Kings Island Opening Weekend 2014

[thedevariouseffect]

#screamer

Hopefully a few of you got that one. Well folks, time to see this part of the forum light up like a wildfire here. It's finally here, the 2014 season. I have to say out of several years being an enthusiast, this off season seemed the longest. I'm not sure if it was because of anticipation or what, but it def. felt like it.

So lets start with before Media Day. Had the whole week off, woot woot! I decided to head down Wed. and renew my pass. Right now I'm stepping down from my Platinum Pass and got a Gold Pass. I figured right now it'd save me a few extra dollars to get that and then upgrade to the more expensive pass before Cedar Point opens in a few weeks. So after watching Banshee cycle for awhile I went out to the park toll entrance and drove into the park. Wow it felt so nice to head into the park again after such a long hiatus. It was even more amazing to already see so many developments. A new colorful, bright, and sharp sign, new parking lots for preferred, handicap, and employees, and a bit of the main road, lastly alot of new concrete stemming from the entrance up to the front gate.



After parking in the new freshly painted preferred parking I headed up the new bit of nice bright white concrete up to the new front gate area with trees and mulch ready to go for the new season. In line I noticed a few employees climbing up Skyflyer doing checks. Man I'd love to have that job of climbing up the towers, really cool job. In the picture they are really really tiny specs, they were there trust me



Then after getting my new pass purchased I headed to the park entrance to get a sneak peek. Inside I noticed the new admission counters, these are very similar to the ones up at CP's main entrance, very fast and efficient, and built with the clerks in mind. Above them new TV's with information scrolling across them and showing off which lane is open & closed. These TV's are on both the entrance and exit signs





Once out of there, I headed over to the new Banshee souvenir cup stand. Nice to see it branded with a ride as well, and not like last year just having Coca-Cola everywhere. Nice colors as well!



Then above the front entrance they finally got rid of the Dinos Alive deal, and have an awesome new picture advertising Banshee.



Right before leaving though it was great to see KI pull their hardware and mount a giant new flag on the mast. I wish they flew a flag all year and raised/lowered it everyday but I understand why they don't. Nice to see her wave and flow after seeing an empty flagpole for several months. Also something neat to notice is all the new lighting and banners down the main stretch out to the parking lot the trams used to take.



After heading out I met up with the Chickens & LoraX and her daughter. Once they got their hotel situated across the street at the conference center we headed over to the park to make sure their passes worked. Before we headed over though, I had one tiny gripe with the park/hotel. The flag they were flying outside the hotel was tattered to absolute ruins. It had probably been placed sometime last year, probably at the start of the season or somewhere in there. I can't believe not one person had figured to take it down, fold it, and properly dispose of Old Glory. Absolutely disappointed in them. I mean look at this, it was sitting on the pole flapping away just like this.



Once inside the park again with them checking out their passes, I watched Banshee cycle, waiting for the next day. After making sure that was good to go, I headed back home ready for the next day, and it ended with a great sunset on Tylersville. Too bad the picture didn't come out as good.

[thedevariouseffect]

#KIBanshee

Well, the day practically all of us had been waiting for. Banshee Media Day. Wow was it a cold one. I'm glad I packed boots, jeans, and my fleece, it was quite chilly! After awakening The Beast (no not the coaster) and both of us got ready we headed out the door and down to the park. After talking with other members and relaxing outside of the toll booth fence, they opened it up and let us in. Oh boy was it a mad rush to get a spot and get in line. It was SO CLOSE, and right there for the taking. After confirming we were on the guest list, each enthusiast member who registered got a T Shirt of their size (to all you who had issues or complained about apparel for Media Day, here's your sign), a Glass paperweight/memorabilia item, lanyard and pass, and a ticket to get a complimentary photo from Banshee for that day only.

Once in line I started talking to several other people, a few of which were KICers, great to se all of you again/for the first time as well. While sitting there, the park rolled up three new cars all vinyl wrapped to advertise Banshee. Then about right after that, we got to head into the park. Man was it fantastic to step foot into that place again. Just to cross the threshold and take a look at the fountains and tower again after being away from it for so long, just total Zen moment man.

Once we got to the ride, the mating call (ride siren to let everyone know trains are moving) sounded off, and away the first train went. Soon after, they opened the queue to all of us. It was time! Me and Lindz were fortunate enough to get there very early and in the front of the line, we ended up getting a locker while waiting for the ride to open allowing us to head straight into the line and in the front of the train. After three cycles it was our turn! About time! What crosses my mind right now is the whole "I've done my waiting" deal by Sirius Black from Harry Potter. All eight months of waiting, it was about to pay off.

After sitting our cold bodies down in the middle of the train, it was time to go. Once restrained and ready the door dropped and the train dispatched. Oh wow was this amazing! The train climbs up that lift hill so fast if the blocks are clear, I mean its practically the speed of I305 I'd say, just wow! After you hit the lift crest, the Banshee scream is heard (which I feel I can somewhat take ownership of that idea haha), and the train curves right and just plummets. That rush, just WOW. After almost hitting the bottom, the ride picks you up and flips you over before dive bombing straight down towards the middle of Action Zone just before pulling away at the last minute. As soon as you pass that element you flip up and do a beautiful vertical loop that goes around the lift hill that pushes you back into your seat. Once you exit the loop probably a major highlight of the ride, the zero g roll. This roll is incredible, it almost feels like the ride grabs you by the legs, picks you up, spins you, and drags you headfirst to the ground. Again it looks to plummet straight down before barely missing, great elements. Once you exit the zero g you have an excellent carousel that throws you way up into the air, much higher than you could even think, just wow. Once you exit that the ride immediately sends you through another vertical loop shooting you up into the air as much as it can before dragging you back down to Earth. Once you exit that turn it sends you off into the air again and spins you around. Right after is probably my favorite element of the ride, the in line roll. This element is so impressive and so much fun. It just spins you right around, keeping you out of your seat and only pressed into the restraint the whole time until it dumps you out into the carousel. After this small helix you slide right into the brakes, gently slowing you down before you follow the brake run to the station to disembark.

Fan freaking tastic. Everything about this ride and area is top notch. Once it was over I then realized how cold wind is at 34 degrees in the morning, my lips are still chapped from that encounter. But wow..From the train design with the new restraints, to the impressive station work, to the ride lighting for night rides, just a complete blast. Speaking of which lets go onto those points. The station exterior lighting is all LED lit and flickers/pulses/changes randomly. The whole church structure is brightly illuminated at night, and looks great even during the day seeing all the fake stonework on the side and the high arches and pointed roof of the station. In the queue you'll find several old tombstones mixed with a few new ones, including one appropriately marked for Son of Beast. This one is special as it has an "eternal flame" atop it somewhat reminiscent of the JFK memorial, very interesting touch. They pay homage to the past, and respect where they have been, but are ready to charge ahead into the future. Also in the queue you will find several TV's showing off the chains new FUN TV network. Right now even in it's early stages it's still quite impressive. The network showcases, weather, park deals, time, music, games, and all sorts of real time info, as well as a list of current events. This thing has a "sky is the limit" kind of deal. I'm already impressed with what the network could pull off inaugural weekend, they have so much potential to do other things. Interact with the parks social media anytime they post something new, advertise a deal for that specific day, alert park of downtime on rides/approaching storms, etc. Fantastic setup, and it does deserve praise. Last bit you need to know about the queue is the lighting. Everywhere you look there are lights illuminating the queue, tombstones, etc. Then the textured lighting for night rides and nighttime queue environment is fantastic. The whole front half of the ride is flooded with color changing LED lights and the back half of the ride lets you zoom through a barrage of different colors, and tombstones making it a disorienting masterpiece. Like I have said in other threads, this tops a Beast night ride any day (or night) in my opinion. My last two points to bring up about the ride for media day is the gift shop. The flickering lights create such a cool atmosphere along with the mismatched TV panels on the wall with the ride logo, really cool effect. Then a great slew of merchandise as well in there. I do wish they had more monitors for the ride however, as you disembark, your train does disappear fairly quickly when viewing your picture. The last thing is the sign, man that's neat. Being all lit up, with a giant hand reaching out to you, and glowing angry eyes, it's such a fantastic welcome to the ride kind of deal. The mist below the pedestal does make it even cooler as well. It looks great in person, and even from the Eiffel Tower. Great job there. The park did alot of extra things for this ride. Alot of things I can say that they didn't have to do, but they chose to, it was great. to see all this hard work culminate to make such a fantastic ride, I was more than impressed with everything they did to build this ride. Btw you can call the sign Eve all you want, the ride is still Megan haha .

Onto the rest of media day. After chatting here and there with most of you and whatnot, time for a breakfast in 34 degree weather. Man coffee never satisfied so much. I wish I knew the company who supplied breakfast, I was told it was brought in but I forget by whom, but the pastries were amazing and very delicious. The park did not have to supply us with this, but they did, and I'm more than grateful for that. Once I got out of the breakfast area by Chicken Shack, it was time to move on every so slowly to The Bat. After getting preoccupied and riding with a few people on Banshee again I eventually made my way over to the ride. It was so great to see this great old Arrow get the love it truly deserved. The bright orange paintjob on the ride makes it stick out everywhere you can see it, and it really makes it show up in the park ready to deliver a great ride to the guests. A paint job isn't all the ride supplied. Besides a new sign at the entrance, the trains are adorned in a fresh new coat as well, but the best part of all of this was the off season maintenance the ride received. Man did that train feel much faster than it ever has in years. I bet anything from the end of last year it goes through the track quicker now than it did before. It at least feels like it, every bank and turn it just flies through. The force in the turn close to the exit queue is just fantastic, I actually felt blood rush to my feet, absolutely incredible. Like I said, great old ride got what she deserved, and she's running great for us in return. I raise a glass to many more seasons for The Bat, great job here.

On the way back up I decided to grab some pictures everywhere I could. I noticed some people up on the old Son of Beast platform and figured I'd start there with some shots. Plus it was neat to stand in between where the wood piles still are in the station. I do miss the ride at times, but it's successor does dominate that old hunk of Southern Yellow Pine by a long shot.

Onto lunch. At the Chicken Shack they supplied their main entree to regular guests at Media Day. As others have said, the food is a good +1 for the park. Could the chicken be better? I think so, and so do others, but I will give the park one more chance right now to see if it's any better. Being such a large volume of people the quality may have decreased some in light of the quantity. I'm willing to do a second take and see if it's any better than the soggy greasy lightly breaded hard chicken I had that day. The bread and sauce are great, very different, but very great. I enjoyed my giant plate of food scarfing down every bit of it.

[thedevariouseffect]

#OpeningDay2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0dinPZ5VU

Don't lie some of you were like this

Wow was it a busy and packed day! I got onto Kings Island Drive at about 1000 and I was backed up at the turn from Tylersville Road near the Beach Waterpark sign trying to make it to the south toll booth. Just wow, everyone in the area wanted to be at Kings Island. Once I finally got parked, I was amazed at how crowded the front gate was, I mean look at this.



Once we got through the entrance it was time to head through the queue. Today they opened the overflow queue out into the maint. road behind Delirium. It was neat seeing those tombstones as well placed over there. After getting in the main queue it was time to wait our turn. We eventually were held up for an hour. It looked like a set of proxies near the safety brake (main brake for you KI ride ops ) was being tripped wrong or getting the wrong count, etc. They thought they had it fixed and cycled the brake a few times manually and made sure it was good, they had three dispatches before the ride setup again and threw a fault. After working one hour to get that issue resolved, they fixed it and they were cycling the ride again. After waiting one more hour we finally got onto the ride platform, got our row, and enjoyed Banshee. I do have a few gripes however. First being crowd control for the ride, and I noticed this all weekend. Some loose articles are still making it onto the ride and through the queue and not being noticed until they hit the ride op assigning rows. Which leads me to problem two. WHY in the world is a brand new ride getting dispatched frequently with empty seats. I have no understanding of why I have seen a row with two seats empty or even more on trains, especially opening day. Just..mind blowing. Then last issue with crowd control was with Fast Lane +. Why Fast Lane is allowed to be used during ERT I'll never understand, this is the first time I have seen it used here I believe, and the first at any CF property. But letting the whole queue of FL+ through to the platform without touching the primary line beats me. Absolutely rude. The last issue I have is seeing the platform. Why there are three supervisors and at least one gold tag checking restraints and dispatching the ride I'll never know. That kills me seeing this, I should never have to get a gold tag to do a ride ops job, they're on the supervisory level for an area or department, not a ride op. Then seeing nine people on platform at one time clearing the train, I'll never know. I do like having a dispatch enable in every corner ensuring the ride train is clear, great safety bit there, I do enjoy seeing that used. I don't get why there isn't a distinct order of clears on the ride, basically as soon as one gets done they throw a high clear up and await dispatch. An order of clears should work just as well. Say front unload throws up their clear, seen by front load which throws theirs up in turn, rear load follows suit, rear unload sees this. By this time he knows that the train is cleared, as soon as his checks are done and he sees this clear he knows the other ops are clear and ready, throw up a high clear, press dispatch enable, and send the train. Some little things I just don't get. But I guess new systems, new policies, and new rules. But I still won't understand nine ops on platform to cycle a train of 32 people. I could see six, each watching two rows but nine is a little ridiculous. I do love that the ride is very safety concious though, great added features. There are carabineers hooked in and ready to go for fall protection on the lift hill & ladders. Several new evac platforms spaning a few places on the rides lift, and always locking exit gates unless someone is standing on the presence mats. Great new features I see, that IMO vastly improve ride safety, always a huge + in my book. Anyways here's some pics from in the queues





I got a great action shot of this going through the whole roll







The queue from which I came







Now onto some Action Zone pictures





Menu shot I've shared with y'all before, just figured I'd post it here



Chocolate Cake and Cookies..$3.99 for the cake, sweetness..



Good beer selection. Excited to see Shock Top & Goose Island in the park





Anyways after that it was on to a bunch of riding and lollygagging. We hit up Red Racer which got a bit of refurb, I couldn't tell a difference between Red or Blue which is great. Then I hopped on Adventure Express. Great ride, especially seeing Banshee drop right in front of you while in the station sitting on the train. Only thing was the theming moved and was lit up, but no sound effects in any of the tunnels. The beginning theming is still quiet but ah well. Pics from that queue













Time to head to Tower to get a look see, and enjoy one of my favorite attractions. Now I know CF & KI sunk a ton of money and time into Action Zone, not doubting that. I will say Tower in the next few years is going to need a serious overhaul in terms of paint. The top arch closest to BLSC has a huge rust spot from a giant chunk of paint missing. Then ontop of platform, huge sections on the wall are chipped away. Great view from up top however. Also from up top, it's odd to see no Starlight in the park. It's a great thing as that show was ridiculously deteriorating. Hopefully a new use for that land will be used soon maybe #KI2015?? Hmm?? Hmm??? The worst eyesore I notice from up there is Tower Gardens. My oh my is it an eyesore now. To see Coney after it's refurb a few years ago looking great, to X Base that has it's own little niche, now Action Zone looking marvelous, Planet looking as good as ever, and Rivertown tucked back in that corner peacefully, Tower Gardens is immediately noticed and is very disappointing. That area used to be great and everyone here knows it. Why it's just a giant smoking area with no waterfalls, cruddy bridges that are falling apart, and old leaves from seasons past, I will never understand. Hopefully soon to come that area gets the redo it needs.







FOF went down loaded mid afternoon I didn't get a chance to ride that. I still haven't ridden WindSeeker this season (oh darn). Vortex was something I was going to ride, but ride ops failed here. Somewhere a train setup in the last block or had a ghost train, they dispatched a train and it dead stopped in the MCBR, and the ride ops without watching the ride dispatched the second train and it B Set on the lift hill. With a train stuck on the MCBR you shouldn't have dispatched the second train and set the ride up. Beast was running pretty smooth, they were sending them out at a pretty good interval. I even got sent up lift 1 at full speed until it hit lift crest, very impressive. I enjoy this more than the creeping slow lift it normally has. DB had full queues, didn't hit it up, they were cycling pretty well however, just sending empties and stacking about every third train. Carousel was going to be a ride, but sadly no band organ..yet. I did get on The Bat eventually with the group, I love and hate that it has a line. I'd love to marathon it, but want it to have a line so it gets used and can stay indefinitely. BLSC was fully queued, no way I was waiting through that. Many other flats, same deal.

Time for lunch. I figured I'd want to get out of the sun and sit out for a bit, so I headed to Reds Grille. Good old burgers & beer. Same menu and whatnot since last year, same good quality food and service those who have attended can come to expect. The bar service was great, and had good choices. I still wish they had a bigger beer selection and possibly a full service bar, but I'm happy with what we have, if they had a Bourbon that would just be over the top for me in there.











Onto some Beast pics from an evening run.



FUN TV installed in the station and the first queue house pre ramp.



Heading back to Tower after



Pink Banshee lights (did have Blue, I missed it) in the Royal Fountains


After meeting at Tower we headed back to Banshee to get one last night ride on her, me for the very first time. Man was that a thrill. As I described earlier, those lights and those elements interact so well it's incredible. I totally enjoyed that ride at night, y'all need to give it a shot, I'm telling you it takes the mantle IMO.

[thedevariouseffect]

#KIBestDay

So after hearing that the park was a bit less crowded Saturday I figured why not, might as well finally get the value out of that Gold Pass I purchased three days ago. I headed in mid day and met up with Terp. We strolled around and rode this and that before meeting up with Ryan and Toad. Once we met up we basically just hit up every ride we passed up. Bat, Banshee, etc. etc. The highlight of that day though was the Banshee night ride. Front row fireworks ride for Banshee is absolutely marvelous. You get to see the fireworks pop right in front of you with a great shot of Racer, AE, WindSeeker, & FOF (if you think the building is pretty) and then finish with a fantastic blazingly fast night ride. Knocked it out of the park for me, like Nike says, just do it. Other small things worth mentioning: DB setup somewhere on the ride, didn't go up until about 10 minutes prior to close, setup about 50 minutes before closing time. Panda is good, and as a note you can get a 1 entree and side it does make it about a buck or so cheaper if you just want a small portion. Festhaus offers all beers that are available everywhere in the park. Banshee Night rides, how many times do I have to stress this folks

Here's some shots I took while in the park Saturday evening.



















One screen already damaged by something, see the small white spec on the outside of the screen protector..grr, stupid guests





Eiffel Tower trying to be a copycat



Banshee Station at night







Then I noticed this gem out in the PREFERRED parking lot. Hood held down by block & tackle..I lost it, I mean I absolutely lost it.

[thedevariouseffect]

"The ride is great, but I haven't ridden it yet"

Oh this was such a glorious day in the park. No lines, no crazies like Saturday, no major issues whatsoever. I got to the park before ERT started and got a prime parking spot. Right in the front row right next to the old tram lines. Once I got up to the gate I met Terp while we discussed various thingies. About two minutes early they opened the gates and let us through for ERT. I will say that they need a better job to screen Gold Passes. As a test Terp held up a Six Flags pass instead of his Platinum and he waltzed right on by. I bet he isn't the only one who doesn't have a pass worth of ERT at KI to make it through to the ERT. Once we swang passed Festhause and into Action Zone we walked right onto Banshee and enjoyed our first ride. By the time we got off of the ride it was busy enough to not even worry about a second time. We got straight back to International Street right before the Anthem played. Which this BOILS me. If you hear the Anthem, stop and pay respects to the song, the flag, and the country. I can't tell you how crazy it is to about face, pop a salute towards the flag, and still see people walk straight by me. A few people caught glimpse of me and turned around, sadly they apparently know better but didn't excercise it until they saw me. But wow, I can't tell you how irritating that really is. Once we headed back to Beast we got right on the front row after a few short cycles. Great front row ride, regardless of a few trims, still a fun ride. She runs great, just needs a bit of Graphite on the rails (or lube if they ever decided to go back to that).

From Beast we finally headed to FOF and got a ride in, after going down Friday due to an evac, then hard stopping in the station Saturday, it finally ran with us on a train Sunday. If there was ever a day for me to yell out praise the lord, that was the day. WindSeeker was still down from the prior day, it didn't cycle unfortunately. We decided to knock out a ride on Racer, this time riding in a new seat to me, and wow was I impressed, absolute blast of a ride. I believe it was 61, not sure, I may have to be corrected.

Once we got off of Racer we headed down the line and got on Skyflyer. One the paint up close and personal looks great, def. a much better look. Two that ride is fun as always, it's never been a disappointment. Once done there, a quick run in the front on The Bat, which actually made my eyes water from the speed, that's impressive. All the work they put into it totally paid off.

From there we went through and over through the front and walked up and around Tower. Good views, and very relaxing. Once down from there I wanted to grab food at Reds Grille again. That thing is a great bang for the buck and it's great service. Plus the Reds were playing I figured I'd get to watch a bit of it. This time I grabbed a wrap while Terp grabbed a rack of Ribs. We both felt the food was great, it was his first time there, glad he enjoyed it. I could go there every visit if I wanted to and was hungry in the park. Oh and the Cheesecake here is great. Not the best, but it is great







Once we got out of a good bit of lunch, we headed nextdoor to Diamondback. Man I missed this ride. Great ride up front and lots of new wheels, so much less vibrations, like I told y'all Bit of off season maint. did the ride alot of justice. I will say this ride did irk me quite a bit. If you can't spiel, don't spiel. I'd rather it be quiet than hear the "I say Diamond" spiel. Plus if you don't have enthusiastic riders and you try to pump them up or welcome them back in the same crappy generic voice and spiel, you're not going to get anything..just..stop. Half tempted to steal the mic and work my magic. Also, as a ride op safety is #1 ALWAYS. The ride supervisor in controls watched platform and was more worried about the time and trying to get a power hour before rotations changed than worrying about controls or watching the ride. She didn't even once look up at the monitor or watch the train while dispatching. Being one of the ride sups, I was very very disapointed in her actions. As Terp says someone puts it many of you might know "Jeeeesuuus." I was fuming by the time I got into my seat. The only thing that made it a bit more tolerable was a blonde girl working the ride. She was quite energetic, happy, always had a smile, and very sweet. Great personality for a ride op to have, and she was very conscious of the platform and what was happening. Also worth noting our visit in the afternoon later in the day, the male ride sup of this ride was at crowd control (Separator for you KI people) and when the train came back I noticed a guy in the front with his camera out from Swan Lake to the brake run, still out, still recording. Brought it up immediately to the sup who looked, and said ok, and just went back to business. SERIOUSLY? One, maybe if the crew watched the train dispatch they could have early lift stopped and snagged it. They could have looked at the camera on the lift hill crest and realized he was recording, or taken my word and dealt with it. It's stuff like this when policies aren't enforced, people will keep breaking the rules and doing what they want endangering people. I'd be afraid what an 80mph camera or phone zinging past could do.



After that, BLSC was dead empty, time for a grueling last row ride on it. It was fun, but it does throw you around a bit back there..Btw, this is still there..hehehe





Once we got off, we did a bit of wandering around and Terp showed me little gems I'll share with y'all that I never really noticed or really paid that much attention to..

This was brought to the park from Coney, it's an actual working water fountain. Now I know where the term bubbler came from. This sits right next to the Graeters on International Street tucked in the corner



You step here to actuate it, and it takes about five seconds to get water to it.





I always knew this was here, but neither of us still know the significance. Maybe one of you knows, maybe Don can enlighten us?





Now for a few menus around the park for y'all to look at and gauge some prices. Again, you can get items without buying the combo, that is an option







After walking around, not Putzing, we headed to Action Zone to look around. From here I took a look at Drop Tower to see if anything was up, with my eyes I couldn't notice anything out of the ordinary.



FUN TV in the queues















Couple shots of stuff around Banshee











As others have pointed out, the back side of Festhaus got a little bit of work done to it.













Then we stayed to watch The Boys are Back. I already reviewed this elsewhere, so I'll be somewhat brief. The show is def. meant for females of all ages, males not so much. We can enjoy the choreography of the girls on stage, but we won't enjoy the musical review as much as any girls. Well unless you were/are into that stuff. The dancing and choreography was spot on, one point a kid does two backflips in a row, awesome job. The singing for once was actually spot on as well. Few weird parts that didn't hit my ear right, but they did do great compared to previous shows in the Festhaus over the years. Do i wish they didn't do a typical musical number spanning the ages, of course, but I don't think we'll see an original show in Festhaus anymore, ah well, still entertaining, but it has been better and the past, and I'm one for nostalgia.







After sitting through and facepalming at a few boy band songs (it was so odd to see them go Bye Bye Bye) we were coming close to closing time. We figured grab two good rides on Diamondback before the end of the day, and we did. Two great rides, one in the front, one in 81, great rides. Minus the cruddy spiels. Thank God I didn't hear the I say Diamond spiel or I might have just snatched the mic and started singing Bye Bye Bye.

After two rides and a long walk back through Planet Snoopy and International Street, it was time to head home. After a long weekend of coasters, food, laughs, drinks, adrenaline, sunburn, and #screamers, it was time to wrap up the weekend and head back to base.

Great weekend, great fun, and a great time with all of you. Every single one of you made for a memorable opening weekend here at KI. I have to say like I have several times over, y'all are like family to me, and I appreciate all of you here on this site, you make the park worthwhile to me and my time here.

Until the next uber lengthy trip here in a few weeks. Thanks for reading and viewing, this probably is one of my longests next to my week of coasters towards the end of regular season last year.

[Hoeter]

Thanks for sharing Devan...good seeing you at Media Day!

[disco2000]

To add to your gripes of ride ops not doing anything about camera's on the ride, we had a ride-op get on the speaker on the way up the lift hill with their spiel (indicating they see the offender), said offender keeps recording, ride keeps going. Nothing done to him after ride concludes. Reasons why I couldn't work here or a gas station - I would enforce the rule and then the customer would complain and then I would be out a job. It burns me (and could be literally at some point), the amount of people that jump back into their car while filling up with gas - has anyone seen the videos of what happens. Oh well, I digress from KI.

Back to KI - I proceeded to watch the ride op at Beast on Saturday night not take one look at the Fast Lane wrist-bands of a single person he let through. I watched the entire duration we were in the station area queue (over 30 min cause he would let two regular line folks in and the rest were Fast Lane at every loading interval). Not once did his eyes look at a wrist-band. Even when folks would raise their arm up to show him, zero acknowledgement - I don't think he could do two things at once, so instead of confirming they had wrist-bands, he was more concerned about counting how many he was letting through. Saw several with no wrist-band go right through.

[calakapepe]

Lots of pictures! Makes for a great trip report! Thanks!

I can't believe I didn't see the new name plate for Festhaus despite me being in there all three days.. *shake head*

Hopefully Drop Tower will make its way into some trip reports soon.

[KI-ORIG-EMP]

What a great trip report, Devan! I agree 100% about the treatment that was being given to the American flag by the hotel. It should had been properly disposed of. The flag could had been given to the Boy Scouts and they would had disposed it in a proper manner. I have seen people everyday as the Star Spangle Banner is played as the Colors are raised just walk by without paying respect to it. As a veteran, I always stand at attention and salute the flag as it is being raised, as does other veterans that are in our department. Thanks again for the trip report and of course, for your service to our great country!

[AgentSoB]

Looks like the queue for Adventure Express received some paint as well! I don't recall it being white. It looks good! Might be hard to maintain with people vandalizing it.

[diamondhawk]

Crazy question- Where's the water fountain from Coney located in the park?

[homestar92]

Crazy question- Where's the water fountain from Coney located in the park?

Right next to the Graeter's location.

[thedevariouseffect]

Didn't I just talk about that in my trip report..

Grr..two hours of typing and inserting pics for nothing I guess >_<

[LoraX]

I was trying to find your trip report and could not find it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[thedevariouseffect]

You're in it lmao

[KI FANATIC 37]

It was a very good PTR. I always have respect for people that are able to write those extremely long TR. If you read any of mine it is like I'm a 4th grader.

[thedevariouseffect]

Thanks, like I always said this is for you guys, I want you to see and experience what I did and all..To me that makes it a true trip report.

[Gemini XL-200]

Excellent trip report! I really enjoyed reading it. You're probably my favorite poster to read trip reports from, partly because of all of your knowledge and insight in park operations. Haha seriously, if I was in charge at KI, I would give you like a hundred comment cards each time you went and would pay you for your reviews of operations, certain employees, etc.

The one thing that struck me as particularly horrendous was the fact that you even pointed out an offender on Diamondback to a ride op and he basically ignored it. That's just horrible, and carelessness.

[thedevariouseffect]

Thank you, and I'm sure someone or several KI employees have read my comments and concerns and may be moving forward with them (or at least I hope)

I would like if someone did get back to me on the statue as well lol, I still have no clue why it was there or anything but it's really cool. I've seen it for years but never really stopped to think about it.