Kenban

The issue is going to be cost. It would be the most expensive ride Cedar Fair has ever built. Fury 325 was $30 million and it is 6,602 feet long. The record is 8,133.2 feet. That extra 1,500 feet is going to be 5 to 10 million dollars. Still cheaper then the $50 million Steel Dragon 2000 cost but I doubt it will happen.

If only there was a coaster built anywhere in the world where the woods were right next to the coaster maybe even causing the train to go through or around..... I am trying to understand where all this woods around the fort, train, and maintence buildings are. Possibly in the water park or picnic grove?

I am willing to believe this is a steel coaster but based on what people have seen so far I have no idea how it could be a wood coaster. Way to difficult to build a wood support structure over this much stuff. The train would feel like it was going through tunnels. Maybe it is just me but this is starting to sound like one of the design goals was to cross the path of the train as many times as possible. Also I kept thinking water ride, or a Mack spinner like Knott's Sierra Sidewinder. But if the ride path is going out to the fort I have to think the goal is to make a very large, very tall statement.

I was at Six Flags Magic Mountain a little over a month ago. The line to talk to customer service was over an hour, the line to get through the turnstiles into into the park was an hour long as well (used a discount coupon from ACE which did not allow me to use the regular ticket booths). Yet the food lines moved, the cashiers knew what they were doing and the food came out at a decent rate. I also really preferred how Six Flags put in a line with switchbacks at most of the larger food locations. That way everyone waits in a single line and you don't have groups splitting up with one person waiting in each line to see which one is the fastest. The ride operations were pretty good as well. Except not all of the trains were even on the rides you could tell that most of the rides were missing at least one which was likely due to off season maintenance. Also it was VERY windy so several rides had operations issues and several never opened. Six Flags dining plan is a lot cheaper then Kings Islands, they claim normal price is $199.99 which would be more expensive but it has been on sale all year so far for $84.99. It is good for the entire chain and includes a snack each visit, and even includes the season long drink cup. The problem with the plan is that you are required to eat the lunch, snack, and dinner in certain set windows. You can check out the brochure at Six Flags Magic Mountain. But I would love a snack option so I could go pickup an Ice Cream, fries, cookie, chips, and I really liked seeing the fresh fruit cups. I would be willing to eat lunch and dinner in set windows to have that option. But Kings Island has to work on the food service issues and it feels like 90% of the problems is not food prep but the cashier.

From the video it looks more like a power transformer then a footer. I can see what looks like fins on the side for cooling. Should be obvious from the train what it is. Also footers would normally be poured together. It makes no sense to have one and nothing else anyways.

I had issues using a drink cup voucher from when I renewed my pass. A supervisor told me they forgot to load them into to registers and they took down all the registers for a quick update at some point last night I think that was around 7PM. I bet dining plans had a similar issue.

Hmmmm, watch for falling trees. What would cause falling trees? Lumberjacks, so obviously a lumberjack show.... My original thought was a topple tower but I am pretty sure that it is no longer produced and I cannot see Cedar Fair being crazy enough to ever try. It might be obvious quickly what kind of attraction we are getting. Might be better to watch for clearing and construction more then trying to guess based a very vague sign. But the wild speculation can be fun.

I was at Magic Mountain last month and after riding Twisted Colossus I want something similar. But I could also see Camp Snoopy...

They put a counter weight on the arm so that the motor has to do less work to lift the arm. Which also makes it easy to manually lift the arm when needed.

I would not worry about it. Mine also says I do not have the dining plan yet I used it at Knott's around 2 weeks ago without any issues.

I am not certain about other haunted houses but I know Universal Studios uses Actor Activated Triggers to describe anything triggered by an actor at Halloween Horror Nights. There is also a GAT, Guest Activated Trigger. There is another term for automated triggers as well but I cannot remember it off the top of my head. At Universal almost all noise is from a speaker so that the actors do not have to worry about using or losing their voice.

I remember back in 2012 when part of the roadway collapsed on I-75 in this same area. There was only one lane of South bound I-75 open and it was diverted onto the North Bound side. The traffic was horrible and the first time I went through that season it took around 4 hours to go a few miles. I left Dayton sometime between 3 and 4 PM but did not get to Knoxville until after midnight. It took several months to repair the damage back in 2012 but back then it was the road which collapsed not the hill next to it.

That is because the image is likely not from Coney Island. If you take a look at http://rockpointpark.com/ you will see the same image except saying it is from Rock Point Park. If you click on postcards at the top of the page it says that the image is likely a combination of multiple images. Which on that postcard page you can see the next picture looks like the white coaster in the background. I am pretty confident it is not from Cincinnati beyond that I am not certain.

I am pretty familiar with Aurora. This is honestly the best spot in town to build Meijer. For the people commenting on people not wanting to shop next to a dead park they already do. Walmart is directly across the street and the Meijer would be located right next to Target although from Target you cannot tell since there are trees in the way. I do not know of any large empty store fronts in Aurora at all. The closest which was around 10 miles away in Streetsboro which used to be a Walmart which closed when they opened a new Super Walmart about a half mile down the road. Even that was only empty for 2 or 3 years. I loved going to Geauga Lake and Sea World when I was a kid. I hate driving past the remains but building a Meijer is better then letting the parking lot continue to rot. Wonder how many people remember that Ohio used to have a Sea World.

Always figured it would not be that expensive to build a second floor which would allow the building to contain two haunted houses. Lots of companies specialize in adding Mezzanines to existing buildings. Even easier and likely much cheaper then building a new building. The biggest problem I always figured would possibly be sound issues. Pathways would not be a huge problem. Just use the existing entrance for easy access to the second floor. Entrance to the first floor would be done through a pathway next to The Beast which largely already exists and would lead to existing doors. This would also remove the need for stairs to access the haunted house. I am Surprised no one has considered a revamp of the action theater like what is happening at Carowinds, or Great America. Although I would prefer it to be similar to the Plants Vs. Zombies over what I have heard about the Mass Effect show which Great America is getting. It just feels like Plants Vs Zombies since it is interactive would be a lot more fun to go do several times.

Universal Orlando is only 8 miles from the airport. It's likely that the height restriction is imposed by the FAA and not local government. This skycoaster's location is the same distance to the airport, if not closer, than universal, so thats not it. My understanding is that Universal's height limit is written into the zoning they agreed to when building the resort originally. Something to do with proximity to residential neighborhoods I believe. Universal is in a pretty residential area. They are directly across the street from a School (behind Jurassic Park in IoA). They have apartments behind Fear Factor, and Men in Black (although these are the parks fault). Beyond these the entire North and West sides of the park are surrounded by houses. They have a lot of noise restrictions and I know they have restrictions on fireworks which I believe include how many nights a year they can have fireworks. This is nothing more then a recommendation and the county commissioners get the final say. But I totally agree with the author of this article.

Went to Hollywood about 2 weeks ago. Having been to Orlando for HHN every year since 2008 and a handful of years before that, I have certain expectations about the quality of the event and was left disappointed. The entire event felt extremely disjointed. They had one house in the upper lot three in the lower and two more in the middle of the studio backlot which required you ride a tram. Half the scare zones required you go out of your way to visit. Three of the houses, Insidious, Crimson Peak, and Halloween, were VERY good. Bits of This is the End 3D were good and I liked the 3D but overall did not like the house, it was neither scary nor funny. AVP has been done MUCH better in Orlando. The Walking Dead was really not very good either. Also did not like the Terror Tram. I skipped the show because I have seen the Jabbawockeez show in Vegas and I was just not that interested in seeing them again and I prioritized making sure I would see all of the houses. I also went to Knotts Scary Farm and I preferred that to HHN in Hollywood. I would love to see Special Ops Infected make it out to Ohio in some way. But at Kings Island the only two places I can think of which would have to room is Dinosaurs Alive or Soak City. I will be in Orlando to do HHN this year at the end of the month. If I think about it I might come back and post something but it would be the last week of the event so no one would have time to act on any of my thoughts about the event this year. Having said that Orlando almost never disappoints. They have so many houses you will find something you like. The level of detail is just amazing and it is all new every year so even if you visit every year it will be something new. The houses that they are capable of producing are just incredible.

The good news is that the theater would have needed to be gutted to build this anyways. Based on the description they are splitting one theater in half and each half is a separate team which works against each other. From the art work I do not see anything in the interior staying the same. It appears everything from the motion seats to the screens are new. It does say exclusive but I could see something like this coming to more locations in future years. Looks like a great concept which I would like to see repeated. I suspect Cedar Fair wants to see how this does before you see it in more locations.

I really enjoyed his talk. It was informative, but I have also heard a lot of it before. I am not doubting the design or that they were working on purchasing the trains. But every time I have heard about the building of Top Gun it was designed and purchased by the previous owners of the park. Paramount just decided to brand the ride with Top Gun. Which completely contradicts what he said. I have no insider information, or first hand information. Any knowledge I have is based on reading here on KICentral and from behind the scenes tours and talks. So I have no idea which is correct. I would like to believe that he is correct and it was 100% Paramount. The problem is timing, the purchase of the parks did not occur until the end of the season in 92 and Top Gun opened in 93. Designing, ordering, and constructing the ride in such a short period of time would be very difficult to pull off, it makes a lot more sense if KECO did order the ride.

It depends on what the item is and if Disney minds it being available to the public. The old iconic Disneyland sign was sold at auction, a celebrity purchased it and put it in his yard. When Disney closes a retail store at a mall the figures are destroyed. They also warehouse a ton of old items they think they might want again, and used to sell a ton of stuff to Surplus companies (no idea if they still do but the biggest stores seemed to have all gone out of business). There used to be a store near Orlando called Mouse Surplus which used to sell items from both Disney and Universal. Most of the items were from the Disney Hotels and you would find furniture from when a resort was last renovated. But they would also get items from the parks, including props, and even ride vehicles. I remember they had a monorail car, trains from space mountain etc. I think the company ended up going out of business though. I know the store closed.

They are available from guest services. The five for 2014 has Snoopy on it and the one has Woodstock. They good at all Cedar Fair parks so they do not actually say Kings Island on them. No idea on discounts when buying them.

I added the dining plan to my pass this morning at Guest services and they have flyers in a little bin on the counter which explain the plan a lot better then the website. Although even that still left me wondering like others have if those are my only food options. On the flyer under cost for the all season plan, "Renewal Pass From 2013: $72.00" so for those people who renewed their pass make sure you get the discounted price. The back lists the food options. Which looks identical to the options someone else already posted. At the bottom it says "Menu subject to change. See menu board at each location for full listing of meal options." The problem is that the menu boards do not actually have any markings to show what is available as an option. So while what I wanted today was what was exactly listed on the Dining Plan flyer I am left wondering if I wanted to order a different side would it be an issue. As someone else pointed out they do not want fries with every meal. I do hope the park opens up more options for drinks. I hate taking the souvenir cup around the park. I would be happy to pay 99 cents for a drink in a paper cup with the meal. I would also be happy to add on an option for unlimited drinks even if it is an additional $40 as long as I am not forced to use a souvenir cup.

I know the Disney parks pretty well. For actual navigation I think this is a huge improvement. The old maps were very unrealistic and drawn in a way to draw attention to certain attractions but that caused the maps to ignore the sizes of attractions or the distances between them. On the new maps the icons for everything from attractions to the bathrooms look like they are actually located at or near the entrances which is a huge upgrade over just sticking them in the middle of buildings. The problem is that park maps are a lot more then just a way to get from point A to point B. A park map also is a guide to the attractions available. You should look at the map and think I want to go and do that. The old ones did a much better job drawing your attention to the attractions. On a side note, you can actually see most of the hidden mickey in the new Disney Studios park map above. The one ear is gone, but the face and one ear are still around.

The whole leveling system makes no sense to me. I spent over $100 and visited 6 times and finally hit level 2 yesterday. After the transaction in which I hit 2 I made two additional purchases, one that evening for just over four dollars and one this morning for about a dollar. I figured I would check the website and suddenly I am about 50% of the way to 3 already. It did not help that when I purchased a Fast Lane pass the employee never asked for my pass so I got no credit for the purchase (that is not even included in the $100 above). I wish their was a way to get credit for purchases in which the pass was not scanned. A transaction ID on the receipt I can put in on the website would be a great addition for next year. On the subject of instant rewards I got one yesterday (first all season) and then proceeded to loose it before I had a chance to use it. But I am assuming I only actually earned one. At least half of my transactions never produced a receipt, I was very surprised at the number of times I watched the printer jam, or run out of paper, or the employee just balled up the receipt without asking if I wanted it. Having said all of that, I like the idea behind a reward program. I do hope it is expanded to the whole chain. Would have been top tier easily with all the money I spent at Cedar Point and my visits to other parks in the chain.

When I was there yesterday the price listed in Hanks was $2.99. Also as I remember the free drinks wristband from fun perks at least is not supposed to work at locations with the freestyle machines. I figured the $5 wrist band was not supposed to work at the freestyle locations if it does I will be purchasing one of those every trip I love those freestyle machines. They installed them about a year ago at Universal Orlando and I make sure I go to locations which have those instead of the standard Coke machines.