Magenta Lizard

I would bet it’s a possibility

You’re playing with fire there

That dress’s print has roller coasters as part of the design

I hope to heck it /doesn’t/ have a number in the name, personally. I hesitate to offer suggestions, because Mystic Timbers came from soooooooooo far out of left field . But, I think I may have mentioned before it would be cool to have it somehow reference the origins of powered flight as a nod to the Wright Brothers of Dayton, and/or space travel since Ohio has produced so many astronauts. Also, any reference to space or aliens would be perfectly in place for X-Base.

I love playing the Wizard of Oz (and to a lesser extent Willie Wonka) coin pushers. I used to play the cranes a lot when I was younger, but that was before they changed the way they work, and it was more about skill than luck. I still end up playing them occasionally but when I was a kid, almost all of any spending money I was given went into the cranes I have a pretty big bank of arcade tickets/points at the moment, leading into this year’s season. There was little that actually caught my eye among the prizes last season. I was hoping for more new and interesting prizes at Winterfest (I ended up with a lot of things from the arcade during the first new Winterfest), but it didn’t happen. The things I /really/ like to see as arcade prizes are Kings Island branded merchandise, things I was planning to buy otherwise (like games for my Switch), Lego sets, and interesting decor items.

I have too many fond memories of Beast to mention, but I’ll focus on three. Last season, I had a ride on an evening when there were distant storms. Although the lightning wasn’t close enough to close the ride, the random flashes of light and rolls of thunder made the ride disorienting and spooky. There was one bright flash that happened just as we exited the last tunnel before the second lift hill. I thought it was just possible I was going to exit the ride at Candlelight Park (like in R.L. Stine’s The Beast books). When I learned The Beast was approaching its 50 millionth rider a few years ago, I rode a lot trying to be the “winner.” One evening, I entered the station and saw Don Helbig milling around on the exit side, so I hurriedly picked an empty row in the middle of the train rather than whichever row I had been planning to wait for (probably 14 or 17). After we were in our seats and checked, they announced the 50 millionth rider was on our train. He was a few rows ahead of me, so I guess I was the 50,000,005th or sixth but we ALL felt like the 50 millionth riders. Everybody was whooping it up during the ride, and continued celebrating on the brake run. It was very special. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in several tours behind-the-scenes at Beast. There have been ones at Coasterstock, ones scheduled through Twitter or Snapchat, and ones from the KI Blog. One in May 2015 is the most special to me for two things that stood out: my husband, who doesn’t get to visit the park very often, was there too, and it is the only time I’ve gotten inside the helix. It happened that day that the group who showed for the weekday tour was fairly small, and the weather had been pleasant enough leading up to the day that there was not much mud. It was amazing just to be inside the helix but we also were allowed to stay and photograph while a train or two went through.

And then you wanted to disappear, I bet. Eek

The small red ones. You can get a new one every 15 minutes

Hangar 18 at WPAFB has long been rumored to be the location where alien bodies/tech are stored. It was also referenced on one of the Flight of Cheer posters at KI. I suspect this is just a nod to those rumors by the artist, and the same artist was likely used for all of these posters.

This is from 2017, but you can get the picture https://www.visitkingsisland.com/binaries/content/assets/ki-en-us/general-information/help/ki17-257-guest-assistance-guide-revised_v2.pdf Carousel, Boo Blasters, and the train would be safe. All of the coasters and big thrill rides advise against riding pregnant. It would be safest for her to get further advice from her doctor on whether and how far into pregnancy any of the other rides may be considered low risk, for her.

Assuming there is a new coaster coming in 2020, yes I expect there to be teaser signs for it (ala “watch for falling trees” with Mystic Timbers) by preview night, and yes, signs of construction as the season progresses.

Once when I was coming back in through the front security check, one of the security guards had been talking on the walkie-talkie to someone else about someone who had just been apprehended inside the park, after jumping off the train to run off into the woods. He made a comment afterwards to the effect of “oh, now we aren’t kicking people out for that?” I suspect the “guest” ultimately was kicked out though.

My guess for the parade route would be starting from the employee entrance area that is in between the men’s and women’s restrooms inside the front gates, along international street on one side of the fountains, circling the tower, and back along the other side of international street then out the same way they came in. That would allow all the floats to be stored between parades, in that parking lot that is over there, which we’ve walked through on occasion to get to train tours at Coasterstock

Ooh, I so hope the performer of Thee Undertaker is also going to be the King of Carnivale! I would love to have his energy kicking off this show

This will be Gravity’s second year. Both Cirque Imagine and Origins ran for two years at Kings Island

Racer is likely to have some good views as well

I think it’s pretty likely. I have a strong feeling I’ll be riding WindSeeker a lot more often this summer....

I don’t recall there being a siren, but I have been in the park when they have come over the loudspeakers to recommend guests take shelter. Bad thunderstorms but not tornadoes.

Mass-hole LOL

The name “Mystic Timbers” was so far out of left field, and such a complete surprise, I would have a hard time predicting any names. I feel like the two most likely possibilities are that any new coaster is considered part of Coney Mall or of X-Base. If Coney, some sort of reference to the former Shooting Star would be awesome. Actually now that I think of it, a shooting star wouldn’t be outside of the spacey theme of X-Base, for that matter. But, even though KI is considered more a part of Cincinnati, as someone who grew up north of Dayton I know it’s pretty special to Daytonians as well. Some sort of reference to Wright Patterson AFB (or even simply the Wright Brothers) wouldn’t be out of place, especially in X-Base.

Granted that we still won’t know for certain if it is a giga for some time, we should have some pretty clear signs/teasing in a month when the park opens, if a new coaster is coming in 2020. So at least there’s not much longer to wait until we can confirm (or deny) something

If I were Queen of Kings Island I would decree the old fountain pedestals be reused to make new fountains in other parts of the park. Like, make a new water feature in Tower Gardens and/or Planet Snoopy.

And for some reason, nobody seems to be complaining about the /other/ giant sheet metal building in the area, even though that one is directly next to the lift hill, station, and brake run of KI’s historically secluded roller coaster. In fact, I believe someone actually suggested it would be better to build another one like it to house Madame Fatale’s. The point is that amusement parks are by their nature a place to suspend your disbelief: they are never going to be a 100% representation (except, possibly at Disney World level and Disney World prices). There is just no good reason to raze a serviceable building because it “sticks out.” Either it makes financial sense to the park to put something else there, or it doesn’t. It probably eventually will but as long as it doesn’t, at least in the meantime the park is getting some use out of the financial investment in the building.

It’s a huge building that takes up tons of space (and offers tons of storage space for the park, and room for a maze during one of their most popular yearly events) that was not cheap to build nor would it be cheap to replace it with some other maze and/or storage building. Why the big desire to completely ditch that investment and remaining usefulness by tearing it down?

I actually hadn’t really noticed it at all my first couple seasons back to the park (2014 & 15). It was the constant harping on it by a small subsection of commenters on KIC that caused me to actually look for/at it. I don’t get why it is somehow more deserving of ire than any of the buildings alongside Racer (and the big one at the turnaround), the offices at the end of Woodstock Express, or the greenhouses alongside Bat. Is it because it was once a ride that people think it should either be constantly accessible or in use? I mean to ask, was there this much anger about the building when TR:TR was in it? Or is it simply not being allowed inside that is so upsetting?