ginzo

Old woodies have to be painted to protect them from the elements because they didn't use pressure treated lumber. New woodies are made of treated wood that doesn't need to be painted. Personally, I prefer the new way because too many parks are slack about keeping up the paint jobs and the "desperately needs a new paint job" look is hideous.

Because they cut a bunch of them down! Look at pictures of the park from 20-30 years ago.

^That boat ride was great, wasn't it? Asterix turned out to be so much better than I was expecting. It seems like you really can't judge the European parks by their coaster line ups, because some really good parks often had average-at-best coasters. Asterix definitely fell into this category. The park was at its best when we were just exploring the park finding random details and bits of theming.

Great looking compared to what? There are so many more aesthetic parks: BGE, Dollywood, Europa, Tripsdrill, Efteling, etc. And they did have plenty of natural beauty to work with, they just chose to cut all those pesky trees down. As for the trash can issue, there are plenty of parks that manage to stay clean without installing one trash can for every guest. Us Ohio people must be pretty sad if we can't be bothered to walk more than 5 feet to throw something away.

He is. He's like a bold modern artist to pack his parks with that many trash cans. Us mere men might think that Kinzel's statement is "ugly", but Kinzel is just ahead of his time. They'll appreciate him more 50 years from now.

Of course, the joke's on them as far as flipping the land goes. Gonna be a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG time before they can get a decent amount of cash for it. The real estate market in that part of Ohio is in shambles.

Pshhhhh. People waited 7 hours for Firehawk...this should be nothing! 7 hours? We waited like an hour to get the credit. I don't think I'd wait more than 30 minutes for that ride. I think that's about my limit for anything in KI.

They tried to buy Knott's. Though yeah, don't think they'll be interested in such a complex portfolio of parks. I'm hoping for a spin off. I can't see the AB parks fitting in well with any of the major theme park operators.

What? You don't want them to rename Montu to Flight Deck?

Nope. Let's compare what you have to go through to get home from the Magic Kingdom for that place vs. Wilderness Lodge: WL: 1) Hop on the boat. You're home. Sheraton: 1) Wait for the monorail or boat. You might have to wait a few trains/boats, depending on how busy it is. 2) Wait for the tram. Again, you might have to wait a while. And, the tram ride could take a bit of time as well. 3) Fight traffic getting out of the park and on the roads. I'll take Disney every time thank you very much.

Is "Gods" an acronym? Like maybe Glaryingly Odd Deviate Schoolbus - just stirring. Jes was saying he was on the rowdy bus which I assume was the chariot. Actually, we only had the short bus for a few days. Then we got the luxury VIP bus. It seriously said "VIP" on it.

Think that might be a P&G-specific thing. The arrogance of their employees is legendary. People call 'em "Procter and God". They're pretty much convinced that they own this town. I mean they're a great company and all, but they do seem a bit cult-like at times.

I loved Notre Dame. It was probably my favorite attraction in Paris. You just don't see stuff like that here in the colonies. You can actually skip the Berthillon line by sitting down at one of the tables to get served in the little cafe there. But you'll pay dearly to do so. And the stuff is excellent. I was really bummed when I saw that Disney Paris featured crappy Ben & Jerry's instead of Berthillon.

I was on the big Europe trip. But now I'm back home, sick and jet lagged. Google's "I'm feeling lucky" result: http://www.disneylandclub33.com/ You'd be a lot of people's hero if you could get pictures inside that place.

Is Google down today?

^Great recap.

3 helices? I should have known that Kings Island would find a way to screw this up.

Try a TPR trip some time. You'll get more done than you ever though possible. On the Europe Trip, I had most parks credit whored out within the first hour or two. I *always* had time to explore the park, take photos, check out miscellaneous dark rides, flat rides, etc. If anything, Elissa generally allocated too much time to a given park and we often voted to leave early.

Can he get you into Club 33? Ask! If so, please post a TR with a ton of pics of the place.

I love it!

The I-Team missed the most gruesome detail of all: they have to work at Kings Island!

Biased towards a product sold by a company that competes with his employer? And yes, that picture is me. Very swift observation Watson.

No offense but I think I'm going to believe the coaster engineer who has actually ridden the thing over the guy who is guessing from watching crappy YT videos.

Thanks for the pictures of my new favorite park. The place is really pretty and I've never seen any pictures that do it justice. For example, the queue for Flying Dutchman is at least as nice as the queue to Dueling Dragons, but it's really dark in there and thus hard to take decent pictures.

Who needs Harvard MBAs when we can read posts about how businesses really operate on roller coaster web sites from guys who can't spell? Thom, I'm glad you're the ONLY one on this site who has any corporate experience at all. How can I be cool like you?