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Kings Island 2016 Discussion Thread


CoasterOhio

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Was waiting in line for DB just now with the fireworks going off during a technical difficulty. One train was in the station, one on the brake run, and the third no where to be seen. So some lucky folks must have got to view the fireworks from the MCBR. I am so incredibly jealous.

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A few things I took note of during preview night.

#1 - Customer Service was wonderful. I had a minor issue with my FunPix pass and it was handled without issues.

#2 - There are a few new props in Boo Blasters on Boo Hill, a couple of which are really nice and large. Despite these improvements, the guns and targets were not functioning well and the air conditioning was off which made it very uncomfortable.

#3 - The parking row signs have indeed changed. We usually park in Delirium and tonight it was The Racer.

#4 - Food service was decent. The lines weren't bad except for the few places offering the $1 deals which was to be expected. We sucked it up and enjoyed Banshee ice cream, pretzels, and chocolate dipped Oreos from The Sweet Spot. We avoid dollar days because of the crowd so getting this perk flyer when we walked in was a nice added bonus on the night.

#5 - The new WWC entrance seems really odd and out of place. It's going to take some getting used to.

#6 - New Snoopy License station set up in Planet Snoopy. You can get your kids' picture taken and made into a drivers license looking card with their height printed on it. It's cute, but seems impractical for kids to carry this around to show for rides. They took the regular height check station out of Planet Snoopy. The line moved VERY slow for this tonight.

#7 - FunPix is the best thing since sliced bread. A little difficult to hit the sweet spot (no pun intended) with the barcode but overall a really good value. Bummed that the camera on The Beast malfunctioned on our front row night ride.

#8 - Unlimited refill cups were everywhere. I foresee these being incredibly popular. They are neon orange, vastly different than the neon green cups for $1.00 refills. This should hopefully keep these freestyle stands moving more quickly.

#9 - New lighting package on The Scrambler is amazing. Really stands out.

#10 - Watch for falling trees... Ride ops on The Beast were teasing about it.

Overall, really great preview night.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk8246655685625e882c41f22899142daa.jpg

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Well, first day of work in 2016 in the books! I hope some of you came by Adventure Express tonight - after all, we are the best!

Kings Island has really impressed me. All these small minor additions actually turned out to be awesome. I am in love with the new roads, signs, entrances, etc. It just feels different at the park. And now we have this Rivertown speculation - wow! Good job KI. I cannot wait for the rest of this season.

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So my wife and I just got back from preview night a little bit ago, so I thought I'd mention some of the things we noticed while we were walking around the park.

 

1. What the crap is the deal with all the "Funpix" watermarks all over the picture preview screens? There are so many of them that you can hardly see the picture!  For those of us who don't have Funpix, it's not worth stopping and looking at the screen since you can no longer see the picture.  We'll keep on walking by from now on.

 

2. We noticed all the game card kiosks and all the card swipers installed on all the games.  Not sure I like this aspect yet.  My wife and I are the occasional impulse game players.  If we've got some change in our pockets we might play a claw machine.  Sometimes if we've got a few singles we might play another random game or two.  We won't be going through all the trouble to buy and load a game card.  We had some quarters in our pockets tonight and thought we might play a claw machine.  We couldn't, so we didn't.  We didn't buy a game card either.  They've lost our business unfortunately.

 

3. Went to ride Banshee at one point and it was down.  Upon further inspection of the ride station, we saw several employees wiping down the seats.  Must have been a protein spill.  Glad I wasn't riding when that happened.  Can you imagine riding Banshee when someone in front of you pukes? Yeah, me either.  Let's not think about that...

 

4. Boo Blasters was a rather hot ride tonight.  Not hot as in popular, hot as in hot.  I guess the air conditioner broke, so the whole ride was like an oven.  Oh, and about half the targets were flashing and unresponsive.  And the guy being chased still wasn't working, and the screen that shows Boocifer's face on a headstone or whatever wasn't working either.  I also noticed a lot of the sounds weren't on.  Not sure what was up with that.  The whole ride was a total fail tonight.  You'd think they'd be able to get that stuff working between seasons, but what can we expect from such a lazy re-theme? Probably lazy maintenance of the lazy re-theme.

 

Other than that we had a great night.  The weather was nice and we had great rides on The Beast, Adventure Express, and an awesome night ride on Diamondback.  It was good to be back for the 2016 season!

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Alright, so the fence with the sign about trees falling (teaser) you can't see behind the fence, it's quite put together. Little to no spaces.

There are a lot of things I could type, but I'm tired.

I will say I enjoyed the fireworks from the Midcourse brake of Diamondback. Was up there a half hour. That was fun.

Alright more later.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Granted, the coolest part of the evening was when we got stuck on the MCBR of DB to watch the fireworks. But, for me, the second best thing was that they've finally fixed (even improved from what I remember) the light in the pouring lava at the end of Adventure Express.

That wasn't the only new or improved, or simply working theming, since last season. This was exactly the kind of things I had hoped they would focus on this "off" year. More of FoF's theming was working (the music while on the ride itself really adds to it) and they finally replaced the 90's clothed mannequins in the pods in the loading station. BLSC has some newly painted theming. I couldn't tell for sure as I shot through the tunnels, but I think attention has been given to the theming in addition to the final lift hill.

Everything also seemed to be running exceptionally well, as though a lot of worn wheels have been changed out. Had a wonderful smooth ride on Vortex.

I feel like our concerns have been listened to in a lot of ways, and even though there were some hiccups tonight, I think it was a lovely start to the 2016 season.

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So here are my observations from tonight...

 

  • The one show we watched tonight (which I think was the only one they had) was the Hollywood Nights show, good performance by those who did it, but I still prefer real instruments playing music than karaoke with dancing.
  • We did do one of the claw games in Festhaus after watching the Hollywood Nights show, getting the card was pretty painless, I pressed the button to get a new card, but my one dollar bill in, and it gave me a card. And of course didn't win the claw game but that goes without saying lol
  • I agree with the earlier post, the FunPix stuff they are putting over the pictures is a little over the top, you cannot see the pictures at all, that's a good way to NOT sell me on FunPix, why would I want to invest in FunPix when I don't even know what my pictures are going to end up looking like?
  • Also on topic with FunPix, I noticed that Beast now has a "Selfie Station", don't recall seeing that last year or being discussed on here. Looks like a little kiosk area that takes you picture for you automatically.
  • I was surprised they still had the sharks... *cough*... sorry, I mean associates out at the entrance trying to get random people with photos, was hoping they would be away with FunPix now being in the picture (no pun intended)
  • I got one of the all season refill cups, it was $25, I would have to pay $15 for the one to get the $.99 refills and I imagine we will get more than 10 refills on this cup throughout the year. My daughter is at the 48" mark right now so we don't have any rides I can't take the bottle with me on, when we hit that 52" mark it might change my opinion
  • Adventure Express... the theming seemed like it was finally back on and very close to it's original SFX being on, count me as impressed
  • On the other side... Boo Blasters... it looked like they hadn't touched this ride all off-season. I do think this is going to be one of the last seasons for it judging by how little seemed to be done with it. And as others have stated, the targeting system seemed to be worse than it has ever been, I only got an 810 on it and I usually get over 1500 consistently.
  • Food service... the line was very long at Festhaus, but to be fair, we got there right before the Hollywood Nights show started so I think there was some people there that came to see the show who got in line. By the time the show was over there was hardly any line over at LaRosa's.
  • Diamondback, I had the same issue with the picture that the person above did, I could not see myself at all because was in the second row.
  • I was thoroughly impressed with all associates this evening, it seemed like everyone was pretty much on their game. Sure there was a few that didn't seem like they knew exactly what they were doing but supervisors were helping out where needed, you gotta give them a break, it was their first night for a lot of them.
  • Rides that I noticed being down at one point or another during the evening: WindSeeker, BLSC, WWC, Invertigo, Flying Ace Aerial Chase
  • I love the Scrambler's new lighting package and paint job, it looked very nice
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