Mikewhy

Do you mean the music from the Enchanted Voyage when it was themed to HB? I would LOVE to hear that in the park again!

Maureen said during the Winter SOAR event that some landscaping in NU would come later, because their first priority was simply to get it opeartional in time for opoening day. I would think that some additional landscaping would be added later. At least I hope so.

I completely enjoyed my visit to Winterfest, and felt all the decorations and entertainment were top notch. People should really know that there are always ways to get in an amusement park cheaper than the gate price. That is the case during the normal PKI summer season as well. I thought it was great and I am glad Winterfest will be returning. That being said, if they did lower the gate price to say 19.99 and added more lights, I think that would take care of other people's concerns for the most part...

It is my understanding that the log flume currently called Wild Thornberries is not a part of Rivertown anymore, but is part of Nick Central (soon to be Nick Universe!) I also miss the great theming of the Kings Island of old...

I visited Winterfest on December 10th with my girlfriend and we had a great time! It met and often exceeded my expectations. International Street looked magical at night again, which I have not seen in some time. The lighted Eiffel Tower was stunning, and so was the food we ate! All the shows were top notch, and we even enjoyed the White Christmas Express train ride. The entire event really put us in the Holiday spirit and we are very much ready to go next year! I personally did not mind the cost, but I can see where it would be a problem for some people. So I do agree they should lower the admission some, but ONLY if it does not mean a reduction in the quality of the attractions. I also would have enjoyed more lights in the trees on International Street and perhaps some lighted displays in the grassy areas behind the Eiffel Tower. If they also spruced up the White Christmas Express a little, then the event would be nearly perfect. We loved Winterfest and truly hope they bring it back next year!

I hope they do keep up the light outlining the buildings on International Street. I really miss that and it really makes IS look nice! I certainly understand PKI not wanting to have them on if some of the lights are burned out, but they would always do something drastic like *replace* the burned out bulbs...

You can see the exact top 25 list here: http://www.themeparkinsider.com/

I have always wanted to attend Winterfest, and now with it returning and these amazing photos, I am so ready to go!

I have serious reservations about the site wooferbear posted. While it claims to be interested only in the facts, they obviously have an agenda just like the anti-smoking forces. There are plenty of other sites where very respected medical professionals argue the dangers of second hand smoke. Science deals with probablities and uncertainties whch leads to 2 completely different and intelligent people coming up with different conclusions. I think it is a controversy that has two sides that likely will never agree. While I do not think that is slaughters people left and right, it seems obviously that second hand smoke is broadly harmful and does pose some health risks, although the evidence that it directly causes lung cancer is inconclusive overall. And I say again, even if you passionately believe that such smoke is harmless, would you really want your child subjected to it for prolonged periods of time? I somehow doubt it. So while evidence that second hand smoke kills people 100% of the time may be lacking, I still think there are plenty of respectable people who have serious reservations about it, and that is good enough for me. But I agree with what someone else said. It is like Roe V Wade. You have two sides who are eternally opposed and it is doubful the debate about it here will change that. Hopefully I have tried to remain respectful in expressing my opinion! I think PKI crafted a good policy that supports those who do not want to be exposed and who want a pro-family environment while also giving smokers plenty of places to smoke.

Well, I have been to Kings Island 5 times this year and not once was I assaulted by someone wearing heavy perfume. But I did have to get up and move twice while eating fries in Coney Island because of some smokers who refused to stop even after hearing the announcement that PKI is non-smoking. We have had to get out of line several times because I was near a smoker in the que and my allergy would act up. Cigarette smoke is far more irritating to people than things like perfume and such. If I am on an elevator with a lady with too much perfume on, later that night, I can not smell it on my clothes. If I am in the same room as a smoker or near one outside for more than a few seconds, I can smell it on my clothes all day. So once again, second hand smoke is in a league by itself and is not the same as other unpleasant smells. Cigarettes are about the foulest smelling thing out there, with a few other obvious exceptions. And the smell travels a huge distance from the smoker it seems. I do have allergies, but they are confined to cats and cigarette smoke. I also have asthma, and it is irritated by smoke as well. I have been to 21 amusement parks this year, and nothing else there causes me the same amount of discomfort as second hand smoke. I am not picky or too sick to be in the park. I just would like to smokers to use the designated areas. Then they get their fix and I get my clean air. There really is no reason not to use the designated areas. You can not spit in PKI without hitting one, they are everwhere. I have never seen a park with so many of them! I think they are more than fair to the smokers. It could be much worse. I have been in zoos where their were NO such areas and you had to leave the zoo to smoke. I would not advocate anything like that.

It is not really correct to lump smoking with other bad habits like junk food and drinking. Those things only hurt you, whereas when someone smokes, people around them inhale it whether they like it or not. Bottom line, whether or not there is a factual basis for saying it kills, it is common sense that it is not healthy, and in a way that affects people around you involuntarily. It DOES harm people with asthma, with servere allergies, and so on. I am sure there is no parent on this board who would want their children subjected to second hand smoke on a frequent basis. Cigarette smoke even in small doses really hurts me, and that is a fact. Just being subjected to it for 10 seconds causes my eyes and throat to hurt. Therefore, I think my right to breathe fresh air trumps another person's right to engage in their addiction outside of designated areas. I know many smokers who are polite. But to say that all you have to so is politely ask smokers to stop is simply not always true. Every time I have ever asked a smoker to stop, and I was always nice, I was always greeted with a huge **** you or at least a dirty look. This happens at tables in outdoor dining areas, que lines, and so on. I am sure there are considerate smokers who will stop. But there is a significant percentage who will not. I just find it kind of sad that anyone would defend second hand smoke. The world would be better without it. It would also be better without junk food, but at least when someone next to me eats it, they do not hurt me against my will.

When I am around smoke, my lungs hurt and I get sick. That is a FACT. I do not listen to any web site to tell me that second hand smoke is not harmful. I know it IS harmful to me, and I am sure to many others as well. I have seen all those sites and people stating so called facts, and I have found them to be very dubious. I can also link to web sites with facts proving it is harmful. I know from my personal experience that it is harmful to me. Therefore I should not be subjected to it. Thanks goodness PKI agrees.

I love PKI and I am very passionate about this topic! 1) Smoking - I agree the non-smoking policy needs to be more agressively enforced. If you go to Holiday World, you will see that no one smokes there except in designated areas. I hardly ever see anyone break this rule. For one, they have non-smoking signs everywhere you look, but in a way that is not unattractive. There is no way a smoker can claim ignorance of the police there! They also have very nice, attractive areas for the smokers to go, which helps. Some members of the PKI staff are too lenient and do not tell smokers to stop. I see it ALL the time. I have even seen employees TALKING politely to park visitors who are smoking and not even mentioning they are doing something against PKI rules. If they would simply tell people more often to stop, it would help. (I am aware that some employees do this, and I am grateful.) Even if smokers are aware of PKI's policy, many of them WILL smoke if they see it is not being enforced. Outside or not, the smell and the smoke are dangerous to asthmatics like myself, and I would like to see the park make more of an effort to enforce this, at least in outdoor dining areas where smoking can be really irritating. 2) The lights on the buildings on International Street. I agree they need to be brought back for the entire season! I always loved this when I was little and I never understood why they were removed. It seems many little things like that are no longer part of the park, and that is sad. I still miss the arbor tunnel. Its removal (I know part of it is still there!) still makes no sense to me.. it was a nice piece of landscaping. The same goes for the bridge that used to be across Swan Lake. Even the theming of the different areas has been deemphasized. Octoberfest used to be really nice, and is currently a mere ghost of itself. They do not even mention the names of the different areas like Rivertown on the latest park maps. 3) Merchandise - I would like to add my voice to the chorus asking for better retailing at the park! Even when it comes to the cheaper items, I can not find what I want. For example, I rarely see any good magnets. I can not find keychains, bumper stickers, updated postcards (the ones I see seem old and with little variety). There is some ride merchandise, but not too much. I wear a Beast shirt I bought a few years ago all the time, and I have people come up to me all day asking where I got it. I tell them they no longer seem to sell that shirt there, and they look disappointed. I would also like to see higher quality items as well for those willing to spend more. Most of the stuff seems cheap and undesirable. I think you need both expensive and cheaper items. 4) Food - As far as fast food, I think the park is among the best. I love the pizza, burgers, fries and so on. I would like to see more non-carbonated drinks though. I would also like to see more sit down dining, although I would like to see some unique places and not the same restaurants you can go to on any street corner. Would the cost of bringing the International Street restaurant up to code really be THAT high compared to some of the new rides they install? If so, perhaps a restaurant like it elsewhere? It would also be nice if the park had character meals with the Nick characters. It blantantly copies Disney, but kids love it and it seems like a guaranteed winner to me. None of this means I am massively unhappy with PKI. I love this park so much and go many times a year and I am a proud season pass holder and always will be. It is because I love the park so much that I have these wishes to see it better!

I miss Kenton's Cove. I loved how high in the air you were during the ride. It was always a peaceful diversion, until the drop anyway! I rode it many times back in the 80's, and I never got really wet on it. I do remember that the Wild Thornberrie's flume, long before the Wild Thornberrie's remake, seemed to get you a lot wetter on at the bottom of the hill than it does now. I really do remember that the splash alone could get you quite wet alone. It seems much tamer now, and the actual drop really does not get you that wet. (It is the darn elephant that soaks you now!) But I do vividly remember that drop on the pre-Thornberries flume was wetter in the past. I do not know if they made the splash a little tamer when they did the Thornberries remake, or if it is a function of age (I remember the wetter drops from the mid-80's!)

I am really glad to hear reports of it being enforced by some in the park. Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully it will get better over time as people become more aware of the policy. I do agree though that more prominent signs would help!

The Beast remains my favorite wooden rollercoaster, and I have ridden a large number of them. I can not say for sure exactly why this is the case... there is something about the layout, the incredible ending, and the history of this coaster that awes me. And there is no better night time ride in my opinion. It is not overrated at all. It remains my favorite wooden coaster!

I have ridden both Son of Beast and Mean streak and I did not think either of them were all that bad. I was in the very front seat on Mean Streak and it was actually a fine ride, although all that braking was annoying. I did notice that the people in back of us thought it was rough, so maybe it varies based on what seat you are in. I did not find Son of Beast all that bad. It was rough and jumpy, and at times felt like it was going over speed bumps on the track, but I did not find it painful at all, and rather enjoyed it most of the time. I did sit in a center seat since I heard they are smoother than a seat over a wheel. Maybe I caught it on a good day, but I really did not think it was all that bad. I rode The Villian at Geauga Lake, and that one definitely hurt me much more! But I would also like to see any change that would make it a more enjoyable experience for all...

I agree with you about Holiday World and those banners. I have been there, and all day I never saw a single person smoking outside of the designated areas. Those banners do seem to be effective and Kings Island should consider something like that. I also agree with you about the ride lines. There is no escape from it there...

We visited PKI on Sunday, October 2, 2005 and had a great time. The park looked beautiful and we loved all the Halloween decorations. We did not come for FearFest (It was a Sunday anyway and we know that Fearfest is only on Friday and Saturdays) but we wanted to come because we knew that since it was not a Fearfest day (Just Nick Or Treat) the ride lines would be down. And most rides had very small lines. We only waited really for Flight of Fear and Scooby-Doo and The Haunted Castle. We rode Face/Off for the first time, and it was much smoother than I thought it would be. It was great fun! Flight of Fear seemed much faster than usual, although I am sure it was my imagination. It is one of my favorite rides in the park and a great experience. We also rode in the front of The Racer, The Beast and Top Gun, and enjoyed them. The Beast did not seem as rough as during my previous visits, and was excellent. It remains my favorite wooden coaster. We also rode Drop Zone (amazing how the wind feels as you fall!), Scooby-Doo (I wish PKI had more dark rides, I love them!) and even the train to the pumpkin patch, which was cute. We also rode Adventure Express, The Beastie (we wanted one more ride on it before they rethemed it), Italian Job (people are too hard on this ride, it is really fun!), Zephyr and even saw FunHouse Express in the Action/FX Theatre. The only negative to the entire day was all the smoking we encountered. I have some health conditions that make smoke a big problem for me, and I was hopeful that the park's new non-smoking policy would help. I am sure it has reduced the smoking some, but I saw plenty of people ignoring the policy and even laughing at the non-smoking announcements being given over the speakers. I would tell people that they really should be in the smoking areas, and they would all respond in a negative and nasty manner. I even saw at one point two park employees near a game in HBL talking with a customer who was smoking right in front of their eyes, and they did not say anything to her. I also at one point reported that someone was smoking to an employee and he just shrugged and walked off. I realize you can not be fanatical about it, but without at least some enforcement of the policy, it is almost useless. If other smokers see people smoking and getting away with it, then they will be more likely to do so as well. I would just like to see more enforcement since the smoking did get to me while eating pizza on International street, waiting in line for a ride, and at other times. Otherwise, the visit was great and reinforces for me why PKI is one of my favorite parks!

You can read more details about this at these links: http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar.../509220357/1005 http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art.../509220344/1056 It sounds like the 6 things described are all brand new and not revamps of current rides. Many current rides will be changes though as mentioned in this Cincy Post article. Also, they do describe the Sponge Bob thing as a walk through. I was hoping for a dark ride of some sort, but the walk-through could be fun too!

I really love this ride and I do think it is exciting and unique. I also like the direction that Kings Island is going with the theming and such. I am sorry that some people do not like Italian Job, but that is to be expected because some people only like the really thrilling rides. But I like all kinds of rides and experiences at theme parks. I think this is an excellent family ride that kids love and that adults can love too with the right attitude and expectations. I was very impressed with this ride and applaud PKI for adding it! While at the park I will go from The Vortex, to the Carousel, to Tomb Raider, Italian Job, the scrambler and so on. I love different levels of motion and excitement. I like the variety at Kings Island, and Italian Job I think fits well into this. And the ride is a lot of fun. I am sorry that others do not agree, but we do need for those lines to die down some!

Thanks for your replies and comments on my situation. I am glad that there are sometimes separators working there. I certainly understand staffing shortages, and I can also imagine that it would not be a very fun job! Thanks for the link to the Paramount forums. I will be sure to post there.

My girlfriend and I went to Kings Island on Sunday, August 14, 2005. We are Gold Season Pass holders and so we decided to take advantage of the Walk On Weekends and get passes for various rides which allow us to bypass the normal que line and get almost directly on the attraction. This is a very nice perk and one of reasons we opted to upgrade our season pass to Gold this year. We used these passes to quickly get on Italian Job, The Beast and the Wild Thornberries River Adventure with no problem at all. The day was going very well, and we saw that the one hour window for us to walk on Scooby Doo and The Haunted Castle had begun at 5:45. So we made our way over to Scooby Doo, got in the special line for the Walk On Weekend folks, and handed our passes to the nice lady at the doorway. After you hand your pass to the employee at the door to the ride's building, you walk a while down a dark hallway, which takes you almost to the room where you board the ride. However, before you do this, you have to merge with the people already in line and then go another 15 feet to the rotating loading platform. This is a very bad situation, because the people already in line who are not aware of Walk On Weekends simply see people coming up the other side of the line in the dark and then cutting in front of them. There is no indication of why this is happening, and no employee present to control the situation. We came up to the merge point and of course no one would let us in. We waited until there seemed to be a gap between families and stepped politely into the line. We waited patiently and were in no way pushy or arrogant about it. Immediately, a woman starts to loudly complain that we had no right to get in front of her like that. We tried to explain to her that we had a Gold Season Pass and were using a Walk On Pass to board the ride, but she insisted we had no right to get in front of her and that we had something against her group because we picked THEM to get in front of. We insisted that we only waited until there was a natural gap between families and then got in line, and it was nothing personal against her. But she continued to loudly protest, and was quite verbally abusive. But by the time we got to the loading platform, members of her party were insulting us, threatening us with violence, and being very intimidating. I tried to bring this to the attention of the worker showing people to the ride, but he simply shrugged at me and pointed out a vehicle for us to ride in. This was very upsetting to myself and especially my girlfriend, who was unable to enjoy the ride at that point and needed about an hour to recover from a very tense and unpleasant incident. I did report this to Guest Relations, mainly to suggest that they post an employee at the line merge point at all times who would escort people with a Walk On Weekend pass to the line and at least explain to anyone upset why this was happening. The very nice lady at Guest Relations told me that there was *supposed* to be someone there doing just that. However, we stood in the regular Scooby Doo que line a few hours later so we could have another ride, since the last one was rather tainted. As we were in line, we noticed some other families coming in with their Walk On Weekend Passes, and while they did not endure what we did earlier that day, they did have a hard time getting into line because no one wanted to let them pass. Once again, there was no PKI employee to help with the merging. Kings Island really needs to change this. The incident was very disturbing, and could lead to some real conflicts from people who do not understand what is happening. If anyone here works on the ride or knows someone associated with it, it would be nice if you mentioned this. I would hate to see another guest go through what we did. I realize that Walk On Weekends are over for 2005, but they will likely return again next year. Thanks for listening.

I really miss that tunnel and I simply can not understand the logic for removing it as a passageway. It was a really great landmark. I know one of the goals for the 98 renovation of HB was to provide more shade for people eating, but that was a not a good way to go about doing that. The tunnel was really nice, and I vividly remember the twinkling white lights that the tunnel had at night. I still miss it...

I have always said that KK needs to remove the ole Hang and Bang (T2) and then they will have room for a new coaster. They could even remove the seldom use amphitheatre they have behind T2 and then install a much larger coaster than T2... Just my thoughts on that!