coaster designers, but when it is that close and B&M had already successfully met a 300 foot lift hill, then why? But most of us will agree that regardless of the height complaint, passes will still be sold and the naysayers will still come to ride anyway, so in the end it doesn't really matter...but the "is it a giga" debate will live on...and of course now for years to come people will be asking when does KI get the coaster greater than 300 feet tall.

I knew what you meant and was trying to add to it and agree with additional context...but yeah they really brought a lot of this on themselves...as I said in another thread, they should have taken some height off the other two largest hills and added height to the first one to get to 300 so that the argument on if this is a giga wouldn't exist (and it may have reduced costs or have kept in same cost). There would still be the "it isn't a world record giga" argument but you can't please everyone...

Despite the negative comments, Orion287 will be a popular ride and I suspect its ridership will exceed that of Fury325. Look at the disappointment in so many from Mystic Timbers at KI and Maverick at CP at their respective announcements and off-season until the ride could be rode. Many people consider these the best ride in their respective park. I don't know if this one will take that unofficial title, but it will come close. Am I going to ride and love the addition to the park - ABSOLUTELY!!! Would I have made some modifications if I were in charge - absolutely... Personally, I would have liked to have seen them shave some height off of the 202 foot and/or 174 foot hill (does it really need two hills above 200 feet?) and added 13 feet to the first hill to make it at least 300 feet - probably could have even saved money then. Give us some ejector air and remove the whole "is this a giga" debate altogether! Taking this whole height/drop thing further, based on the whole meteor impacting video, and given they are dropping more than the height, I would have rather seen the ride be named/based off a meteor and imagine the theming dropping into a crater (that would not have been that expensive in theming on the ground), maybe have it go underground a bit right there and then be a terrain coaster so that from most of the park all you really see is the first hill and then light up the drop to look like a meteor/shooting star - so the light package would be on the drop and not the lift! and with a camera at the end of the first drop it would look like an impact flash at night! The speed of that, along with the perceived speed increase being low to the ground flying past trees would be incredible. Now the reason I believe this wasn't a terrain coaster and why my suggestion wouldn't work with ejector air lies in the restraint system of the current B&M train. Not many people realize this unless they have rode it or talked to people or looked at off-ride video, but Intimidator305 (I305), which many call one of the most intense coasters out there, and certainly the most intense giga, has over the shoulder restraints. Think about that for a second - a roller coaster with no inversions or loops has over the shoulder restraints. There are probably more looping roller coasters without over the shoulder restraints than there are non-looping coasters with over the shoulder restraints. If our coaster was a terrain coaster, the restraints would have needed redesign. I believe B&M will save that redesign of their trains for a world record beater when and if that ever happens... At the end of the day, after months of people complaining during the off-season (which there are just a certain percentage of complainers regardless), come April those thoughts will mainly turn into cheer and joys for the fun and excitement of this coaster. It will be a re-ride machine.

And if Intamin was smart back then and trademarked "giga" "giga coaster" (or maybe they did lol), then this argument would be non-existent...as BoddaH1994 says, we are back to B&M classifying Orion287 as a hyper... Another argument is giga is 1 billion units, so unless we talk about nanometers, giga is probably the wrong term anyway for Orion287... And aren't people glad CF didn't actually add the number to the name lol... Let's face it, at the end of the day Orion287 will probably have the longest lines at the park consistently and I think it's ridership number will be larger than Fury325. The public will still come to ride regardless, look at Mystic and Maverick as examples of rides that got negative comments at the announcement...

Knowing Terpy, I think his comment about digging a hole was his way of saying in reference to what others have said about not wanting to go above the Eiffel Tower..yet Drop Tower is taller than Eiffel Tower by 1 foot...but I get the point people are making - WindSeeker and Drop Tower are thin cylindrical rides that do not overtake the look of the Eiffel Tower. A coaster greater than 314 feet would...I think people have already confirmed that with current technology on roller coaster heights that there is no FAA restriction, so they could have gone higher if they want to. But the coaster wars have been basically over for years now...in recent years a Cedar Fair record breaking coaster has only been broke by...another Cedar Fair park....who owns every giga in North America...um Cedar Fair - not Six Flags, not Busch gardens, not Disney, not Universal...and that all but confirms that the industry has ended the coaster wars for now (it will make a return as these thing are cyclical), but for now, their data and analysis of the numbers are suggesting that is not what brings in the attendance and revenue and we will see that reflected in Cedar Fair offerings...

And Wonderland had to retroactively add sand to Leviathan to quiet it down after it was operational due to all the new houses being constructed across the street...even though the park was there first...

Diamondback is operational today.

287 feet tall

Admit it, most thought the person that posted that was trolling...new account...something is going on in FoF...started off with "This is my first post on here."...smelled like a troll from the beginning

It will be interesting to see the net result of this option in both revenue and attendance. Many people in the area only go to Cedar Point but purchase the platinum pass for the free parking. These people will now have a less expensive option for 2020. The gold pass at a lower price point than the platinum may entice new passholders that didn't want to buy a platinum pass just to go to Cedar Point. From a revenue standpoint, they need to roughly get one new gold passholder for every platinum passholder that downgrades to the cheaper gold pass option or they lose money on this option. However from an attendance standpoint, every new gold pass sold is a bump in attendance numbers. Lots of other factors come into play here, but in theory this could turn into less revenue with a bigger attendance number...per cap spending will be telling next year...

If the trims break, there will be some sparks