Creed Bratton

So I know it's not KI gear, but had to share this! (One day I'll get around to showing or telling of my KI Gear. So last year a friend and I met a woman (Kim) and her son at Cedar Point. Ended up showing them around and having a great time. I recently met up with them and a different friend a few weeks ago. We all were sad about Disaster Transport leaving, I told Kim that I had a picture of a Disaster Transport thing that I wanted to put on my van (nicknamed Disaster Transport) as a magnet. Well she found it on my Facebook and I got this in the mail today:

I could go for that!

While we're on it: https://twitter.com/coastopher Back to the recent topic: I've found that a way to deal with angry or misguided consumers on Facebook is to apologize (I know sounds stupid) about their experience, give examples of a good time that you've had at the park dealing with the subject at hand (i.e. Fast Lane in this case, haven't even used Fast Lane but Millennium Force FL wait was longer than the regular queue) and offer suggestions of how to improve their experience. All of this in a non-argumentative tone but in a helpful tone.

Needless to say, it's a rule at the park....don't break it. As HTCO said, its for your safety. Have you actually looked at the mid course breaks and the stairwell to get down from them? A very tall spiral, metal grated staircase. Tell me, if you were to be evacuated from that point, would it be comfortable on your feet? Overall, there are various factors to why KI requires you to wear your shoes/flip flops while riding, including manufacturers guidelines. I often wonder why people wear flip flops to a park anyway. Yeah, during the summer it's hot out, but the lack of support as you walk through the parks can't be good for your feet.

No matter what.....get permission from the park. Doesn't matter how the camera is going to be secured....GET PERMISSION. Without the permission of the park you are technically breaking the law.

My 300th Ride with Gary Coleman, although he was at like 5,320 something With fraternity brother (he's in front) and my sorority sister and me! And a favorite ride photo that's a cousin of Diamondback.

I noticed last Saturday the old "Shaggy" guy being chased by the two skeletons, were in non-chase mode.

When I went to see the movie on Saturday, there were 3 total in my group, we were the only ones waiting as the doors closed. While we waited for our viewing, more people started to show. Now by more I mean 15 tops. Part of the reason I don't think this is high attended aside from the movie subject and it being a DA attraction is the route you have to go. You have to pass by WindSeeker, travel down the old exit and through the queue (which seems way out of the way).

I didn't see the original post...sorry!

I was also at the park that day...on Eiffel Tower, the Elevator Attendant told a guest that KI isn't operating SOB because it costs too much to maintain and that they bought 3 trains that didn't work on it. I was unaware of a 3rd lol.

Sorry for a double post, no one has commented today and I found a youtube video that I think needs looked at. http://www.youtube.com/embed/8ui9MmTSVA4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> I have to wonder, why this guy didn't look up information on the park before attending...yet it's the parks fault that all this stuff "went wrong." I mean, he has internet to upload a youtube video, so why not go to www.visitkingsisland.com? It makes me kind of laugh when guests think they are entitled to so much...and to a point they are..but come on!

I used the timed lockers at Cedar Point earlier in the season. Couldn't be happier, as we only needed the lockers for the time we spent on TTD and Millennium Force (due to a lack of bins or location to place loose articles). My question is, why are lockers a necessity? I've seen people bring in the park numerous things, big bags, etc. Is everything really necessary? Don't get me wrong, I think the prices of the all day lockers are a bit much, the timed ones are just right, but is it necessary to complain about having to pay the price to get a locker to store all the things you may not even use or need? Travel light or keep your items in the car, you can get a hand-stamp for re-entry, no extra cost there.

Invertigo is operating. From what I was told by a few friends that I ran into at the park (they were there on Friday) that it valley-ed after the loop, going to the 2nd lift.

Yesterday was my first time at the park this season. I signed up for funperks before I left, got a free drink wrist band. When I picked my wrist band up, I saw they were offering a Fun Perks catered meal in the International Restaurant and a place to view the fireworks. It was a really nice experience. My advice: when at the park stop by the booth to see if anything is happening that day and take them up on the offer! The only problem with the the meal was only 10 people signed up for it when they had spots for 110!

Yesterday in line for Adventure Express, a girl behind me in line looked over the "fence" toward Son of Beast and asked her friend, "Wait, are we in line for that ride" (pointing to SOB) "This is a really long line for that!" Edit: Forgot to tell my favorite conversation overheard on the elevator for Eiffel Tower: Ride Op: "Does anyone have any questions on our way down?" Guest: "Yeah, what's going on with Son of Beast?" R.O: "Short story, Son of Beast costs too much to maintain, so they haven't been operating it for 4 years. They bought 3 new trains that never worked." Guest: "Oh my gahhhd, that's crazy"

Mr. Bruno! Stop trolling the unknown public people! bahahahah xD it is making my day though. Okay this one is my favorite and I had to say, "what the hell do you think they do in the winter months" : "I know.,, it's sad.. They just need to close the park down one season and fix EVERYTHING (even if nothing is wrong) they should make sure it's all perfect ! Yess I understand that they're machines and they may break down sometimes. Or something but it wouldn't hurt to just take a season to make everything perfect and have them almost sure nothing will happen... And since they're machines they could need a. Slight repair at times,. But it don't hurt to try.(:" Haha, because shutting down the park for an entire season would definitely make people much happier. My favorites: "Is there still the red and blue racers?" (Voicetek beat me too it, but seriously people are posting on Facebook, so they have internet, why don't they just check the website) "Firehawk stole my keys and they won't give them back!!!!" "Kings Island should do a better job about the so called dress code... if a boy/guy cant walk around without a shirt on then a girl/woman shouldnt be allowed either..The only difference is one has boobs. Really now whats the difference??????????? A reply to this: "Agreed!!!!! Dress code clearly states that shirts /shorts/pants - clothes! must be worn. Yet you see girls/women walking around in their bikini tops flaunting their stuff/gut and being allowed to get on rides like that too. Not sure what's happened, but the employees and management this year are not as customer oriented this year at all. Guess they don't realize that we are who fund their paychecks!" Final one for now: Just curious, why do you guys change the names of the rides so many times?? Been coming there for bout 32 years and have seen that happen just about every year? Reply: well what is now called the wind seeker has been changed after is was bought out, and the use to be drop zone has been changed after and b4 and that is just a couple, i no when they sold out they would change some of the names, but really don't matter to me , I love Kings Island, and always will gonna be there hopefully in the next two weeks.

I call the rides by their name now. They were changed and the names are on the map. If someone asks me where a ride is or I overhear them asking, I'm not gonna say "oh are you looking for Top Gun? Do you remember where Face/Off is? Yeah it's around the corner from that." Yeah it's great to remember the days of Paramount, but Paramount is no longer the owner of the park nor does the naming of the rides, I'll respect the park and current owners by calling the rides, what they have them named as. It's kind of like if someone changed their own name, would you continue to call them by their old name?

Can't wait to watch this tonight!

I use KIC, Pointbuzz, TPR, Screamscape.

1) If you haven't done a Stand-Up...yes it's a check it out ride. It's not my absolute favorite ride at the park, but will ride it if the queue is short and I've done just about everything else. 2) Corkscrew and Cedar Creek Mine Ride are the two that you can skip. I usually on skip CCMR. 3) Max Air's restraints are a little bit more friendly, and I believe it goes a bit higher, not 100% positive on that. 4) Cedar Downs....you must ride it. SkyHawk, WindSeeker (even if you've been on KI's, it provides a great view!), Calypso and the Cadillac Cars. 5) It depends on your "freak out" level. I enjoy TTD, the launch is intense, but I think going up, cresting and down the Top Hat are quite nice. Park in the Soak City lot if possible. If you can get in with ERT, do TTD, then Maverick, MF, Raptor (if you have time). Do Raptor later in the evening to avoid the front gate rush. If you can swing it, eat at Midway Market, it's delicious!

At the entrance of the Single Rider Line, you were given a numbered card to carry with you to the top of the stairs at the station. Once there, you'd hand the card to the ride associate and be placed in a row. Once all the numbered cards were handed out, the Single Rider Line would close until the SRL was completely emptied. The cards would then be taken to the entrance once the SRL was empty to start the process again.

Coal is the main difference.

I was sad to see that Diamondback wasn't on tonight....wondering when the next show will be.

I like the commercials, I do wish they'd show rides from the parks they are advertising. The concepts are great!

Part 2!! I apologize for lack of pictures of these three parks, as I didn’t really grab as many pictures as I normally would. Sunday morning we left our hotel and headed towards Knoebels. What seemed like a long drive, ended up being a beautiful and somewhat shorter drive than I thought. When we pulled up to the park I was quite taken back by the parking area (no parking fee) and the openness of the park itself. It was really cool that you could basically walk into the park from whatever direction you wanted, as there wasn’t any perimeter fencing. I knew it was a ticket park before getting there, but was unaware of how the tickets actually worked. Each of us in the group of 6 bought a $20 book of tickets. I thought the tickets would be for individual rides, but they ended up having a monitary value to each ticket. First up, myself and one other member from our group hit up Kozmo’s Kurves (the kiddie coaster). It was like they doubled The Great Pumpkin Coaster. It was one of the longer circuited Miler kiddy coasters that I’ve ever seen. It was a good little coaster, thought it was a little wild, haha. We ended up a couple of flat rides right around there including the Satellite and their scooters. The scooters were amazing and a ton of fun. I loved the fact that they basically would draft. Of course these weren’t the newer style of dodgems so when you hit, you really hit! I was unaware that they had a Haunted House ride, once seeing it we decided to ride it. It was really neat...got one or two spooks out of me. We then headed over to Black Diamond before lunch. Black Diamond was pretty cool, I wouldn’t put it in my top list of coasters. The theming was pretty sweet throughout. I felt that the ride would have more ups and downs, but it didn’t. the coolest water fountain! Lunch could have been it’s own trip report itself! There were so many people at the International Food Court, it was hard to believe! I ended up getting Chicken Parmesan from the Italian window. I’ve had Chicken Parm many times from various places, all I have to say about Knoebel’s is: WOW! After lunch, we made a quick stop into the museum. The museum was really cool, but didn’t give us the thrills we were looking for, so we headed over to Phoenix. It was a great ride, not one of my favorite wooden coasters, but it’s up there. After Phoenix, we hit up a qift shop then headed to the Park Office to grab some more tickets. On the way there we passed an idle Flying Turns that was without a transfer track. It looks like it’d be a cool ride, sad that it’s taking a long time to get it all ready. Outside of the gift shop, I asked an employee, what’s the ticket price to ride Flying Turns was. She looked at me like I was a little crazy, then I told her I was a coaster enthusiast from Ohio and she got this relieved look on her face, probably glad I wasn’t just some idiot trying to get on the ride. Next up for us was Twister. All I knew about it was that it was a wooden coaster. Upon getting on the ride, I thought the lift hill was really short and not high at all. Then all of the sudden we made a left dive then up to the right, around a corner and up a 2nd lift. That to me was pretty sweet! The coaster itself was a lot of fun, made me scream with my hands up the entire ride! If I could have, I would have rode it over and over, which is funny because I’m not the biggest wooden coaster fan. With all of the coasters out of the way, we decided to do a couple more flats before heading out on our next journey. We went and did their flyers. They were quite fun! With the wind blowing and the speed of the flyers, we caught some good air and got a few good snaps! One member of our group was told not to snap so much! Haha! We did the Looper....the first time I didn’t understand how to roll, so we rocked back and forth quite a bit....to the point where we could have rolled over but we didn’t have enough push. so we decided to do it one more time, with understanding how to operate them. The only problem with this go around was after we were let on the ride, our belts weren’t checked and they started the ride. One friend that was sitting out, yelled at the crew to get them to stop and double check...needless to say he wasn’t happy, I wasn’t happy. Once we finished that ride, we headed over to the Brass Ring Carousel. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done one of those. It was so much fun! I only collected 9 rings, but the fun challenge was throwing them back into the Lion’s mouth toward the end of the ride. With that, we headed out to the parking lot. We passed the ride 1001 Nachts, you know the one that the woman wanted to marry on, on the way out. We hit the road for just a short time and made our way over to Delgrosso’s Amusement Park. On the way from Knoebel’s to Delgrosso’s, we saw so many pretty views of the mountains and what not. I fell in love with the wind turbines along the route. When we finally pulled up to Delgrosso’s we parked behind the water park and made our way across the road on the bridge. We were only there for the coaster credits, so we rode the Wacky Worm. It was interesting that the ops, had to push the train out of the station as there aren’t any kicker wheels or any other mechanics to push it out automatically. It was an okay kiddie coaster. Then we headed over to the Crazy Mouse. I must say here, I love spinning mice coasters! When we got to the entrance, there was a really young kid, we asked how old he was, he said 15...he didn’t even look 13! It was hard to believe. Once we all took our ride we grabbed a couple pizzas and got on the road to Lakemont Park. Just 10 minutes (if that) down the highway, we got to Lakemont Park. The park was free to park and admission. We bought wristbands for the rides and headed into the park. We quickly found out that we were 6 of maybe 15 people in the park aside from the ride operators and other staff. The first thing we hit up was Toboggan. I must say this was the oddest coaster I’ve ever been on. I didn’t like the ride vehicle as I’m claustrophobic and there’s a lid that closes you in. The lift was a bit uncomfortable but I dealt with it. We then headed over to Skyliner. There was absolutely no one over there. We walked up the ramp, talked to the ride op and got on. It was a nice coaster, one of my new favorite wooden coasters. The layout was really cool. Once we got into the station, we got asked if we wanted to go again, so we said yeah but decided to switch seats. I jumped from the front seat to the back. The back seat was amazing! It gave so much airtime, I screamed almost in fear of coming completely out of my seat. We probably rode it a total of 4 times before going to something else. Since the park closed at 8 we headed over to Leap The Dips, the oldest operating wooden coaster in the world. It also to my knowledge is one of the only side friction coaster in the US. As we got to the entrance, I found that my wallet had fallen out of my back pocket. So I ran to the other two coasters to see if they had found it. It was all the way over at Skyliner. So after my mini heart attack, I got back to Leap the Dips and we all got our tickets (separate) to ride. They only had one car on the track, but you could see the transfer track with the other cars (some may need refurbishment) from the stairs. When it was my turn to ride (all 6 of us wanted the front seat, so we went 2 at a time) I was excited. It was weird going up the lift hill, after we were pushed out of the station, that there were 2x4 boards sticking out to be knocked by the car...I wasn’t sure what the purpose for those were. The layout was nice and the dips were pretty fun as well. After all of us rode, we decided to hit up some flats. We did The Twister (a whip ride), which was alright. We also did the tilt-a-whirl (one of my favorite flats no matter the park), I tried to do the Skydiver, but the restraints were too tight and hurt too much. sorry for the out of focus! So I headed over to the Antique cars with another person from the group. It was a short layout, but fun because it was half downhill, half uphill. As I tried to take a picture while driving, don’t do this in real life , I “wrecked” into the guide rail and hit my elbow hard on the seat, ouch! As soon as we got off the cars, I looked at my watch and it was 7:54, so we made a run for Skyliner. We got on and had an amazing last ride on it! The sun was slowly starting to set, so it added a nice feel to the ride. After our ride, we headed down the ramp and toward the exit. We found a little “playground” with the little animals on springs and they had little swivel seats with digger machines on them. So of course, we had to get on them! After a few minutes we headed out to the entrance and passed a few idle rides. I loved seeing the little ferris wheel as it sat idle. One creepy sight/sound on the way out was a merry-go-round that was still playing music with no one around or on it! It sent shivers up my spine! We hit the road home after that and made it home in the very early morning. It was such a great trip! I was happy with the rids that I got and that my coaster count is now up to 128. With the end of this PTR, I’ll leave you with this picture from Hershey....do you think it’s a new way to increase capacity? Haha!