la2lvtom

So I visit Kings Island today, Friday May 21st, I arrive at 4:30 p.m. (I spent the morning at Holiday World) so I go to Festhaus to grab a bite and when I get out of there I noticed all the rides in the area were shut down so I head over to Drop Tower and I am informed that there is lightning in the area so the rides are shut down temporarily so I wait for a few minutes and then the rain starts I take shelter in the gift shop next to Drop Tower. After an hour of terenchal down pour, along with lightning and thunder, the rain stops so I head over to take a look at Son Of Beast (the sign is even missing) then the sirens start wailing so I ask an employee what the sirens were and they casually inform me it was a tornado siren, well me being from the west coast I ask the obvious stupid question "should I be alarmed?" and was informed "they'll make an anouncement if you need to seek shelter"... hmmm??? I call my pops and ask him to check weather.com and it showed a tornado warning for Mason from mile marker 32 to mile marker 47 (I-71) so I head to The Beast 'cause I figure if I need to take shelter what better place than at The Beast, the sirens eventually stop so I wait in line for The Beast and after 40 minutes or so the announcement comes over the loudspeakers that they are closing the park early (7:30) due to approaching storms. So that is the story of my first Tornado siren, it was a very exciting experience and I had a great time even if I did not get to go on 1 single ride

Every year I go its math and science week so the park is always bombarded with kids running around with text books and measuring devices but there were more theme park patrons than there have been in the past and I can almost bet that the sun has brought people out (I've been watching the 10 day forcast on weather.com for the last 2 weeks and it has rained almost every day leading up to the last 2 days), it really was a nice day. This morning it is pouring down rain here in Mason and it is not scheduled to stop until tomorrow morning so I am planning on a fairly empty Kings Island when I get back from Holiday World.

I just spent the entire day there yesterday (Wednesday) and half day today (Thursday) I have to say I've been going to Cedar Point the same time for the last 4 years and this is the first time it didn't rain which in turn made the park packed. Both days Maverick didn't let guests on until 9:15 but for the most part ran smooth, on Wednesday Top Thrill Dragster was only running 3 trains and only had the first 3 rows open until well after noon so basically I got in line just before 10 and finally rode it at 11:47, almost 2 hours and didn't get the front seat, just awful, but on Thursday Millenium Force was down so they opened TTD instead with 4 trains running so I got on it twice before 10 yay. On Thursday all major rides had over 30 minute waits with TTD, Maverick, Mantis (2 trains) & Raptor over an hour but Mean Streak and Skyhawk were walk-ons (remember just a few years ago when Skyhawk was the big bad newbie on the block, oh how the mighty have fallen). Now I'm in Mason, Tomorrow morning going to Holiday World (thanx CLUB TPR discounted tix) and then coming back for Kings Island in the afternoon and half day Saturday

All coaster POV's should include a zero car Great video of a superb coaster

Thats good to know, 3 months studying Japanese and all I can remember is "Nihon-go wa chotto wakaii mas" - my Japanese is not too good, and "Aishiteru-kedo Kekkon wa dekanai" - I love you but I can't marry you. I figure those are the 2 phrases I will need the most... lol.

Wow the food sounds amazing glad I'm dieting now so when I go I can gain all this weight back (actually just dieting so I can fit on Top Thrill Dragster and Millenium Force when I go to Cedar Point in May...sad I know). My Japanese sensei showed me numbers in Kanji so I can understand prices on the menus but I really don't want to learn the Kanji symbols the speaking language is hard enough already. I have a day pass for US Airways lounge at SFO but now I'm excited to see the lounge at Narita. 6 months away and I am already so excited. thanx for the info

Unfortunately I can't help you with early June I go every year the third week in May (the first week Kings Island is open, 2 days at the point and 2 days at Kings Island) but when I go never more than 20 minute wait with the exception of Top Thrill Dragster usually 45 min+ (a tip for TTD, when it breaks down and it WILL break down just stay in line, people get tired of waiting and leave and the line keeps moving as if it isnt broken down). I always stay at Hotel Breakers so for early entry using the rear hotel entrance you are close to Maverick so hit that a couple of times then follow frontier trail to Millenium Force to finish out your ERT. As far as restaurants I always hit Joe Cool Cafe, it's sit-down table service in AIR CONDITIONING. They have a full menu and the price is reasonable and usually not that crowded, Johnny Rockets is nice for the entertainment but gets real crowded. Hope that helps a little, I remember my first time to Cedar Point now I am there every year you are gonna love it.

So last week I booked my airfare leaving San Francisco on Sunday September 12 and coming back on Saturday September 18 (used my frequent flyer miles so I booked first class both ways , 747 there and 777 back on United) and on Friday I reserved my room at the Disney Mira Costa hotel (superior room on the Tuscany side, cheapest rate at the hotel only 205000 yen ). Gonna do 4 days at the Disney resort and on Saturday the plane leaves Nayrita at 5:40 pm so we should have enough time to hit LaQua in the morning before heading to the airport (I know everyone says how bad Thunder Dolphin is but I really want to ride it) I remember reading that Robb & Elissa know enough Japanese to get by there, how much is enough? I've been taking classes for a couple of months now and I was wondering how much I really need to get by.

I have never been tempted to become a member of a coaster club... but I just signed up for club TPR it definately seemed worth it to me. Looking forward to my membership packet, one question though how does the backstage at Kings Island work? Is it a daily thing they do and where do I go to do it? I will be going to Cedar Point and Kings Island in May and I want to be prepared.

It looks like the clubTPR home page and an alphabetical listing of parks that will give perks to clubTPR members. Alls I gots to say is March 15th can't get here soon enough. Also that is the day before the Cedar Fair shareholders meeting to vote on the Apollo takeover, Robb will my membership allow me to double my no vote???

I just checked and the calender only states "early September through late October special event Disneys Halloween". It does not say anything else, are any of the "E-ticket" rides closed for this or just the smaller ones? As far as the TPR guide it was very helpful thats why I picked LaQua to be the only other park to visit this trip (even though Robb seemed to dislike Thunderdolphin a great deal it still looks visually intriging enough to ride) plus being an old time wrestling fan the Tokyo Dome was home to some of the great Japanese wrestling events and I really would like to see the place.

Hey Robb and all that replied thanx for the input, went to AAA today to find out about a package for Tokyo Disney (hotel, tickets and transportation from Narita airport. Using frequent flyer miles for the airfare), I was thinking of going September 21st through September 26th but my Nihon-go Sensei (japanese teacher) told me their are 2 big national holidays that week so it looks like we will be going the 14th through the 19th instead. We will be doing 4 days at the Disney resort and it was hard but I talked pops into going to LaQua park, I would have liked to do some other major parks there but this trip is more for pops so maybe in 2011 TPR will do a Japan trip again and I'll tag along on that one

Hey all, I am thinking of taking my pops to Tokyo Disney in 2010 and was curious if anyone had an idea when the off season was outr there? I have tried asking travel agents out here but no one seems to know. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, Thanx

^^Actually staff cutting started at our place before the recession started really getting bad, it started by Harrahs wanting to get rid of the people who had been at our place a long time to cut out big saleries. When the recession started making headlines in the paper and on t.v. is when they did mass layoffs and started closing restaurants, eliminating 401K match, raises and bonuses oh and the one cute thing Harrahs/Apollo did was put 80% of the remaining staff on "on-call full time" so they are working 40hrs a week but being on call they get no benefits, Merry Christmas to all and pray you don't get sick.

If I'm not mistaken aren't the 2 preshow rooms identical in god awful Stitch (which is how I will now refer to it from now on) and Alien Encounter so only the 2 show theaters need to be changed out so they could close it for a few weeks before halloween to do the transformation probably the same time they close the haunted mansion for Nightm... oh thats right they don't do that in Florida, man Disney could have a Halloween gold mine on their hands that could equal Universals offering...well maybe not, if they would only listen to us

I work for Harrah's Entertainment and have worked here since before we were purchased by Apollo (along with another company). There really hasnt been a major change aside from some capital projects being put on hold (mostly due to the economy). In fact we have remained the largest and most stable of any of the gaming companies around. I find this interesting news as we recently purchased a racetrack near Cleveland. Ohio, as many know, is close to legalizing gaming, so I imagine its a prudent move to get a strong footing there. Seriously, you haven't seen any change? How about the staff at your property dwindling, how about retail and restaurant space being leased out and the employees that worked in those original locations being let go and not transferred, how about them creating 5 property "pods" so all the upper mgmt of all the "pod"properties being let go and 1 executive for each dept run all 5 properties, do you miss your 401K matching 'cause I guarantee you that will never come back along with raises or bonuses. You may be front of house and don't see it the same as us back of house employees see things but I myself see big changes coming to Cedar Fair if this goes through and myself as a shareholder will be voting no. Then again on the bright side maybe we will finally get that giant ferris wheel out here we were told about months ago

I really hope no one will LOSE thier jobs either. --Robb You know Robb, I work for a casino here in Vegas that was bought out by Harrah's/Apollo and they held the "big meeting" to tell us everything would be business as usual and assured us "no one will be losing their jobs" and here it is a year later and our staff is less than half of what it was at that "meeting" so I only hope the Cedar Fair employees don't get the same treatment

And knotts for about $250million i believe too! --Jay Don't kid yourself with Knotts, that $250 mil was strickly to get the rights to the peanuts characters, the park was an incidental

They do have a replacement for Stitch, its called Alien Encounter. That was in my top 3 attractions out of all 4 Florida Disney parks and a must do every time I went now its that god awful Stitch garbage I so wish AE would come back someday. I am excited for Captain EO coming back myself I only hope they don't make it too modern with new effects in the theater just for nostalgia it would be nice to see it as it was in the 80's.

So I have never been to Carowinds, 2010 will be my first visit, and I don't know the layout of the park but is Intimidator going out into the parking lot? And if so will it be relandscaped or will they leave all the lines like the monkeys at Six Flags did at Magic Mountain with Scream

I'm glad to see they fixed the trim brakes on Voyage. I was there at the beginning of the season and every third train was getting stuck on them. Maintenance actually had chairs set up since they pretty much sat there to free the trains. Great trip report, thanx