Kings Island 2015 Discussion Thread

[Magenta Lizard]

They're still calling for the possibility of hard frost in the coming weeks, so it is safer to wait to do much new planting. I'm sure things will look prettier as the season progresses.

[shark6495]

I hope the clock and the calendar look better than last year. It just never looked correct...

[Kat]

Also, the control panel is not the same as the one at Hartland, so without looking closely, I cannot say if a high and low speed setting exists and which is in use if it does.

I stood in the Fast Lane line (with a front-of-the-line pass won from the spin-the-wheel game; yes, I'm still addicted that darn thing) for the better part of two cycles, and the Fast Lane line is literally right next to the control panel, so I got a good look at it. Unless there is a speed setting on the digital display, there isn't one at all. There certainly isn't a knob or button for speed control.

I tried to take a picture of the control panel, but by the time I got up there, it was fully dark, and I couldn't get a decent shot.

Lol I immediately thought of you when I saw the wheel. I thought "I wonder if Goble is going to spend all his money on that again"

[Tr0y]

Apparently Fury325, stranded riders on the lift hill for 20 minutes last night.. The third time in 3 weeks, I thought this coaster wasn't designed by Intamin???

[jsus]

OMG, they were stranded!

More like the ride safely came to a stop and park employees checked in on them to ensure they were doing well before the ride could be safely restarted or they could be safely evacuated. Notice the presence of the word "safely", indicating that riders were safe at all times.

Also, stranded? Did the ride just kinda stop and employees were nowhere to be found? They went home for the night, like a kid being left on a school bus? Yeah, they were never stranded.

I've had an evac on Gatekeeper's brake run. They have to bring out a little step stool for you to get down "safely". Throughout the entire process, never was I worried or did I feel stranded. I was safe at all times.

Besides, amusement rides shut down all the time and nobody is hurt or stranded. It's not a big deal.

[marth555]

according to KIs facebook the park is having open interviews this Thursday for servers and lifeguards

[Tr0y]

OMG, they were stranded!

 

More like the ride safely came to a stop and park employees checked in on them to ensure they were doing well before the ride could be safely restarted or they could be safely evacuated.  Notice the presence of the word "safely", indicating that riders were safe at all times.

 

Also, stranded?  Did the ride just kinda stop and employees were nowhere to be found?  They went home for the night, like a kid being left on a school bus?  Yeah, they were never stranded.

 

I've had an evac on Gatekeeper's brake run.  They have to bring out a little step stool for you to get down "safely".  Throughout the entire process, never was I worried or did I feel stranded.  I was safe at all times.

 

Besides, amusement rides shut down all the time and nobody is hurt or stranded.  It's not a big deal.

A double standard indeed... 

[The Interpreter]

20 minutes seated comfortably versus 4 hours plus with dangling legs and nothing below but concrete?

Double standard, my eye.

And everybody included the State of California.

[jsus]

1) Nobody loses their minds.

2) Fury 325 has a lift hill with evacuation stairs. Evacuation simply involves climbing down a giant staircase.

3) Evacuating WindSeeker? Well, they've got to assemble some new-fangled contraption, attach it to the ride structure, test it, and eventually send it up to catch riders from beneath. Yeah. Sounds great.

I could go on, but.. What double standard? WindSeekers are horrible. Fury 325 is a highly reliable, very safe ride produced by one of the best names in the industry.

according to KIs facebook the park is having open interviews this Thursday for servers and lifeguards

I'm torn.. I was hoping they would have a POS position open up but I might have to settle for being a server instead.

[Kat]

Does the train of Banshee getting stuck on the brakes before the station for 7 minutes count as getting stranded? if so, I would like to complain about being stranded on Banshee until 5:10pm Friday night (please note while the ride did temporarily stop operating for technical difficulties, in no way am I complaining. The above comment was sarcasm)

[Tr0y]

Does the train of Banshee getting stuck on the brakes before the station for 7 minutes count as getting stranded? if so, I would like to complain about being stranded on Banshee until 5:10pm Friday night (please note while the ride did temporarily stop operating for technical difficulties, in no way am I complaining. The above comment was sarcasm)

Banshee is a B&M coaster, therefor it does not qualify.

[Delirium2018]

The lines weren't terrible on Saturday. I noticed they were moving considerably slow because of the stacking, and the fact I had Fast Lane Plus. But it was a great day! The lines for food were terrible!! My friend and I(who was severely burnt) waited at Coney Mall Skyline for at least 45 minutes! We had a great chat with a nice family in front of us for awhile! My friend and I think their daughter were debating if it was raining and I thought it was kind of funny! But the family was sweet and fun to talk to! Anyway the food stands were severely understaffed and that bothered me considering it was Opening Day.

[Dieseltech20]

Overall the park is looking nice and tidy - thats about all I can give it in the aesthetics department - NICE nothing great - not really WOW - nothing that really makes me want to sit and soak up the atmosphere just nice in a sort of "that new generic shopping mall sure looks nice" way.

Well, to be fair, there is only so much one can do with such a large are of Concrete and Pavers. One giant parking lot with some Trees here and there isn't gonna be much more than a Shopping Mall.

One has to work with what they are given.

[brenthodge]

Overall the park is looking nice and tidy - thats about all I can give it in the aesthetics department - NICE nothing great - not really WOW - nothing that really makes me want to sit and soak up the atmosphere just nice in a sort of "that new generic shopping mall sure looks nice" way.

Well, to be fair, there is only so much one can do with such a large are of Concrete and Pavers. One giant parking lot with some Trees here and there isn't gonna be much more than a Shopping Mall.

One has to work with what they are given.

Overall the park is looking nice and tidy - thats about all I can give it in the aesthetics department - NICE nothing great - not really WOW - nothing that really makes me want to sit and soak up the atmosphere just nice in a sort of "that new generic shopping mall sure looks nice" way.

Well, to be fair, there is only so much one can do with such a large are of Concrete and Pavers. One giant parking lot with some Trees here and there isn't gonna be much more than a Shopping Mall.

One has to work with what they are given.

No one doesn't have to work with what one is given when one owns the park and can change what is there when they so desire - IF they so desire and they don't. Yes the park was a mess from Paramounts attempts at "improving" it, but the infrastructure was there. CF has chosen to not repair, but remove a lot of it (clock on Festhaus, Water features throughout the park, Richer landscaping) in favor of easy to maintain "nice" shopping mall parking lot looking landscaping and details. I don't think it should look like a lush flamingo encounter at the zoo, I just think there are things that can be done that look better. In areas of mulch you can tell there used to be additional bushes are trees by the way things are spaced, but instead you get acres of much with one or two lonely bushes because the others died and they just removed and remulched. Again it looks NICE but thats about all it looks.

[Hendrick]

All this talk of the lines at food service locations has given me a new idea. New for 2015: Fast Lane++! Now skip the lines at food service locations*!

(At participating locations.)

[Imperial79]

Just wondering. Does anyone have any pics of their park maps? I heard they are different this year and if we could see a close up pic? Seems like a good start to the 2015 season.

[electricsun]

Apparently Fury325, stranded riders on the lift hill for 20 minutes last night.. The third time in 3 weeks, I thought this coaster wasn't designed by Intamin???

When my friend and I arrived the park last night, an empty train was stopped on the lift hill. We decided to head back to see the entrance of the ride. I was taking a picture of the entrance when my friend started talking to some guy. He said that a train was stuck for 20 minutes with riders. I don't know if they did an evacuation or if it continued with riders as I didn't catch that part. He said that they then ran an empty train and it stopped near the top of the left hill for about 45-mins. The train started moving, a few more trains were dispatched empty and about 15 minutes later, they started letting folks enter the line. It seemed to be fine the remaining hour or so of the evening.

[Delirium13]

Got to spend a few hours up at the park yesterday, so I figured I'd join in and share my observations on the day.

-- The new shops on International Street look great. Really loved the Sweet Spot.

-- The staff at The Sweet Spot were extremely friendly as well (overall, most employees I encountered were very friendly)

-- Glad to see that the dinosaur in front of the fountains was removed.

-- The Beast was running great, seemed like a very fast cycle... but that could just be since it was my first ride of the season.

-- The new rides in Planet Snoopy look very nice, though unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ride Woodstock Gliders.

Now for the not so great things (Disclaimer: This section may be longer than the positives I just listed, but that does not in any way imply that I saw more bad things than good, or that I had a bad day. I had really great day actually, and the park looked awesome. Just saw a few things that need addressing):

-- Adventure Express definitely needs some attention in the theming department. I'd really love to see that ride get a theming overhaul like the log flume at Knott's... or at the very least, and more realistically, just fix the theming that is there. I'm mostly just annoyed because I saw one of my biggest pet peeves regarding that ride and that would be the door was open on the final lift. Not that any of the audio was working anyway... I feel like I say this over and over, but here goes: I get it, Cedar Fair is not Disney, but a little more effort could go a very long way.

-- Still hoping for the return of the old International Street music... actually, the return of area specific music in general would be nice.

-- Tower Gardens still needs to be addressed, the little bit they did is a start, but it's still a huge smoking area with poor upkeep.

-- Reds Hall of Fame Grille -- Service was BAD. I understand that it was the first day, but whoa. Food came fast once it was finally ordered, but that's about it. Nothing else was fast, or even an acceptable amount of time. Food was good, but I saw a table get up and leave after not being served, another talking to a manager and getting money off, and I'm not even sure who my actual server was. It wasn't exactly what I'd call busy either.

-- The Crypt sign is uncovered for some reason. Which brings me to my next point...

-- As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Haunt, but completely against building permanent structures around the park for the mazes. Usually the signs are removed or covered in some way, but Slaughterhouse looks like its ready to open for evenings. Please tell me I'm not going to be seeing the gigantic Slaughterhouse sign all Summer. The practice of having all of these permanent structures scattered throughout the park is tacky enough, but really? This is getting ridiculous.

We're currently at: 2 sheds, 2 former attraction buildings, an old coaster station, and a former arcade building right off the Coney midway all sitting shuttered until Haunt opens in September. Halloween Haunt is very popular, I understand that. I'm a big fan of Halloween and all the festivities it brings, but that current situation is bad.

[Hoeter]

Just wondering. Does anyone have any pics of their park maps? I heard they are different this year and if we could see a close up pic? Seems like a good start to the 2015 season.

I don't have a KI map for 2015 yet but if I'm thinking correctly it's the same style Kings Dominion had last year and Carowinds started doing this year.

The map is on one side with all points of interest and the park policies are on the reverse side.

Refer to the map I picked up when I was down at Carowinds two weeks ago for what their map looks like for this year. Their map was similar to KI's last year with their B&M hyper, Intimidator, on the front.

Sorry for the bad quality of the picture as its a long shape and hard to fit it with the camera on my iPhone 6 Plus.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Thrill_Biscuit]

There's still a few good weeks for things to get up to speed. I was encouraged to notice that, despite Kings Island not being a Disney or Universal property, thousands and thousands came into the park, rode rides, ate food, bought souvenirs, and were entertained by... well, geese for the moment, but the season will eventually go into full swing, memories will be made, friendships will develop, personal ride-count records will be increased, and the hiccups of the first few operating days will be long forgotten.

[KI Guy]

The Gliders' capacity stinks, and is going to continue to reek if they don't get hard about pairing up riders. Which I know the operators really don't want to have to do. When I rode yesterday, I would have understood if they paired me up with a stranger (but obviously preferred not), but even people who were together all wanted their own glider. So, each cycle is like ten people maybe?

Larson's are 8-tub. Maybe they could alleviate the problem by bringing in a second set of flyers. I know... how about a homesick 10-tub Bisch-Rocco model?

[RingMaster]

-- As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Haunt, but completely against building permanent structures around the park for the mazes. Usually the signs are removed or covered in some way, but Slaughterhouse looks like its ready to open for evenings. Please tell me I'm not going to be seeing the gigantic Slaughterhouse sign all Summer. The practice of having all of these permanent structures scattered throughout the park is tacky enough, but really? This is getting ridiculous.

We're currently at: 2 sheds, 2 former attraction buildings, an old coaster station, and a former arcade building right off the Coney midway all sitting shuttered until Haunt opens in September. Halloween Haunt is very popular, I understand that. I'm a big fan of Halloween and all the festivities it brings, but that current situation is bad.

I can understand their insistence on keeping some of the Haunt mazes up year-round to a point; it cuts down on setup time when you have fewer attractions to completely rebuild from the ground up. But having the signage and outdoor decor up is indeed ridiculous. I thought it was bad enough having Club Blood's front graffiti'd up and no real effort to have it completely hidden during the regular season (flipping the graffiti'd fence over notwithstanding).

The issue here is that there aren't a lot of already-standing spaces that are sizable enough to install a maze. Kings Island doesn't have extra special event buildings or easily available/accessible backstage areas on hand like Knott's Berry Farm, or even massive extended queue lines that won't be filled up come Haunt season like Universal Studios. We just lost one space to a petting zoo (Peanuts Playhouse), and there's an increasingly good chance another will be lost to a new dark ride in the coming years. Although whether or not it will be the former Action Theater, former Crypt, or even the entire building Boo Boo's Blasters resides in remains to be seen.

[Thrill_Biscuit]

I've got it! Just cover up the "S" on the Slaughter House until Haunt. Then it looks like:

LAUGHTER HOUSE

Much more family-friendly, no?

[KI Guy]

^^ I share your sentiment. I'd like there to be more outdoor mazes. The old Psycho Path trail isn't being used right now. What happened to the old Curse of the Crypt area near The Racer way back when? I don't think that one is being used as a haunt anymore.

[Tr0y]

^^ I share your sentiment. I'd like there to be more outdoor mazes. The old Psycho Path trail isn't being used right now. What happened to the old Curse of the Crypt area near The Racer way back when? I don't think that one is being used as a haunt anymore.

I agree, but it seems as if every season 2 or 3 haunt day's end up being rainy ones.

[KI Guy]

That's true, but I'd doubt that fewer people would come to the park just because they'd rather not go through 1 or 2 more outdoor haunts. Must don't go at all on cold, rainy days.

[RingMaster]

^^ I share your sentiment. I'd like there to be more outdoor mazes. The old Psycho Path trail isn't being used right now. What happened to the old Curse of the Crypt area near The Racer way back when? I don't think that one is being used as a haunt anymore.

That's because "the old Psycho Path trail" is now home to more than 65 animatronic dinosaurs.

As for the former Curse of the Crypt spot, I'm surprised they actually didn't go back to using that spot instead of using the Skeeball building for Kill Mart. They could have even utilized the main Arcade interior as well as the storage area.

[KI Guy]

Ok, that makes sense. Maybe when the dinos go extinct we can have it back.

[The Interpreter]

There's still a few good weeks for things to get up to speed. I was encouraged to notice that, despite Kings Island not being a Disney or Universal property, thousands and thousands came into the park, rode rides, ate food, bought souvenirs, and were entertained by... well, geese for the moment, but the season will eventually go into full swing, memories will be made, friendships will develop, personal ride-count records will be increased, and the hiccups of the first few operating days will be long forgotten.

The Geese are not the only musical revue currently playing at the park. They may be the best one, but they are not the only one...

Terp, on a roll, never forgets.

[LOKJAW]

Did anyone else notice how hard it was to move around Action Zones entrance around dinner time opening day? Many large groups of kids all standing around talking and making it very difficult to traverse through the area. Didn't have a pass last year so maybe this is a on going problem. Also really bad around the Ice Cream shop near Banshee, but I can understand that one more.