LongLiveTheSmurfRide

Here are some pics from the trip. They're from my phone so the quality isn't great. Here's my first glimpse at Diamondback in person. Supports are a lot larger than they look on the web cam. Laura and Squidward. Laura's brother Tim with some weirdo's. There were pumpkin-head people all over the Nickland which was kind of cool. Can't wait for the Haunt. It's a Brady. I seriously thought the singing was a bit much and wish Greg...er...Barry would have canned half the songs so that there could have been 10 more minutes of Q&A which was much more entertaining. One day the Smurfs will conquer this castle for their own. Laura won this lion for a quarter at the Roller Bowler game by The Beast. Best value game in the park. We promptly named him Hobbs and he promptly grew hundreds of feet tall and terrorized the country side.

Yeah, it was all together a pretty unremarkable trip when it's all said and done, so I figured I'd spice it up a bit. We got back to the car close to 6:30 and the can that he'd thrown his stuff away in by Gold parking sign 52, I think it was, was overflowing. I was like, "No way you're going through that." But they did, and of course their bag was near the bottom. I thought there was no chance they were going to find it since I figured it was probably emptied at least once. There were even 3 hospital bags (probably feeding bags of some type) in there with tubes attached. I didn't let them touch the doors to my car when they were done. We went straight to McDonnalds and they sanitized themselves...by bathing in the kitchen sinks. hehe, just kidding, but yeah, that was a pretty nasty way to end the day. I guess the biggest question was, why would he throw his cell in a burger king bag to begin with? He said it was between his legs on the floor of the car and he also had a bag he was going to carry their waters and stuff with. He assumes he must have tried to drop it in the carrying bag and it fell in the BK "satchel". Good times.

On Sunday, August 31st at 9 AM, David (known as LongLiveTheSmurfRide), his girlfriend Laura; her brother Tim, Tim’s wife Amanda and their friend Scott went on a most excellent adventure. They traveled to Kings Island; a fabulous wonderland of thrills and excitement. Along the way they encountered his royal majesty The Burger King who invited them to join him for some breakfast. Being that they were in most urgent need of haste, the King packed their breakfast in magical satchels for the road which they enjoyed along the way. Upon arriving at the park, they were honored to be ushered to the most royal of parking arrangements, the Gold Pass Parking section. Oooooooo…fascinating. On their way to the front gate, Tim tossed the satchel from his royal highness, The Burger King, into the nearest trash receptacle; which as we’ll see later in the tale was not a very wise choice. Moving on, the party was well met at the gate by security whom promptly let them pass, seeing as how neither party member was packing any sort of “heat”. They noticed to their right, upon entering, a very ominous graveyard-like scene which lead them to believe that the park may enter a period of fear and darkness in the near future, but our band of happy-go-lucky patrons did not concern themselves with such…um…concerns, so on they went to battle the Firehawk. They waited in line to face the hawk of fire for approximately 50 minutes and when they finally encountered it, they hopped upon its back and had a merry flight, most of which was epic in nature. Tales of that fateful ride will be told for centuries to come and have already hence been scribed into legend. Next the party of 5, as you will, met with such challenges as the Zephyr and Shake Rattle and Roll, which did not do as much shaking or rattling as it did rolling. Afterwards they ventured forth to get some much needed lunch in the style of pizza. AH YES! PIZZA! The meal of kings. And the cost of such a meal was surely a king’s ransom, setting David back $22 for a whole pie which scarcely fed his companions. Ah, hungered and quite weary from the scorching sun, our band of travelers made it to the Kings Island Theater to see The Brady’s. A once noble squire, Greg Brady, pranced around the stage singing songs of years gone by to a crowd of happy onlookers. Great interest was shown by the party when the Brady’s answered questions from the crowd about different aspects of their lives and filming, but it was over all too quickly. David was not pleased with the performance and wished the show was more about the crowd interaction and less about Las Vegas-style singing. Hope for adventure lifted their spirits again as they were told about a certain haunted castle and, of course, they went to investigate. I wish I could say that everything turned out fine inside that castle, but it was a ghastly gruesome scene when the 5 of them left it. Ghost entrails were strewn about the walls and floor after they blasted the castle clean of all inhabitants. Then word spread across the park of a hideous Beast. And so 3 of the bravest and most pure of heart stepped forward to meet the challenge. So David, Laura and Scott ventured forth into the wooden maze of its lair. The 3 of them took seat in the first car with Scott alone in the middle seat and David and Laura behind him. Soon David and Laura felt the wrath of The Beast as they were thrown about their carriage in obvious pain and misery. Scott, unsurprisingly, left unscathed. David, however, vowed never to take that dreadful seat again and he shook his fist in defiance! At this point they were weary and parched and felt the only thing left to do was race. So they went to The Racers and had themselves a race the likes this world has never seen before, and will likely never see again. Red won. So they left the park, but before their final departure, David and Laura stopped by the ticket booth to purchase a season pass for next year which the attendant was more than happy to offer them. Truly, there will be adventures ahead for the group as they heard rumors of a serpent the likes that have never been seen on the Island of Kings. BUT, before the tale ends, it must be noted that a most foul and hideous occurrence happened before they were able to escape the island. Once they reached their noble steed, the Saturn Ion, Tim discovered that his magical messaging device, his cell phone, was missing! Gasp! Horror! We searched the steed inside and out and found no trace. But then Tim came upon a brilliant idea. Perhaps he had dropped it into Burger King’s satchel before he’d thown it away. “Folly!” David gasped. Tim and his faithful wife, Amanda, found the waste receptacle in question and rummaged through the murk and the mire. Various deeds done there will not be spoken aloud here, but suffice it for me to say, it was nasty! But in the end, they were victorious and found the satchel and inside found the device though it was soiled and may never work again, but that is for another tale. Alas, through glory and horror, through victory and defeat, through heroics and…eh….trash picking; these 5 brave souls made it on and off the island with relatively little damage done to them, but with great multitudes of tales to be told for generations to come. One can only wonder what adventures await David and Laura when they travel back to the park in October.

I like to pretend there never was a "pre-Smurfs" or a "post-Smurfs" for that matter.

I never knew that about Snoopy. And his ears are up and everything!

I'm hitting the park for the first time this year on Sunday. My fiance used to work there when Flight o' Fear was new (she still has her cool government outfit with beret) so we'll probably go to the reunion stuff.

Wow, can I be your 29 year old son? I want to go to the Magic Kingdom so bad. Haven't been there since '94. Hopefully when my fiance and I get hitched, I'll talk her into stopping by there on the honeymoon.

Yeah, that first page is pretty sweet. The rest is alright. But I'm just saying, the other two CF sites are much better than http://www.visitkingsisland.com/special/haunt/index.html

Nice detailed report. Voyage rocks, right? I love that coaster. It like never lets up and seems to get faster near the end. By the way, I don't think there's anything you can do to their eagles to get good snapping. I've gone there 4 times and always try, but they're either too slow, or the cables are too spaced out or something. If you go to http://www.flyeraddicts.com/ they rate different flying scooters. The ones formerly located at KI rate a 5 out of 5 where the HW ones rate 2 and a half, if that tells you anything.

I was thinking the same thing. Both sites are pretty sweet.

Yeah, the route rocked.

I'll only be nervous that it might break down while I'm waiting in a 3 hour line.

If the rice looked like maggots, I wouldn't eat it either. I'm not saying Dead Awakening was horrible. It had its moments, but they made some horrible decisions that hopefully they'll rectify this year. I just don't think it warrants all the hype some people give it. But it is just my opinion. I'd never say someone was wrong for liking it.

I think, based on this pic, it's Intamin. If you look down in the lower right corner.

Same reason boy band concerts were so popular. Popularity is not an accurate measure of quality.

I SO agree. When visiting Halloweekends at CP last year, I thought that the scare zones were the best part. Total fog and you couldn't see the people until they were almost in your face. And the best part is that you don't have to wait in line everyone just walks through. Word. I've been to CP's Halloweekends for 5 straight years and the scare zones have always been the best part. I thought last year's Halloween Haunt scare zones were going to emulate those, until I got in line.

I hope they make the scare zones more like the ones at Cedar Point where you just walk through while people scare you. That would be tough with ones like Worksite and Cemetery where they have stuff in the paths that people could run into, but they could leave the theming to the sides and have lots of fog and lots of scares with little wait.

The Beast - Main Title and First Victim (John Williams - Jaws) Vortex - Anvil of Crom (Basil Poledouris - Conan the Barbarian soundtrack) Son of Beast - Vespertilio (James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer - Batman Begins) The Crypt - The Temple of Doom (John Williams - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) The Racer - Finale (Danny Elfman - Pee Wee's Big Adventure) Adventure Express - The Feeling Begins (Peter Gabriel - The Last Temptation of Christ) Flight of Fear - Main Titles (Vangelis - Blade Runner) Invertigo - Futile Escape (James Horner - Aliens) Flight Deck - Top Gun Anthem (Harold Faltermeyer;Steve Stevens - Top Gun) Drop Tower - All Systems Go (James Horner - Apollo 13)

What is this? A coaster for ants??? It needs to be, at least 3 times this size! That cracked me up.

Not that I plan on posting every time the crane moves, but if someone is that excited and wants to discuss what's happening in real time; I don't see what the big deal is or why they should be criticized. If you don't want to read through all of it, just make a note that this thread is not for you and don't open it.

You have to go to where you set up your background. Hit "customize desktop." Hit the "web" tab Hit "new" Put the URL in the "location" field When it finishes loading, hit OK then hit Apply on the desktop part again. It will show up as a small window on your desktop. Put your mouse near the top of the new window and hit the little down arrow on the left. There you can select to "cover desktop" for the full screen effect.

It'll be my 30th birthday next July too, so I'll be celebrating with my favorite ride at the park.

I love the Force. Every hill on that ride has airtime. The only one that seems to be ejector-type air is the little bunny hop near the end. Not sure if you rode on a cold or windy day and it just coasted over the hills, but I've ridden it around 10 times over the years and I've always had brilliant airtime on it.

Wood: Voyage Steel: Millenium Force Flat: Eagles

Hah....please! I'm with you there. If it was the best show ever at KI then the standards have really gone down. The idea was kind of cool, though a little confusing. But whoever selected the music really bombed it. If you're going to have a dark show, play dark music. If you're going to have a story, play music that goes with the story. Don't just throw in contemporary pop hits like "Rehab" because they're popular at the time. Once they sang that, I was totally out of it. I saw a small stage show of A Christmas Carol in Cincinnati a couple years back and they used current music to push the show and it worked because they sang songs that fit the mood and the story. They didn't just throw music out there because the audience might recognize the song. If Dead Awakening could pick better songs or, god forbid, create some original music; it might be worth all the hype it got.