Kings Island (KI) Discussion Thread

[coasterlvr]

I hope to make it out to Ohio to return to King's Island since like 97 or 98. :O

 

is there no mid course brakeon Banshee? how does this affect capacity? does it run 3 trains?

[DevinC049]

It does run three trains with no real brake run in the middle of the ride. The trains are purple, a dark navy blue, and a tealish green which essentially are just different up by where the wheels are covered. Capacity is good with roughly 1650 riders per hour. It was having trouble with breakdowns just a bit on opening day at the beginning, but today was great. The ride ops really keep things moving up there. 32 riders per train I believe.

[B&MBoy1982]

The lift hill speed also varies depending on dispatch intervals.

[Password121]

In my experience, there really is no need for an MCBR due to dispatch intervals being too long for it to be necessary. The next train can drop off the lift once the preceding train clears a block, which in most cases is already at the final brakes.

[TheDarkMaxim]

I'm amazed by how efficient they were dispatching this weekend. Each attendant was only responsible for about 1 or two rows. I expect that to change as they stop having so many supervisors working the ride, but still.

 

The one negative I have is the lockers. I understand how it shortens dispatch times, but it's really just a money grab that IMO puts CF on SF's level (only in that sense).

[mikeslagy]

Since it's been 5 years since I've been, summer of 2009, I'd really be interested to see how much value the Fastlane is. I usually go to parks alone, easier/more enjoyable for me, and I can remember all to many times at KI in quene for The Beast, Racer, Flight of Fear, etc., thinking, 'Man, I wish their was a single rider/fastlane option for ::INSERT RIDE::.'

During the point in the day where Banshee's line was 4+ hours, we took two rides on it within 15-20 minutes. Aside from that we rode EVERY other coaster that offered FastLane and didn't wait more than 1 or 2 trains with the exception of Flight of Fear because it broke down. But once it came back up, I was the first train out.

 

If you're not a local, and you only have one day at the park, it's WELL worth it! Really, it depends on the circumstance. I'm not sure I'd recommend Fast Lane to someone who lives 10 minutes away from the park and knows when to go to find the queues empty, but for me, who flew in from out of state, I couldn't imagine NOT getting Fast Lane.

 

i agree 100%, days like this are the exact reason for Fast lane

[mikeslagy]

I also took some photos Thursday at Media Day, these were my favorites.

Banshee as the sun begins to rise

[bonsaiisuperstar]

Yeah, your ride ops are going to be extra fast when you have Greg Scheid, Don Helbig and Walt from B&M standing there and watching everything all day.

[gerstlaueringvar]

^ That must be terrifying for the ride ops. Good thing for the riders though.

[WildStangAlex]

It was a great weekend at Kings Island! Media Day and Scream for a Kid again were great events put on by Kings Island!! I really enjoyed how much less empty the park was on Saturday versus Friday though. Great/Exhausting weekend was had by all!

 

Really wish I had been able to stick around until Saturday, as Friday was BRUTAL!

[_koppen]

^ That must be terrifying for the ride ops. Good thing for the riders though.

 

Nah, just do their job and everything will be fine!

[Astrojack]

Anyone going to the park this Friday? Operating hours are 4pm-10pm. I remember going on this Friday when Diamondback opened and the park was empty, hopefully luck out again this year

[Diamondbacker27]

USA Today is reporting Banshee as the Worlds longest roller coaster

Not longest INVERTED, just the Worlds longest

[coasterbill]

I just saw this too... I guess it's an honest mistake.

[Diamondbacker27]

Possibly or they just don't know. I saw several reverse POV's of news reporters. They kept saying things such as "we are climbing this 140 foot lift." "We are going through 8 inversions, or seven. I don't remember."

I think they should study up on the ride a little more before they record. But most of them did a good job.

I really enjoyed the video Susan Glaser did.

 

http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2014/04/susan_glaser_rides_the_banshee.html

[coasterbill]

Possibly or they just don't know. I saw several reverse POV's of news reporters. They kept saying things such as "we are climbing this 140 foot lift." "We are going through 8 inversions, or seven. I don't remember."

 

To be fair when people are strapped into a coaster they're not usually thinking clearly. I'm sure many reporters were pretending not to be terrified. That doesn't explain the world's longest coaster mistake but like I said I don't think it's that important. Maybe it's just me though... and I'll admit that it's pretty bad that it's in the headline of the article.

[Diamondbacker27]

I think it will also attract more people to read it.

Most people are just going to skip it if they see " ride the worlds longest inverted coaster"

That's what I think anyways.

[GigaG]

Is there stacking? Honestly, if there is, I think there should be separate loading and unloading platforms a la Millenium Force.

[B&MBoy1982]

There will be stacking. Give it time though. They will get better.

 

My guess is that a lot of it had to do with the problem with the computer thinking a seat was not locked. I remember waiting to ride, and hearing "One one is not locked," several times even though it was down.

 

Yesterday I noticed several really good dispatches. By good, I mean train 2 was half way up the lift before train 1 was on the brakes.

[DevinC049]

^ Same, especially at the end of the day- They REALLY god things moving. Day one towards the morning was a bit rough but thats to be expected. There was a beyond great deal of stacking there, then the thing broke down three times. Never again that day (to my knowledge) though. Each problem was fixed within 15 minutes.

[rcjp]

I really enjoyed the video Susan Glaser did.

 

http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2014/04/susan_glaser_rides_the_banshee.html

I can't really hear/understand what she is saying but, anyway, I noticed that the ride was travelling with a particularly good pacing on this video. I get the feeling that, as it still has some time to get faster, it could get even better reviews.

[Diamondbacker27]

Yes,

I think I only like this one because, IMO it's the best one out.

[DavidW]

This weeks time lapse video. Week 38 (04/14/14 - 04/20/14):

-

[Invertalon]

^ Each problem was fixed within 15 minutes.

 

More like an hour before the brake issue was cleared up... The B&M guy and (4) guys on the maint. team was working on the final friction brakes. They had it open in between to run two trains with people on it, but shut down quickly again and they went to work again on it.

 

Not a big deal, but it was not 15mins

 

 

As far as the ride goes, I love it. B&M inverts are my favorite style of coaster with many in my top 10. Between Raptor, Great Bear, Silver Bullet, Talon, Montu, Dragons, BTR's, etc... I think this takes the top spot.

 

We ended up with 10 rides total... 7x front, 1x row 2, 1x row 7 and 1x row 8. As you can tell, front was my favorite (front left, specifically). At media day, opening day and Saturday we always just requested front and they always nice enough to give it to us.

 

BTW, I will have a photo update posted to my flickr/facebook page tonight hopefully. So far, the collection has 110 images that I need to do a final editing pass on. Keep a look out! www.flickr.com/invertalon

[glouthan]

^Yes. It was more like 30 to 40 minutes. Expected since they haven't worked all of the bugs out yet. Give it a month or two and breakdowns will be very rare. I'm wondering what was wrong with the brakes - they tested it when they thought the figured it out and it looked fine.