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Kings Island

Park News - (4/28/08) In a great flashback moment, Kings Island has announced that Robbie Knievel (see sidebar), son of the legendary daredevil Evel Knievel, will come to Kings Island in an attempt to surpass his father’s famous 1975 Kings Island jump. 33 years ago Evel Knievel made history by jumping over 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island, listed as the last big jump in Evel’s career.
  On May 24th, “Kaptain” Robbie Knievel will attempt to jump over 24 Coke Zero trucks at 7pm at Kings Island. Like his father, this jump is also expected to likely be the last jump in Robbie’s career.
  (4/15/08) The new 2008 park map is now live and shows a few changes that were rumored. Swan Lake is now missing entirely from the map and the pathway that used to run from the Tower to Rivertown has now been removed, confirming that earlier rumor that guests would have a longer walk than normal to get to The Beast. Speaking of the lake… as you can see in this cell phone picture sent in by an insider (see sidebar), the lake is now gone.
  (4/10/08) The official Kings Island website also now confirms that Racer will run forward this season. They also confirm that the Red Racer trains will run on the former backwards side, leaving the Blue Racer trains to run on the old forward side.
  (4/9/08) The local media has finally confirmed with Kings Island that both sides of The Racer will run forward for the 2008 season. Of course while one positive spin on the move claims that this will be a way to “recapture the history and tradition of the Racer”, another article also said that the change made to the three former Paramount Park’s racing wooden coasters (Racer, Rebel Yell and Thunder Road) “was made in an effort to be consistent with other Cedar Fair parks.” Of course this assessment isn’t quite fair since the only other dual track coaster Cedar Fair owns anywhere else in the chain is the Gemini at Cedar Point which is really a steel coaster and not a wooden coaster, despite having a wooden structure.
  While I’m disappointed myself that they’re brought about the end of the backwards riding on these great wooden coasters, I’m more concerned that the bigger reason for this move is an effort to simply trim the operations budgets for these rides. When they were offering forwards and backwards rides, they had a reason to staff both sides of the ride for the entire day. With both sides running forward they will be able to take the Six Flags way out and only operate one side of the ride on slower days or every morning and evening.
  (4/1/08) A great video was posted to YouTube where a park rep from Kings Island answered many questions about the changes coming to the park in 2008. Included here was a confirmation that those Gerstlauer trains wouldn’t be showing up on any of the coasters this year as well as confirming that changes have been made to The Crypt. Of course they also mentioned that it had not been decided if The Racer would only run forward this year or not.
  (3/6/08) We’ve got some bad news today for wood coaster fans. According to Kings Dominion’s John Pagel, both sides of Rebel Yell will be switched to only run forward this season. According to John, “this is consistent with Kings Island and Carowinds for the 2008 season,” confirming the rumored changes to The Racer at Kings Island and Thunder Road at Carowinds.
  (2/4/08) The Kings Island website has now renamed Drop Zone as Drop Tower.
  (1/11/08) If you haven’t been keeping up with the news for the other former Paramount Parks lately, then don’t be surprised when Kings Island suddenly changes the name of Top Gun to Flight Deck. This is in addition to the previously mentioned changes also on the way to turn Tomb Raider into The Crypt and Italian Job into the Backlot Stunt Coaster. Face/Off will also likely become Invertigo and use the same California logo.

2008 - The Crypt, New Names and Shows - (4/28/08) Kings Island Central has posted some great information about what you can expect to find inside The Crypt this year, including a confirmation that The Crypt is now running a much more “intense and thrilling” ride program that it ever did when it was Tomb Raider. Check it out.
  (3/31/08) The latest rumor going around claims that the park pathway that runs from the Backlot Stunt Coaster and over to The Beast by swan lake may be closed for the entire 2008 season due to the construction taking place for the 2009 coaster. On a related note… I’ve been wondering what kind of changes we may see come to The Crypt this season, since they obviously wont be keeping the Tomb Raider themed pre-show and will have to come up with some kind of new story. As for the ride itself, we’ve heard a rumor that it may finally get an all new ride program this season as well. Anyone know more?
  (12/17/07) All but confirming the new names for Kings Island was a discovery that the Kings Dominion website has already renamed their own Tomb Raider as The Crypt and Italian Job as Backlot Stunt Coaster. Keep watching the Kings Island site to make these same changes soon. It looks like there is some discrepancy over the spelling of Backlot too… the logo has it has one word but the site text spells it as “Back Lot”.
  (12/14/07) We’ve heard a new rumor today talking about two possible new names for existing attractions in the park. Cedar Fair made no secret of the fact that they would be changing the name of the Italian Job coasters at Kings Dominion late in the season and we’ve heard that a possible new name for the ride was “Backlot Stunt Coaster”. Meanwhile I’ve also been told that a likely new name for the indoor KI version of Tomb Raider may be The Crypt. As for other 2008 items… I’ve heard that the Ice show is expected to return in 2008 along with a new 80’s themed musical show.

2009 - B&M Hypercoaster - Rumor - (5/7/08) A new photo gallery showing off the latest construction at Kings Island can be found here.
  (4/28/08) New construction pictures from Kings Island have been posted to RCPro.
  (4/21/08) Today we’ve got a bunch of new