(-3 to +5 ratings)
We woke up around 9:30-10:00 and made our way from the highway side days inn to Kennywood, and got in the park around 10:30-11:00. There was rain in the forcast and nothing but clouds overhead on this warm july sunday wich kept the crowds pretty minimal all day.
We opted to pay the 4 buck "perfered parking" instead of the free and then made our way to the park. I told my parents and sister that we should go to the back of the park and ride those rides first, but sence my mom is afraid of heights she wouldent be doing pit fall or phantoms revenge so we decided to just stay as a family and follow the crowds.
First coaster i saw a sign for was the jack rabbit, but having never been to kennywood before, i didnt know where the entrance to the ride was. I saw a sign reading: Jackrabbit
pavilians 1,2, and 3 this way (pointing to the right)
so i thought this meant both the jack rabbit and these pavilians were over there. I was wrong and we walked the entire lenght of the ride before realising how stupid i was. so we walked back and found the entrance to the
JACKRABBIT- Miller terain double out and back
Sence we had already walked the lenght of the ride, the suprising first drop into the ravine was lost on everyone except my unperceptive mom. They were only running one train so the wait was a little longer than it could of been, but it was still very short. They werent following the sign, but instead letting people grab any seat until thew train was full so i managed to get the second to last seat on the train (after hearing someone on here praise the back) with my parents directly in front of me. Although i had heard the phrase "single pos. lap bar" i had always thought it meant 2 position lapbars (as in up or locked.) but it doesnt. Theres a bar that comes nowhere near you and a bungy cord-like seatbelt that also doesnt stop any airtime. Also, if you sit on the right theres a pretty large opening where you enter/exit with nothing but the overly loose seat belt to save you (what a nice effect.)
And boy theres alot of airtime.
The ride starts off right away with a curve next to the queue and a nice dive into the ravine which provided a nice float in the whole train, but a little added jolt in the back (even though the second to last seat was as far back as i got.) This is followed with an enclosed turn at the other end into a shallow dive where you meet the chain lift. At the top of the lift the train does a 180 degreee turn and then you go down a little drop. now your running almost paralel with the first drop approach. This short flat peice of track is the onlything to prepare you for the single most explosive moment of airtime ever created. I rode this ride 5 times throughout the day (this one, a 3 in a row series, and then a front seat ride to cap it off before we left) and everytime in every seat, theres a sharp blat of ejector air. you can tell that the train is riding on its upstop wheels the whole way down as you can feel the train lift off the track for a moment and enjoy the airtime along with the people its carrying, and then the upstops kick in and everybody says hello to the minimalist restraints (wether it be their legs or their hands, it always something). After this extreme moment of air, theres another turnaround and and another floater drop and up into the exit portion of the station, where the ride ops say "quickly undo the belt and exit to your right."
what a great ride.
JACKRABBIT- +4.5
(quick note* they were running a 1 train operation almost all day, with a 2 train op. from around 3-5 and they were enforcing the back to front loading all day except my first ride)
After this we moved on to its neighbor
RACER- Miller single tracked, double out and back racer.
For the first ride me and my sister went to the back of the right side, and my parents went to the second to last seat of the left. And we were off. The ride starts off with a reverse C curve. This is what allows the ride to remain 1 track and not have to crossover at all. How it works is one train goes out of the station and does a 180 turn to the left, while the other does a 180 turn to the right and then they meet on the lift. The ride is Okay, but nothing special and nobody except for me and my dad were "high-fiving" around the turns. There were a couple moments of air, but it was nothing spectacular. just a fun ride.
RACER- +2
Next we hopped on the AERO 360 which i think is a Zamperla Hawk. This was a fun ride, i liked it more than the vekoma one at SFNE. After that we hopped on the huss swing around/space ship thing which was very dizzying, but fun. Next up was the Traver Auto Ride which was much better than antique cars, but the absense of the gas pedal lost it some points. After this we hessitanly followed my mom on the train (which she hated, because she's afraid of heights and it ran next to the drop into the river.) It was on this ride that i had a slight revalation. I'm pretty sure that although i had read it numourus times, I had never heard the name Traver pronunced before so i have always pronounced it Travier, like Cavalier. But the announcer on the train pronounced it Traver, wow. I'm guessing i was wrong. NExt was the OLD MILL which is a dark ride with a few good scenes, but nothing really scary. My dad had been smelling the potatoe patch fries for a while now, and we were right there so we stoped and got some of the best fries that i had ever had. After this breif stop we hopped on the TURTLE- themed tumble bug. It was a fairly boring ride with a few small pops of air on the first hump after the station. I wasnt expecting much, and i didnt recieve much. Just a fun little ride. After this ride i mentioned to my sister (who usually watches coaster specials with me so i thought she would know already) that i hoped mom and dad didnt se the surprise on the thunderbolt, as the turtle gives you a nice view of it. She replys with "what surprise" and this convo keeps up for a while. We were gonna stay as a family for a little bit more (because my mom wont ride the phantom or Pit Fall) but she decided she wanted us to ride the phantom now and she was gonna watch a cheesey show that was going on. We said ok and headed over to the
PHANTOM'S REVENGE- arrow/morgan terrain hyper
After a 5 min. wait we were in the station and headed directly to the back (after hearing much praise for that seat.) and about 5 trains later we were on the ride. The restraints are a seat belt and a side ratcheting lap bar. There is practically nothing to hold onto, bbut almost no one puts there hands up.
The ride starts with a very slow lift into a curved first drop that pulls many G's. After this is a long peice of ground level flat track that actually lets you feel how fast your going, and your going FAST. Next up is a little raise into the big 230 foot drop through the Thunderbolt with standing air all the way down. Next is a high (g) turn by the thunderbolt and then another trip up through the great woodie. Now theres a turn over the Turtle with a weird little hop that gives tons of air. After this is a double down filled with air and then a turn and hop into the station. The train enters the station with TONS of speed left (which is why i think theyr still doing a 1 train operation.) What a good ride. Later in the day (right before we left) we (sans my dad) grabbed a ride in the front seat. After a very long wait we finnaly got on. I liked the front alot more than the back. The front really showed you how fast this thing goes. It had almost the same amount of air that the back had, but the air seemed more violent in the front (except on the big drop.) We came off it with tears from our eyes to our ears and a smile of the same.
What i liked most about this coaster was how non-melodic it was. I'll compare it to S:ROS @ SFNE. SROS has a first half of airtime, then a second half of g's with some bunny hops to cap it off. Everything is very smooth flowing and it seems to go together very well. Not PR, it starts off with high g's then its air time, more g's and lats, more air, more g's more air, then its done. It seems to no where its going, but it wants to take a few detours to get there. I really enjoyed this aspect of the ride. It wants you to not know whats going on, but it wants you to like it. Great ride, the best steelie of the trip.
PHANTOMS REVENGE- +5 ( i think this is the only one of these im gonna give out for the trip because i like woodies more than steel, so i judge steel a little easier.
After the first ride on PR we headed over to find mom but she wasnt there yet (she had hoped on the swinger) so i headed over to the Pit Fall which was my first intamin drop ride. I was riding next to 2 people who had never been on a drop ride before, so at the top i told them to put their hands and feet out straight, and they did. But once the drop started the ladie held on for dear life and screamed loudly.i liked the ride, but i think i perfer S+S towers. also, both times i went on (the second was with my dad) i got sat in the side that faces the river which was a nice added effect to see how high we were. The line for this stayed short all day.
After the initial ride i headed back and found my family and we went together to the
THUNDERBOLT- miller/ vatelle(?) terain double out and back with a twister section.
The line was in the station, so we hoped in line for the back seat of the nice NAD century flyer trains. In the PR line i had caved and told my sister and dad the "surprise", but i told them that after the turns there were a bunch of big drops, but i said nothing abput the drop out of the station. (MUAHAHAH.) needless to say the drop was good (nice float) and caught them all of gaurd. Following this is a little drop and then the lift. This is followed by a bunch of under banked turns and some good hops with nice pops of air (cheesey rhyme, i know.) This is followed by a big drop back into the ravine with some great air, and then another big drop with more air.
My mom hated this ride because of the location of the ravine drops (theres that river again) which made me, dad, and angie (sister) laugh the whole ride. The second ride we (me and ang later in the day) i accidentaly sat on the wrong side which was good because of the headchopper through PR, but made me hang on to the side the whole turn section. The funny thing about the PR head chopper is that there is a red padded mat added to that part which makes it seem like there is a posibility of you touching it (you can if you lean to the right a bit.)
THUNDERBOLT- +4.6 (right near both the JackRabbit and the Pheonix, which (as of riding it) is (was) sandwiched between in the 3-5 spaces of my top 10 woodies list)
Next we walked over to the Noah's Ark fun house which was a really fun ride. Everything was fun, the shaking boards, the tilting staircases, the rotating walkthrough, even the cheesy elevator ride and the corny water finalie. Ang even fell on the rocking staircase with rope hand rails when the people in front of her let go and the tension was lost. She didnt get hurt, but it was funny. Next we walked over to the lost kennywood section and rode the
EXTERMINATOR- reverchon spining enclosed wild mouse
The line for this was the longest of the day for us, it took about 45 min. (the front seat PR was about 40) This is my favorite wild mouse and my favorite enclosed coaster (the other to are disaster transport and skull mountain.) The theming was fun, but a little hard to follow cause the ride was so fast, and the spinning was great but it made the theme even harder to follow i think it was giant bugs attacking the city, but im not sure. My favorite part was taking the good sived drop while spining. Very fun ride, but only went on it once due to the long line.
EXTERMINATOR- +5 (rating compared to other wild mice)
After this we split up and got lunch, with plans to meet up again before we leave around 7.
Lunch was really good (and cheap.) after this we took another thunderbolt ride and then hopped on the
flying carpet (which, along with the roll o plane, was supposed to be closed all day) it was a fun huss rainbow (whats the stock name of these?) next we hit the enterprise and the pirate ship and then hopped on my old favorite- the bayurn curve. I remember loving this ride when it was at SFNE, but i forgot how intense it was. This is a truly great ride, run at a good speed. Then we hit up the music express, Pirate ship, and the small arcade. We then made our way over to the best flat ride in the park- THe Kangaroo. This is nothing more than a group of cars in a circle with a large ramp at a random spot on it. The cars go pretty fast and theres some nice airtime on the ramp, i though this was gonna be a mellow kids ride, but it was alot of fun. We then jumped on the fun paratrooper.
After this we took 3 rides in a row on the JackRabbit wich was running 2 trains and then headed to the Racer where we met with our parents again and i rode the otherside with my dad. After this they were going on the jackrabbit again so we went on that again and got a front seat ride (and they got the back seat of the following train, DAMN) We then (altogether) walked bak across the park to see if the Exterminator line was shorter, but it was longer so we hopped on the Whip, which was alot better than the one at Knoebles. We then went to the Chance wipout, which was a very good new version of the old Trabant, but is on a slanted platform. It span very fast and the sides werent padded so it was pretty painful (but fun.) We were gonna top off the day with a few rides on the thunderbolt and jackrabbit, but seeing the shortened line for the PR we instead got on that and waited for the front.
KENNYWOOD OVERALL- +5
this is my favorite park overall for atmosphere, i loved everything about it. The carousel that had an organ which i heard play that song "Rain drops are falling on my head, but that doesnt mean my eyes will soon be turning red" (which i love) and also that song Downtown which has been featured in a seinfeld episode. The small marching band that i saw 3 times throughout the day playing with smiles on there faces. The abundance of flower and plant arrangements. The lack of dead ends and useless paths. The smiling employes who ae always willing to help. The cheap EVERYTHING. The good (great) food. The excellent blend of new and old rides. The whole park was great, and i hope to return back sometime soon.
That took me a LONG time to write, so you better enjoy it. If you made it this far, you must really love Rollercoasters (like Mark D.)
If you can tell the lenght of this one compared to Knoebles (2 hr trip to an all day trip) wait untill the hershey one (2 day trip).
thanks for reading - Mike
Glad you had fun. It seems, judging by your second to last paragraph describing the park overall, you "got it." :) A lot of people who go to Kennywood don't know what the hype is about, but I'm glad you did.
-------------
Matt Lynch
Co-Webmaster, Kennywood Boulevard
http://kennywood.coasterbuzz.com
i definatly loved the park. Also, when i said old mill i was talking about the abandoned mine or haunted mine or something. I wrote the wrong name
