COASTERSTOCK Reviews

[TheBEASTunchained]

With the inaugural COASTERSTOCK event at Kings Island now behind us, I thought it would be an appropriate time to share our thoughts and help the park with some feedback about the event.

 

What was your favorite part of the event? What would you like to see more / less of next year? What types of things weren't included in the event that you think would be a good addition in the future? What was your overall experience at the event? Would you return to the event in 2016?

 

This would be a great place for us to all share our opinions on the first ever COASTERSTOCK event, and give the park the feedback that they so frequently have asked us about ever since the event has ended.

 

 

[Joncars05]

I'm working on a trip report that I will post in the trip reports section here tonight or tomorrow. Its way too long to be put here. It was a great event though! I would return for 2016 without a doubt.

[Magenta Lizard]

I'm kind of tapped out on writing about the weekend after spending the whole time Tweeting about it. I definitely want to give helpful feedback, but I need some more processing time before I can.

[Oldiesmann]

The ERT and the talk on Saturday afternoon were my favorites. Dennis Speigel is quite a character

 

I do wish they'd done a train tour on Saturday morning instead of Sunday though because I wasn't able to make it Sunday morning and I haven't gotten to do a train tour yet (I never got around to doing it when it was something we could pay for and missed out on the KIC one because I thought

[coasterfanatic83]

Like I said in the other thread, the few hours that I was there was a blast. It was well-organized and ran very well, so props to the park on that. I can't wait for similar events in the future years! 

[Joncars05]

Ill post the positive and negatives (most are from my trip report) that I thought of the event here.

 

Positives of Coasterstock:

ERT! ERT! ERT!- The lines were extremely short most being complete walk-ons. We couldn't have asked for better crowds!

 

Price- $25 for passholders was a great deal. I hope they keep this price point!

 

Gift Bag- The gifts we received were awesome. The T-shirt, souvenir cup, on ride photo coupons, and lanyard were all a nice touch. The free refills on the souvenir cup were a huge plus! I was surprised they offer so much freebies. It was totally worth the $25 right away without the ERT. We enjoyed the gift bag for sure!

 

Customer Service- The food prep crew that kept the lines supplied with food were fantastic! They were busting their tails to keep the buffet lines supplied. They were great and deserve kudos for their hard work! Also I was seriously surprised about how great all the employees (Ride ops, Food servers, cleaning staff, etc) were. Everyone was polite and either greeted us or wished us a great day (even the employees that didn’t know we were part of an event were polite). This change was a very pleasant surprise and we really hope that continues. It makes your trip so much more enjoyable when the staff is polite. The difference from two years ago is astounding. Now we get staff members asking 'How our day was,' 'Thanking us' for being there, and 'saying have a nice day/ enjoy the rest of your night.' These little conversations and greetings go a long way to help improve your trip and make it more memorable.

 

Sunday morning Diamondback crew- These guys were hitting a dispatch that I haven’t seen on Diamondback in years… I can’t remember the last time I could watch the train go through the splashdown while we were halfway up the lift hill. It was amazing. I don’t understand how it can’t be like this every day of operation. This all happened while the park was open to the general public and not just with enthusiasts marathoning DB. It was great to see that and I hope that crew is there often. They busted their tails to never let the ride even come close to stacking.

 

Date of the event: This was probably the best weekend to hold this event. The original rush of all of the passholders coming in during the first couple of weekends had passed. This allowed us to ride during the day on Saturday and Sunday with minimal waits. It also allowed us to not have the feeling of having to rush to be able to get everything in during the day. The relaxing pace allowed us to enjoy the event even more. We really hope that the park holds this event during the same weekend the next time they hold it.

 

 

 

Needs improvement on Coasterstock: (Most of these are small things but everything helps to improve the event)

 

Backstage tours: I know it might be a liability issue but the Banshee behind the scenes tour was disappointing. I figured we would be allowed on the service road and get some better shots. But I was happy they let us get a different angle no matter how short and limited it was. Also the timing of The Beast tour was not good. We were told 15-20 minutes per tour yet we did our DB tour in 15 minutes then waited for another 20-25 minutes before leaving because we didn’t want to wait any longer to start The Beast tour. I feel like the waiting part could’ve been straightened out by either staying on schedule or mentioning the length of the tour beforehand.

 

Event badges: The badges were a bit large compared to previous events (Coastermania) so it made it hard to tuck into your t-shirt collar so it doesnt fly all around while riding your ride. Also the badges not being laminated allowed a lot of the badges to rip off of the lanyard. Looking at a lot of the people of the event it looked like this was a common occurrence. Laminating the passes would definitely prevent the badge ripping from happening as often as it did.

 

The food: The food was about as bad as it could get. I know its Cedar Fair and most of the time food for large groups is subpar but man it was bad. The ribs were a wreck (I broke my fork and knife trying to cut them) and outside of the desserts of each meal there wasn’t much to eat at all. I think the next time you guys have this event we may just skip the meals unless some adjustments are made. I know costs come into play with this but I honestly would've taken Larosa's pizza and or the chicken shack chicken strips over what we had there. I don't know what could be done but there wasn't much appetizing food there. Just with Larosa's, Subway, Skyline, Reds Resturant, Potato Works, Hanks Burrito Shack, and the Chicken Shack in the park I expected better from the food department. Maybe next year Kings Island can provide food vouchers to allow us to choose where we eat next time. 

 

Entrance Saturday morning: I know that Kings Island wanted everyone to come in the employee entrance to not let anyone from the public sneak into the parking lot, but to have us cross the course of and ACTIVE RACE was about the silliest thing I could think of. We had to wait for a big enough gap between runners to be waived through the line. I had to wait just about 5 minutes but I could only imagine how long of a wait for the people who showed up 20 minutes after me. Especially if they made it when there was a large group of walkers crossing the street. If the two events do collide next year like they did this year I would suggest an alternate route to avoid having to wait in line while runners cross the road and avoid us interrupting the runners as well. 

 

Check in: The check in process was slow at best. There were only 3 windows opened for a group of over 500 people. From the time I turned onto Kings Island property to the time I actually entered the park for ERT 35-40 minutes had passed. I think that is way too long to check in.

 

Souvenir cups- While getting free refills and a free souvenir cup was great. It limited you on being able to ride Banshee due to the no loose articles policy. So It was either hang on to the cup and not ride Banshee or put it in a locker (a.k.a. my car) and ride Banshee. I think for next year if there were drink wristbands that would be great. It allows you to get a drink whenever you want without having to carry the souvenir cup around the park the entire time. I understand that may be hard to pull off due to it being a two day event (bands break, wear down due to getting wet, etc) so if its not possible I am fine with the souvenir cups as long as the refills continue to be free!

 

Again the "Needs Improvement" were small things that can be improved for next year. Neither of us had any major issue with the event and we loved that Kings Island now has its own coaster event. We had a great time being able to approach the park with a relaxed attitude and still being able to get a lot of things done. We created a lot of cool memories from this event and we cannot wait to attend the next event at Kings Island!

[Oldiesmann]

For those who haven't seen it yet, here's CoasterBob62's video from Coasterstock

 

[Imperial79]

That's cool. I made a couple videos of the event too. Hope you like!

[NoChickens]

 I ended this event tired, very tired. And very glad I chose it.

 I threw years of tradition to the wind, and it came down sunshine. 

[Magenta Lizard]

What was your favorite part of the event?

That is tough, because there were so many great parts. Dennis Spiegel's presentation stands out as being special. He was a very personable speaker, with tons of interesting history and information. The impromptu speech during lunch on Sunday was also quite entertaining. Just getting the chance to geek out and spend time with other coaster fans was fun as well. The variety of swag, and especially the souvenir cups were a pleasant surprise.

Obviously, winning the Twitter contest, cool photos and a couple tickets to use to bring my husband to the park in the future were a highlight! The contest forced me to be more observant during the weekend, too.

What would you like to see more / less of next year?

More behind-the-scenes! I would love to get the chance to go inside the Flight of Fear building, the final lift hill of Adventure Express, inside Fort Coney. I realize this may not be feasible, especially with such a large group (smaller groups with special scheduled times throughout the day would be nice), but you don't ask you don't get It would also be nice to get inside the train maintenance building as we all thought we were going to this year, only to be told at the end it was "the rain contingency plan" (to which everyone who heard/has since heard replied "wish it had rained then!")

More speeches/park history. I can't get enough!

I can't think of anything I'd like less of. Except bad weather, possibly, but if it kept the crowds down a bit, I can't even really complain.

What types of things weren't included in the event that you think would be a good addition in the future?

I would like to see some sort of park scavenger hunt/trivia game. Things we couldn't just look up online, but would need to hunt down within the park or pay attention to during tours and presentations.

What was your overall experience at the event?

Spoiled! I feel like the people responsible for this event went far above and beyond what I even hoped it would be. As a whole, I absolutely loved the weekend.

There were only two small let-downs or snags for me on the entire weekend.

First was not getting to go in the train maintenance building, but the park history, being behind the scenes, and getting selfies with the set pieces (and Don Helbig ) made it well worth the time anyway.

Second was an issue trying to get refills on Sunday. My first one didn't scan properly at all, but the young employee went ahead and let me have it when he saw my Coasterstock lanyard. However, the second time, it scanned as $1 refill and the employee hadn't even heard of Coasterstock nor really understood what I was trying to say about being told we'd be getting refills free both days. No supervisor was available (I told him he should talk to them when they were, though, because I'm sure he was going to encounter more of us), so I went ahead and paid. As always, Customer Service at the front gates put things more than right. She was going to exchange my cup for a new one so it would give free refills, but I was tired of carrying it around anyway and planned to stick it back in my vehicle for the day, so I told her not to worry about it. She also gave me five Beagle Bucks in return for the $1 I spent on the refill. I don't think I'll even use any of them because they're cool

So even the small negatives ended up being positives overall.

Would you return to the event in 2016?

Can I buy my ticket now?

[markr]

Loved it , loved it, loved it!.  Only complaint?  When Dennis Spiegel's talk was over-did not want his talk to end.  Did get to chat with him a little and what a super nice guy.

[Mr. Coastermania]

I loved the food, ERT, behind the scene photo ops and the nice free goodies. First off, people have there rights to their own opinion. With that said, I loved the food and understand that some things may not always come out right. The ribs were great but did not come out perfect and I take my hat off to the cooks that tried their best. Everything else came out just fine and thank you for all your hard work.

The extra ride times as always was great. Thank you to all the hard workers that stayed over and this includes security. Great job and a great line up of rides. 

What could be done to make next year better? More stories and more guest speakers to share and educate the fan base. More behind the scene photo ops with say a look into the repair shops or a close up of what goes on behind the scenes to get the park up and running. Rides on The Beast with less trim brakes. It would be nice to take the ride full speed ahead.

Great job once again Don and I look forward to next year.