KIghostguy

Yes, but it would have been a hyper at CGA, not a giga.

Very nice article! But small correction—Jack Rouse was the head of Kings Productions, a division of KECO. Nelson Schwab III was the CEO. He was also the first CEO of Paramount Parks!

It looks like the track is staying red and the supports are changing color.

Some photos of Diamondback’s repaint so far here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmSjA-0sZc7/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Look closely on slide two—you can see a color change starting to appear on the supports. A darker brown.

There are still copies available online with the book bundle: https://www.kingsislandgear.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/limited-edition-signed-kings-island-book-bundle Comes with the photo book and Kings Island: A Ride Through Time, and both copies are autographed by Gary Wachs and Mike Koontz!

Great video, thank you for sharing! Scott Fais always does a nice job, and Keith and Patti are wonderful people.

I was given the chance to proofread the manuscript and page through a physical copy at the IAAPA show last month. It's a beautiful book that's a must-have! As with anything written/published by Barry Hill, it's very high quality. It makes for a fabulous accompaniment to Kings Island: A Ride Through Time.

The Mystic Timbers train doesn’t have the Miami River Lumber Co. logo on the back…dealbreaker!

Truly fantastic! Thank you for sharing!

I don't think I've seen the third camelback's lights on since 2019. Maybe they removed those lights altogether? The lift lights will probably be broken forever. Like the light in the meteor in front of Flight of Fear, I doubt it will ever be fixed.

Wonderful footage, thank you for sharing!

I’m definitely more excited for Big Bear Mountain after seeing the trains and watching the full POV! A fun fact is that the trains were designed by Greg Crane, who was the creative director for Mystic Timbers! Kings Island connections are everywhere.

Great news! Hopefully they paint the new wood, and finish painting the ride overall.

This is interesting because Carowinds has announced that they're also getting rid of Chick-fil-A. Cedar Point got rid of both of their Subways this year. Personally, while I enjoy my Chick-fil-A nuggets and Subway tuna sandwiches, I can get those anywhere and I do prefer park-specific food when I visit. The really nice aspect of Kings Island's Chick-fil-A is that employees are allowed to purchase from it because it's connected to the employee cafeteria. So it was always a nice treat during a long day!

A Ride Through Time should be at the top of the iceberg.

Congratulations to Dennis Speigel, who is being inducted into the IAAPA Hall of Fame during the convention in November. As many of you already know, Mr. Speigel was Kings Island's Assistant General Manager in 1972 and played a key role in the park's development and opening. He was also involved with Kings Island as the Vice President of Operations and Vice President of International Operations for Taft's Amusement Park Group. http://media.interthemepark.com/2022/10/dennis-l-speigel-announced-as-newest.html

Elimination of the FunTVs in the queue. Actually, this doesn’t just go for Adventure Express—how about the entire park?

Very interesting article on the development of Tumbili and Jungle X-Pedition at Kings Dominion. Definitely worth a read! https://www.inparkmagazine.com/bleck-bleck-welcome-to-the-jungle/

I understand where you're coming from, and I had some hesitation initially as well. But I think Adventure Express is a fun, great theme and a classic Kings Island experience. It's cool to see it expanded into a whole land. The Festhaus and Emporium are remaining, so there will still be German theming left at Kings Island!

I’m surprised they didn’t do some sort of in-person announcement. They’ve done announcement events for more minor additions, and this would have been very well-received in-person.

Interesting that it doesn’t sound like R&R Creative Amusement Designs is involved at all. They designed Adventure Express’s theming in the first place…maybe they were outside the budget? JRA is great too though. Excited to see how it turns out!

I'm very pleased about this! Retheming the land to fit in with Adventure Express is brilliant, and the new flat rides are definitely needed. Adventure Express fit well into the park when it was installed in Wild Animal Habitat, but now that it's grouped in with Oktoberfest, it's great to see it re-contextualized to fit in. We will still have German representation in the park with the Festhaus and Emporium. The overall land looks like the love-child of Jungle X-Pedition and the new Fiesta Village, which means this should also turn out great.

Nice to see the new/relocated shows. I hope they make a really big deal about this year's Winterfest. It's the 40th anniversary of the first Christmas event at a seasonal park, and I hope they market it accordingly! It will be a huge missed opportunity if they don't have Walt Davis, the inventor of Winterfest, in the park opening night to do the Tree Lightning Ceremony.

This is a very interesting thread to read! I worked on Coal Cracker this past summer at Hersheypark. It was very easy ride to work when everything was running smoothly, but when it did break down, which wasn't often, there was a very specific procedure that you had to do that was different at each position. It took a fair number of people to operate for a log flume and each person had to practice what to do at each position in case of a breakdown. I generally enjoyed it, but because training was so rigorous, they didn't have a lot of people trained on it. So the people that were trained on it tended to be placed there pretty frequently! I assume that KCKC was probably easier to run because it only had one lift versus two. I understand why most parks have gotten rid of their hydroflumes--they take a lot to staff and can't be cheap to run. I'm glad that Hersheypark still has theirs though. It's a nice ride with a low height requirement. I seemed to me that it had high ridership and because of the layouts of Hersheypark's rides, Coal Cracker doesn't take up a lot of room, so I don't think it will be departing for a while.

This looks great and fits Rivertown really well!