BeeastFarmer

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.

I opened the link at around 0830, refreshed at 10am sharp. I had no issues buying by refreshing. My friend was not able to get the buy now button, but went incognito and was able to buy.

I don't know if ODA and CF subscribe to the "Swarm" mentality with incidents, but it has taken some industries by storm. Basically, when something serious happens, they seek to gather all information via incident reports, eyewitness reports, physical evidence etc. They seek to gather all this information via "blameless reporting" so as not to intimidate truth telling. They are doing a root cause analysis to determine what happened and why. The goal is to find weak links and prevent the same incident from happening again. I think as time passes, the blame game is diminished. I don't want to think ODA wants to seem tto be over regulating private industry. I did not read 620 pages of the report, but I did see the emails between CP and Sandor at Intamin asking for reduced winter tear down on the Intamin Coasters.

Not the same industry, but a similar situation: Hospital RN makes $26/hr. Travel nurses are brought in to fill the gap and make much, much more. This can cause discontent among the original staff, who become travellers, leave the profession etc. That adds to the viscous cycle and is a small piece of the giant puzzle with our healthcare system. However, with CP, the $20/hr are returners, with experience on their side. New hires and internationals should realize that those with more experience get more money.

Report is finally out: Ohio Department of Agriculture completes investigation into Top Thrill Dragster incident | WSYX (abc6onyourside.com)

I had no issues getting my ticket. A friend had the "no button" issue, but she went incognito mode and it worked for her. Several others have said the "buy now" button but at around 10:10, it would not let them select t-shirt sizes. I don't know if that means they were sold out at 10:10 or if it was a glitch. Congrats to all who got tickets.

Since returning workers will keep last year's rate, it should incentivize many experienced employees to return. Just for sake of numbers: If they need 6500 and get 1000 VISA workers, they need 5500 domestic workers. If 4000 employees return, with their experience, they 5000. Then they only need to hire 1500 at $15/hr.

Or, there is a leveraged buyout and the company splits the company up. A scenario could unfold like Servicemaster went through: Company is bought out by private equity. Private equity sells off smaller pieces that are not profitable or not as profitable (they sold off ARS, Trugreen LandCare etc) Company is lean and mean. One division is doing very well (Terminix) and has great growth. TruGreen Lawncare, for the longest time the biggest unit of the company, faces challlenges and is sold off. Company decides all other units are a distraction and sells them off, leaving only Terminix. Company sheds the Servicemaster name as the spun off divisions are now competition and is now just Terminix.

KI is one, if not the first memory I have. I was four. I remember waiting in line for Kings Mills Log Flume. The line was long. When we got to the queue that was right beside the ride (IIRC, the railings used to extend further down, almost to where Snoopy spits on you today), I got terrified and had a meltdown about riding. One of my mom's co-workers was with us, a grandmotherly type. She took me out of the line and we went to the tunnel. It was cool and shaded and she calmed me down as we looked at the flowers and waited. I am sure there was ice cream or something involved, too. The rest of the day is gone except seeing fireworks for the first time while having a grape sipper.

Maybe Six Flags could be preparing itself for divestment. If it put itself up for sale, FUN and SEAS could pick parks to add (ie FUN gets Fiesta, SEAS gets Georgia,etc). Probably not likely, but the earnings reports will be interesting.

I am not a waterpark person, but I have gone over there for Island BBQ. It seems very dated and forlorn. I hope they updatd and retheme it to something less generic than Soak City. But they also need to renovate Snoopy, have The Vortex void to fill, have a huge aluminum box in Rivertown and the ghosts of Paramount/Viamcom and CBS linger on in Action Zone. They have made great strides in the past 5 years and I know they will continue.

^Well, that didn't age well! But it's important to note that this is a blog, not a news article.

Yikes! That is not visually pleasing (at least to me). Glad some things are in the past.

Two of my favorite POVs of The Beast....they feature the different music that was used.