Magenta Lizard

I think a black track would be interesting if that is where it is going.

Yeah, you're right, it would kind of eliminate the build up if they totally revealed it after only a month. But, I do expect there will be some heavy heavy teasing next month!

Announcement at Coasterstock to placate the hundreds of rabid enthusiasts that will be at the park anyway

Btw, the tulips thing was a joke. I periodically make those because the speculating is fun even when the park isn't giving us enough real hints to keep things interesting I sometimes make my time at the park into the scavenger hunt for clues I want them to make for us, even if they aren't. Although I think there is supposed to be one at Coasterstock!

I'm a victim of peer pressure Like I said, I rarely even put my hands up, but in my exuberance about being in the park after all these long months, I threw caution to the wind. I don't think it would be all that easy to actually break a bone doing what I did. Basically the tunnel wall directed my hands back off of it promptly, with the friction being the problem, but it didn't feel violent. I bruise pretty easily, but there's no bruise under the spot where I was injured, even though it's a hard bone there and took the brunt of the force. If I had been hurt worse, though, it's not like they didn't warn me. This is what it looks like after four days of Neosporin and Band-Aids. Hopefully my spoiler tags work for those who don't want to see that kind of thing.

The queue line for the former Crypt building is not blocked by the new soccer game or relocated basketball game. In fact, it is more "open" than I recall it being in non-Haunt. Wasn't there a fence that blocked the view of it before? I don't remember. The new path to the railroad crossing for WWC runs alongside the former Crypt's old queue.

I didn't, but I definitely will be on the lookout for them once I'm at the park by myself. I'll admit that with my poor memory, this information is probably worthless, but I seem to remember them being $25-$30

Yep, I sure did. And immediately felt like a buffoon. It's particularly idiotic because I very rarely put my hands up on any rides.

I had always wondered if the helix tunnel wall was as close as it appears, or if it was just a optical illusion brought about by the speed. I never saw anyone hit it when they had their hands up, but I was too safety conscious to test it myself. Well, Friday I accidentally discovered it really is that close. Sitting on the left side of the last row, I had my hands up, but crossed at the wrists and trying to keep them toward the right. Just before entering the tunnel, I got jostled and my arms went slightly to the left and I tagged the finger and thumb of my right hand and corner of my left wrist on the wall of the tunnel. The finger and thumb came out ok, but my wrist still looks like I took a grinder to it. I didn't scream tho, so I don't know if anyone could have heard me or not.

Racer has two excellent things going for it: high capacity thanks to being able to run two trains at once, and it's not so huge as to be too scary for as many attendees as say, DB. That said, it has one major drawback from the park's perspective, the paint. If not for the paint, I'd assume it would be around indefinitely. Because of the paint, I don't know.

There's a wall blocking the old funnel cake stand/old WWC entrance, it has signs that say watch for falling trees. Survey markers and some trees that have been tagged with green paint can be seen from the train. That's the run down of definites so far. Oh, and WWC and its supply reservoir is still drained because, they say, it is undergoing repairs.

Assuming the weather is nice, it will be similar. However, being open to the public on Sunday too this weekend probably will spread the crowds out a little.

I posted earlier about my thoughts resulting from what I saw with my own eyes, of what appear to be legitimate signs of groundwork being laid for the 2017 project. But, I think it equally interesting and important to address things KI may be doing simply to hint, trick, or mislead us. I have a feeling some of the hints they hide may only be clear to us after the fact. An example would be the giant gold disco ball, that so intrigued me when I got to the set-up for the 2016 announcement last year. It wasn't ever addressed, so I just figured it was brought out as a random decoration. However, I noticed it hanging inside the Festhaus last weekend, presumably related to the new show Hollywood Nights. Was it a hidden hint, then? I can't be sure, but I'm intrigued. So, as Dumbledore once said “From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork." The first strange thing I noticed at the park is, admittedly, subtle. Probably nothing. But these two tulips (two two lips?) in front of Kill Mart seemed so lonely and out of place Continuing the floral theme, this time much closer to the presumed "action" - while on the train I noticed something odd about the Mary Rose Inn. I wasn't certain on the first glimpse before Soak City, so I examined further on the closer pass... It's not perfectly obvious in the picture what you're seeing, but those two lower right windows now have Venetian blinds instead of the more period-appropriate tattered curtains of the other windows. If they had simply covered the windows with something like paper or cardboard, I'd assume it was a temporary thing meant to block something unsightly or that they didn't want the public to see. But going to the trouble to install such obviously inappropriate window coverings, almost has to mean something or be intended to be used to reveal something at a future date. I know I am going to be watching each visit to see if sometimes the blinds are slatted open to show something of interest behind. (stashua123, if there is such a team, I'm on it)

I was using a /highly/ simplified scenario to explain how/why 10% of tickets sold and 10% of daily attendance are very different when discussing single vs multi day tickets because someone didn't realize why they wouldn't be the same. We could get into very complex math (and I'm certain Disney does) to crunch the actual realities of park sales and attendance, but it wouldn't be as clear a way to explain the concept. As I mentioned, just adding in the factor of pricing makes for a more complex situation

I said 10% of tickets /sold/ for my scenario not 10% of attendance, and that is where the 190 attendance comes from. That was the whole point. There aren't "new people coming in", there are 10% of 100 tickets that allow for one day attendance, and 90% that allow for two days attendance.

I took this picture of one of The Beast Containment area signs last year during Haunt. That was the first I noticed it but by no means would I definitively say it was when it was added. I just was paying more attention while looking for the gravestones of retired rides.

No, because multi-day tickets are valid for more than one day. So say 10% of tickets sold are single day, and the other 90% are two day, to keep the math simple. Also to simplify, imagine only 100 tickets are sold every two days, with the single day patrons only attending one of those days. So every two days, there has been attendance of 190 (ten using one day tickets, and 90 others visiting twice each: 10+90*2). 10% of the park /attendance/ that results from those 100 tickets sold would be 190*0.1, or 19. Which is clearly different than 10% of tickets sold, 10. Also in this simplified scenario, 10% of tickets sold being single day results in only around 5% of patrons in the park having purchased single day. And that whole discussion assumes that the 10% figure was referring to absolute number of tickets or attendees, rather than dollar amounts. That would further muddy the calculations, because it weights single-day ticket buyers' influence on the results because they are paying more (often much more) per day.

They said on the train it was still drained to facilitate repair-work that needs to be finished before it is reopened.

Oddly enough, the drink machines in International Street La Rosa's have no option for water. I guess the bottle fillers will be even more important this season. I hope they start selling foldable water bottles at the park. I have one I got at a dollar store a couple years back, but it is showing its age, and I've wanted one that says Kings Island instead, all this time.

Ok, while I haven't actually bought a game card yet, I have a few further thoughts after seeing the range of implementation. I had previously assumed that the token-op machines would continue to use tokens or bills in addition to the game cards, similar to how they still took tokens after bill-takers were added. This is not the case, though, there are metal plates over the coin slots, and no longer take bills directly either. Which makes the handful of tokens I had leftover at the end of last season collectors items, sweet! Look for them soon on eBay ;p Unfortunately, from what I could see, there does not seem to be a corresponding bonus to loading more on a card at one time in the way there was with buying more than $1 worth of tokens. $1 was worth two tokens, but changing out $5, $10, or $20 offered increasing numbers of bonus tokens. For $20, you received 60 (or $30-worth of) tokens. If you load $20 to a game card, you get $20-worth of play. It makes me personally unlikely to load very much to the card at one time, while it wasn't unusual for me to spend $20 on tokens once I learned of the bonus (which explains my leftover tokens at the end of last season). On the other hand, carrying tokens was quite the pain in the butt, especially if I wanted to keep enough on me to get the secondary bonus for playing $5, $10, or $20 at one time on the Wizard of Oz coin pushers, if I happened to run into one that looked really good to play. 40 tokens was too much for my little change purse I carry at the park. I'm going to quite enjoy only needing to carry one extra card in my wallet, regardless of how much "play" I have loaded to it. It's funny that the only game I played all weekend, the new soccer game (which I only played because I got to be the first park-goer to play it), I ended up handing cash to the attendant, because the card system wasn't working properly yet.

Measuring with the pin (the same tool is used to unlock individual lap bars from the side of the trains, I believe) is a way of determining if the lap bars are down the required two clicks. I've had it done to me in past years, which is kind of funny to me, because I'm not particularly large, but I also do try to keep as much room under the bar as I safely can. Using the tool to measure is generally a sign of a new ride op. After they've been working for awhile, they can judge the distance by sight and don't need the confirmation of the tool.

To add to a previous post I made talking about how I enjoyed what seemed like a renewed focus on theming: The new funnel cake house looks excellent, and fits in beautifully as an addition to Rivertown. Someone pointed out to me that the roof had been pre-rusted, and I noticed such touches on the other metal pieces like downspouts and flashing. It gives it a worn-in look from the very beginning. Re-riding Adventure Express in daylight, I'm not sure how much work was done on the theming in the earlier tunnels, but on at least one ride I noticed the sound effects were finally loud enough to be certain of. I only remember ever hearing the rushing wind in the second tunnel in recent years, but I clearly heard snake rattles in the snake tunnel on one of my rides. It makes me long terribly for accompanying sound on the final lift hill, and gives me greater hope for its eventual return.

From what I saw from the train of the survey markers, they were unquestionably following paths IMO, which finally put me on the coaster bandwagon. I previously was not convinced it was going to be a coaster, perhaps just a flat. I got the impression of a coaster that will have elements that interact with WWC and perhaps even DB. I'm not completely happy about this conclusion, because I'd rather see another coaster in the Coney Mall section (Dinosaurs) than mess with the wooded area behind the train. Timberhawk will be my new nickname for what I think is coming.

I'd be really surprised if they allowed themselves to lose a trademark they've already owned for decades, just a month before starting to tease the public with the ride they wanted to name that. It's expensive to go through the trademarking process, but cheaper to continue one than start a new one (or re-trademark a lost one). So long story short, while I'd love the name Grizzly, I'd be really surprised if that was the name of what they are going to build.

Since I don't like the dig about falling trees, I'm hoping it is a cutesy clue to the name of the coming attraction. So, like someone mentioned, Lumberjack. Timber, or a play on that would make sense as well. As for type of ride, I don't even want to speculate. To me, for it to be either a giga or a woodie, it would be near excellent somewhat similar rides, either way. I'm partial to wooden, so if they could do something different from Beast but fun in its own way, I'd be happy with that. I also hope we get some sort of further hint if not outright announcement next month at Coasterstock. I'm already terribly excited for the event, so it would be extra gravy.