4/29/18: Adventure Express, Food, Pokémon, and More Food (not necessarily in that order)

[jcgoble3]

Back on opening day, @MDMC01 and I did a Charmander raid in Pokémon GO in Action Zone. One week later, I received a push notification telling me that I had been awarded my first ever EX Raid Pass for today! (For the uninitiated, an EX Raid is a special, invitation-only opportunity to battle and catch Mewtwo, one of the most powerful Pokémon in the game.)

So this morning, I left home in Xenia around 9:30 AM to head to Kettering, where I was scheduled to help run a Pokémon TCG prerelease event for the new expansion that goes on sale later this week. I was done with that by 2:00 (and sold the sealed booster box I got as compensation for my time to a friend for $80 store credit ), and on my way out I got the Pokémon GO playing started early... with a shiny Magikarp!!!

Awesome! After shooting the breeze with a couple friends for a while and then fighting with Waze (whose servers had just started having significant issues, according to downdetector.com), I got my navigation set up and drove straight to Kings Island. I pulled into the parking lot around 4:00 PM, got through security easily, and headed for Coney BBQ, because I hadn't eaten since breakfast. There was almost no line to be served, so I got the pulled pork (no bun, thank you) and corn on the cob, plus they gave me a free hushpuppy. As usual with food service, the backup was at the register because they were only running one. After a few minutes, a supervisor came over to resolve an issue with someone's pass, then noticed the line and opened a second register herself for those with dining/drink plans and/or credit cards only (since she didn't have a cash drawer). I jumped over there and paid with my credit card, then sat down at the front corner of the building to eat.

While eating, I checked Discord to try to get a head count for the raid, but could only find one other person in the chat. Fortunately, once I moseyed over to Action Zone, everyone found everyone else, and we ended up with 11 people for the raid (good, because you need a minimum of 5 to 6 to defeat Mewtwo, which is a prerequisite to catching him), including @MDMC01. @Magenta Lizard also showed up to play cheerleader (she didn't get the special pass). With twice as many people as we needed, defeating Mewtwo was easy, and all but one of us managed to catch him! Including me! Say hello to my first Mewtwo:

Afterward, us three KICers took a ride on Adventure Express, which was a walk-on. I noticed that the effects on the second lift were mostly working, save one fist which wasn't moving. After that, we walked around briefly and ended up in X-Base. @MDMC01 and @Magenta Lizard took down a Valor gym and turned it blue for Mystic, so I took it right back and turned it red again. I threw a Blissey into the gym, which lasted about 40 minutes before someone else took it down (and I got four in-game coins for the trouble). We split up at the gym, and I walked a loop of the park, catching every Magikarp and Wailmer in sight. I also soloed a Magikarp raid at WindSeeker (maybe I can get a second EX Raid Pass from that?) and hatched five or six eggs (I lost count). I didn't ride anything else before leaving.

After leaving, I went to the McDonald's at Kings Mills Road and Kings Island Drive. They now have these new ordering kiosks up front where you place your order, take a table number, and your food is brought to your table. I refuse to use self-order and self-checkout machines like that, so I approached the bored cashier at the regular register and ordered my food. I told him three times that I wanted no onions of any kind on my sandwich (it came with both grilled and crispy onions). I found a table and waited, and waited, and waited... (OK, I'll admit they were SLAMMED. As is always the case at that McDonald's right after Kings Island closes, no matter what time the park closes.) Finally, my food was brought out... right as I noticed that my receipt only specified "no grilled onions". Sure enough, the sandwich had crispy onions on it. I stopped the lady who brought it out and told her about it, and she took the sandwich back, leaving me with the smoothie and fries. A full 10 minutes later (a bit ridiculous for a remake, which ought to be immediately jumped to the front of the queue), she finally brought it back out made correctly. It took 25 minutes from the time I ordered until I had a correct sandwich in front of me. I may reconsider the kiosks the next time I visit.

Then, while eating it, I drained my large smoothie, and went up front to order a second. Oops. They had so many orders in front of mine that it didn't even show up right away on their screen. After a few minutes, I flagged someone down and asked about it (since the smoothie machine was sitting idle and it takes only about a minute), and they made it quickly. When I got back to the table, I realized that I had a larger cup than the first one, upon which I realized that I had been shorted the first time and given a medium instead of the large I paid for. At that point, I had been in the place for an hour and wasn't in the mood to complain any further, so I just finished up and headed home. I got home around 10:00 PM.

[MDMC01]

Good stuff! BTW, it was us (Liz and I) who reclaimed the X-Base Gym.  I threw my Gengar in there and she put something else.

UPDATE: Both of my Pokemon (I had a Crobat in The Bat gym, appropriately enough) returned to me; dang..

[fyrfyter]

Back on opening day, [mention=8137]MDMC01[/mention] and I did a Charmander raid in Pokémon GO in Action Zone. One week later, I received a push notification telling me that I had been awarded my first ever EX Raid Pass for today! (For the uninitiated, an EX Raid is a special, invitation-only opportunity to battle and catch Mewtwo, one of the most powerful Pokémon in the game.)

So this morning, I left home in Xenia around 9:30 AM to head to Kettering, where I was scheduled to help run a Pokémon TCG prerelease event for the new expansion that goes on sale later this week. I was done with that by 2:00 (and sold the sealed booster box I got as compensation for my time to a friend for $80 store credit ), and on my way out I got the Pokémon GO playing started early... with a shiny Magikarp!!!

[mention=8137]MDMC01[/mention]. [mention=9282]Magenta Lizard[/mention] also showed up to play cheerleader (she didn't get the special pass). With twice as many people as we needed, defeating Mewtwo was easy, and all but one of us managed to catch him! Including me! Say hello to my first Mewtwo:

[mention=8137]MDMC01[/mention] and [mention=9282]Magenta Lizard[/mention] took down a Valor gym and turned it blue for Mystic, so I took it right back and turned it red again. I threw a Blissey into the gym, which lasted about 40 minutes before someone else took it down (and I got four in-game coins for the trouble). We split up at the gym, and I walked a loop of the park, catching every Magikarp and Wailmer in sight. I also soloed a Magikarp raid at WindSeeker (maybe I can get a second EX Raid Pass from that?) and hatched five or six eggs (I lost count). I didn't ride anything else before leaving.

After leaving, I went to the McDonald's at Kings Mills Road and Kings Island Drive. They now have these new ordering kiosks up front where you place your order, take a table number, and your food is brought to your table. I refuse to use self-order and self-checkout machines like that, so I approached the bored cashier at the regular register and ordered my food. I told him three times that I wanted no onions of any kind on my sandwich (it came with both grilled and crispy onions). I found a table and waited, and waited, and waited... (OK, I'll admit they were SLAMMED. As is always the case at that McDonald's right after Kings Island closes, no matter what time the park closes.) Finally, my food was brought out... right as I noticed that my receipt only specified "no grilled onions". Sure enough, the sandwich had crispy onions on it. I stopped the lady who brought it out and told her about it, and she took the sandwich back, leaving me with the smoothie and fries. A full 10 minutes later (a bit ridiculous for a remake, which ought to be immediately jumped to the front of the queue), she finally brought it back out made correctly. It took 25 minutes from the time I ordered until I had a correct sandwich in front of me. I may reconsider the kiosks the next time I visit.

Then, while eating it, I drained my large smoothie, and went up front to order a second. Oops. They had so many orders in front of mine that it didn't even show up right away on their screen. After a few minutes, I flagged someone down and asked about it (since the smoothie machine was sitting idle and it takes only about a minute), and they made it quickly. When I got back to the table, I realized that I had a larger cup than the first one, upon which I realized that I had been shorted the first time and given a medium instead of the large I paid for. At that point, I had been in the place for an hour and wasn't in the mood to complain any further, so I just finished up and headed home. I got home around 10:00 PM.

 

Now you understand why the kiosks are in there. Kiosks first, robots to run the kitchen will be next.

 

You can thank those who thought they deserved $15/hr to make fries for that.

 

We were there on Saturday, and I couldn’t find any Pokémon at all, nor any places to get more pokeballs. It was really weird. Not sure if there were game issues or what.

[jcgoble3]

15 hours ago, fyrfyter said:

We were there on Saturday, and I couldn’t find any Pokémon at all, nor any places to get more pokeballs. It was really weird. Not sure if there were game issues or what.

I'm not aware of any server issues, and they would have flooded my Facebook news feed if there were any, given the multiple highly active Pokémon GO groups I'm a member of. It's possible you might have been having connection or GPS issues with your phone, or even a possibility you might be temporarily shadowbanned for some weird reason. I have no idea.

16 hours ago, MDMC01 said:

Good stuff! BTW, it was us (Liz and I) who reclaimed the X-Base Gym.  I threw my Gengar in there and she put something else.

UPDATE: Both of my Pokemon (I had a Crobat in The Bat gym, appropriately enough) returned to me; dang..

I figured that might be the case. At least I got a few coins out of it.