Kenban

The rumor I have heard is that the train has only been sent a handful of times, sounded like low single digits still as of Friday, thinking 3 or 4 times. What I heard was the train has valleyed every time and has yet to successfully complete the course without assistance. Before anyone freaks out this happens every year. But everything I have heard is they still have a little bit of work to do. My gut says their goal at this point is Coasterstock, so May 20th.

I am not impressed, $99 for a 3 hour long event. Sure there is live music and ERT, but almost nothing else is included. No snacks, no food, no alcohol, the only thing that’s included is Coke products. During the day Frontier Festival is happening already. So you can likely pickup the same food, and beverages, and watch the same bands during the day with a regular park ticket. At least from the description I don’t see what makes this special enough to justify the price. June 3rd is Coastermania. It explains why the schedule is so different from previous years. It was strange that all of the evening ERT was near the front of the park.

I cannot comment on the history of this marking. But it appears to be a standard marking you often find on coaster supports. The 17 is support 17, and the R means that’s the right side. The support on the other side of the track likely is marked with C17L.

My guess is the stones are having park history etched into them. Could be just text, could be images, there is a lot that could be done.

The ribbon looks great, I like the materials they used to make the 50th sign, the shimmering effect in the wind looks great. It’s just the 50 and the text is a little small. It’s way too easy for a group or people to block. The sign looks like it was scaled to be on a float not at the front of the fountain.

I do know one person who got an invite. They are not a blogger, YouTuber, or influencer of any kind. They are just an enthusiast who goes to Holiwood Nights every year. Their plus one will be their spouse. If I remember right the park limited attendance to 500. But every invite is for 2 people, so by my math they sent out a grand total of 250 invites. I wish I knew how many people applied. But it sounds like they had a lot of applications and only a small percentage actually got invites.

On many OTSR rides that is the job of the seat belt. That’s the reason the belt is so short on B&M coasters, Intamin coasters, and Intamin Drop Towers. The seat belt plays double duty, it’s both a backup restraint and a sizing mechanism.

Falcons Fury also locks the seat belt in place. A small metal rod extends and prevents the ability to unlatch the seat belt. It’s actually visible to the rider if you look at the belt connector. Frankly building a Drop Tower with tilting seats and only an OTSR with no seat belt seems crazy to me. I was in Orlando recently and considered riding this and I am happy I skipped it now.

No invite here. Wish I knew how many people applied. Tempted to ask around and see if any friends have a spare spot available since all invites are for 2 tickets, have not even heard of any of them have invites at all. Also tempted to just try for a Coaster Mania ticket instead, don’t think they have announced ticket sales yet. I suspect they prioritized bloggers, people with YouTube channels, people who will basically help them advertise the park.

I believe some of this was previously handled by Elaut. At least that’s what the shirts worn by the arcade maintenance said. I know the company manufactures claw games and most of the ones at the park were made by them. Wonder if this will have any effect on the game cards.

On its own an LSM is unable to stop or hold a train. An unpowered LSM acts as a trim brake by generating electricity. Just like in permanent magnetic brakes the amount of braking force is proportional to the speed, and effectively reaches zero before the train stops. So what happens if a ride loses power how do you stop the train, easy, use the design of the ride. The launch track on Pantheon is slightly inclined. The LSM’s will slow the train to a crawl by acting as trim brakes and then gravity does the rest, with the train actually valleying. There is always something else, drive tire, pinch brakes, or gravity.

Great America was the test park for Winterfest. At first it was the only park in the chain to have the event. From what I have heard this is being tested and might expand to more parks. The rumor I heard is this will be a project of similar size and scope to Winterfest, and will be an expensive project. My guess is if this does well we might see it instead of Haunt next year.

I saw the crate when I was at Winter Chill Out. It’s a real crate and I am pretty sure it really is from Intamin, but I am also almost certain it just contains parts. I asked a member of maintenance and he stated it was a shipment that was needed to rebuild the Millennium Force trains for the season and it was already 2 months late which is why it was shipped Air Freight. Why am I certain the shipment is real? It has real shipping and tracking information, and stickers. Millennium Force is serial number T-411, Maintenance was rebuilding the Millennium Force trains just like normal.

I find this report strange. First page says “The purpose of ODA’s investigation was not to determine the cause of the accident.” Then who will be? Whose job is it to fix the design to make sure it never happens again? Is Intamin going to do it or would Cedar Fair have to hire an outside engineering firm. Unless the park already told the state it’s not reopening. Really surprised at the lack of any recommendations, engineering analysis, etc. It’s a 620 page long report of fluff. The majority of the report is just copies of inspection and employee reports that were collected. It has to be one of the worst accident reports I have ever seen. Why is there nothing from Intamin in the report? I do not see anything about changes to inspections, design changes, etc. I am really questioning the future of the ride after seeing the report.

Thinking back to the changes to Racer, a lot of the track movements were to make the arcs parabolic. Before this work the track was a gentle downward slope with a sudden pop up which I believe was due to the terrain before the left turn into the tunnel. My guess is the dip was not a parabola or they just wanted to smooth out the dip. I felt this was the roughest spot on the ride last year and remember the train just jack hammering right before the tunnel.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-01/seaworld-said-to-make-3-4-billion-takeover-bid-for-cedar-fair According to Bloomberg SEAS has made a $3.4 billion dollar all cash offer to purchase Cedar Fair which works out to $60 a share which closed at $49.63 yesterday and was up sharply this morning. Outside of Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg there is really no competition between the two, and it feels like the chains should be pretty compatible. Really makes a combined chain wide annual pass even more valuable. Wonder if we would see a Sesame Street area at Kings Island, and would they expand Snoopy to other parks? This kind of change could see the return of Intamin to Cedar Fair parks as well.

In conjunction with Snake River Expedition at Cedar Point last year I remember a remember a Cedar Fair executive talking about how they wanted unique rides and experiences at other parks in the chain. Basically they talked about how the ride was obviously custom for Cedar Point and they wanted other parks to get their own unique experiences which would also play into the history of the individual park. That the mug has the Cedar Fair logo and not the parks logo screams chain wide initiative and not something occurring at just Kings Island. My guess is making each park its own unique experience, and trying to not just duplicate each other. In short making each park have its own soul. I am just guessing here based on what I have heard in the last year. If I am correct I could definitely see Kings Island getting a new ride out of this. I have my doubts about it happening this year. But I also remember Jason McClure being asked about a ride for the 150th back in 2019 and his response was basically of course the park is getting a ride. It was supposed to be Snake River Expedition. Kings Island getting something smaller, and possibly unique tied into the history of the park somehow, feels appropriate and could be done quickly without months of clearing and work, so 2022 could be possible still depending on what the park would be receiving. I could also be trying to tie completely separate items together and making assumptions based on frankly almost nothing. This could be tied to one of the other projects, adding more seasonal events, or new and upgraded dining. I might be forgetting something as well. I just doubt this is targeted specifically at Kings Island.

People need to understand that Disney World has a huge number of resellers and scalpers. There are people who have essentially turned shopping at the resort and selling the items online into a full time job. The resort has been trying to fight this by introducing purchase restrictions and canceling annual passes, but there are still a huge number of people doing this. This popcorn bucket is just the latest item which was immediately posted on eBay. There are literally hundreds of these already listed online, and they can sell for more then a hundred dollars. The long line was a combination of people trying to make money, and people who actually want it for themselves. Just take a look at this photo and understand the purchase limit was 2 per a person.

No time limits on the snack, it’s basically usable all day and you could pick it up at the same time as a meal if you want. NOTE: This is the Six Flags meal plan, not Cedar Fair/Kings Island meal plans.

Six Flags has two meal plans, a regular one which is one meal and a snack. Then a deluxe meal plan which is two meals and a snack. Both allow you to substitute a snack in place of a meal. I really want a deluxe meal plan at Cedar Fair, I am willing to pay extra to get a snack every visit.

Rumor is the flywheel launch on Montezuma is being replaced by either LIM or LSM. There is a similar ride in Europe that had similar work done a few years ago by Gerstlauer, they used LIM’s on that.

According to the parks own Facebook page. They claim to have a demolition permit and they started tearing down the ride the morning of the fire. It sounds like the fire was to dispose of the wood from the coaster and it got out of hand and burned other buildings. How did they get a demolition permit and how did no one find out? It all seems strange.

Six Flags Mexico removed a gay couple from a line for kissing, part of which was videoed and posted online and I included below. Which prompted a pretty swift backlash. Removing the policy is corporates response.

Don’t focus on the parking impacts, this is not the primary parking lot. The design goes through the South parking lot, the hotel parking lot, and the dining and shopping parking lot. The main parking for the park is across a major road and will not be impacted. The parking garage appears to be for the hotel, but might be big enough to make up for all of the lost parking. The design is giant, looks a good deal bigger then Fury 325, around the same height but a longer drop due to a tunnel to go under a road to a parking lot. Around 320-325 tall, 347 foot drop, and I have seen estimates of track length of 7,000+ feet. Might be just enough to hit 100 MPH. With the parking garage this looks to me to be a $50+ million dollar project.

Here are the rules straight off of ACE’s website. The coaster must use traditional lap bars that allow riders to experience so-called airtime, or negative G's (that sensation of floating above the seat!). Individual, ratcheting lap bars do not meet this requirement. ACE Coaster Classics allow riders to slide from side-to-side. A coaster with any restraint or device that restricts this freedom is not eligible for ACE Coaster Classic status. ACE Coaster Classics allow riders to view the upcoming drops and thrills. Coasters with headrests on every seat, or the majority of seats, restrict this view and are not eligible for ACE Coaster Classic status. On ACE Coaster Classics, riders are free to choose where they sit. Some parks' operating procedures assign seating; these coasters are not eligible for ACE Coaster Classic status. That’s it, every single rule has to do with the train or operations. Removing a tunnel makes no difference.