BeeastFarmer

I remember polka style music, Flight of the Bumlebee and violin music during the pre Paramount days. I would love to hear this on I Street:

You are more knowledgeable about the park than I am (or ever will be!), so your response raises more questions than it answers. My perspective: Kinzel buys Paramount Parks, taking on massive debt during a severe economic downturn that takes years to correct. Parks are turned generic and run cheaply. Kinzel leaves and is replaced by Ouimet who wants to restore "magic" to the entire chain. Positive changes take place. Ouimet retires as CEO and becomes board chairman. New CEO is former KI park president who oversaw removal of lots off Taft charm in favor of things like Scooby Doo dark ride, Delerium, Tomb Raider and Junkyard Coaster. KI's GM announces Mystic Timbers, a very highly themed coaster and the return of Winterfest. He gets promoted and Mike Koontz comes in and begins a massive overhaul to restore KI to a modern day "Taft" park, relying on lots of nostalgia. Corporate , at the same time, says be prepared for older, labor intensive rides that also cost money will leave. A year later, the parks will become more focused on experience and larger investements will be more spread out. Winterfest has puzzled me as to how it was deemed a failure under Paramount's one year staging. Seems to me that they put not just money but a lot of effort into it. That was carried into Grand Carnivale (Winterfest in the summer?)

Can you expound on this a little bit?

I never saw the appeal of spending double the amount of money for a bland sandwich in park than out of park. Same thing with Chic-Fil-A. I guess since they are familiar and have a fan base, but it doesn't make financial sense to me, especially when there are other choices. That's not to disparage Chic-Fil-A or Subway as I eat them outside the park from time to time.

How about no banner and a return of the international flagpoles/flags?

In the OP, why does the ET and Orion seem larger than life? I mean, I know about forced perspective, but neither one are THAT big or THAT close to the turnstile buidling.

I appreciate your insights as a show professional. It gives me a great perspective of that aspect. But the vast majority of folks don't dissect the story as much as I did, and even less than you do I give the park an A for effort and a B+ for results for the majority of guests.

If I recall from past conversations about the MT story line, the security footage and lift hill audio is from "current" time, not from when the MVLCo was abandoned. The greeter position is a current day security checkpoint to keep people out, but some urbex folks have gotten in and security is going thru the woods looking for them. The urbexers either see security or the mystic item, find an old truck, and jump in (this is the audio that plays when a train is dispatched). Then the audio plays on the lift hill giving them a final warning to leave and if they dont, whatever they do, don't go in the shed! I could be wrong about this, but this is my understanding.

Great commercial. One question, though. Since The Racer is being repainted this year, it has been brought up that the last paint job was in 1991, when it went to white structure with black track. The commercial is from 1977, but it doesn't look like the track is red, rather it looks black to me.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I am in line for Mystic Timbers, and I see random people floating silently near me in fiberglass logs, it seems kind of atmospheric!

The story from the park (Don Helbig), if I recall correctly, is that The Racer was returned forwards because of the ridership numbers and backwards had "run its course." (If I am incorrect, please don't crucify me). I have heard that in the other parks, the trains were returned to forwards running to bring them in line with other Cedar Fair parks.

It's about new water lines and a tree with a pink flag near The Bat. But that's really not it, it's of course hinting at a Wing Coaster to replace Invertigo, Congo and Timberwolf. LOL

Rivertown was originally intended to be a "Frontier World" type of experience, but was altered before the park opened to incorporate Cincy's river heritage. Therefore, RT was not a Wild West destination. Starting with Taft, the decay slowly took over. Diamondback could be updated by replacing the sun screens with a roofed structure. The log flume could go back into Rivertown as originally intended. To me, Mystic Timbers is fine even with a 1980's theme vs an 1880's theme. Crypt building could be removed or painted to look less generic (but the paint would likely be an issue of upkeep budget and would spur complaints here). Then there is the Junkyard Coaster and surrounding area. This ride needs to either get removed/relocated or extensively rethemed. I would love to see a defined new area that ties International Street in. KD has a large, wooded promenade that leads to CAG. For us, I could see a center promenade with smaller flat rides that would appeal to the grandparent population with pathways to stroll and rich landscaping. That would solve so many problems. But with AZ, PS and SS and The Crypt needing attention, I dont see much happening here.

I have seen this photo from 1972 before and found it interesting that the white gravel was not there. I wish they would add more flowers and less (or no) grass around the Royal Fountain. The ornate shrubbery and white gravel would be a maintenance nightmare, I can understand why it's gone. Also, I wish the ornate light fixtures returned in 2019.

That looks like an epoxy coating. Much better than what was there before. Good eye, @IndyGuy4KI. Tables look great--lets hope people respect them.

^ I was not able to go to WWT, but from what I have seen, there is not much in the way of live entertainment. That is a weakness that Herschend needs to address. I love KK, but I was expecting change to come quicker.

Outsourcing certainly is interesting. Providing the service, but not being employees of the company where you work. Our hospital oursources many services: Food goes to Morrison's, equipment (IV pumps, bladder scanners, etc) goes to Agility, Clinical Engineering to somebody, Housekeeping to somebody, etc. Food prices are comparable to outside eateries and weekday lunch is good....cant see an impact from the others. The hospital has no long term obligations like retirement, benefits and workers comp. But they still get the revenue from parking permits! I wonder if we will see CF outsource in other areas? Resort housekeeping? Front of house foodservice? What else could be outsources?

If I recall correctly, KD had nice pavers around their Eiffel Tower. They also had park history slabs in the pavement, so I wondered if they repurposed their Paramount Story slabs into KD history pavers. Would be great if KI did this!

It truly is amazing. I have often thought it was like park enthusiasts had a checklist, and since 2016, the park has worked that check list: Winterfest, better music on IS, paint, parking lot, GiGa, vine tunnel, food, Racer repaint (and many other surprise repaints), non ride experiences....and the list goes on. Sure, there are many more things to go, but all of this that has been done has put the park in the best shape I have seen it since I was a child.

I remember a few years back, that many on here said that a repaint would not be likely because of the cost of lead paint abatement. I have no idea how much, if any, lead paint had to be removed and abated, but I do think it is remarkable that the ride has not only been repainted, but restored after the financial challenges of the last two years. Well done, KI and CF!

Chicken Shack (knock off of Zaxby's) and CFA coexist peacefully. Chicken Shack works as a knock off, the Imitation CFA at CP didn't. But, alas, I am off topic. The point of my post was that just because CP removes Subway doesn't mean that KI or other CF parks will. Or maybe it does.

CP also replaced Chic-Fil-A with a copycat eaterie. CFA was brought back quickly. But KI did not follow suit with removal, copycat and replace. For me, Subway is a tired brand and not worth a meal punch. I think it has been 3 or 4 years since I had Subway.

I would conjecture that Cedar Fair has never stopped working with Intamin. Rather, they stopped buying new rides from them. They have to continue to work with them on existing rides for guidance. Sort of like when parents get divorced and have children together. They might not like each other because of the past, but they still need to coparent.

It was not a park project. It was an individual who was working with others. He canceled the project because he said the Covid 19 pandemic made it so that he could not travel to do interviews for the documentary, if I remember correctly. If you haven't already, look into buying @KIghostguy's book: Kings Island: A Ride Through Time. It delves into to history of the park in a chronological order with interviews of the people that made it all happen. If you are a fan of nostalgic but fact-based story -telling, this is the book for you.

I have lived in towns and cities without mass transport for my entire life. It's not something for me to get excited about. I caught the tail end of light rail when I lived in the Phoenix area. The passed a tax that funds freeway expansion and in the 20 year "re-up" they added in light rail, which was fairly controversial. It started in east Tempe and ended in downtown Phoenix. I believe the impetus was a connector between ASU and their new campus in downtown Phoenix, with eventual expansion plans to the ASU West campus in Glendale. I moved away right as construction commenced. I have travelled the light rail when I have visited and used it a few times. It seems wildly inefficient and bungled. It does take cars off roads to an extent, but unless you live close to a station, you still have to take a car or bus to the station, pay to park (or bus fare) and pay rail fare. Because it is light rail, it has many stops due to intersections and drop offs. It took about a half an hour longer to get from Tempe to downtown sports arenas than driving and parking did from when I lived there. I saw three fights, graffiti and several folks passed out, most having wet themselves and smelling of alcohol and urine. It was nice to be able to just sit back and ride to Diamondback games though. And the last time I was there, they were talking about linking the airport. That would be cool to Uber to the light rail and get to the airport without having to burden the host.