Danrarbc

Who knows, sounds like costs are continuing to be slashed around the company including another big round of layoffs. This smells so much like what happened to TWA and Kmart/Sears right now. It feels like they're intentionally running the company in to the ground. A few months ago they had a good CEO and were outperforming Wall Street expectations under him.

No it has been running this season. But it does tend to take a while to get it fixed if something goes wrong (the wonders of owning a one-of-a-kind attraction).

Wonder if they did more track work during the down time? It would have been a good chance to sneak some in.

Most excellent.

Not sure about the clock - but the pumpkin wasn't a program. It was literally just additional strings of lights that they only plugged in for Fright Fest. The story is a worker clipped the wires working on something else (maybe fixing the primary light package?).

Didn't they remove one of the sets of stairs to the wave pool to make room for the queue?

Not as good timing as if there were ready for that by Memorial Day, but still good ahead of July 4th weekend.

Major renovations would be good. But none of that necessary to get the ride reopened. KI has all of the materials and tools on hand to fix the damaged rails because they were already doing rail work on the coaster within the last few months.

I'm visiting for the first time in 24 years July 18th - how intensive are Ohio ride investigations compared to New Jersey? I'm pretty sure Kings Island can get the track repaired fairly quickly as they've already been doing rail work on Bat this year. But since there was an actual event that could trigger a state investigation if the safety laws are strict enough. The train doesn't seem to be to bad, repair the wheel, maybe the derail bar and inspect every axle - plus they can run a single train in the short term with just an inspection of it. I suspect the ride itself can be repaired and read to run by my visit with no problem - but if the state wants to do their own investigation that could certainly be an item that pushes a potential opening into late 2022 or even 2023.

Mr Freeze valleyed Friday

It's a real shame the lift motor gave out during a time in which acquiring replacements is difficult. I wonder how much cheaper than B&M a Chance hyper would be?

Boss has the longest cycle time and the biggest problem with light train loads. If they let you board both trains there'd be fewer people per run. The other coasters tend to just run both trains when the park is less full since they don't have the Boss' issue. Also in the event they did have one train stored the other coasters don't need a warm up to get the second train ready to run so the process of adding it is faster than Boss. It's definitely weird but the park has arrived at this process after two decades of living with the ride.

In case they want to run that train it's faster to unload the bags than it is to bring it back on from the storage track.

Real OGs remember when barbeque was there.

Here's the thing. Not even Cedar Fair views their premium experiences as being applicable chain-wide. For every Cedar Point there's a World's of Fun, for every King's Island a Valleyfair, every Carowinds a Michigan's adventure, for Canada's Wonderland a Dorney. I don't think that the rising tide will necessarily float all boats in the same way under the new CEO. Will the park get better? Sure, it already has. But I'm not expecting this to become a destination. If that strategy made sense Cedar Fair would be doing it everywhere.

Other than a comment or two I don't think there's really been excessive complaining. I was simply collating data and even acknowledged the times could be improved with a faster load time. But the truth is there's a hard limit with this thing and it's a reason why these rides have typically been upcharges. I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge it's got exceptionally poor capacity.

The ride looks pretty good but if these cycle times hold up we're looking at fewer than one hundred riders per hour capacity. Even if they managed faster loading in the one minute range that's going to be 160 riders per hour. I'm going out on a limb and saying that's probably the worst capacity figure in the dry park. https://youtu.be/akuyaqBi7Hw?t=226

That's something super recent because two weeks ago they were still using the glasses. Not super happy that about half of the effects seem down consistently now.

Catwoman will be open for Pass Holder previews on May 27th and 28th.

Catwoman was turned on and in the vertical position but they stopped whatever they were doing due to rain before I got back there for a pic. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a preview next weekend.

The building has had battle damage for a few years now. Not too worried about a single train at the moment. It may be getting its rebuild still. But it has been single train more often than I'd like the last couple years. I hope they get number two running more reliably.

There's new concrete back there and they don't have the old raw track either. It looked fine without the fence. It could just be to block view of the empty area, but having new concrete not just behind it but be visible to guests under the fence kinda defeats that purpose of blocking the area. Theres gotta be a use for it in mind. Just not sure if it's something guests may use or if it's just storage or something.

Mini report. Catwoman looks on target for Memorial Day. Not much change for Eagle's new ramp. Made it over to American Thunder and there are new walls and gates up around the Moon site. Wonder what this could be for? Haunt?

Both the park map and your construction photo indicate most of the grass north of that central path being used. That isn't half of the total grass field but it is easily a third or more of the total area with a good stage view. It's absolutely correct that a good portion of the grass seating is being used. My error was not making it clear enough in the first comment that it was only a portion being used, not the entire amphitheater. Edit: I'll agree to make this my last post on the land usage of Dr Diabolical. We don't agree on the scale of the red area. That's going to be a capacity reduction of 800 potential concert-goers at a venue likely able to hold 3000-4000 (~2500 on the old grass berm - I'm most unsure of the capacity under the canopy).

Yes Sundance is gone but it's also being built on close to half of the grass seating for the largest outdoor venue.