DAN-EL's PKI review (6-11-02)
Associated parks:
None
Anyway, I arrived at Paramount King's Island at around 10:30am. The park wasn't too crowded, I had picked to good day to come.
As I entered the park I decided to head past the mini Eiffel Tower all the way back to were the Mighty Beast stood at the back of the park. On the way back I passed Vortex, a pretty impressive looking Arrow 6 looper. Anyway, I entered the Beast que to find it empty. The ride was a walk on.
The Beast: Terrain woodie:
The first thing I noticed was how Looong those PTC trains were. Probably makes for good rider capacity on croweded days. I sat near the middle on my first ride. The train left the station and made it's way up the lift. Hey, what's with the slow lift hill? I thought the train was never going to make it to the top. The train finally made it to the top and started down the first drop. Not a bad first drop and just a touch air. Which was good since I didn't detect another hint of air for the remainder of the ride. What I did detect was a ton of intensity and roughness. I found very hard to keep my hands up all the way through the course. At one point my ribcage was slammed into the side of the car! OUCH! Despite this, I still had a fun intense out of control type of ride. Just the way I like it. The ride itself seemed to be more about intensity than anything else. The track is mostly straight until the first tunnel when the intensity picks up a bit. I like tunnels on woodies and Beast was no exception. Out of the tunnel into a turn and up the second lift. The train seemed to make it to the top a bit faster this time. Now the second drop into that fantasic double helix through the tunnel. Great intensity! Out of the helix on on the the end run. What a ride! Since it was still a walk on, I decided to grab one more ride on Beast before moving on. This time I rode further back. More intensity and roughness, as expected. But a truly awesome ride! If there's a downside to Beast it's a lack of any real airtime. Beast manages to make up for this, unlike it's offspring, Son of Beast. More on that later. Rating 8 (on a scale from 1 to 10)
I next went to one of only two rides that actually had a line, Tomb Raider:The Ride.
Tomb Raider:The Ride: Huss Giant Top Spin in a box:
The wait was about 20 mins for the parks newest attraction. The first thing I noticed was just how well the que line was themed. This is near Disney quality here! I loved the way you enter a tomb as you stand in line. Once inside the tomb, you stand in the outer area until the tomb unlocks itself and lets you in as music from the movie blairs from the hidden speakers. Nice! Once you reach the inner tomb your treated to a nice pre-ride show with scenes form the movie. Again, the tomb is beautifully themed with a great looking statue of an ancient 4-armed goddess. Finally, the door opens and you go in to see the ride itself is nothing more nor less than a Huss Giant Top Spin. I took my seat in the middle row and waited for the ride to start. I'll admit, this is a great way ride a Top Spin. In the dark and well themed. Anothe giant Statue faces the riders and this one has eyes that actually move. As the ride began riders were rotated, spun and hung upside down. The frist stop had riders on their backs staring up at what, to me, looked like a bunch of wet bed sheets piled together on the ceiling. This was the only cheesy looking part of an otherwise well themed ride. Next, the ride spun around again and this time stopped with the riders head first over boiling lava. Actually it was only bubbling water with nice lighting effects. A few more spins and time to get off. Fun ride, even if it's only a Top Spin in a box. Rating 7
Next I headed over to Vortex.
Vortex: Arrow 6 looper:
This ride was kinda rough with a bit of head banging. On the upside there was plenty of intenstiy to be found on the loops. You take the good with the bad here. Rough but intense. The last two loops were back to back and were the rides best elements. Rating 7
After Vortex I headed to the parks only other ride with an actually wait time. This time the wait was about 30 mins for OL:FOF
Outer Limits: Flight of Fear: Premier Spaghetti Bowl in the dark, launched:
The themeing here was ok, but not as good as TR. I like the idea of a que line winding it's way through a flying saucer. While in line your treated some really bad acting on the monitors as an unintersting bit of drama tries to explain exactly what's going on with the flying saucer and whatnot. The ride itslef is intense and fun, but not as dark as I would have liked. I could acually see the track in front of me and where I was going. I would've much preferred it to be completely dark like Runaway Mountain at SFoT where you really can't tell what's about happen next. The laps are certainly better than the OTSR's. No headbangin like on Poltergiest at SFFT last year before the laps were installed. This ride was fun but I still wish it could've been darker. Rating 7
Next up was The Racer, the racing woodie with one train forward and the other backward.
The Racer: Forward/backward racing woodie:
I rode the forward blue train first, towards the back. Not much air that I could detect on the foward run. Decent speed and the turnarounds were ok. But there should've been better air on a coaster with this many hills. Next I rode the red backwards train, again near the back. Much better, the intensity picks up nicely when you can't see where your going. I got much nicer air on the backwards run as well. I won both races by the way. Rating: Blue forward 5: Red backwards 7.
I went past the Adventure Express mine train ride and saw that it was closed. Not that I minded, I had my fill of mine trains on this trip already.
I came to Top Gun which had been closed when I enterd the park. They were testing and finally began letting riders on .
Top Gun: Arrow Suspended: After Draggin' Iron at CP I wasn't expecting much. But what I got was a pleasent surprise. This ride is much faster than ID and did I detect a bit of intensity?! Yes!!! In fact, I had that blacking out sensatiion through sereral of the turns on this ride. Short and sweet this ride rocks. Rating 8
Now it was time to ride SOB. I got in line and waited about 15 mins. It probably would have been a walk on had I ridden it earlier.
Son of Beast: Looping Hyperwoodie: I'm sorry, but this is not how you make a wooden coaster. Woodies should have airtime not just helices. The Beast manages to make up for it's lack of air, SOB doesn't even come close. Nice steel premier trains. The lapbars were the same as FOF minus the foot supports. The first drop is supposed to be 200ft but it didn't feel like anything and, again, there was absolutlely no air at all! The rest of this ride is nothing but a bunch helices and one rather mundane vertical loop. I noticed that the loop was made from steel as opposed to wood. There was a fair amount of intensity in the helices, especially the fisrt two. But this is a wood coaster, there should be some air time, not just helices! The loop wasn't that impressive either. This rides seems to be trying too hard to copy the Beast's intensity. The Beast doesn't need copying! What they should have done was build a more unique woodie with airtime filled hills and drops and then maybe a helix or two. Not just a big bunch of wooden helices connected by a so-so vertical loop with a terrible first drop! Rating 4
Next I took a spin on Drop Zone.
Drop Zone: Intamin Gyro Drop:
No where near as intense or scary as Arcophobia at SFoG. you actually have seats to sit on and they don't tilt foward like acro. The drop doesn't seem as intense as Acro and stops further away from the ground. This is not the sheer terror of Acrophobia, but a fun drop ride nonetheless. Rating 6
Last for me was Face Off.
Face Off: Vekoma inverted Boomerang. This ride didn't have the vertical lifts of Deja Vu but it was fairly intense and fun just the same. Good G's through the elements and not too much head banging. Rating 7
That's about it for me at PKI for one day. I had a 3 hour drive from Cincy back to Toledo. So I called it a day.
Overall park rating 7
The ops seem friendly enough and the park was clean and well themed. But the park needs more than just one good world class coaster (Beast). SOB was a huge dissapointment. TR was good but not spectacluar.
Next on my coaster trip is SFWoA! Stay tuned.
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TITAN RULES!
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X-Flight World's Only flying coaster!
Batwing World's only flying coaster!
S:UF World's only flying coaster! Don't you love SF ?
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TITAN RULES!
Ever since I rode my first Top Spin (only a year ago) I have been a fan of Huss. TR:TR sounds good to me!
It also sounds like you lucked out by having such light crowds, that always helps! Nice report!
Oh, and to DLDude, Dan gave everything a pretty high rating except SOB & Racer FWD. It looks like he WAS pretty pleased with the park, as a whole.
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Nothing... NOTHING... can prepare you for... the Fourth Dimension!
PKI isn't a bad park at all. It's actually very clean with a lot of avtivities for the enire family. Plenty of kiddie rides too. It just seems a bit short in the overall coaster department. I thought SFWoA had a better collection overall than PKI. More on that in my upcomming SFWoA report.
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TITAN RULES!
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