I'm calming down a little bit. Basically, I still feel the same. But I want to say that I NEVER outright expected it to be a world-class steel coaster. I simply stated in other threads that it was something King's Island NEEDED. In fact, all I have ever said about another coaster for the park was that I wished they would get either a water coaster, or some sort of steel coaster that would compete with something at CP or SFWoA. I don't think I set myself up for any disappointment, because even if it WAS a new steel coaster, I would most probably never ride it because I can't ride them. Well, I could probably ride a water coaster, but not a huge steel coaster. It's just that when I heard what they WERE building, it was a huge letdown because I think PKI's potential is being wasted.
They have had the potential for YEARS to build a great steel coaster, but they still won't do it. They had the potential even before a lot of other parks got their steelies, yet they just sat on their duffs and did nothing while the rest of the parks passed them by. Vortex doesn't cut it, image wise. So many other parks - in fact, the majority from what I can see, are not afraid to put in coasters with Zero-G rolls, or floorless coasters, or flying coasters, etc.... Yet PKI has NOTHING like that. The closest they come is Face/Off. An invertigo - big whoopdee deal.
I don't think PKI is becoming a theme park out of sheer desire to do so. I think it is the only thing LEFT for them to do, because they let everyone else pass them up, and they have gotten so far behind they can't catch up.
As stupid and as strange as this may sound, I am going to reveal a quark in my personality, and you will all think I am probably a little neurotic, but it is personal pet peeve I have regarding things in and around the Cincinnati area.....I have lived in the Cincy metro area my entire life. I think it is widely known that Cincinnati is considered to be a backwards, stuffy conservative place where everything takes 10 years to get done. If we get any national exposure at all, it is usually negative, and we become the laughing stock of the nation. I have seen this town come up with some great plans for it's future, only to have them rejected by local officials, or scaled back because the people here think they are too big. Or, while study after study is done trying to examine the feasibility of doing something, the rest of the world passes us by, and eventually we don't do anything at all because it is determined that there is no market for it. But the fact is, when the plans were first drawn up, the market WAS there, and we had the opportunity to sieze the moment and BUILD something. It's just that the people around this area are so scared to do anything grand, they sit back and twiddle their thumbs in an endless DEBATE about it, instead of actually DOING it.
For those of you who live in the area, you all remember the grand plans they had for Fountain Square West, right? It was supposed to be a HUGE office/retail/hotel complex on one of the most prime pieces of real estate in the midwest. The office tower alone was supposed to tower over the city at about 860 feet. Not tall by New York standards, but at the time it was planned, it would have been the tallest building in the midwest outside of Chicago. BUTTTTTTT - city council was so concerned with minute little details such as the materials used to build it, that studying it went on for so long and eventually the plans were dropped. They claimed it was the condition of the economy at the time that caused it to not be built, but that didn't stop other cities from building. The fact was, they flat out didn't like the designs, and eventually dropped the developers because of it. The real estate eventually became a parking lot for years, until they finally decided to build a 4-story department store on the site. As it stands, Carew Tower remained the tallest building in the city, and it was built back in the 1930's!! People even thought it should stay that way, because it was the symbol of the city. Funny, I don't see it that way. I see the skyline as an ugly old silhouette that testifies to just how backwards this place is.
Eventually, they got rid of a lot of the things that people went downtown for, and after a while, people stopped going. Like me. I have no reason in the world to go down there anymore, and it is not because of the riots. It is because I saw the potential Cincinnati had to do something grand, and it just wasted it's potential. Now, they are planning a tower for Newport, across the river in Kentucky, that is supposed to be 1000 feet high. And Newport is a LOT smaller that Cincinnati.
What is my point? My point is that I see so much potential for PKI, and they have been wasting it. They have had such opportunities to do a great steel coaster, and they just don't do it. And I think eventually, the opportunity won't be there anymore, and we will be left with just ordinary for years to come, instead of extraordinary. I am just wishing that SOMETHING in the Cincinnati area could be done right for a change that would cause people to stand up, and take us seriously, by seeing that we have something world class.
I don't think a dark ride is going to cut it.
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