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Landscaping Team has done another fine job this year #KI51 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It took me a few minutes to realize you were naming barrels on Cargo Loco and not making a joke about eating cacao beans and fish oil and getting diarrhea.

My wife and I made a nice, quick trip to the park tonight. Adventure Port (and the whole park) looked lovely tonight. Got another ride in on AE. Can’t say for sure if a whole lot has changed from this weekend. Nothing major to report. Hopefully they can get the rest of the thematic elements up to snuff soon. Really cool experience so far!

I think they need to make them about $50 apiece, so the people who dropped a G to get season long FL are still receiving the perceived value of said season long Fast Lane program. Some may agree, some may disagree, but thats my viewpoint and it will remain that way regardless of dissenting opinions. Stop diluting a high priced premium experience for a money grab (this, gold passes, summer passes, you get my point.)

He looks like a Craig to me.

if it's there it needs to be amped up - lots of audio issues - the creaking wood is now dialougue that you can't make out. The whole ride feels like it needs to close for 2-3 days for a final "punch list" of lighting in tunnel 1 to highlight the snakes they made a deal about (will be vey annoyed if this doesn't come back), audio adjustment, crates of jewels in tunnel 2 or 3 (again that we made a deal about), lighting fixed in final lift and the repainted masks form the lift hill that they highlighted in a post a while back aren't there. They clearly got it open for capacity over the holiday, but they need to just take it offline and get it great (and really, how hard is it to get the dang bell working again?? LOL

I agree with @IBEW_Sparkythat I hope this is a high ticket item. The choice of FOF I think is a bad one. You are going to use one of your slowest riders per hour coaster to upsell a FL? I guess it increases the value of the FL, but not for everyone else in line for FOF. It should only be between the 3 B&M's.

I agree that these Single-Use Fast Lane passes need to be high priced and limited in supply or else Fast Lane lines are going to get way longer, which will also make the standby lines move slower. Also, if you look closely at the top of the cart in the picture, it used to be an Oreo Churro stand. LOL!

Consult your Dr. before anyone else.

I got some mega spins in Cacao Beans and Fish Oil yesterday.

Rode Cargo Loco and Adventure Express today: Cargo Loco is a fine addition to Kings Island and a very fun ride for pretty much anyone. Adventure Express is running better than before. The theming is very good and the operation is smooth. Overall, big thumbs up!

What is the most popular ride at Kings Island? Does anyone know?

Thanks for the update, @brenthodge. I hope they get these things nailed out and have faith they will. I have really come to love this ride since 2019. So much so that I rode it more than The Beast in 2022!

Yeah the shade structure for cargo is likely for an attendant some days? not sure. Was hoping for shade over the ride itself; Especially with the ride having you have to grab a metal ring. Looks fun though! Adventure Express review.

I will say in the 86° Heat of the afternoon, the fans and breeze and shade kept me cool in the VIP area. Im becoming a fan of the area and any new additions such as outlets for charging, VIP Wi-Fi only or locker rentals added would be a nice touch. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Currently a $10 cost for that spin the wheel game, which allows 2 people single FL ride use. Could be based on attendance and raise the price like slingshot or skyflyer does based on attendance. They would keep it low end of price point.

I fail to see how a 1x use ride pass diluted a season-long, all ride fast pass. It will most likely be targeted at single day visitors who don’t see a value in getting a Fast Lane for all rides, but have 1-2 must do that they want to ride. You still got what you paid for!

The company I work for is still getting quotes of 2+ years on what used to be off the shelf electronic components. When you’re dealing with long lead times it’s really common for the supplier to get the estimate wrong. A couple of extra weeks or months is really common. My gut says the supplier is giving delivery dates and just not delivering. I have been in the middle of this before. You place an order and are told it will be delivered by X day. Which you use to tell your customers when they should expect their orders. The problems occur when you don’t get your parts on time, suddenly your production is backed up and cannot deliver to your customers by the dates you already promised, which just snow balls down the chain. I do blame Worlds of Fun for not cancelling the opening earlier. I cannot imagine GCI was not communicating to the park about this issue. Likely they were planning to use overnight shipping to get the items as quickly as is possible, and relying on bad information, but they held out hope for way too long. The impression I have is the parts have always been missing, and that nothing broke, it’s not important to test the ride, and I read where the park was even able to train ride ops. My understanding is that GCI employees have been riding it as well. All of my guesses deal with locking/unlocking restraints, restraint position sensors, or communication between the train and the station when parked in the station. Something that you can work around or disable without too much hassle but you need working for operating with park guests.

It closed after 9:00 PM last season, which I thought was already too early.

Observations -boat has already been changed -my thought on day one “they are going to have to push that further out in the pond and anchor that to get it away from the rail or people will get on it” now, they d pushed it out in the pond and anchored it. they really should’ve built an “office” around the desk props to just look through a window at the stuff. It’s literally inches from the queue line and the desk lamp is already broken. tunnel one may not be complete, but we made this big deal about snakes and… no snakes-no lights. tunnel 3- gem mine? Something? Again we made a big deal about hitting the “mother lode” and pikes of lit up fake gems would sell that story. flags have started appearing in front of Enrique’s. They seem like a hard material zip tied onto the lighting wires. I’m hoping -but not expecting additional poles and wires. I’m afraid this detail has been “minimized’. Would look good if they aged the poles on the back patio as the shiny black looks too new. They are doing LOTS of aging and detail paint, so hopefully! the ride op building for SolSpin looks really nice. I had doubts about how this building would age down and blend in, but looks good. odd design choice to put a shade structure over the entrance to Cargo-where you just pass through and no shade structure over the queue where you wait.

My friends and I got some massive spins on the Kerosene barrel yesterday.

If the component is Infinity Flyer related, I'm guessing something was damaged during testing, maybe a minor bump? Hard to really say. Seems like an unforeseen circumstance. As for the difference between this past year and this year for having things ready, could it be manpower related? Did they scale back working hours in the off-season? Did they get a late start after Winterfest? I know in manufacturing, basically everyone is hiring, and everyone is running overtime to try and keep up with demand. Probably a combination of a few different things to be truthful.

The lengthening of the operating season certainly doesn't help. The park used to start the seasonal refurbishments in November, not January. I would say the supply chain issues for consumers have been mostly fixed, but I work in manufacturing and getting material for custom parts/ low volume parts is still difficult.

Jeez…What is going on with Cedar Fair and the delayed openings? It’s not like the supply chain, and labor shortage issues just showed up being that this is year 3 since the Covid Lockdowns. From what I’ve read beyond the Zambezi Zinger, Worlds Of Fun like Kings Island, too was off to a rough start with a lot of rides not being opened and the park in general not appearing to be ready for opening day. Canada’s Wonderland new rides were not ready for opening day as well. Maybe CF should increase the lead times on new additions by starting these projects sooner the season prior.

Most ridden ride? The Racer, followed by the train.

Over time, Id say The Beast.

This picture was posted by Roger Goffinet on the Kings Island Season Passholders page on Facebook. It appears that Kings Island is getting ready to roll out a new Single-Use Fast Lane System similar to Disney’s Lightning Lane or Six Flags’ Single-Use Flash Passes. I assume carts or stands similar to this one will pop up in front of other major attractions like Mystic Timbers, Diamondback, The Beast, and Banshee. What are your thoughts on this new Fast Lane product?

Totally agree. It should have been a wristband or lanyard that gets a hole punched when you completed a ride. So one front of the line per FL ride. Just think they could make more money because inevitably someone would just purchase another wristband/lanyard when they used up the first one LOL. Now we all know what will happen. On the busy Saturday when FastLane has been "sold out" we will see them selling these single use FastLane passes.

single-use should've always been the only option from the inception of fastlane IMO. But since we're not in my idealized imagination, I just hope they make legit limits to how many FLs get redeemed, or simply sold per day by a certain time.

I guess that is better than an actual broken bone. I hope your enjoy your vacation. Let us know if they have these single use options at CP too.

I agree with @IBEW_Sparkythat I hope this is a high ticket item. The choice of FOF I think is a bad one. You are going to use one of your slowest riders per hour coaster to upsell a FL? I guess it increases the value of the FL, but not for everyone else in line for FOF. It should be between the 3 B&M's only.

I fail to see how my thoughts and opinions are up for debate, I see it how it is, and know my voice means d*ck to CF so they are going to do what they are going to do and Im accustomed to that.

I get the argument that this is "cheating" pass holders in a way so perhaps the timing is not the best however, I personally like the idea. Six Flags has the option to get a single use fast pass for $11 or something and when you only visit for 1 day and need to get all the credits on a budget you often just wait in line however if you can buy an affordable fast pass for the one ride you don't have enough time to ride it's a much more successful day. For example at Six Flags Over TX I had had moderate waits for Shockwave, Titan, Batman, and Runaway Mine Train during the morning. In the afternoon the park became swamped and I had to wait two hours for Mr Freeze and close to two hrs for New TX Giant. After those two coasters sucking down 4hrs of my day I had two hours till closing to get the remaining coasters - Pandemonium, Runaway Mountain, and La Vibora. I got the single use fast pass on Pandemonium and Runaway Mountain knocking both out in a half hour. I then discovered that runaway mountain had a single rider line (so I actually wasted $11 there). I decided to wait for La Vibora and because of a break down waited an hour. (I should have got the fast pass for it seeing as I would have been on and off before the break down delay). However in my final two hrs I was able to get one ride on Pandemonium, two on runaway mountain (1 fast pass, 1 single rider), one on La Vibora and two on Shockwave (which was station wait near park closing). I thought the single fast pass was worth it personally and I would probably use it at KI especially if going with friends who have limited time and just need to get on one more ride.

To answer the thread title's question, I'm going to say the original Antique Cars. Paramount was bad at putting things where they didn't fit, like building IJST using less than half of that land instead of Action Zone where it would actually fit the theme of the area. Action Zone itself was meant to be a backlot, but instead they bulldozed a large area, an attraction the park itself was designed around, and just thunked it down there while leaving the rest of the property a bunch of flat grass. Regarding Diamondback, I'm sure it would be done differently now in a more area-fitting way, but the early Cedar Fair years focused more on catching up on things Paramount had lagged on, especially the spree of building B&M hypers. Maybe if Paramount hadn't done IJST how they did, Diamondback's station area could have taken the place of the closed Rivertown Antique Cars area and crossed the pathway using the lift hill instead of the drop, without removing the lake. The return run could have been a tunnel under the midway to get back to that side of the path for the finale element and brakes. Obviously there's no way to bring back Swan Lake as it was, but there's a lot of open grass on both sides of the pathway there, behind Showplace and also across from Diamondback that's sat vacant for a very long time now. A new lake as an entry to Rivertown could use both of those areas, with the pathway bridging over it. Diamondback's repaint is a welcome step in making it blend in more, but things like landscaping around the pool, upgrading and theming the queue, replanting the excessive number of removed trees behind the former Crypt building to better obscure the back half of the ride, there's plenty of things that can be done just with theme and landscape work to fit the area better. (There is still a box of broken flip phones that forms the "theming" for the queue. That got old ten years ago, guys.)

I did not find out until after I wrote that. It was actually confirmed to be missing parts by a pair of GCI employees over the weekend at an ACE event at WoF. It’s something unique to the Infinity Flyers, and they are waiting for the parts to arrive from somewhere in Europe. Except for these missing parts, the ride is complete and ready to open. My understanding is it is related to the electronics for the restraints.

I was at the park today and it backed into the engine house after 8. When did it close last season?

I think they should crank up the volume so that everyone can hear it, especially in the middle rows.

Today's version of VIP gets you not 2, but 1 cooler. Infused cooler water hasn't made an appearance lol.

not sure how, but 2850 wayy back in 2019

These aren't the drones you're looking for

I know people are quick to anticipate disappointment, but the park is really ramping up the Outpost 5 stuff a lot. I can not help but feel serious anticipation for something big.

Don't forget Flying Dutchman. The Arches are now being called "Dutchman Arches"

I like how Adventure Express is used to highlight the park’s past lore: Amazon Falls, SOB, King Cobra, etc. It makes sense that a coaster that features ancient ruins would have some metaphorical park ruins incorporated into the theme.

Yep. Kids have turned them into play structures that you literally have to cross 6-8 feet of mulch to get to while the slob parents sit on their phones daring anyone to say anything. If you want to know why we can’t have an awesome park-here’s why. I give the planting around the stone head a few days till they are destroyed by kids climbing on it, and bets on how long until sone drunk idiot tries to jump the fence into the boat since it it “docked” right at the edge of the lake. People are idiots, but a lot of this was not thought out for the type of crowd this park gets (saw them there tonight.

I’m going to veer off topic for one second. With all the attention to detail they’ve been putting into their new themed lands, I only hope that we see this progress with Rivertown and Action Zone in the coming seasons. Things have been looking too good for the practice to not be applied elsewhere.

The head looks so good that it gives me chills…

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

From KI Twitter page. The theming is looking great ! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Anyone interacted with Kevin at the lounge? He is a great guy!! Truly worked hard to make sure everyone was having a fantastic day. Even greeted my wife and I by name after our 2nd time in the lounge today.

I'm surprised nobody has said Action Theater.........