CF Kings Island 4-22

Couldn't wait to get to KI to get a coaster fix, it had been a long winter!! The drive is cake for hubby and I. Once parking gate opened I am not so sure that the guy scanned or did anything with my CP season pass w/the OP stamp. Just kind of looked at it and handed it back.

Arrived at front gate and ended up meeting up with a bunch of ACE'ers. Got to listen to some of the ordeals from yesterday (season passes not scanning, all the down times...yadda yadda-the stuff Goncher covered in his post) I held my breath when they scanned my season pass, it worked fine, my hubby's however took 10 swipes before it finally took. Our walk back was to the Racer, (Beast down) we got one ride in before the GP started heading in. Was a great ride, it was wonderful finally getting my 1st coaster ride for '07!
Mother Nature was very kind, very sunny, warm day. Shorts and t-shirt weather for sure. I think spring has finally sprung!

Headed to FOF and what an awesome ride that was too!! :)
My bet that seatbelts would be added to Vortex once CF bought it came true. Luckelly they are a cinch to do.

Headed to the Beast. Hubby and I waited on the front and OMG! The 1st thing I noticed was that the track looked very greased-and let me just say here that the ride the Beast gave us was the BEST RIDE since '79. It was FLYING!! The trim brakes were barely touching us, I could not believe how fast we were taking some of the turns it was breath taking and SOOO fun!! :)
We got off and went right back on again, it was no fluke, again we got our butts kicked!! :) Awesome!

Eventually Italian Job was running and that would be the longest wait of the day for us (20 minutes) still a fun ride. They finally put the sirens back on the police cars! I could be mistaken (anyone agree?) but I think they lessened the fire part...I swore the fire used to be more spread out then just out of the big things on top. My hubby said he thinks CF will eventually just use big yellow strips of paper with a fan blowing them up to simulate fire. I thought that comment was classic!

X-Flight....oops--Firehawk still being painted. The tracks are all done and station and photo booth being worked on still. The positioning of it is different than it was at GL so it looks different. Also because it is in a valley, surrounded by trees it looks way smaller than it did at GL. Hubby can't wait to ride it, I can wait.

We spent alot of time walking around the park looking for CF changes. The Paramount name is still here and there. The rides all have the generic CF requirement and recommendation signs, the trash cans have the Kings Island logo on them with the same coaster logo from the CP trash cans. The shirts that have the Paramount names on them are cheaper than the CF KI shirts, yet still pretty steep considering they are trying to get rid of them.
They are in the process of placing a fence all around the Beast so the really cool walk backs and picture taking during special events in days past will have to be done behind a fence.
Food prices I am afraid appeared to have gone up. We usually don't buy food at the parks but decided to skip bringing food this time and get LaRosas. $5.95 for 2 slices of pizza seemed extreme but was the cheapest deal in the park. 2 funnel cakes cost us almost 12.00....yikes. Thank goodness we did bring our own drinks! :)

Some of the trees in the front of the park gone and replaced, not sure what the deal was with that. The movie posters in the front of the park gone too. No shock there. Any other poster signs around the park were advertisments or trivia ??s.

I didn't get the not checking the hand stamp thing either. The employee told me he could "see" the stamp without the light, funny since he looked at my right hand and I was stamped on my left. I wonder how long before the word gets out about that for the GP to take advantage of that and get into the park for nothing. Maybe if no more light they should consider a colored stamp that doesnt require a light to see it? Just a thought!

Some employees seemed to be still getting comfortable with their jobs, some didn't look happy at all. The ride crews made a couple of small errors here and there but some of the other crew would watch for that and correct them. The hardest thing it appeared was remembering to clear the platform when dispatching a train or when one was coming back in. I was surprised (and some what releaved) that there weren't ride spiels (yet?) a couple of times(Vortex and Beast) we heard "enjoy the rest of your day at Kings Island" but that was it.
Lots of stacking but it's still early in the season, completely understandable!

As Goncher mentioned, we too saw a silver tag just drilling an employee in front of tons of people. There is no reason for that, especially when the kid couldn't have been older than 17.

There were silver tags (with Cedar Fair ties on!) galore present everywhere. The park was spotless (but it always was) and everyone did seem to be having a really good time.

We jumped back on the Beast for 1 final ride before heading home, again the Beast was so great!!

I really do believe that the coasters all seemed to be running better than they ever have seriously. I wasn't the only one who mentioned this, many of the ACE'ers we met up with during the day agreed.

The saddest news I heard was that Maureen resigned due to getting another job. I (and everyone who met her) really liked her and really think that she did an outstanding job as PR person for KI. I know we will miss her and so will KI :(

Looks like we will be heading to KI more than the usual 1 or 2 visits a season. We had a great time today and can only guess that it can and will only get better!!!
oh, next time we will bring our own food! ;)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1163 :)

Maureen is leaving :(. What a huge loss for KI.

It's heartening to hear how great Beast is running. I may have to add an extra trip down that a way this season. :)

Glad to see you had a blast at Kings Island Jo.

Ah, that sucks that she's leaving, but on the other hand good for her! I wish her the best.

-Tina

Just curious, does anyone know where she went? Was it another CF park or was her job destined to be removed from the buyout.

Too bad they let Lexi Robinson (Geauga Lake) go, she was awesome.

She's not going to another CF Park, and her leaving isn't due to the CF buyout. She will definately be missed. It was nice to see her this weekend.

Sounds like from what I read elsewhere, she was burnt out being a team of 1 and needed 24x7. She was a great asset to the company and will be missed. Guess this means no silly spoof video for FireHawk this year (like ones done in past)....