Voicetek

Could it be this way because it is Disney. Little girls can get a princess autograph and little boys can high five Mickey... Plus disney is good, maybe it doesnt have 14 roller coasters but have you seen Fantasy Land? You can eat in The Beast's castle! I think it all has to do with theming. People want to exist in a world that's outside reality. A world that they've only been able to experience in movies or on the TV. Disney allows you to exist inside a fantasy world that used to exist only in your imagination. Maybe other amusement parks should take a lesson from Disney (and now Universal with their largely popular World of Harry Potter)...Theming, theming, theming! I think that's where Disney gets it and other parks don't.

Here's a thought, don't lift your kid up and try to let them stand/balance on the railing. It's obvious, if I remember correctly from the initial reports, that the zoo had railing that was slanted inward to prevent parents from letting their kids stand on top of them. People think its ok to break the rules or feel that they can break the rules and still be safe, until something like this happens then all of a sudden it's someone else's fault. I do feel bad about what happened and know the family is suffering a terrible loss, but sometimes there are consquences to your actions. Should/could have the zoo done more to this exhibit to make it safe? Maybe. Should the parents have let their kid climb up on the railing? Probably not.

Wow people who bought 2012 season passes are really making out great. Didn't KI honor the Beach's 2012 season passes last year?

I wish Disney would sell tickets for something like this. I'd love to be stuck on Splash Mountain for a lengthy amount of time, especially inside where all the animatronic characters are. It's one of my favorite rides!

I've suffered panic attacks for about 20 years, so I can somewhat sympathize with people who have them. However, 10 minutes on a lift hill is not really something to get worked up over. If I'm having a panic attack about something, I know that I'm having a panic attack and will try to evaluate the situation in order to keep myself under control. It would take quite awhile more than 10 minutes for me to really panic uncontrollably. I think this rider jumped the gun a bit.

Saw this post on my Facebook wall yesterday. Anyone else see this? Any thoughts?

I, for one, am glad not to know what's going in that area. I like the suspense and I like being surprised. The construction going on behind that fence is going to provide a lot of mystery this summer and half the fun is watching the progress unfold and trying to figure out what it could be exactly. Now there will come a time when there will be no doubt, but until then I'm happy to wait and wonder!

I can't even begin to explain the collection of music found on my MP3 player or in my rows of CDs on my CD shelf. There is a little bit of everything...some 80s, music from the 90s and early 2000s, Christian, country, pop, instrumental, classical, rock, and everything inbetween. I'll go from things like some old school Mariah Carey and Richard Marx, to some Linkin Park and Evanescence to maybe an instrumental soundtrack like Pirates of the Caribbean or The Village to some contemporary Christian. It really just depends on the mood I'm in or what I'm doing, but I love music and it really helps me get through my day!

Gosh this is good news and I do hope, as Jr For Birdy also mentioned, that it thins down Soak City's crowd a bit. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Yeah, I don't have to be close, just in the building really. I was thinking about trying to get there around 11 or so. Unfortunately my nephew has a b-day party that day at 3, so I'm only going to be able to check out the first show.

For those of you who might know, how early before each show should I plan on getting there? For example, if I wanted to go to the noon show, what time should I get there in the morning? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

I've been going to Kings Island since I was about 2 years old and I'm 32 now (you do the math) and I've been lucky enough to not have anything embarrassing happen to me at the park....yet. However, I do have a couple of stories of things I've witnessed while I was there. First one: This was quite some time ago when Soak City was called Water Works. My dad and I were standing in line for the Lazy River and we noticed a rather large man walking up the stairs to take a ride on the now Pineapple Pipeline. I few minutes later we saw him walking back down the stairs. He either decided not to ride it or was told that he was too large to fit. Either way, I always kind of felt bad for him. Second one: I was with a friend of mine, probably back around 1998, and we were in line to ride the Pipeline Paradise. We get to the top where the life guard is and he starts flirting with the her because she was quite attractive. So now it's his turn to go, he grabs a board and heads down towards the wave. He hits the wave so hard that is blew his trunks clean off his backside. He slides off the board and down to the bottom. I just remember him sitting at the bottom trying to wiggle back into his trunks. All the while the cute life guard turns around, now facing me, and is trying to hide her laughter/embarrassment. I was laughing so hard! After going to the park for 30 years without anything happening to me, I'm concerned that the odds are not in my favor. Something is bound to happen eventually and when it does, I'll be sure to write about it on here!

This video shows a real accident. Not sure what exactly happened, but the man and boy looked to be pretty freaked out!

I believe that those height restrictions are put into place for our safety and I, for one, don't mind them at all. My niece and nephew, who are 10 and 5, are with me quite often. My niece is tall enough to ride anything in the park, however, she is very skinny with hardly any mass at all. She wants to ride Diamondback, but I'm very concerned that she hasn't filled out enough to safely fill in that gaps between the seat and the lap bar. That ride has a lot of air time and I worry about her fitting tight enough in the seat. If the ride had a seat belt, perhaps I would feel differently about it. I would rather wait a year or two and let her fill out a little more than to be unsafe and put her on a ride just because I want her to ride it. She can ride most everything else, and Diamondback will still be there to ride later. I just can't see sacrificing safety just to ride a ride. When you put things in perspective, it's really not worth getting hurt over.

Gotta love CF not putting enough into marketing to make the ads park specific, other than the name of the park. I do this type of Graphic Design/Marketing work for a local company. It's really not hard to swap in a new background to make an ad or banner specific to a certain thing. I do it all the time. It's kind of ridiculous that Cedar Fair is too lazy or cheap (which ever the case may be) to do the same thing for their parks which are WAY bigger businesses than the one I work for. If our small company can do it with just a team of one (myself), then there is no excuse for Cedar Fair's marketing team to take such shortcuts.

It's my opinion that The Phantom Theater was an under rated ride, at least it was by the park. That's why they tore it out instead of refurbishing it. I know it's kind of a tradition to revamp that building every so many years, but common, if you discover something unique just leave it alone.

Yes! I loved that ride! I remember riding it as a kid every time we went to KI. As a young kid, I seemed to have had a fascination with Jabber Jaws. I remember riding that ride and I also remember riding on the Jabber Jaws on the old Hanna-Barbara merry go round. You sat on his tail fin and he went up and down. That merry go round was the best! I hated to see it go!

Wow! I'd love to see that collection. Do you have any scans of them?

^ It's very close to FOF... S.O.B. who loves the red, white, and blue It's The Racer! Obviously I was just joking with my "Surf Dog" comment earlier

Does anyone remember the animated lazer show in the Paramount Theater? It was like a cartoon done with lazers and this character was going around trying to find missing stars from the Paramount logo. They had theme music from various Paramount movies too. I remember loving this when I was a kid. I thought it was so cool!

Surf Dog?

Wow there are quite a few spelling errors in that first paragraph. It's hard to believe this was a professional article.

Although I do agree that it's irresponsible to come all this way to KI and not check the park schedule in advance, I also agree that it's kind of annoying that KI closes to the general public the Sunday of opening weekend. It's like, it's been closed all season and then they open one day and then rent the place out. I know there have been years that I would've liked to have went that Sunday but couldn't. I checked the park schedule and knew it was closed, but it was still annoying. I feel like they should wait until at least a week or 2 into the season to start renting out the park and closing to the general public. I feel like the entire opening weekend should be for the general public to enjoy. However, this is just my opinion....and I'm not complaining, just making a statement

As far as I remember, there has never been a Snoopy on top. That's one of the things I kind of missed about that ride. I loved the big Aang on top. It really added to the theming of ride. How cool would it be to have a big Snoopy? From a distance you could see him surfing along the track!

Regardless of whether it is or isn't a coaster, I still think it needs a giant surfing Snoopy on top