Weather affects Ohio WindSeeker ride openings

"I am the Wind Seeker and I shall seek the Wind! And then I shall turn away from thy Wind!"

Bummer. Even a more frightening scenario to ride an already very intimidating ride!

Im hoping CPs will be open for coaster mania, since STR wasnt open last year!

CoasterDemon said:
"I am the Wind Seeker and I shall seek the Wind! And then I shall turn away from thy Wind!"

Bummer. Even a more frightening scenario to ride an already very intimidating ride!

Since the ride seeks wind, and there's wind in Ohio, can the ride already be considered a success?

What I know is, once these rides have been around for a while and Cedar Fair decides to move them to lesser parks, who's going to Inherit the Windseekers?

^WOF and MiA

^^^Yes, Mike :) Everything is a wind seeker at CP :)

Ensign Smith said:
What I know is, once these rides have been around for a while and Cedar Fair decides to move them to lesser parks, who's going to Inherit the Windseekers?

This is the first time I've ever given one of these:

+1 for Ensign Smith.

Glad to see I'm not the only filmophile on the site... ;)

I saw Windseeker yesterday on Kings Island's opening day and it's pretty impressive. Well, from a distance, I should say, as they have that end of the mall blocked off during construction. A better view is still available at home on the webcam! But that also meant no Vortex, (who's exit passes right thru Windseeker's area), no red Racer, (who splits off to the side of Windseeker's construction area), no restrooms, (which looks like it got a nice remodel), and no Action Theatre (who's entrance and exit has been totally re-routed).

The ride itself is nice looking, and the colors are beautiful, although it does seemed a little jammed in there. The old Flight Commander site with it's rinky upcharge attraction du jour still sits there wide open and available. I will never get that- it woulda been the perfect spot - there must be a mighty good reason for not using it. The tall, vertical sign for the ride is cool, and has that standard Cedar Fair professionally produced look. At night they lit the ride up and wow! it's bright and colorful, all right!

The most unnerving thing of the day happened a few yards away when I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower for a look-see. I realized that the platform is just about eye-level to where Windseeker riders will be. Yikes! I looked down at the ground from there, (something I normally try not to do) then imagined myself flying around at 35mph in a tiny chair and got the willies really bad. Drop Tower, Eiffel Tower and Windseeker all seem to be about the same height.

They are still working on the entrance to the dinosaur area, which is in the space where laser tag used to be, for an opening sometime later in the month. I'm still not certain where these dinos are gonna live - will visitors pass under Racer to get to it?

BTW, Kings Island could not have been busier yesterday - it was like Diamondback opening day busy, and the line for every ride spilled out onto the street. Maybe all of us Ohioans were so sick of this crappy, crappy weather that we took advantage of the one nice day in 2 months to get out of the house! (its raining again today... we all shoulda stayed home and cut the grass!)

You apparently went home early.

In the early afternoon, as a response to the enormous crowd, they opened Vortex by moving the portable fencing around and creating an exit path. Later in the day, they moved more of the fencing around and got the whole midway open right down to just before the restroom building, which yielded some pretty good views of Windseeker. At the end of the day, they had the lights going on the ride. Color-changing LED floodlights shining down from the top of the ride, and programmable color-changing LED light bars on the sweeps and on the suspenders.

The ride looks like it is very close to being done. The fact that I saw workers fooling around with new wire rope suggests that it isn't completely done, and of course they still have to hang four seats. But the ride appears to be very nearly finished, and I suspect that the limiting factor on getting the ride open may be the difficulties in scheduling a return visit for the State inspector.

They did an outstanding job of installing this ride, with one notable exception: in my opinion they put the doghouse in the absolute worst place, on the midway side of the ride. Because this is a 300' tower, a 12' shack on the midway side of the ride might not be such a big deal, but still, it would look better if that were on the back side...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RCMAC said:
...they have that end of the mall blocked off during construction.... that also meant no ... Action Theatre (who's entrance and exit has been totally re-routed).

An early 2011 season park map that I looked at onlin didn't show Action Theater at all. Do you know if it is on the park map now? AT could be closed for goo, but maybe Windseeker could get it more traffic.

The old Flight Commander site with it's rinky upcharge attraction du jour still sits there wide open and available. I will never get that- it woulda been the perfect spot - there must be a mighty good reason for not using it....

My guess is that Windseeker wouldn't have cleared Racer while spinning if it was placed in that spot.

They are still working on the entrance to the dinosaur area... I'm still not certain where these dinos are gonna live - will visitors pass under Racer to get to it?

As I understand it, guests will walk under Racer to get to the Dino exhibit. Being billed as the largest in the world, or something like that, and according to the plans that KI used to hint to us about the attraction, I suspect that it is going to be in the area behind Racer, near Firehawk.

BTW, Kings Island could not have been busier yesterday - it was like Diamondback opening day busy, and the line for every ride spilled out onto the street...

I find Kings Island to busy all of the time. I bet next week will be a little less busy though. They need to expand, pronto.

Or raise the gate price.

Well, that's an option too, I guess. I would think that they'd make more money, overall, with more wallets and purses on the inside of the gate, then less.

Trav, you come with me! I rarely visit KI on a super busy day, either I luck out or seem to know just when to go. Since Diamondback opened they've operated on friday evenings, and everytime I've gone the rides were practically walk-on. This year the schedule shows fridays from 10-10 and I can only imagine it's to accomodate school science groups- but once those busses take off? I think the park will be mine! See if you can wrangle a day off and take advantage of that.

Oh, and Action Theater is on the map, I hear riders will enter close to where the exit is, over there by Vortex. But look for it, coming soon!

Rideman - I guess I did leave kinda early, mid-late afternoon maybe? But from the sound of it I missed the Vortex thing altogether...I musta been somewhere else. Due to the crowd I didnt do a lot of riding that day, anyway, but mainly wanted to satisfy my park jones. I did see on the webcam round 10 that night that the ride was lit and it appeared as if the fence had been moved, so good deal. In the morning I spent some time in that area and there were many complaints ("Theeis is BOOLsheet!") to the personnel guarding the path.

I agree 100% about the doghouse, - the only thing I can think of is that it has to face the access door in the pole, which makes sense. I'm no expert, but maybe the pole was positioned according to the electric access- shortest path, all that. (I don't know how things run there.) CP's door seems to be on the hotel side of the ride, and the dog house is over by the new beach entrance gate, so it's a little better I guess.

I do like the sign, and it seems the foundation for an identical sign is there at CP too.

I've found KI is usually surprisingly slow on Sundays. I stopped last year after the craziest Saturday I've ever seen at Holiday World, and rode every coaster except Firehawk and FoF in under 3 hours.

RCMAC said:
They are still working on the entrance to the dinosaur area, which is in the space where laser tag used to be, for an opening sometime later in the month. I'm still not certain where these dinos are gonna live - will visitors pass under Racer to get to it?

I saw a few dinos in the woods while riding Racer, so it definitely appears based on the entrance that you'll have to pass under Racer to get there.

I agree about Sunday, it's usually my weekend day of choice, especially in the morning when folks are still in church. Last weekend KI was open to the GP on Saturday only and that probably helped contribute to the busyness. Two days worth of hungry locals packed into one, and it was a gorgeous day for a change. Sunday it went back to rain. And rain. And rain.

Rain, rain, go away.