LongLiveTheSmurfRide

Wow. Those are some amazing effects. We've come so far since Jurassic Park.

Too bad nobody got a screenshot.

*Crickets* *Crickets*

As far as rides, I think Diamondback blows away anything that Paramount had built during their time with the park. And while Paramount was big on making rides with well designed themes; they also let those themes deteriorate and die like a year or two after the ride had been in place.

That's pretty sweet. That experience should be helping you win our Fantasy Championship!

Yeah, you don't even need to get a ticket to the theme park. You can just park for free and get tram rides. It really becomes the amusement "park". And after you're done in the amusement park, you can go to the theme park. It's so much win.

I miss the trams (actually moving people) in the parking lot. I'd forgive the outrageous parking prices if those were still used.

They bringing all their celebrities with them? Hey, nice new CP park map on that mailer.

^I can't imagine the price if you tried to do all of that on a vacation. I think the big price concern for a lot of people is that if they don't have 10 days to just go to the Disney parks, it's pretty expensive. To get 1 ticket for 1 of their parks, it's $82. When my wife and I got married and went there on our honeymoon to Disney, we got 3 day ticket with park hopper so that we could visit each park while we were there. For both of us it was somewhere around $550. For 3 days. That's not counting meals or our resort. I know the price drops a lot when you go for longer and longer stays, but not everyone has that time, or wants to spend all of that time just at Disney (we had a cruise to hop on after which is why we just had the 3 days.) But I mean, $550+ for 3 days is quite a shock to a lot of wallets, no matter what the value may be. We really enjoyed ourselves and loved every minute of it, regardless of the price. Our next time down there, which may not be until next year at the earliest, might be longer, unless we hop on one of those new Disney Cruise ships.

Update: http://www.mouseplanet.com/9518/Roaming_Charges_Disney_Denies_Plan_to_Clamp_Down_on_Characters Looks like there won't be any big changes to the characters roaming for now.

You're going to have to put on your straitjacket to ride.

^Wow, that was great, hehe. I still love Disney, and loved my last trip back in '09. But I was already dismayed by the fact that the characters would come out and instantly ropes would come out and families would have to queue up. I remember going when I was a kid and it was more like the characters at KI where you could just come across them. I understand that it's partly a safety issue to keep mobs from forming around Mickey, but I would think they could still have the lesser characters wander around without having to be in a designated spot. It takes the magic away a bit to turn all of the characters into attractions unto themselves.

Not sure if this has been discussed before, but saw this link through AintItCoolNews.com, oddly enough: http://www.mouseplanet.com/9510/Collared Seems kind of sad.

I saved it and it doesn't really lend to zoom well. Can't read anything. Very nice though.

It's about time that they joined the future of ice cream. Honestly though, I've never had dippin' dots myself. I still live in the past.

^Ha! I don't think anyone ever asked the trees if they could do that. The savages!

I live near the Fraze area as well and we usually go the 48 way.

I don't typically freak out over the fireworks now, but when I was a youngin' that was one of my favorite parts. People still line up all over to get a good view, so it's still a big part and great ending to a lot of peoples day at the park. Of course, was born on the 4th of July so fireworks are pretty special to me.

Obviously, I wasn't offended. Just trying to lighten the mood. Seemed like things were getting a little heated. I'm going to the Haunt and probably won't watch any lil' WWE while I'm there. Hopefully it will draw all the people who are line-cutters, line-smokers and general line-loud-mouths out of queues for the Haunts I want to check out. I'll bring a folding chair just in case.

^Ha! Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie then he clocks her with a folding chair? Then Schroeder staples Linus's blanket to his head? Sounds like a good time.

One of my favorite Halloweeny songs is "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It just has a sinister yet groovy feel to it.

That wouldn't be the theme to the movie Halloween, would it?

http://haunt.visitkingsisland.com/ If you go to "events" and learn more for Haunt, it takes you there. So they're linking it on the site. As good as announced, I'd say.

I have a couple little glass plates that show the old sky ride. I think the old stuff with rides that I wasn't around to check out are the coolest. Also have a little mug with some rides, including Flight Commander, on it. I was around for that one, but still interesting. I'll try to get some pics of my small collection on here soon.

I collect glasses, plates, steins, tea sets and mugs from parks. Mainly KI and CP, though I recently found a Geauga Lake stein at a Goodwill. There are so many of those types of things that people give up to the Goodwill or thrift stores. Whenever I'm in one I peruse the glass isle and usually find something. If it looks unique I scoop it up. At the Goodwill the other day there were about 5 Fred Flintstone coffee mugs that I didn't think too much about until I turned one over and it had a Kings Island price tag on it. Looked like it was not too old, but I didn't grab any since they didn't have Kings Island on the actual glass wear. But it was still fun to find.