cjeagle35

^With every passing year a park's coaster ratings will go down. That is just simply progress as time passes and other parks build more coasters. Just think, did anybody have anything like Magnum in 1989?

The logistics of the ride, like setup, power, land surveying, ect. have to be planned long before a ride's debut. Because of it being a moved ride, I can see how the overall design my have taken less time. However, I still don't think its possible that all the surveying, designing, planning, and installations (other than actual ride pieces) could occur in 7 months time. Only once, and I found their waits better than every single Six Flags or Paramount Park I've ever attented. Even though I don't think Paramount was horrible at this. Yes CF's biggest mistake is that it has been a late adaptor in the growing wood coaster environment. But with the ones they did build (Mean Streak and Herecules) I think they were very learly about building good woodies until they could find some that offer a good ride and low maintance. So your saying Talon, Patriot, Renegade, Xcellerator, Steel Vemon, Sierra Sidewinder, and Maverick are not good rides? I think most people would disagree with you. Also you also must realize, a mediocre B&M beats 75% of steel coasters in existence. Well, we will just have to agree to disagree. I'd rather have Patriot than Italian Job. I'd like the antique car and flying eagles back. And I'd rather have Millennium Force at KI than SoB. And I wish every new ride the park built wasn't themed after a bad movie. Sorry but CF made better decisions, thats business. Yes because there is a great precendent for this in the company's history. So far they have moved a grand total of one, yes ONE, roller coaster. Where does CF have a hypercoaster with OTSR on it? I thought only Six Flags put OTSR on coasters that didn't need them. But if you look at the numbers, except for Knotts and CP, most of CF's parks (before Paramount) are actually pretty small compared to Six Flags or the Paramount Parks. The attractions they got were top quality. Only CP and Knotts desevered new attractions every year because they were the parks that were really bringing home the money. REMEMBER 210mil A YEAR IS A HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY. Cedar Point has plenty of money in which from which to make 1st class additions, and they have THOUSANDS OF HOTEL ROOMS THAT NEED TO BE FILLED. Honestly, I don't see why you hate Cedar Point so much for this. When I said "Major Amusement Park Operators" I didn't include the Busch parks or Hershey. Bucsh only operates like 4 parks and as far as I know, Hershey only has 1. What I meant was either CF, Six Flags or Paramount, since they operate(d) a large number of parks. I believe CF has these parks beat in their operations. Otherwise, I agree with you.

Thats right the designing was done. It was done by Paramount before CF took over. CF couldn't have designed the new area for the ride in the time that it bought the park. Why? Yes you might lose some original themeing and some classic rides, but CF is definatly at the top of the major amusement park operators (other than disney). You will get a clean park, quick operations, and a good B&M or GCI. I think thats a pretty good deal.

You know as well as I do people will still like this second rate ride. I'd say Face Off is probably KI's 2nd most popular coaster. Its not like Paramount would be putting in a great coaster anytime soon.

Why is it far fetched? The move from GL to KI certainly showed that Cedar Fair wasn't against getting rid of X-Flight. KI needed a thrill ride, and i believe the most recent clear thrill ride at a Paramount Park was Borg Assimilator. Paramount usually does similar rides at all of their parks so buying X-Flight and themeing it as Borg Assimilator makes sense. Cedar Fair said they'd honor Paramount capital improvements. I don't think they could put together a coaster in that short of time.

Well then explain Borg Assimilator. How could Cedar Fair plan all the things that go into a new coaster in such a short amount of time? Believe me, Paramount planned this ride.

LAME! Thanks to Mitch for at least calling attention to them. As for me, I ranked EGF above SRoS. They're both great, but Ge Force is a better ride, better setting, better trains (now!). Kind of like the BCS, this just proves there is never going to be a perfect system in ranking coasters. Also Pyrenees only had 10 riders, is that really satiscally significant? Obviously this poll is our best method, but its far from having no flaws. I'm guessing there was a large amount of European enthusiasts voting.

Its hardly the same. I think this is more Paramount's doing than CF. They are just going along with Paramount's planned improvements. Paramount wanted XF for KI and thats why its going there. You can't design a coaster and everything that comes with it in the 5 mounths CF has owned KI. Now they did let it go from GL, but we've had this arguement before. GL doesn't need 10 coaster for the amount of people they are getting, especially one as costly as X-Flight to operate.

El Toro is definatly a different type of woodie. The Intamin method in wood coaster production has resulted in a wooden coaster that doesn't require much maintance. It isn't that Six Flags is better at maintance, its just that that ride is designed so it doesn't need it. And in defense of CF woodies, did you ride Blue Streak or Raging Wolf Bobs this year? They ran 10 times better than any Paramount woodies I rode this year. Villain is getting retracked. Mean Streak is just a terribly designed ride, it isn't the maintance. Not sure what happened with Ghostrider, but I'm sure it will be getting some work. I've never rode Viper so I can't comment on that. It seems the major theme park operators don't do very well with woodies. Only the small family parks like Holiday World seem to give them the TLC they need. I am not happy about X-Flight, but at least it is something. It will take a few years for a better coaster, like a B&M or Intamin, to come to KI. But seeing as KI is #3 in the top grossing CF parks now, it won't be forgotten. As much as the ride sucks, the general public will ride this ride.

Fix up GhostRider and you got yourself a very good coaster collection. You can't really compare Silver Bullet to Montu, not every ride can be the best. I found the ride to be very fun, but it obviously isn't the top invert in the world. I guess thats understandable. But I didn't see a park with 2 in the top 10 either. Also don't forget that Mitch Hawker's poll isn't without its problems either. Katun only had 33 riders and Pyrenees only had 10. Is that really satiscally significate. Point is that with Maverick, I don't really see a park that matches CP's steel coasters. Finally we are getting somewhere. I don't think we will see ground breaking changes either, but I think the park will overall be better taken care off. And I think we are much better off in our hunt for a B&M. Btw, I'm an Ohio guy too, is ginzo kind of for Anthony Gonzalez and Teddy Ginn, Ohio State recievers?

Wow, awful lot of european coasters on there. Congrats to Superman

Well I've only been to Knotts once and I was actually quite impressed. You can't put it on Disneyland's level (you can't put anything on Disneyland's level). But when I was there I found the park clean, operations quick, and the rides great (especially Ghostrider, but this was before many of the problems). Now Six Flags Magic Mountain, that place is a dump, I don't even want to get started on its problems. There is plenty to do at night. Put-In-Bay and Kelly's Island are huge tourism spots. While everything isn't as self contained as Disney, I would definatly call Cedar Point a "resort experiance," while maybe not a true "self sufficient resort" like Disney. As for coasters, 4 in the top 15 in Amusement Today and 3 and half million visitors speaks for itself. Remember 210 million in revenue is huge in amusement park terms. Can they really be worse than Paramount or Six Flags? Believe me, be glad KI is owned by CF now, it is definatly the lesser of the evils.

Yes agreed, but wouldn't there be a tremendous outcry from the coaster enthusiasts if CF wasn't investing in any of the Paramount Parks. We would hear the same "CF only cares about CP" chant that you are crying now. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you, I would much rather wait a year and see a B&M, Intamin, or GCI at KI than get X-Flight. X-Flight isn't a terrible ride by the way, it is the smoothest thing I think Vekoma has ever created and it offers a much better layout than the B&M Superman clones. But it has been a while since KI has gotten a real coaster, so CF decided to go on with the plans as is. And as much as I hate to say it, I think the public will still like this ride. Believe me, I have friends who swore Face-Off was the coolest ride they've riden before I took them to CP. Knotts is definatly not a dump, and CF definatly has invested quite a bit into it. While yes, CF definatly has taken away from the orginal themeing of the park, it still remains clean and the operations run smoothly. Knotts got Silver Bullet, Screamin' Swing, Xcellerator, others, and now Sierra Sidewinder from CF. I'd say those are some first class additions. Also, you forgot that Knotts also is a year round park, that definatly helps them make more. And don't forget that it is more expensive to run a park in that area of the country. It certaintly is a resort destination. Tourism to Lake Erie in the summer has sprung directly from Cedar Point. Now with all their hotels and indoor water parks, CP now offers a resort experiance. The difference is that Disney offers the best family rides and themeing in an always warm climate. CP offers the best roller coasters, but only in summer months, and that is why they can't make as much as disney. As I proved above, not true. The reason for the $5 is just because the ride is a prototype and it doesn't have the capacity to be a free attraction. I don't think much at KI will change, just look at CP's sister parks. We will get good coasters, not the best, but good rides, good capacity, and clean (while not nessesarily well themed) environment.

Hi, I'm from the Dayton area and am a huge Cedar Point and Kings Island fan and I'd just like to chime in with some thoughts on this issue because I think you are being unfair in your judgements. Yes and I believe this was Paramount's plan for Kings Island in 2007. Don't act as though Paramount's past plans for the park have been great. Except for FOF, DZ, Delerium, and the Nick stuff, all of Paramounts installations have been extremely mediocre. Son of Beast?? Tomb Raider? Ripping up the most beautiful area of the park with the anique cars and flyers for a mediocre coaster full of concrete and metal?? This plan makes perfect sense for Paramount but not for Cedar Fair. Obviously they thought, since we are trying to get out of the amusement park business, how can we get another mediocre attraction into KI cheaply? We see that people will still come even if our rides suck, so why build an expensive B&M, we aren't going to beat Cedar Point anyway, we proved that in 2000. So they thought just bought a roller coaster from not too far away and are going to theme it as they did Borg Assimilator. CF, now the owners, already agreed to the move as owners of GL, just go along with it seeing KI needs another thrill ride. Yes it is true that KI did make more money than CP in 2005, however CP made more money. As shown by this article http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060620/BUSINESS06/606200357 As it shows, CP beat KI by more than a 100 million in revenues last year. I don't know why people make such a big deal out of this, CP can afford to have a major attraction added every year, they have thousands of hotel rooms to fill, that is why CP gets the best. It is a resort destination, where as KI is more of a season pass park, so guests normally do not spend as much inside the park at KI and they are not staying at the park's own hotel rooms. Now don't get me wrong, I do not believe X-Flight is the answer for KI, and I would much rather have something else. KI desperatly needs a B&M and I don't understand CF's thinking on this one. But I'm sure it has been in planning and they just let it go on. Don't worry to much though, I'm sure in a few years, we will see B&Ms and GCIs at KI. All of Cedar Fair's parks (except MiA) have recieved great coasters from these companies.