Kenban

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.

Yeah but Disney Extra Magic Hours can go up to 2:00 in the morning! Also with Disney it is the entire park or almost the entire park not just one ride.

I am positive your wrong everything I have read says the park was under 5 to 10 feet of water for over a month. The park is below sealevel and it had a berm which normally kept the water out. But when the park flooded and its pumps failed the berm turned the park into a lake. With no way to remove the water it just sat there for a month and salt water is very corrosive. Only ONE ride was salvaged and moved to another park which was the Batman coaster which moved to one of the parks in Texas. I don't know of a single flat ride which was moved.

Am I the only one who looked at the photo of the ride in front of the TRTR building (7th from the bottom and yes I know its the Crypt now) and thought at first the ride used a corner of the building as a support? I knew better but its shot at just the right angle to make the support blend in with the corner of the building then because of the low quality and the fact that its all about the same color just made it appear that there was no support there.

If it was six years ago then there might be a really good reason you did not right the Tower of Terror. It opened in 2004 so its only 4 years old currently.

There is a news article that the blog links to which comments "the park has budgeted $8.4 million for improvements in 2009, second only to the $13.5 million spent in 2006 when The Voyage debuted.". That's for everything being added for next season. They are also adding "“a service” in 2009 which will be innovative, free and use technology." I don't have a clue what that is or how much its going to cost. Also what else is being added for next year? I would think of that $8.4 million maybe $7.5 is going to the new ride. Is it possible its not a coaster or maybe its not the lift hill which is the tallest in the world.

I have not visited the site in several weeks and it turns out I missed the chance to pickup tickets by one day. I had fun last year and wish I could have gotten in on it this year. I am looking forward to having people post pictures from the construction tour.

Your thinking of the man who jumped a fence because he lost his hat which was around 10 years ago. About 5 or 6 years ago a park employee (grounds keeper) wandered into the restricted area under Batman at SFOG (very same ride this incident occurred on) and was struck in the head by the leg of a park guest as the train went past.

Its been a few years since I was last at universal Hollywood but most of the park is up on a hill there is only a small section down as part of the lower lot. Total you have Jurassic Park, Revenge of the Mummy, Backdraft (now thats somewhere you don't want an out of control fire), and a special effects stage. The only possibility for the cyclone to my knowledge is on that special effects stage. One of the local TV stations KNBC is also reporting on this and this is one line you don't want to read "firefighters were attempting to keep the blaze from high-value facilities such the film vault. But that building was believed to have been seriously damaged if not destroyed." Makes you wonder what films original prints might have been lost this morning. But I am wondering how much bad information is out there right now. Watching a live video feed of the fire its hard to say how close it is to the park. Although you should see the amount of thick black smoke coming out of this one building. EDIT: Here is the statement from Universal "Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk will be open today and will be operating during our normal business hours. Although some adjustments will be made to our Studio Tour due to this morning's fire, no other rides and attractions have been affected and the theaters, restaurants, clubs and shops at CityWalk have not been impacted."

Arrow built a lot of rides and many are still in use today. Someone pointed out earlier in the thread that they helped pioneer tubular steel coasters. It was a lot more then that at one point in time they did a HUGE amount of work for Disney (I believe Disney owned part of the company at one point) and they designed the ride systems on many of Disneyland's early rides. Sure they built the Matterhorn but they also built the ride systems for Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean, Small World, and the Haunted Mansion. Even the parking lot trams were built by Arrow. A lot of people just seem to remember the bad rides and the expensive mistakes towards the end. But don't forget the company was around for over 50 years and did produce many good rides.

Its not that simple. This years attraction was not announced until after track had already started showing up in the parking lot. Which was not that long before the start of the season. I am sure someone can remind us of when it occurred. Although I suspect next year is going to be upgrades mostly and maybe a new water slide or new movie in the action theater. Its also possible KI could end up with the Beaver Land Mine Ride or some flat from Geauga Lake. Since the dry side of the park is closing I would think anything that management feels is worth moving will end up somewhere. The parks Ferris Wheel is only a few years old. These kinds of rides would not be worth talking about this early. I would be very surprised if the park got nothing. I just don't expect a large coaster to suddenly show up.

It would not surprise me if Six Flags would be happy if Magic Mountain burned. The company has said in the past they are thinking of closing the park and selling the land to developers. If the park burns they get a huge amount from insurance then they can sell the land.

Here is Disney's press release on the changes. SOURCE:http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corpor...texpansion.html The press release does talk about the new night time show. This plan really sounds amazing and I look forward to seeing the finished product.

This plan sounds a lot like the rumors which have been talked about on Disney forums for months. The only thing I see missing here is a night show that was planned. This makeover sounds great so far and I do have to wonder how the money is being spent. Disney spends more on attractions then any other company but even still its currently around $100 million per an attraction. It seems like $1.1 billion should buy more then what is listed in this story. I suspect there might be a few surprises planned that nothing has been talked about yet.

The parks are private property and it often involves trespassing to get photos like what you are talking about. The first photos of the Firehawk track were from people who stopped in the public drop off area at KI and took the photos from there which should be fine. But walking up to the track could be considered a problem. The photos of people standing next to the track were from a press day I believe.

The Dayton mall has a Funcoland on the second floor, a Game Stop on the first floor and an EB games (think it was just changed to a Game Stop though) in a strip mall thats a 30 second drive from the mall. All three are owned by Game Stop and you would think that there is no point to having 3 video game stores so close together. But talk to any of the managers and they like having the other stores so close by. It turns out though that having these stores in proximity actually ends up helping them all. The same is true of theme parks to an extent. Orlando has become the tourist destination that it is today because of the huge number of attractions so close together. They help each other more then anything else. Geauga Lake had little to no impact on Cedar Point and it could have actually been a huge benefit to both parks. At this point I expect Kings Island to become the sister park to Cedar Point with major installs at Kings Island and Cedar Point occurring in separate years. I think both Kings Island and Cedar Point are more successful then they would be if the other did not exist. I am also positive Cedar Fair management realizes this as well.

My personal guess is that the decision occurred sometime this summer. I have been looking at what little information has been released over the years and to me I could not figure out any way the park could possibly even be close to making a profit. It was a very expensive park to operate and yet it had a very low attendance and admission. I am pretty sure the attendance was around half of what it needed to be to support a park of that size. I would like to think all hope is not lost and that Cedar Fair's management is actually thinking about reopening the park. My guess is that for around $10-15 million it can be returned to a family park. It would be almost impossible to do what I am thinking during the off season and closing then reopening the park would work better as well. Here's what I would do. Clear out all the big expensive coasters (its happening already). Move the big dipper to the north side of the lake. Close everything south of the villain and sell off most of the old Geauga Lake land including the parking lot. Not sure how much the land is worth but it should offset most of the costs in this plan. Cutting back to a single parking lot and set of turnstiles will help reduce maintenance and employee costs. Put in new landscaping, and paths where they are needed. Clean up everything in what remains and remove rides that just don't fit in anymore. Plus put in one or two good new flat rides. If its done correctly with good advertising, cheap admission, and reasonable food prices and I think it could be a hit. The park would have a huge reduction in expenses and maintenance costs and I suspect a park of that size could live and make money off of a 700k attendance.