Magenta Lizard

3:30 if they follow what they've been doing Fridays and Sundays.

One of my favorite performers at Winterfest is Ebenezer Scrooge. I realized tonight that it would be a bit incongruous, though, to hear his beloved "humbug!" after Christmas. I wonder if when the park is open December 26-30th if we'll instead see "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew." I have no doubt the actor is capable, but I don't know if it is in the plans.

I have to hope that what they have in the buffet is better than the dinners at the Festhaus. I'm really ok with reconstituted mashed potatoes and Stove-Top-esque stuffing for my basically-free-on-dining-plan-at-this-point meal, but when I'm paying $20 I expect it to step up at least a /little/. The proteins have been very good, though, I've tried both the ham and the turkey now and really liked both. Guess I'll be finding out soon, we finally scheduled a date to try the buffet one weekday this week. I'll report back, even though I know it's getting a little close to the end.

^KI has the same graphic, only it says "Winterfest" at the top. I thought it odd it doesn't say KI at all but I still really like mine. There are also a large number of other t-shirts, sweatshirts, and long sleeved ts. One of my favorites that I only "discovered" on my last (7th) visit, is this one:

I don't think anyone mentioned it, but they've moved Tom+Chee into the Planet Snoopy Grill location (I believe temporarily for Winterfest)

I know it used to be the policy that they had to be covered (I thought one ride op had been nursing a leg injury for the longest time before I learned he was actually covering a tattoo). However, I have noticed this last season that the policy limiting facial hair has been relaxed, and I believe I also saw some visible tattoos on ride ops early in the season. It is possible, though, that those individuals hadn't yet been informed. Somebody on the "inside" can probably give a better answer, as mine is purely observational.

I keep ending up with this stuck in my head En Annan Typ Av Disco

You know, now you mention it, I remember someone at the park (I apologize I literally forget who, I'm not trying to skirt the board rules) mentioning that in the last few hours before Winterfest began they started focusing on making things look clean rather than necessarily finishing everything that was planned, kind of shoving some stuff aside to be completed later. So maybe there really were/are plans for Christmas lights on Mystic Timbers, and that wasn't just artistic license on the park map.

4:30. Also Sunday. Apparently Saturday is 4:00

The royal-looking mouse is the Mouse King from the Nutcracker. I talked to the guy with the bells some last weekend but didn't think to ask him his character name. He said he's played an evil clown at Haunt as well. It is probably much more pleasant to be a roamer at Winterfest than at Haunt. No pressure to try to scare anyone, much less likelihood of getting punched, all you need to do is have fun, dance, and pose for pics with guests. I had been a little (ok a lot) disappointed when I learned the manic Sugarplum Fairy from the park advertising wasn't going to be our actual actress. But I finally got to see KI's version Sunday when a few roamers started a little dance party during Four Drummers Drumming, and she is a hoot!

Something has bothered me since I first watched Plight Before Christmas... It's a really fun show though!

^ really, it would make a lot of sense to retheme Invertigo as the Demon, especially being in the same area as Banshee and Bat.

I caught Blitzen's Brass Band last night, they sound very good

In my non-professional opinion, these look very much like foundations for a building.

Sitting here waiting for the gates to open I'm reminded how much I enjoy the wide variety of styles of music that are part of the Winterfest playlist!

I don't know from personal experience, but I have heard the soup or chili in a bread bowl at Hank's is also included on dining plans. If so, I very well may get that tomorrow.

There are a few extra decorations in the shed but no change to the screens. The Fast Lane queue is now a single rider line (because there is no Fast Lane at Winterfest). Since I got separated from my group on the mad dash over, I made use of the line, and it was very nice. The man I ended up paired with had gone around and rode again afterward, while I was still waiting for my group to get through the regular line.

^might not be a bad idea aesthetically (although it wouldn't hold up monetarily) to just swap Backlot and Firehawk for that reason.

Cowboy coaster!!!!

I abstain from voting. I feel like our coaster line-up right now covers a wide variety of different qualities that different riders may enjoy. Even the coasters I like less than others, or ones that aren't meant to be for someone like me (Great Pumpkin, for example) do fill their own niche. I also feel there is room, without removal, to add coasters that would fill different gaps in the lineup. If any coaster were removed, it would be /someone's/ favorite coaster, and that doesn't sit well with me. So I vote not even one!

I assume they will have seating/ skate adjustment/ etc area within the greater fountain area. I really can't imagine they would say "sorry if you have to sit, you can't go back."

I'm still curious if we will get an announcement at all during Winterfest. I felt that Kings Island delayed their announcement in a large part because so many people who might otherwise attend were likely to be drawn to the Steel Vengeance announcement instead that day. However, I believe at some point Don Helbig said there would be an announcement at a later date. I expected it to come sometime between then and the end of the regular season. Then sometime before the end of Haunt. But still nothing... Having Winterfest come again to the park is going to be enough of a media attention draw that an announcement isn't really necessary, but I hope we get one anyway.

It makes me really happy that in addition to being imminently qualified for the job, he is enthusiastic about Kings Island in particular on top of that! Looking forward to seeing his work in the future!

^I hope so too, but I think they would have made at least a little bit of a deal about it in their advertising if they were going to do that, to try to prompt more fall sales. It will probably be all passholders next spring. Hopefully they will learn their lesson and limit it for 2019, though, when there will be a new coaster again (I hope!)

Finally I will be able to serve authentic Kings Island cuisine to my dinner party guests! If I could get a full tray of the corn pudding and a whole smoked turkey breast from the Island Smokehouse tho...