Kings Island 2015 Discussion Thread

[electricsun]

They can accurately aim and spray up to 15 feet away.

Turkey vultures can projectile vomit up to 8 feet away (FYI for Beastie fans).

[Italian Job 2005]

But what about Woodstock? Can he aim his puke too?

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[Magenta Lizard]

I hope not. Have you ever noticed how many Woodstocks there are in Planet Snoopy? I noticed one at the top of a sign a couple weeks ago, then I started to realize they're everywhere. You could be a potential target from almost any location in PS if he has that kind of aim

[The Interpreter]

The gulls at Cedar Point have bombed Terp three times over the years--all three times in the parking lot. At NJFTP, equally gully, zilch. And I've been there many more times than I have Maple Grove.

A passing pigeon at Kings Island taught me that my head does not fit in a Dyson hand dryer.

--Jonathan Livingston Terpwell

[jcgoble3]

Earlier on The Beast, a woman directly in front of me and silver2005 had her iPhone out taking selfies and video the whole first half of the ride. Ride ops did nothing at all, not even a lift hill announcement to "please put your cell phone away" despite the fact that she was holding the phone over her head most of the first lift hill.

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[BB1]

Earlier on The Beast, a woman directly in front of me and silver2005 had her iPhone out taking selfish and video the whole first half of the ride. Ride ops did nothing at all, not even a lift hill announcement to "please put your cell phone away" despite the fact that she was holding the phone over her head most of the first lift hill.

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Selfish? Fish from sel? I would certainly hope not!

I'm actually pretty surprised how quickly this Summer has passed by. Here I was expecting a longer time period with more planning time. Nope, it has come and will go as soon as it started. I should really try to get some more summer night rides on The Beast before it is over!

[silver2005]

This is the one bad thing from my trip at KI on 7/25 (expect a rather unique TR on the good stuff), and its a doozy. 

 

At Diamondback today, the Fast Lane line ran down the stairs up to the station and started going up the stairs that got you to below the track.  

And what was their solution?

Alternating FL and the regular line.  That's right, they filled an entire train sans the front seat with Fast Laners, then filled the next with regular guests.  Sort of defeats the purpose of having Fast Lane.  Why is Diamondback the only ride with such atrocious line management issues?  I know I come back to this, but its never fixed.  I'm angry enough to the point I may stop using Fast Lane until the Diamondback crew gets their act together.  I know it can be run with better efficiency than this.  I remember 2009 through 2011 (2012-ish, that's when it started going down hill) well.  

[The Interpreter]

Sounds more like Fast Lane itself has the issues.

What was the crew supposed to do? Run ALL the Fast Laners through (many of whom may be marathoning the same ride over and over) and never allow any regular liners? See Banshee, 2014--several times.

With Q-Bots and SIX pricing, these type situations do not occur.

First, it appears many marathon the same ride over and over, and

Second, it appears Fast Lane is grossly underpriced.

[NoChickens]

  As much as I complained about this last year, Diamonback had a good start this season. I've not been able to get back to the park for a couple weeks, but I've heard it has fallen back into Diamondstack. 

  The seat belt debate is mute at this point. I've seen it run well with them. 

[NoChickens]

excuse my double post

 

 Exactly interpreted again by Interpreter. To a point.

 

  But the ride stacking again is also an issue. 

[silver2005]

I think instead of staying angry at it all the time, I might as well come to expect it and plan my days at KI accordingly.  Its becoming a cycle of sorts.  I had a blast today despite that though. 

[WindingSon]

Or it sounds like they could use another ride of the Diamondback sort. That could help solve this giga-sized problem.

WindingSon, just pointing that out.

 

(but seriously Diamondback operations are a real bad issue that need to be addressed)

 

(but also the continued frothing demand for Diamondback severely points out that another ride of its type would be a good thing for KI)

[KIfan73]

Yes, it's amazing how Diamondback keeps people coming through the front gate.  Keepers of the park have probably taken note of this!

[BeeastFarmer]

Animals in the park: last week, during fireworks, a skunk family was amusing the que line. Three weeks ago, while ascending the 2nd The Beast lift hill, there was a yearling deer in the grassy helix area.

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[CoasterGeek101]

Has anybody considered that possibly line management isn't the issue and maybe it's that too many Fast Lane wristbands are being sold? 

Food for thought. 

[WindingSon]

Have. Not sure it's the main source of the problem considering Banshee is probably more popular and does not suffer from the same issue.

[jcgoble3]

Animals in the park: last week, during fireworks, a skunk family was amusing the que line. Three weeks ago, while ascending the 2nd The Beast lift hill, there was a yearling deer in the grassy helix area.

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Speaking of skunks, last night my group was delayed coming off of our night ride on White Water Canyon because of a skunk. We came around the final bend in the exit path and had to stop because there was a skunk parked directly in the middle of the exit, at the end of the ramp. We waited for a few seconds, and the skunk eventually took off into the woods toward the train tracks.

 

Something needs to be done about the skunks.

[jcgoble3]

(Apologies for the double post)
 

Selfish? Fish from sel? I would certainly hope not!

 
Doh! I saw this comment yesterday, but only just now realized what you meant. I just checked, and apparently neither "selfie" nor "selfies" are recognized by my phone's autocorrect, which tries to change both to "selfish". Fixed.

[The Interpreter]

Animals in the park: last week, during fireworks, a skunk family was amusing the que line. Three weeks ago, while ascending the 2nd The Beast lift hill, there was a yearling deer in the grassy helix area.

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Speaking of skunks, last night my group was delayed coming off of our night ride on White Water Canyon because of a skunk. We came around the final bend in the exit path and had to stop because there was a skunk parked directly in the middle of the exit, at the end of the ramp. We waited for a few seconds, and the skunk eventually took off into the woods toward the train tracks.

Something needs to be done about the skunks.

Offer them free gold passes to Six Flags America.

Problem solved. Several problems, actually...

Just don't call them polecats. Peeps here would have no idea. Actually, few of them have ever seen a skunk...of the varmint variety.

[Oldiesmann]

Skunks seem to be a longstanding problem at KI. When I worked at the park in 2005, a family of skunks took up residence under what's now Peanuts 500 (don't remember what it was called at the time). One night they decided to make an appearance before the park was closed. Fortunately nobody got sprayed, though we did get questioned by our manager as to why we left the cars scattered around the track. Eventually they hired a trapper, who relocated them to the woods somewhere.

[The Interpreter]

For many, many years, raccoons have loved doing number 2 and leaving the evidence in the Adventure Express station, often between the tracks...

[BeeastFarmer]

On season pass preview night, the brake shed run of the Blue Racer was full of goose feces.

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[WindingSon]

Got a sudden craving to ride Banshee. Don't recall that happening before.

 

I won't be back until next month at the earliest.

 

Ugh.

 

Especially since the last time I rode it I was in row 3 and I found that to be the best ride I've had on it so far. No dizziness at all.

[marth555]

Diamondback is a world class ride, I dont see how its continued sucess comes as a surprise to anyone

[WindingSon]

Diamondback is a world class ride, I dont see how its continued sucess comes as a surprise to anyone

Imagine a world class ride with world class operations.

[jsus]

Banshee?

[BeeastFarmer]

I'm a late Banshee rider,but they have great operations.Granted, I try to go on low attendance days to minimize wait times, but I have always have been able to walk on or wait maybe 2-3 cycles,  (That was a great thing the first ride last month; had it been a long wait, I probably would have chickened out!)

 

I saw where Banshee recently gave her 3 millionth ride; but with the TV and radio spots and no wait times, I wonder if the ride is not meeting attendance and driving gate admissions numbers this year.  I just wish they would have better commercials with actual ride footage instead of computer generated graphics.

[matt112986]

I'm a late Banshee rider,but they have great operations.Granted, I try to go on low attendance days to minimize wait times, but I have always have been able to walk on or wait maybe 2-3 cycles,  (That was a great thing the first ride last month; had it been a long wait, I probably would have chickened out!)

 

I saw where Banshee recently gave her 3 millionth ride; but with the TV and radio spots and no wait times, I wonder if the ride is not meeting attendance and driving gate admissions numbers this year.  I just wish they would have better commercials with actual ride footage instead of computer generated graphics.

I think its doing fine, it's a high capacity ride which leads to shorter wait times. Even with a full queue it only takes an hour to get on. And I've walked on every ride in the park at one point or another including Diamondback. Although Diamondback does seem to be the most popular ride in the park to me.

[MDMC01]

Sorry I'm a little late posting (went to bed super-early yesterday), but I just wanted to share some highlights from Saturday's trip (think of this as an abbreviated trip report):

 

-On the way to The Bat, I noticed Club Blood looked as though it had been painted a different color; hmmm....

-I got a Vanilla Bean Frap at Starbucks and it was as great as it was last time; I even got a brain freeze! I just wish they'd put more drink and less foam though...

-Goble won a Front of the Line pass for two which we promptly used for Flight of Fear, which was a good ride.

-Cirque was great as usual; caught the 3:30 show. I still think the new act is my favorite this year- the music is great, the talent is great, everything is awesome about it!

-Went to the Petting Farm about a half hour after Cirque and got to pet most of the animals; I'm still a bit intmidated by the llamas/alpacas. I also learned that the animals in the pasture (stage left if you are inside the Petting Farm, to the right if you are looking down in Planet Snoopy) should not be pet as it's their day off.

-Saw two showings of "Off the Charts"; the 9:30 show was amazing as there was a dance party during "Uptown Funk" and one of the girl singers completely rocked on "Changed"

-Rode the Carousel in a carriage, which made for a slighly more intense ride.

-Met fellow KICer Skyrider for the first time

-Got a great night ride on White Water Canyon; I "complained" about how slow the current was moving, and then got owned by the first big water splash!  Not surprisingly, I got the wettest out of the four of us riding (myself, Goble, Skyrider and goki) 

-Had a great Vortex night ride and then had my first night ride on WindSeeker. It was very peaceful up there, and defintely prefer it at night.

-Ended the night with Blue Racer, Adventure Express (which was amazing) and a back row ride on Banshee!

[gad198]

 

 Although Diamondback does seem to be the most popular ride in the park to me.

 

Everything that's been said and will be said about Diamondback and its operations really starts with this.  Banshee has a couple of things working against it right now:

• While both rides are world-class, most parkgoers that I've talked to prefer Diamondback over Banshee (including yours truly).  Diamondback is just an easier ride to re-ride for most guests and it appeals to a wider audience because there are no inversions.
• Banshee's location at the front of the park means that it's very popular early in the day, but once the majority of the crowds move to other areas many people don't run back to the front of the park until later on.
• This certainly isn't a negative, but Banshee moves through a ton more people per hour than Diamondback right now (more on this later) 

I'll stop for a day or two a week and time the dispatches on Diamondback for 20-30 minutes at a time at various times on different days of the week.  I've done this for the last two months.  Just a few things to clarify before I lay out the results:

• Diamondback's theoretical capacity is listed 1600 people per hour (pph), or 50 trains an hour.  To the best of my knowledge the hourly record is somewhere just below that, so it's very difficult if not impossible to hit the maximum number.
• Diamondback technically "stacks" at 1:35, or 95 seconds.  My definition of "stack" means that when the train out on the course comes in to the final set of brakes that it has to hold there while it waits for the train in front of it to fully enter the station.

With that out of the way, my findings show that the average dispatch time is just under 2 minutes (1:54 or 114 seconds).  That 114 second average dispatch time translates to sending out 31.58 trains an hour, or about 1,010 pph.  This verifies what many of us are seeing with our own eyes - that the train in the station, on average, is just being dispatched when the train out on the course is already in the final set of brakes.  If Diamondback could be run "stack-free" (95 seconds per average dispatch) we'd see a capacity increase of 200 people an hour and an immediate 20-25% reduction in wait times.  The average dispatch time varies crew to crew.  I saw a terrific crew one day early in June that was cranking out trains at an average of 90 seconds.  That crew was definitely the exception, as most others have not been nearly as efficient.

 

How do we fix the line and operations issues?  I'm glad you asked!  Here are a few things I would do to help speed things up a bit:

• Limit the number of Fast Lane guests to a maximum of 8-10 people per train, all the time. Some of us have been warning for a long time that a high Fast Lane-to-standby guest allocation would lead to longer wait times, and Diamondback is falling victim to that right now. You can't create shorter wait times for some without creating longer wait times for others. Ironically enough Banshee has not had this same issue as there have been far fewer Fast Lane guests there. Interesting.
• Make Diamondback a Fast Lane Plus ride only. Specifically, I would simply move Banshee over to regular Fast Lane and move Diamondback to Fast Lane Plus. Banshee has a high enough capacity that it can absorb a lot more Fast Laners than Diamondback can.  Just switch the rides around on the system.  This works best for everyone as you'd get fewer Fast Lane guests in the Diamondback line, which means shorter Fast Lane waits AND shorter standby waits.  Done and done.
• Adopt the Banshee/Firehawk model and remove the loose article bins. The Interpreter has made mention of this over the last few years and he's absolutely right about this.  I'd like to see this item addressed first because this is an issue every day. You have to wear your shoes/flip flops on Diamondback, so doing removing the bins eliminates every and all possible causes of slow dispatch times. Just make it to where all guests can do is sit down in the seat and strap in.  This would require them to build a locker station somewhere nearby, but the trade-off is worth it IMO. 

To the fine folks at Kings Island reading this - I'm making this post only to provide constructive criticism.  The dramatic decline in Diamondback ridership from 2013 to 2014 wasn't an accident.  Quicker lines on your most popular attraction benefit everyone.  Thank you for your consideration into finding solutions to what many feel is a issue that needs to be addressed.