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Well, not exactly. As mentioned above, at Universal, you aren't getting in line for a coaster with a cell phone or keys in your pocket, zippered or not. I do agree that planning ahead can fix things most of the time.

I'm not sure when they actually got put in, but I found an article dated April 2015 talking about them going in.

While not Cedar Fair, Universal has one of the most stringent loose article policies on their coasters. They have metal detectors at the queue entrance and you can't take any loose articles into the queue at all including cell phones and keys. And they provide free lockers at those locations, so its clearly not about profit. Unless you are considering that it is cheaper to build lockers than get sued over flying objects, then sure.

Since they straddled the footers with the crane on the last set of bents, I'm guessing they will continue to do that and just keep moving down the lift. At least until they get to the motor block footer.

They are going to just keep working the same way they have been and go down the hill. Having room for the bents on the ground and to lift them is more important than figuring a way to stack a larger one on a smaller one. Also, changes to the structure to accommodate the lift chain would show before the structure is toped off. The chain doesn't just stop at the top. it rolls over the top some and then has to go around a sprocket before going back down. Looking at the standing structure, I'm not sure we've actually topped off yet.

I think that one on the ground is the one they built last week. Not sure if its a jig, or just the longest one and they are going to leave it there to build on top of so they don't have to keep releveling the last one in the stack every time.

You and I think about a lot of the same things lol. I think they'll just work downhill from the top of the lift. Trying to fish the tallest supports in between two standing supports would be a PITA. It's certainly doable, and that very well might be what they end up doing. Personally, I'd rather deal with some extra cribbing on the ground than trying to get those last few supports in place in a tight window.

not sure how long that would last before it got shut down due to whiplash lawsuits.

I thought about the path to get out earlier, but, with the crane they are using, I don't think they need to. Where the tracks cross, they will certainly be a gap in the support structure wide enough to get vehicles through. In it's travel position, the crane won't be over 8 foot wide and 13 foot tall, so it should be able to drive out there. I'm wondering if thats an actual bent, or if they are building a jig for the tall supports there. The ground isn't level there, and these things probably need to be straighter than the ground would allow for. It looks to me like they are leveling out a couple or more long beams, and will just use those to build the rest of the bents in that area on top of them. EDIT: they are starting to put crosses in now, so they may just be building the bent right there.

I thought that the renderings showing that the train enters the shed at the same elevation as it leaves the station eliminated the chance of it being a drop track?

A trencher really isn't designed for footer digging. These footers are at least two foot wide IIRC. Trenchers that big are going to be for heavy duty installations and be much too large for a project like this. Also, trenchers don't have a way of loading the dirt into trucks for haul off and just leaves it next to your hole. They are best for running long trenches for electric lines, sewer lines, etc that are going to be filled in soon after. A backhoe or excavator is really the best for jobs like this.

In the middle of a lift, the bent went from being straight to having about a 30-40 degree angle at the lift point(not just bowing). They set it back down, and I haven't seen any lifting since then. For that to happen like it did, something had to break. Might be minor, and might be a common occurrence on these type of things. Just thought it was interesting myself.

Looks like they had a little mishap lifting a bent. Not sure if it was a rigging issue or if it got caught on the pile but one appeared to almost break in half while they were lifting. Not sure how much give those things have, but if they have to fix it, it could be the end of lifting for today.

45-ish degrees I'd say. From: http://mystictimbers.visitkingsisland.com/nature-rises/construction-photos

Pretty sure you have to copy the image to a hosting site to link an image from a specific time here. The still image on the KI site is continuously updated, so if you link to it, it will just keep changing. Thanks for not leaving it up though. It's annoying to see a post about something cool on the cam and its just a link to whatever is on the cam currently.

You mean the fence over where the old funnel cake stand was?

Coasters need maintenance, and a lot of them get stripped down to the bare frame in the offseason, Having them operate properly during the season is more important than having them run during this event. And, not to mention, other than with FoF, I'm not sure how safe it would be to ride around in freezing weather at 50+ mph with your face exposed. As of the pass issues, adding Winterfest at all is a policy change. I am quite certain that they will sell 2018 season passes next year that can be used at Winterfest 2017.

Come February, no one will be referring to it as Winter 2016. It'll be Winter 2017. Really, this will start Fall 2017. It'll probably have more open dates in Fall than it will in Winter. They should have referred to it as Holidays 2017 really and it would have left the grey areas out, but it is what it is. But I'm not going to keep arguing the semantics of what is Winter. It really accomplishes nothing as some people will argue just to be argumentative. My issue is how they are presenting this. This is a cash grab and unnecessary. It's about getting pass sales from people who may not have been buying them already. They are going to make sales to people who don't read the fine print, or this board, or really think about it. They are going to see the splash page on the website saying Winterfest is back, buy your pass now. They are going to click buy and not think they need to research it. They aren't going to have any reason to think that KI would be announcing a Winter event 16 months early. It's not this Winter, It's next Winter. They aren't referring to it as next Winter. The telling part is that it's about a guarantee that they'll honor 2018 season passes at this event too.

To clarify, I did not say nobody here knows anything about business. I said people who say the "if you don't like it don't go" line don't. Business owners hate to hear customers saying that to other customers. But there are a lot of people who think it's this year. Read their Facebook post comments. Even reading the PR, it doesn't clarify and I would think it was this year if I didn't know better. There is a link to buy passes right on the announcement page on their website which is where most people will buy there passes. I just feel that they should have done a better job with this. It should have been clearly stated, or put off till there was no doubt about when it was.

Winter 2017 is different than just Winter. I did not say Winter started in January. I said Winter 2017 starts in January. Putting them together makes them different. It's like saying the 2016 season starts in April. 2016 starts in January, but the 2016 season starts in April. Kings Island is saying Winter 2017, not just Winter.

When has winter ever started in January? The announcement was a capital expenditure for the 2017 season. Did the 2017 season start in April 2016 when they opened for the year? If you don't like it, don't buy a season pass for next year. So you are saying January 1st it won't be Winter, and it won't be 2017? Somehow January 1st it will still be 2016? No, it'll be Winter 2017. "if you don't like it, don't go" blah blah blah. The rallying cry of people who've never owned a business or understood anything about it. It's usually followed by "That'll mean shorter lines for me" I guarantee Don, Greg, nor any of the other upper management of KI would say that to a customer.

Actually Winter 2016 started in January 2016. Winter 2017 starts in January 2017. They are advertising something for Winter to boost sales, and not specifying that it's not this coming Winter. People will buy passes to go to Winterfest this coming Winter and not find out till after that it's not till next Winter. KI is not going to refund those people's money, and they will be mad. People working customer service will get cussed and yelled at over it. All it takes is them specifying that it's not until the end of the 2017 season, but that aren't doing that. It's being disingenuous to drive sales.

This is borderline fraud by not specifying its for next season. Winter 2017 Starts in January. People are going to buy passes for this thinking its this Winter and be ****ed when they find out it's not. This will actually start in Fall 2017, and sure they will honor passes till December 31st. But will it run into January 2018 and will they honor those 2017 passes then? I don't think it's worth the pass sales this picks up to deal with the PR headaches of explaining that no, this isn't for another 15-16 months, sorry but there are no refunds.

I'm confused. Is this for this coming Winter or next Winter? If its for next Winter, why are they announcing it now?

Banshees paranormal signs did point towards what the theme was though.