Midgetman82

I'm holding off on reserving a second day as well, maybe until after my first July 5th, before planning a second day. Want to make sure I can actually commit to it, haha. I'm going to hold out potentially for Saturday, July 11, the last day for season pass holder previews and still one of the least reserved dates so far.

I think people overlook this a bit because they want something "better than anything else." SV, i305, etc. are fantastic coasters because they're crazy, but for some they're literally too much. I think what makes Diamondback so great is how incredibly rerideable it is, and I have NO doubt Orion will be the same, especially considering it clocks 90+ mph!

Only paid lockers are the mega size ones near the park entrance and in the water park. Virtually all rides have cubbies or lil bins in the station or ride platform to put your stuff in.

Fair point. I just saw all those open reservations for the weekdays following opening weekend and... yeah, it looked like it would be a ghost town, especially Wednesday July 8. Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd are booked solid. Every other day after that is wide open. Hope this news stays true, I'm sure plenty of pass holders would love to scoop up those empty days and that second Saturday!

Source, please?

Easily best drop at Kings Island, and that constant speed's gonna be great, along with flying around those big elements. Can't wait to try it!

The waterpark's opening got bumped up to opening day with limited attractions!

I got a slot for July 5th. Originally I was gonna go July 3rd, but saw how full those reservations got eaten-up and decided to email and see if they could help me change it to avoid the potentially bigger crowd. Two days later (expected, I'm sure they got flooded with mistaken reservations), got a very friendly phone call to assist, and within a minute they cancelled my spot so I could move! I'm soooo stoked to get on Orion!

It looks like a pretty easy replacement too, imo. A lil sad to see a classic go that I and many others grew up with fond memories of, but I'm far more stoked stoked to see new life breathed into an old attraction and see Disney willing to grow past a more-or-less "troubling" IP (even if little to almost none of the IP's troubling aspects were represented in the ride, I'm more excited to see Princess and the Frog come to Magic Kingdom)! Plus, another princess to be represent in the parks with their own ride! I'm pretty confident in what Disney can do with a refresher after seeing Maelstrom -> Frozen.

That's a huge shame to hear. I'm sure the layoffs/furloughs played a huge part in their efforts to save money, but nipped them when they thought the were ready to reopen like everything was still fine and not requiring extra effort to keep afloat smoothly. As for the guests, it was only time until folks started thinking of ways they could get away with circumventing new rules. It's more and more sounding almost like the folks that opted to skip this year entirely on amusement parks probably had the right idea, if not for the complete tanking of capacity caused by new safety procedures, then for the other guests making the experience worse for everybody else actually trying to be safe.

Here ya go: EDIT, new link on KK's new procedures: https://www.kentuckykingdom.com/plan-your-visit

Fantastic detailed report! Loved hearing management were out and about checking out how things were running, and especially happy that it wasn't overwhelming in terms of crowds. Will look forward to hearing when they open to the daily ticket guests and how that handles. That praise about Cheetah Hunt certainly makes me more excited about it too, as well as your report on Voyage's conditions! I'm not surprised at all at clientele reactions. The park can only do so much to keep safe guidelines and hope people will understand. Hopefully they'll be able to iron out their ends enough for the newer crowd.

The old Top Eliminator Dragsters strip, and yeah, it's very prime land for literally anything. It's a lil bit of an eyesore, but it's scrimmed-off area people don't pay much attention to. From Winter Walkthru tour back in February.

I could see it fitting in, perfect capacity for the park and a hopefully slim enough fit. Plus I've said many times here how that area could especially use another anchor attraction to draw more guests out to Storm Chaser (even at the expense of waiting in longer lines. Good for business, not so nice for selfish reasons ). It would surely be good for the park to draw more guests out there.

1) Do you intend to visit parks as soon as they open? Yes. But, ONLY local parks I have season passes to and are within easy driving distance of. Nothing requiring lengthy road trips or flying. 2) What is your reasoning for your choice? If things get a bit dicey or uncomfortable with social distancing and mask wearing, I feel comfortable cutting my day way early and consider coming back at a much later point in the year (if at all). I would NOT fly or road trip elsewhere right away just to get to another park I love. 3) Are there any stipulations that would change your mind? To not going at all? Maybe price, crowds, and/or a local surge in COVID cases. To going to another park further out? An immediate vaccine... and maybe some more cash in my wallet and time off work.

Source New Safety Guidelines are listed on Beech Bend Park's website.

Wildebeest and Cheetah Chase have onride photos?! That's sweet!! Hope to get to try this system out this year!

There's gonna be reduced ride capacity for cleaning and social distancing as well, stacking is to be expected. While there might be less people, you also take into account ride dispatch times are gonna take a huge hit as well. Plus, Fast Lane folks wanna get their money's worth if they're not issuing refunds for them.

At their slight credit, the way they worded it on the page did leave it a bit too up to interpretation. But of course they didn't mean scheduling a visit to a clinic 24 hours before going to an amusement park! The video made for Worlds of Fun did show it was a questionnaire. I'm happy the mask will be a requirement. The folks complaining about the rule will hopefully also be the ones opting to stay home, like they probably should. Can't wait to schedule a reservation to ride at the park next month!

When you go to the "Buy Tickets" tab and select HoliWood Nights, the new dates are listed there. The latest info on HWN gets posted in the official Facebook group.

Things could change around at the season starts, but I'm not too surprised they wouldn't have Hallowscream planned at the moment considering all the planning involved into putting it together themselves, as well as the newly required health protocols needed because of the pandemic. It would be pretty sweet if they somehow fit in night rides like last year, even without haunt.

With arguably the fastest train cycling of any coaster (before Kentucky Flyer) in the park. Even when Storm Chaser was running one and T3 was at two trains, its dominant location at the back of the water park makes it a hot target. Of course, the moment a train was taken off for a whole season, that unfortunately threw that out of the window.

Guests eat that coaster up. It constantly has a long line in the afternoon, even before it went to 1 train ops last season. It's one of the most popular rides in the park, likely because it's the biggest, fastest, and loopiest roller coaster in the park.

Understandable. I didn't mean to point it out at you specifically, and don't mean to sound rude. I only point it out since it only takes one idiot to cause heightened security and enact new rules for professional drone flyers to jump thru. It's happened in my whole city years ago already (someone crashes drone into stadium during football game, crashes drone on tallest building in city, basically can't fly anywhere until you get actual permission). Also, it's already not allowed:Yeah, I'm being a stringent party pooper. But it is something folks should know about in case someone else get any ideas as if it IS allowed.

I'm totally gonna be that guy, and question whether they had permission or not to fly that drone over private park property (I'm leaning on "doubt" because of hovering the drone on the lift hill at 00:00 of the video). As much as we all want to grasp anything involving the coaster or any amusement park in general during widespread closures, I'm pretty sure there's some legality issues with flying drones into private park property, regardless if its open or closed or if the airspace is technically open for it.