AmyUD06

FL+ is awesome at Dorney....for the water park.

Haha I didn't use SV as my example because of the lockers, but yeah. And when I was there there were two at the lockers, one on each side, and a dedicated spiel-er in the station.

This is neither here nor there, but I think a large part of CF's staffing woes come from how many employees they dedicate to each ride. For example, at Millennium Force on the Sunday I was there, here's how many employees were working just that one ride: -Two greeters -One at the FL merge -One grouper in the load station -Four checking restraints in the load station -One actual panel operator -Two in the unload station That's 10 employees for one ride. Meanwhile, when I was at SFGAdv back in early May, El Toro had the following: -Two contracted, outside-company employed, security officers as greeters (don't count) -One at the Flash Pass merge -One actual panel operator -Two checking restraints That's 4 actual park employees for one ride. The trend continued at both CP and KI for all rides....there was always almost "too many" employee's stationed at each ride. That said, based on my experiences at both CP and KI, the rides departments are not where they are having staffing problems...it's food service. Which, by the way, Six Flags is also suffering horribly with.

You know the days they listed in this post are Fridays and Saturdays, right? I agree that it's not a big deal, but please don't misrepresent.

I think this entire coaster was built from the ground up in the time that Iron Gwazi has been SBNO LOL.

LOL everyone misses the little ramp from 537 eastbound into the park. They've been doing it since the 90s. At least back then people had the courtesy to go down to the light at the McDonalds and WaWa and do a proper U-turn rather than do...that.

Just read back through the past few pages. Things are busy, but running spectacularly. As with any park, weekdays would be better than weekends....just common sense stuff. I would wait until after June 26th, when 10PM closings resume, so you can get some awesome night rides on Beast (or Mystic, or Orion, or Adventure Express....) EDIT: In fact, @Carrie, here is a link to my report from my trip there last Tuesday.

And this my friends is why I always have the Fast Lane/Flash Pass, and don't frequently wait in food lines, at a park that has more than 3 other people in it.

Haha @tndank, fair enough. Just going to be headed to this park on the 23rd and was hoping for some Schwarzkopf classic goodness.

So....still no word on Mindbender?

Probably just a matter of greasing the right palms LOL. I jest, I jest. In all seriousness, I'm sure the NJ regulations for running an amusement/water park are the most stringent in the country. Wouldn't surprise me if you needed to cycle a ride literally 500 times for certification to operate. After all, NJ does have the greatest ratio of attorneys to residents of any state.

Been that way since COVID started.

It's okay, I consider KD my "home park" too, and went to KI and CP more frequently last year (for obvious reasons) and likely this year as well. Good luck...everything I've read has said be ready for a shitstorm.

Orion grows on you the more you ride it. It's still my #4 at Kings Island though. Might as well start up a chain of ranking lists, so here's mine: 1. Beast 2. Mystic Timbers 3. Banshee 4. Orion 5. Bat 6. Diamondback 7. Adventure Express 8. Racer 9. Woodstock Express 10. Flight of Fear 11. Backlot Stunt Coaster 12. Flying Ace Aerial Chase 13. Invertigo

@thepoint4life23Honestly your best bet for an answer on this is to call them. The website says: "Guests with casts and braces will be restricted from riding rides where the cast or brace will not fit inside the ride unit or where it will present a hazard to the guest or others. Guests with full arm (elbow restricted) and full leg (knee restricted) casts or braces are restricted from MOST rides at Cedar Point. Casts and braces of any kind are not permitted on Valravn, GateKeeper, Rougarou or Raptor. Lower leg and foot casts are not permitted on Cedar Downs, Highground, maXair, Steel Vengeance, Wave Swinger, Red Baron and Snoopy's Space Race." That was from their Accessibility page. In my opinion, your boot would certainly count as a "brace".

C'mon Bill, it's a good park to stop in and kill 2 hours if you're taking the smart route from CP to SFGAm.

Good to know. I was planning on buying a Palace Platinum at Idlewild later this year to use at Kennywood, Story Land, and Lake Compounce later this year.

I actually said the same thing, about KI being the better park, to a lot of people I met and engaged in conversation with in lines at both CP and KI. I'd mention how many parks I've been to (nerd alert, I know), and every time, they'd ask "What's your favorite?" Without hesitation, each time I'd say "Kings Island...while Cedar Point may have some insane coasters, and a fifth of my Top 25, their operations, employee attitude, and food service (both in quality and to my preferences) are generally horrible. Kings Island delivers *everything* I look for in a park." Oh, I guess CP's better on smoking zones too (there are four, since you can exit any gate and re-enter) haha. Honestly, if they sent Maverick down to Mason, Kings Island would have the one thing I think it's sorely missing (a nutty Intamin), and Cedar Point would become a once-every-few-years trip for me. Kings Island will, for the foreseeable future, be a multiple-trips-a-year park.

Don't forget about Anaconda! LOL. I jest. Awesome report. One day when California isn't so Californian, I might make it out there.

That said, when I was there on Sunday, the grouper wouldn't let anyone else in the Millennium queue at 7:55, so your mileage may vary.

After they scan your pass for entry, there's a redemption center to the left where you can pick up FL/meal plan/drink plan wristbands.

Nope.

First of, thanks to @PKI Jizzman, aka Zach, for meeting up today and raising my "TPR Members Met" credit count to two. Shame we didn't get to ride anything together, but I'm sure you can understand my non-desire to wait in non-FL lines haha. I also meant to ask you about your username, but you can feel free to PM me if you feel like explaining it. Alright, checked in to my hotel after an exhausting day at Kings Island. Woke up at 4:00 AM in my Sandusky hotel to be on the road by 5:30 to make it to Kings Island for opening...after a little detour to Skip's Bagel Cafe in the northern Cincinnati suburbs for the best bagels I've had outside of the northeast. For some reason, there are zero solid breakfast places around KI except for Perkins. When I pulled into the Kings Island entrance at 9:45, there were maybe a dozen cars ahead of me (see picture posted here), which as I mentioned was a massive improvement from my experience on public-opening-day Saturday, where there were over 100 ahead of me at 9:30. Note that this trip will seem abbreviated to most of you, but that's because of my goal for the day: Two rides on Mystic Timbers, Beast, and Banshee each, and one on Orion, and to spend some time working on my tan in the waterpark. Made my way in to the park, grabbed my all-season Platinum FL+ wristband (2nd redemption of the day), and noted the "Fast Lane is sold out" signs, lending credence to thoughts that it theoretically can be bought at the park when it's not sold out in advance (which hasn't happened yet). Headed straight over to Mystic Timbers, and got two rides, one front row one back row, with one-train waits a piece, for Early Entry. It's not well publicized, but the park is offering early entry for all season pass holders (right now it's Mystic, Banshee, Orion, and Great Pumpkin Coaster), which starts 30 minutes prior to opening. The kicker? The parking gates don't let you through until 45 minutes prior to opening, giving you 15 minutes to get parked and through security, and then the main entrance doesn't open until exactly 30 minutes prior to posted opening time, really making the "early entry" period like 25 minutes by the time you get to any of the rides. After two awesome rides on Mystic, it was off to my number one KI coaster, Beast....26 minutes (counting ride time) for the front row; would have been like 5 minutes if I didn't want to wait for the front. After Beast, I met up with @PKI Jizzman at the still-closed bar near Adventure Express and shot the shit on our way over to Banshee. Upon arrival, the standby queue was about 45 minutes, so he sat it out and I went down the FL line for a two-train wait for back row, left side (I forgot to start my clock upon entering the queue). We then went over to Orion, which was broken down at the time, so I said my parting words to Zach and made my way over to the water park, after a brief stop in the Eiffel Tower to snap this picture of the parking lot at 12:10 for @Zand, who had been asking about crowds. Note that NO ONE was in line for this and my only wait was for the elevator to arrive at each end. So, I made the trek out to my car to grab my swim gear, and then the long, long trek across the lot to the Soak City entrance. Upon arrival, it was with a relative ghost town. And reservations were even sold out! This was a good thing, since there was a LOT that was not open. Here's the list of what I noticed was closed: -Zoom Floom (family raft slide) -Tropical Twister (intertwined body slides) -Aruba Tuba (kiddie slides) -Lookout Lagoon (one of the kiddie play areas; there were two others open) -Mondo Monsoon (tornado slide) -Pipeline Paradise (flow rider, surf simulator) -Breakers Bay (one of the wave pools, the other one was open) -One of the two slides on Thunder Falls -ALL food/beverage establishments, including drink refill stations, except for: Coconut Cove Bar, Coconut Cove Cafe, and Island Smokehouse In between slides (never had more than a one-stairwell wait), laps on the lazy river, and chillin' in the wave pool, I spent a lot of time at the bar and made chatter with the bartender, who confirmed that staffing is a major problem (it's why what was closed, was closed), and that they are offering $15-18 an hour for most almost all positions. I trekked up the stairs for every tube slide (so four total stair climbs, ugh), and went outside for frequent smoke breaks, thus the overall "exhaustion" from today. For some reason walking in bare feet just takes that much more out of you than when you have shoes on. Anyway, I left the water park at around 5:30 and made my way back in to Kings Island proper. Here, I grabbed another ride on Banshee (8 minutes from entry of the queue to off the ride) for back row, right side. and then made my way to Orion, which was back open. First off, the FL wait was 8 minutes including the time on the ride, for the back row. I was able to leave myself some gap between my body and the restraint this time, and yeah, this ride is growing on me. Still not quite Top-10 material, and still soundly in 4th in terms of Kings Island coasters, but it is growing on me. After that, it was back to Beast, for a 29 minute total time for front row, at 7:00 PM - more or less as close to a night ride as you can get with an 8 PM closing in June. Notably, the grouper this time was filling one train full of FL people, and then one train full of non-FL, and alternating. I think she was new. Made my way to Tom+Chee for an awesome classic grilled cheese (11 minute wait from entering the line to getting my food), and then headed out to my hotel. I accomplished all that I wanted to here today (including some sunburn LOL), so I was satisfied. Next planned trip is my big coaster tour (see details here) at the end of June, but I may make some smaller day trips between then and now. For now, it's off to a good night's sleep before my 9 hour drive back to Delaware ("the state," as I have to keep explaining to Ohioans). Might swing by Adventure Park USA for the Zamperla if I see it running from the highway. Here's a photo of Banshee's queue at 5:50 PM... ...and two of Orion's queue at 6:15 PM... ... and finally one of the lighting/DJ stage for the "Area 72 Party" that now won't happen until 10 PM closing resume on June 26th. Farewell!

They couldn't answer because you spoke to someone in India reading off a prepared Q&A sheet LOL.

I think you can theoretically buy it at the park (you could at CP yesterday), but AFAIK it's been sold out every operating day this season.