mikeslagy

When you can get the right angle I definitely agree on The Beast Personally I always thought that Son Of Beast was always pretty photogenic, especially if you had access to the back roads of the park

Tomb Raider/The Crypt from Kings Island. I have no idea how it managed to operate for 10 years. Oh wait.....now I remember. it only operated for half a season each year because it was always broken down. and once paramount sold the park, it got even worse. Funny how its the only GIANT Top Spin ever built. I guess the learned their lesson before the started to really market these.

First coaster - The Beast @ Kings island First steel coaster- Space Mountain @ Walt Disney World First Woodie- The Beast @ Kings Island First 100 ft coaster- The Beast @ Kings Island First 200 ft coaster- Son Of Beast @ Kings island First 300 ft coaster- Millennium Force @ Cedar Point First 400 ft coaster- Top Thrill Dragster @ Cedar Point First looping coaster- Vortex @ Kings Island First B&M- Diamondback @ Kings Island First Intamin- Millennium Force @ Cedar Point First GCI- Gwazi @ Busche Gardens Tampa First invert- Top Gun @ Kings Island First Launched coaster- Flight of Fear @ Kings Island First Standup- King Cobra @ Kings Island First Flyer- Firehawk @ Kings Island First Gravity Group- The Voyage @ Holiday World First Vekoma- Rock'n'Roller Coaster @ Walt Disney World

I guess only time will tell

It's definitely different. I worked at ki for a year as a mechanic and I can definitely say it's something i'll remember, especially some of the sketchy stuff.

i think they will have to change the station to include the drop away floor. I don't see any other way for them to add it. Honestly I loved Mantis despite its roughness. Im sure that the transformation into a floorless coaster will result in a great ride experience but i personally feel like it won't live up to mantis. Ive always loved Stand Up Coasters now more than ever. Unfortunately this just continues to shrink the number of Stand Up Coasters left. Also Im about to order some Surge right now

i'd say so this week and next week would be the best time to go

Has Anyone Ridden Diamondback since they added seatbelts?

i hope so, i've been going every year with my family for 16 years with annual passes . this will be my 27th trip.

Here's the video it's on, the CET (local PBS station) in their retrospective about KI. The Beast stuff starts around 3 mins and if you watch close, you can see a portion of video where the train is completely hauling through the mid course break run area. http://www.cetconnect.org/video/riding-history-limits-rivertown The whole series is here: http://www.cetconnect.org/KingsIsland i remember watching that series

How was your Experience with MagicBands Robb and Elissa's experience with the MagicBands is well documented in this thread! (They liked it) thats good im going down in july so i was just kinda curious.

it's amazing that they don't do more research, especially this day in age where 70% of people seem to live/die by those research reports.

I think this video was done during initial testing before it was ever opened to the public. The people walking around are probably park execs, construction workers and the designers seeing how it was running. It obviously is still "under construction" with it missing pieces like handrails. This may have been a video of one of the first ever complete course runs the Beast made as you can see how slow it is. Also, notice the double-helix isn't enclosed yet, the wood tunnel connecting the two concrete ones in the middle of the course isn't there and it barely makes it up the hill to the second lift hill. I would bet this maybe a video of one of the first 5 test runs of the coaster ever, if not the first ever complete circuit. Even if they are park execs, that wouldn't fly today. Those are all restricted areas, when I worked there as a mechanic we could not be in any restricted area while the ride was in operation even when under construction , except for a few exceptions(ride stuck) I would say you've never worked around a brand new ride with reps from the Ride Manufacturers. lol I certainly didn't see anyone standing too close the the train and RC would never have let anyone be where they shouldn't have been before giving the "all clear." you would be correct, i mostly worked on the backlot coaster, so i guess things may be a little different for a new coaster.

you can be on the service roads but not in the actual ride area

I think this video was done during initial testing before it was ever opened to the public. The people walking around are probably park execs, construction workers and the designers seeing how it was running. It obviously is still "under construction" with it missing pieces like handrails. This may have been a video of one of the first ever complete course runs the Beast made as you can see how slow it is. Also, notice the double-helix isn't enclosed yet, the wood tunnel connecting the two concrete ones in the middle of the course isn't there and it barely makes it up the hill to the second lift hill. I would bet this maybe a video of one of the first 5 test runs of the coaster ever, if not the first ever complete circuit. Even if they are park execs, that wouldn't fly today. Those are all restricted areas, when I worked there as a mechanic we could not be in any restricted area while the ride was in operation even when under construction , except for a few exceptions(ride stuck)

How was your Experience with MagicBands

ya they do, the fourth row in each train has longer seat belts.

Here you go. 1979. I keep hoping someone finds a video where the Beast runs at near it's full capacity. The 1979 video of the ride just barely making it around, weeks before it was broken in, is not a good comparison. That video pops up every single time the discussion of the Beasts speed comes up. Anyone who ever got a breakless or near breakless ride will know what I'm talking about. I had 2 or 3 of them in the 80s, and it definitely did scare the wits outta me. People will keep arguing though... until such a video pops up. I'm sure one exists on some worn out vhs somewhere. When you see a clip where the back of the train passes the phonebooth on the 2nd lift, you have found that video. I love this video for the sheer fact that you won't see any like this anymore, it just shows how lax the the safety standards were back then. I mean theres people standing on the track and the ride wasn't even completely finshed, there were hand rails missing all over. If you did this now OSHA would be all over you with fines.

I'm with you 100%. I can't imagine how much work went into just designing and engineering this monstrosity, not to mention the work to construct it.

I mean this with all the respect, but can you explain why you love it so much? I love plenty of rides that most find terrible so I am not trying to say I am right/wrong in any regard, but the Beast really is one ride that baffles me with its popularity... It is practically long straight away after straightaway with slight turns inbetween and trim brakes. So what do people find interesting about the ride (aside from the only decent part of the ride, the helix)? To consider that ride one of the best in the US just blows my mind Theres just something about that ride. i dont know what it is, but it's addicting especially at night. Its the complete package But thats just my opinion.

Two: One during media day, and one during Scream for a Kid Again I think that was the best Front row ride I've ever experienced. I haven't been on as many as most people on this site.

The Beast is by far one of the best coasters in the park as well as in the US, as well as one of my favorites. This is 100% the best POV i've ever watched, i've never seen one that looked so amazing. Kudos to you Robb

Thats some serious dedication. the video is pretty sick too

So are they actually gonna make a PC version?

Well, for we both have full time jobs. Two, we really don't spend any money on ANYTHING else but doing our trips. Seriously, almost all of our 'disposable' income gets put into the savings account and put towards our trips. People think we bathe in money, but really we are your typical average family living off 'middle management' salaries. It's how we spend, or rather don't spend our money that allows us to do these trips. Think about it, we live in a small one bedroom apartment and we don't: - drink - smoke - buy many DVDs - buy many video games - have a home theater system - go to the movies - go to concerts - go to sporting events - have monthly subscriptions to anything - have credit card debt - eat out (in restaurants) much - go over our cell phone minutes - have premium cable/satellite TV channels - don't celebrate holiday's in the traditional fashion (instead of buying b-day, anniversary and xmas gifts for each other, we agree to put that money towards trips) - buy new computers (all our computers were bought used or refurb) - don't have a car payment (If we can't pay cash for a car, we don't buy it) Elissa doesn't: - get her nails done - get hair done - buy jewelry - buy purses - what else am I leaving out that "normal" people do? As much as we would like to do some of those things, we pick and choose things we want to do and trips almost always win out. Our spending budget is very tight and very limited which allows us to do these crazy trips more often. For example, we haven't seen a movie in the movie theater since Shrek 2 and before that is was the original Spider-Man. We assume the average couple sees one movie per month, which for us would be conservatively around $30 for two tickets, drinks, snacks, gas, parking. Cutting out going to the movies saves us about $400 per year which is about equal to a week's worth of hotel stay on a Florida trip. So we have to figure "would we rather sit in a dark room and watch a movie for a couple hours once a month, or spend a week in Florida?" If you see TWO movies a month, then that's airfare to Japan! The only thing we spend any kind of money on, which ties into our trips, is video equipment and the website which the DVD sales help cover the costs, but they don't ever cover all of it. So really, the answer to "where do you get all that money" is simple - we don't spend it on other things. The trips we do are not THAT expensive, especially when you consider that we usually share hotel & car rental costs with other people, look for the cheapest airfare as possible, and we hardly ever buy any souvenirs. (I think I bought ONE T-shirt on the entire Europe trip!) Our goal with the group trips is to make trips that would normally seem "far fetched" to some people as affordable as possible. It may take some savings to do one our group trips, yes, but not as much as I think some people would expect and we hope people get as much value out of them as we do! --Robb "Wishes he had as much money as people seem to think we do!" Alvey I admire Robb. I wish i could be this good with my money