Magenta Lizard

When I've been there during Education Days in the past, I've noticed that the youngsters don't ride the larger coasters as much, so they don't affect the waits nearly as much as you would expect for the size of the crowds. They did seem to like Adventure Express and Back Lot Stunt Coaster, though. If you aren't adverse to riding Flight of Fear and/or Firehawk as near to opening as possible on Saturday morning (they tend to have longer lines as the day goes on) I wouldn't expect you to have any trouble getting all of the coasters in, probably multiple times, without Fast Pass. Especially if the weather isn't unseasonably beautiful that weekend. I'd suggest getting a ride on The Beast Friday after dark (especially if your Sunday plans mean you'll be leaving sooner Saturday), as it is so much fun in the dark. I also like Adventure Express in the dark quite a bit.

From what I can gather from what I've seen hinted (and I may be wrong, of course) there is at least one actor in the room as well. Presumably they could call for help and open the door of needed. For tort reasons, I would expect there is some sort of "emergency stop" button we'd be informed of before starting the game, as well.

I don't think I'm up for dinner, but I'll be there for the Escape. My husband is going to drive down with me, not to participate. Do you know if there will be somewhere fairly comfortable he can wait for me indoors? If not, he's ok with waiting in the car.

Blue Moon is raspberry? For shame, when I was a kid, it was blue tinted vanilla (possibly coconut?) ice cream with bits of pineapple in it. I would get it because it was blue, then usually wouldn't eat it because I didn't like "stuff" in my ice cream. And manage to forget in between each visit. Of course, my husband, who is a few years older than me never heard of Blue Moon ice cream as a kid at all. To make this entirely off topic, when I was a kid, Superman ice cream was all vanilla dyed in red, blue, and yellow, swirled together. And any kid then could tell you it tasted better than plain vanilla I feel the Superman ice cream today, with different flavors for each color, is an atrocity! And get off my lawn!

My husband and I have been marathoning Star Trek: The Next Generation in the evenings. We got to the end of the 4th season when Worf leaves to join in the Klingon civil war, and it reminded me of going to the Star Trek Experience when it was at Kings Island. Looking for more info about that, I found out this happened: http://retro.cincinnati.com/Topics/Klingon-at-Kings-Island

There's nothing wrong with a woman wearing men's cargo shorts/pants, either. I bought a couple pairs of men's shorts from Old Navy last year, and they served me very well. I already owned some womens' pants with decently sized zipper pockets, that I wore last spring, on cool mornings during the summer, and at Haunt, but they weren't nearly as convenient as the cargo pockets. So, I already have bought two pairs of men's cargo pants in preparation for this year. I'm thinking about converting all of them from buttons to zippers, for convenience and security, too.

Good call, I hadn't noticed that. I thought they really cut down the options at Skyline, but re-reading, it looks like someone erroneously put some of it under "Rivertown Pizza" (not to be confused with "La Rosa's Pizza: located in Rivertown", which is also listed). Looking forward to trying a "Bruger" at Juke Box Diner

According to the current info on the website, they seem to have streamlined their offerings (less options at some places, but more places than last year). Still doesn't perfectly match what CP Food Blog was apparently told, but it's getting closer, I guess. Copied and pasted from https://www.visitkingsisland.com/things-to-do/dining-plans DINING PLAN MEAL OPTIONS Chicken Shack Located in Action Zone Dining Plan Meal Options: Hand Breaded Chicken Tenders Basket with Fries or Apple Slices Chicken Wrap Basket with Fries or Apple Slices Coconut Cove Cafe Located in Soak City Dining Plan Meal Options: Chicken Tenders with Fries or Apple Slices Chicken Wrap with Fries or Apple Slices Pizza & Two Breadsticks Coney Potato Works Located in Coney Mall Dining Plan Options: Gluten-Free Chicken Tenders with Fresh Cut Fries Gluten-Free Corndog with Fresh Cut Fries Festhaus Located in Oktoberfest Dining Plan Options: Chicken Tenders with Fries or Apple Slices Burger with Fries or Apple Slices Pizza with Two Breadsticks Gluten-Free Pizza Hank's Burrito Shack Located in Oktoberfest Dining Plan Options: Burrito Basket Burrito Bowl Basket Juke Box Diner Located in Coney Mall Dining Plan Options: Fresh Grilled Bruger with Fries Chicken Sandwich with Fries Hot Dog with Fries LaRosa's Pizza Located in Rivertown Dining Plan Options: Pizza Combo Planet Snoopy Grill Located in Oktoberfest Dining Plan Options: Grilled Chicken with Fries or Apple Slices Cheeseburger with Fries or Apple Slices Chicken Tender Basket with Fries or Apple Slices Rivertown Pizza Located in Rivertown Dining Plan Meal Options: Regular 3-Way & Cheese Coney Two Cheese Coneys & Fries Rivertown Potato Works Located in Rivertown Dining Plan Meal Options: Chicken Chunk Combo with Fries or Apple Slices Skyline Chili Located in Coney Mall & International Street Dining Plan Options: Two Cheese Coney Basket with Fries Snake Pit Located in Rivertown Dining Plan Options: Philly Cheese Steak Basket with Fries Street Pizza Located in International Street Dining Plan Options: Pizza Combo with Breadsticks Soak City Hot Dog Grill Located in Soak City Dining Plan Options: Grilled Jumbo All-Beef Hotdog Basket with Your Choice of Chips, Pasta or Potato Salad Grilled Bratwurst Basket with Your Choice of Chips, Pasta or Potato Salad Soak City Wave Pool Grill Located in Soak City Dining Plan Options: Grilled Beef Hamburger with Your Choice of Chips, Pasta or Potato Salad Grilled Chicken Breast Basket with Your Choice of Chips, Pasta or Potato Salad Subway Located in Coney Mall or Soak City Dining Plan Meal Options: 6" Sub Combo with Chips Dining Plan participating locations & menus subject to change without notice. Operating hours vary by location.

It (Tower Gardens) has potential to be (an interesting development), but at this point it could turn out to be nearly nothing, too. If it turns into something interesting, they sure are slowplaying it so far. So far, it looks about as interesting as what they're doing with Action Theater (or whatever the old Days of Thunder was called most recently before its label disappeared off the regular season map, too). It may just be closed off in the regular season and only come out for Haunt. There is a lot of precedence for that in the park, including the new building by Beast many of us found so intriguing last summer.

From the article: "So all the chairs they were slipping backward. And as gravity works they started to go faster and faster and people were jumping off at the lower levels," he said. The injured were treated by ski patrol and taken off the mountain for treatment by emergency medical responders, resort spokesman Ethan Austin said." Now unless I am misreading that, it's the people who jumped off when they thought they were low enough to do so who were hurt. I wonder if they would have been injured if they stayed put?

I received an email from the park recently specifically saying I am invited to the event, because I renewed in the fall. I plan to have a copy of that along with a print of my renewal confirmation when I go, just in case. Still curious whether season-long meal plans will work that evening.

The monorails are the trams mentioned, number 20 in the list. One of the trains is at Jungle Jim's. I still have this vague feeling I am being gaslighted about Lion Country Safari. I went to KI so many times in my childhood and into my teens (from around 1980-1998), and I have absolutely zero personal memory of its existence. I think back to that area of the park and it's a blank. It isn't all that unusual for me to have forgotten things, because I have a terrible memory for personal events, but it is such a big, long-lasting, thing to be missing. When I started coming here and it was mentioned, I thought it was just before my time/ in my young childhood, but it was there for most of the time I was going to the park.

I don't really pay much attention to coaster colors, but Mantis and Raptor's color schemes at Cedar Point always seemed backwards to me. The green one is a bird, and the parrot colored one was an insect. I always got them confused because of it. The new purple people eater at KI does make me appreciate a good color scheme more than I ever have before, though. Banshee is so pretty.

Just was checking out the season passholder portal part of KI's site, and noticed one of the offers is for a free day of care at the Red Dog Pet Resort and Spa. Boarding was never free for gold or platinum passholders at the Kings Island kennel, was it? Makes it hurt a little less for those who used it that it's been removed.

I'll be there. Only coming from Springboro, tho.

Coaster Crew has a Dollywood opening day event (registration closes at midnight today) and I've been wishing so badly I could go to it. Went so far as to look up possibilities of lodging.

I hope so much I'm chosen! I've been following this closely.

They announced on Facebook that opening day is April 10th and tickets are now on sale. Any more info about a possible KIC meetup?

Makes one wonder if we should start a 2016 speculation thread already.

The latter page (that includes Rivertown Potato Works, etc) is linked from the bottom of a paragraph on the page that talks about dining plans. I had trouble finding it too, but there is an actual link. I've just got my fingers crossed that there is eventually some consistency between what is on the page(s), what they are telling CP Food Blog, and what the employees of the park are told. It's not rocket science, but for some reason it seems to be more difficult than one would assume. One should be able to go to guest services and get a printed menu of sorts, that lists what is available and where, and that could be used as a reference if random employee quibbles with apple slices vs fries, for example, but experience tells me KI will not make it that simple.

Much in the same way my opinion about a coaster can be swayed greatly by how long I have to wait in line, the closeness of Kings Island to where I live (about a half hour drive) makes it a shoo-in for my favorite park. There was a long time when Cedar Point was my favorite, but it's hard to justify the long drive and paying for lodging any more when I have such a great park so much closer. I also like that while there's a lot of coasters now at KI, it's still a pretty manageable size overall, and at a brisk walk, I can get from nearly any location to any other (of the dry side anyway) within about five minutes. With the addition of Cirque Imagine to round out a day at KI, I have very little desire to make a much longer trip anywhere else. I haven't yet made it to any of the other Cedar Fair parks, and don't have any immediate desire to do so.

Of course, since the parks' apparent feeling that Coaster Crew's $10 yearly individual membership was too low for them to be a "legitimate" club, I worry now about getting too good of a deal. If $10 was too low to keep the riff-raff out, how is $7.50 per person? Or are people with children automatically expected to be more respectable? Granted, I don't know that was exactly the feeling with KI and CC. I just know my $10 membership wasn't enough and I had to pay more to upgrade to platinum before I was acceptable to them for Coasterstock.

I love Adventure Express for many reasons. Not least of which because it is the only coaster at Kings Island enjoyed by my first real boyfriend and my husband (not the same person, even though there are other similarities, including the unfortunate reason neither of them really got into coasters). As a coaster enthusiast myself, I understand the tendency to focus on the big thrills. I hope the park, however, never forgets that most of us don't begin as enthusiasts, and some never become big thrill-seekers. There is a definite place for fun, mid-level thrills. Fingers still crossed for a little love on the theming. It adds that extra something for those who don't feel it is thrilling enough to bother with.

I asked on the CP Food Blog Facebook thread about the article, and they said the Juke Box Diner is not currently on the meal plans :-/ I wonder if that will change.

CP Food Blog wrote an article about the 2015 Kings Island dining plan, and it's even more encompassing and has more healthy options than I dared to hope! http://cpfoodblog.com/2015-kings-island-dining-plans/ That even says /both/ Potato Works, RHoFG and Subway will have options, which would be excellent, if surprising.