johnjniehaus

I Street: Bring back the old music and it's a pipedream but I wish to God we could have our old fountains back Planet Snoopy: Phantom Theater 2.0 replaces Boo Blaster Camp Snoopy: love this area... maybe more trees? Rivertown: Vekoma madhouse in Crypt building. Coney Mall: New coaster in Vortex Spot. I think it would be cool to do a new mini section that is kind of 1950s route 66 American road trip themed with the far end of Coney where it is no longer two lane path. New area would include Backlot, antique Cars, shake rattle n roll (which is already named for a 1950s song), WindSeeker, and a new rollercoaster that ties into that theme Area 72: Maybe a flat ride? I'm not sure I think it's pretty good as is. Adventure Port: Again pretty good as is. I'd like to see continued maintenance on Adv Ex to keep all the effects working Octoberfest: relocate the berserker from CAGA to Octoberfest...not sure where it would fit but currently Viking Fury is the lone ride in this forgotten section of the park Action Zone: Unpopular opinion but if we are going to take advantage of the DC comic IP, this is the section to do it. I think The Bat would look really cool with a Batman theme. Maybe a new coaster once Invertigo and Congo Falls reach the end of their service life.

The Racer is my 10 year old sister's favorite too! She has ridden everything except Invertigo. She does like Banshee alot too but she always wants to ride The Racer (blue side). She's always super disappointed if only the red side is running. As a kid my big two were always The Beast and Vortex. Then one day I got on Diamondback and everything changed!

I'm not getting in the middle of whether this story is true or false. I'm just going to put it out there that I'm not the biggest Chad fan but I don't want the guy to lose his job or anything. That's just being malicious. I personally think he writes uninteresting articles/stories. I just go to Tower Topics and KIC for my KI news now because anything coming out of the park's media department doesn't provide as good of content. Again this is all my personal opinion. I met Chad when he was running the ACE Largest Ride event that I attended and he was super friendly to all of us ACE members and even gave us all a single use fastlane for coming to the event. However, from what I saw he didn't treat the KI staff with the same super friendly attitude he portrayed towards us. I felt like he was kind of short with them and acted like they were just getting in the way. Now I obviously do not have all the facts, Chad might have been having a bad stressful day, maybe the KI staff were being super incompetent, maybe he was going though something in his personal life. I don't know and I'm not to judge. I don't personally know him or anything and I appreciate him running the ACE event for us.

Whatever it is that is causing the closure, I am just hoping the park is trying to get a part for it. Even if they have to wait to get it, I really do want to see Invertigo last awhile longer. I think we all know it's not going to last forever but it's still a very intense ride and I personally think it's been running a bit smoother lately... wondering if maybe they fixed it up a bit after Dorney closed Stinger...

A similar thing happened somewhere in the mid 2010s when The Vortex chain snapped and they were waiting on a new one resulting in the ride being closed nearly the entire summer. But at least with that one, somehow everyone seemed to know it was the chain. Not sure if there was news coverage of the fact the chain broke or if the park made an announcement. I was too young to remember if there was an official announcement but I distinctly remember everyone in the park and all the ops talking about it so it was definitely not a secret

Just putting it out there right now I have no official source for this information other than word of mouth. It was third hand information by the time it got to me so take it how you will. I am not confirming or denying the claims. I know a guy who is has a friend who is an Invertigo op and he said that there is a small crack in the cobra roll. Obviously with Vekoma not producing parts for this model anymore the park is waiting on a custom part to be built and installed. I hope the rumor that the park is investing in the ride by ordering and waiting on a part is true because we don't need to lose another coaster right now.

I heard from a friend that it's still closed... I hope they are just waiting on a part for it and not that they are closing it for good.

What I'm curious about is what happened to Invertigo to warrant this extended closure with no explanation? It seemingly was running fine in the early part of the season and then started experiencing major downtime resulting in it just being blocked off and closed for a few weeks now.... I really hope that this isn't the end for it. We need it at least until Vortex has been replaced.

I think they could do something like KI did with area 72 at KD with the end cap that FoF and Intimidator 305 are on. It would be kind of strange to me to see them both incorporated into jungle Expedition but I'm sure they could do it. Naming is really key though because a tacky name just sounds stupid when you are renaming a coaster. For example was anyone in love with Top Thrill 2 compared to Top Thrill Dragster? How about Intimidator at Carowinds being renamed to Thunder Striker when you already have copperhead strike in the same park? (Names were too similar in my opinion). Top Gun at Kings Island becoming Flight Deck? (Obviously remedied by renaming to The Bat in 2014). Regardless of what they decide to do, I-305 or whatever it's new name becomes is still my favorite rollercoaster I've ever ridden and I really really want to get back down to KD next year to ride the new winged coaster and to lap I-305 again!

That's great! Back when I was a kid it seemed that 70% of the ride ops at Strickers Grove in Ross, OH were senior citizens smoking cigarettes. I'm not sure when the park became a smoke free zone but I was telling my one friend that as soon as they put up the no smoking sign, I like to imagine half of the old employees walking off the job. This one old lady is permanently imbedded in my mind. She worked the flying elephant ride and was always super mean. She'd open the gate and snarl at all the kids, "Where's your adult?" My cousins and I would point to our parents and grandma who were in the line directly behind us and she'd say, "you need them with you!" Then you'd get a nice whiff of her cigarette smoke as you walked past her now holding your adult's hand so she knew you had one with you. Then she'd come around and fuss about the way you buckled the seatbelt the entire time puffing out more smoke. By the time she was done, there would be a nice haze around the entire ride and as a little kid the fun had just about been ruined.

I think it depends on your age and definition/tolerance for roughness. I personally think Teddy Bear is pretty smooth. It's not any worse than Woodstock Express at KI if you ask me. Tornado jostles you around a bit and has those two sharp ejector airtime moments. No it's not as smooth as the Gravity Group prefab track on The Racer but it is no where near as rough as The Racer was pre re-tracking. My 66 year old grandma is still riding the tornado multiple times with no complaints so I'd take that to mean it isn't that rough.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know whatever happened to the King Cobra sign? I know the park has auctioned off a few ride signs through the years but I have always been curious about the King Cobra one. During the ACE Spring Conference we did get to do a tour of the sign shop but I must say that the areas we saw did not include many ride signs at all. The slingshot one was in there but I really don't remember seeing any other significant ones.

I was able to coordinate a long weekend trip with my new friends I made at the ACE spring conference. The one girl lives in Chicago and seeing as that is pretty centrally located i suggested that we all meet up there and she could show us around her home park. The plan of course grew to include the Wisconsin parks and Indiana Beach. So it begins - July 4: six flags great America - We were able to ride quite a bit during the holiday. Mainly stuck to coasters but it was a great day full of beautiful weather and fireworks at night. Consensus was that Goliath was the star rollercoaster in the park but our group actually ended up having an obsession with Demon too. Such an underrated arrow looper! Whizzer was fun and of course there were lots of bad jokes about how our significant others would feel about us sitting in each other's laps. American Eagle is such a great woodie and I really hope one day they can get it racing again. Gravity group maybe? Batman, Superman, & Viper were all good. I personally think X-Flight has too much of a rattle to be enjoyable but I was in the minority on that. I always end up getting a headache after that ride so to me it's not that great. GateKeeper is a superior winged coaster. I finally got my back row ride on raging bull which was ruined by the worst op I've ever experienced at an amusement park. This guy shoved the lapbars down hard and stapled my friend and I to the train. I was irritated so I said to my friend loud enough for the people around us to hear, "that was just unnecessary" my friend then made a comment to the op about how he was a little bit rough checking the restraints. My friend is the kindest guy ever so it wasn't said in an angry fashion at all. The op then replied, "do you want me to come push it down harder?". I was really ticked off so I told him to try but that he wasn't going to get it down any further. He then proceeded to come back over and saw that my friend was wearing a KI T-shirt and snarled, "oh so you're from Kings Island! Because of that I'm going to push it down extra hard" he then gave two hard thrusts against the bar which didn't go down any further. Of course one of the guys in the group who used to be a racer op yelled at him and called him a bunch of 4-letter words. Funny enough the guy working the teacups was super nice and was talking to everyone waiting in line and we mentioned how much we appreciated his effort and attitude after having a bad op on raging bull. The teacups guy then asked us, "did his name happen to be Rudy?" And we said yep that was him! He just rolled his eyes and shared our opinion that he's awful. Funny enough Rudy was working a flat ride at the end of the night so we got to experience his lovely attitude again! Needless to say I made a complaint to the park because responding in an antagonistic way to a guest is unprofessional regardless of what comment was made. He could have ignored the criticism or just apologized. Instead he made a huge scene about it and then proceeded to pick on someone based on them wearing a KI shirt. July 5: Six Flags Great America - second day at the park it was packed so we focused more on getting the remainder of the coasters (maxxforce, joker, flash, dark knight, and the two children's credits) I think that rue la dodge is the second best dogem I've ridden after the one at Knoebels. Cars are fast and hit hard! I also loved the lobster and realized how much more it spins than our Everly monster. Fiddler's Fling was a classic, got to do sky Trek tower. The only one we missed was condor as it was unfortunately closed both days of our visit. At the end of the night, we were looking in the gift shop and came across a maxxforce tshirt that had all incorrect stats. Speed was wrong, length of the track was wrong, number of inversions was wrong, etc. So hilarious I actually bought it! July 6: Little Amerricka and Mount Olympus - little Amerricka is such a strickers Grove type park. Loved the classic meteor and the chance tobbagan was super unique. I also found that I love an Allan Herschel Wild Mouse. Best flat in the park was their rollo-plane. I'd never ridden one so that was a wild experience. Of course the 30 min train ride is legendary! After a few hours there we hit mount Olympus and got all 4 major coasters and 2 go-kart tracks. I personally loved Zeus and Cyclops was also good. Pegasus had a weird rough layout that I wasn't a huge fan of. Hades 360 is a beast but it's so rough! I was near the back of the train which I've heard is worse than the front but this ride and El Toro are the only two coasters I've ever had intense back pain on and just had to ride it out and hope it would be over. Only two coasters that I've ever thought, "I hope this doesn't continue hurting me after the ride" thankfully the pain went away but it's such a tragedy that an amazing layout like that is so painful! July 7: Indiana Beach - totally walked out of my teenager years of stacking rides on top of another in a RCT park. Unfortunately Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain was down the entire time we were there so we didn't get that credit. However, we did survive the All American Triple Loop. We had heard very bad things about how rough it was and painful and I must say that both my rides were free of headbanging and pretty smooth. I liked it a lot. I did think the loops were less forceful because of the short trains. Tig'rr is another classic Schwarzkopf and did not disappoint. Hoosier Hurricane had a few bumps but was a good out n back. Cornball Express was the best ride in the park! Wonderful CCI laterals and airtime. Of course the cyclone was fun too. Got to ride some of the flats including my first time on a yo-yo swinger and a falling star. It was great to see the Coney Island flying Bobs from when I was a kid in its new home delighting kids and adults. Overall I loved IB and love everything they are doing up there to improve the park. Sorry that was so lengthy but a lot can happen over 4 days or coaster riding and park hopping!

Got my shirt! Fun evening up there tonight. My grandma went and is still doing the flying scooter, scrambler, tornado, teddy bear, carousel, flying elephant, and train at 66. Hope I'm still having fun at that age. It's just funny that my mom and all of my aunts and uncles won't ride anything anymore but grandma is still doing it. My dad is following in his mother's footsteps and is still going strong riding but grandma is setting that bar higher each year for him

So I do enjoy an RMC but I don't think I have any in my top 10 coasters. Steel Vengeance is the best one I've ever ridden given iron gwazi was closed when I went to BGT and I have never ridden the international ones. Steel Vengeance is my #4 at CP trailing Milli, Magnum, and Maverick. I want to like it more but the excellent ride is marred by the really long line which is located in the blazing sun and then the metal detectors are super annoying. I also have extremely bad luck with waiting over and hour and then it goes down so needless to say, years of bad experiences leading up to getting on the coaster have really put a damper on my desire to ride it. It's usually a one and done for me. Good ride but I'm not going to make sure I get multiple rides in on it like I will Milli, Magnum, and Maverick. The difference between GCI and RMC to me is that RMC is smoother and while the restraints aren't the best, I find them to be more comfortable than the GCI ones. GCI restraints do not provide me with much lateral support and I don't like getting flung around like a towel on a clothesline. While RMC lap bars are kind of tight, the bars and trains provide me with a lot of support during the wild elements putting less stress on my body. I think we all have different types of rides we like and different restraints fit us better than others. My sister doesn't like the lap bars on The Racer and The Beast because they are tight on her legs while she prefers a GCI bar because it locks around the hip area and less on your legs. Some people hate arrow looper harnesses and other people like them better than a collar or vest restraint. Some people like that a Zamperla endeavor has a harness to make you feel secure while other people despise the harness and prefer and Schwarzkopf or Huss enterprise with so restraints (or maybe a small seat belt).

Hey I was out of town for the 4th but I'll be there Fri and Sat this weekend for the 4H Fair... hoping they still have some of those T-shirts

I have to admit I'm surprised we still have heard nothing. This has to be hurting the park in some fashion. Not sure if people would not go over this but it still looks incredibly bad that they kept a ride and tried to "fix" it and then it operated for less than a month and has been shut down with no updates ever since. Isn't this sort of why Kings Island got rid of SOB? They were just tired of a coaster that had issues and continuously got bad press? I hope for CP sake and for the sake of Zamperla they can get this thing running again. If it's not running by opening day next year I think it's done for.

It has been experiencing a lot of downtime this year it seems. I have a friend who frequents the park weekly and he's kept me updated on the fact that it's been down a lot. I went about 2 weeks ago and it was down. I'm not sure what is going on with it but I really hope they can figure it out and get it running again. Now is not the time to lose another rollercoaster

To be fair, I am honestly not the biggest GCI fan out there. I do enjoy them but I by far prefer a PTC or a CCI running PTC trains. PTC coasters have amazing airtime and CCI is all about the laterals for me. I don't love the bucking bronco airtime found on most GCI coasters. I don't need to be thrown to the left and right during an airtime hill. Just straight up is fine (like nearly every PTC out there). I also find GCI trains to be uncomfortable and shaky. I'm in the minority on this but my opinion that renegade was just ok probably stems from the fact that I don't love GCI to begin with and I felt like Mystic Timbers had the superior layout and runs more smoothly than renegade.

You all are exactly right concerning the fountain. I'd love to have the old one back. It was much more majestic and the new one is honestly just boring. It's supposed to be cool the way the jets turn on and off to create patterns and with the light shows at night but the jets are just way too small. The KD fountain has huge jets in the center of the fountain that gives it a much more royal feel. It's just a better visual and makes you think, "wow that's a big fountain!" There's nothing really special or majestic about the current Kings Island fountains. You just sort of walk past them without thinking much about them. On topic though, I did enjoy the fireworks show this year. I thought it had more fireworks than adventure awaits and the drone displays were pretty cool too as they highlight the rides celebrating anniversaries this year. Obviously nothing compares to the 50th anniversary show but this was a pretty good one. I do agree with others that the storyline is subpar to uninteresting but the music and show quality are very solid.

I see thanks for the update. I do wish they'd find a way to coordinate the show to allow people on the tower. I only ever got to watch the fireworks up there once but it was a very unique experience.

One other thing, when I rode the Eiffel Tower this week the operator said it was closing at 9:30 and that you can't watch the fireworks from it. Has it been like that for awhile now and I didn't realize it or is this a new policy or staffing issue? If it's that way everyday it's just sad to me whatever the reason that people cannot take part in a Kings Island tradition.

Totally agree. They need to keep it around at least until they put something in The Vortex spot. We don't need to lose another coaster without any replacement

Has anyone else noticed that Invertigo has been experiencing major amounts of downtime in the past few weeks? Anyone got any idea what's going on with it? It was stopped at the bottom of the second drop before the vertical loop a few weeks ago when I was here and my friend who frequents the park multiple nights a week has said it's been down nearly every evening and will sometimes randomly open back up near the end of the night. I've been here this evening since around 5:30 and it's been down the entire time.

The wooden coasters at Coney were under water plenty of times and came back so I think the coasters at valleyfair are probably going to be ok. It's just wild to me that I was there on June 19 and nothing was flooded to now according to my friend who lives up there even the parking lot has flooded to the point that people have had to park elsewhere and get bussed in.