Kentucky Kingdom TR: Saturday, 8/19/23

Just returned from Kentucky Kingdom. Special thanks to RCMAC for his insights on crowd levels during the state fair, as crowds were relatively light.

Knowing traffic could be ugly with the State fair, we rolled into town at 10:00am (park opens at 11:00, and checked in to the Homewood Suites Louisville Airport. It’s actually closer to the UofL stadium than the airport, and a very short drive into the parking area. It’s a newer hotel, very comfortable, good breakfast, and highly recommended.

We had no trouble with traffic at this time getting to the park. It was a bit confusing figuring out where to park with the fair going on once inside the gates, and the two people we asked were absolutely clueless. But we got there in time for rope drop. Apparently folks that came a little later were stuck in traffic for a couple of hours.

Overall impressions:
The park is fairly clean but the grounds could use some love. It also has perhaps the most bizarre layout I’ve seen. It’s not that we got lost or anything but… the layout is just weird. But you know what? I kind of dig it. Having the water park right in the middle of the rides area made it quick and easy to bounce from one to the other.

Employees were friendly enough but effort certainly isn’t on their radar. Have you ever seen Zootopia? Remember the sloth at the BMV? Yeah, it’s like that. I knew going into it that operations would be sub par, but man... they are absolutely horrendous. Don’t get me wrong, we had a good time but if we were there on a day that didn’t have light crowds, it would’ve been very frustrating. Anyway, on to the highlights…

Lightning Run:
Our first ride of the day. We walked right up to be told it’s on a delayed opening. Uh… at an 11:00am opening, it’s still delayed? Ok then. Nice kid at the entrance told us it would be 15-20 minutes so we waited it out. 15 minutes later he released us to the station! Woo-hoo! Then we stood in the station for another 15-20 minutes while the crew continued to test at a snail’s pace. We returned later in the day for another ride, with what looked to be a short line. The 25 minute wait was our longest of the day, and at any other park this would’ve been a 5, maybe 10 minute wait at most.

Anyway, we got front and back seat rides and WOW this coaster is nuts! Especially in the back, it delivers violent ejector air time. Can someone tell me why there aren’t more of these out there? Small footprint, smooth as glass, and big time thrills. And this is the only one of its kind? That’s a head scratcher for sure.

Storm Chaser:
We went straight from Lightning Run to Storm Chaser. Arrived at 11:45 for… of course, a delayed opening. Anyway, this is one wild ride. The feeling of weightlessness down the barrel roll first drop was unexpected, and the ride got even faster late in the day. Rode both front and back and took 4 laps on it in total. Despite the 1-train ops there was never more than a station wait.

Thunder Run:
Rode in the 4th row which… Sucks. It was really rough, but then gave it another try in the very front and it was tolerable. Some good floater air but didn’t have any desire to ride a third time. One train operations and it was a walk on.

Kentucky Flyer:
This is the surprise of the day. What a great little coaster! Yeah, I know it’s a Gravity Group ride which should’ve been a tip off but it had a lot more airtime than I was expecting, and consistent pacing. Again, despite the single train ops it was a station wait. Got two laps, one in the front and the back. This ride is just pure fun.

Water park:
The theme of the day here would be: CLOSED. Not the whole waterpark, but sooooo many attractions. And the ones that were open had long waits thanks to the awful operations. I kid you not… one of the slides we were waiting for was dispatching one person every 4-5 minutes. I understand it may be difficult to manage 3 slides by yourself on one platform but man… this poor kid had no idea what he was doing, and wasn’t in any hurry either. We hit one other slide, then spent the rest of the time in the wave pool, which boasts “gnarly waves of up to six feet”. Swap out feet for inches, and that’s probably more accurate.

All said, I’m glad we visited but really don’t have much desire to return in the near future. Lightning Run and Storm Chaser are incredible coasters, and any thrill junkie will love them both. There’s not much on offer as far as food goes, and while the Cinnamon Bread doesn’t hit quite like it does at Dollywood, it’s still really, really good. As noted there is plenty of room for improvement here, and hopefully Herschend will get it firing on all cylinders soon enough.

You didn’t do anything at the fair? I thought I said…

I’m glad you had a good time and that I wasn’t far off the mark with my impression. Like I said it’s been a while.
I don’t know where you’re from but remember Louisville Kentucky is our northernmost southern city. Or perhaps the southernmost northern city. Anyway, as a general rule nobody there moves very fast. Especially with the heat being what it’s been lately. And amusement parks in general are having as hard a time finding dedicated workers as anyone.
The evening I went to KK during the fair it was so dead you could roll a bowling ball up the midway and not hit a soul. It sounds like they’ve hit some sort of successful stride in terms of hours and attendance.
No flats to report? They have a good Huss Breakdance, a Reverchon Himalaya and one of those new Zamp Endeavor rides. The area near Lightning Run has a few newish flats that replaced the old Wild Mouse. The big Ferris Wheel is fun too. The Shoes came from Kings Island and I usually give them a spin for old time’s sake.
Parking is hilarious there, nobody seems to care what you do. And access to the fair buildings is difficult from the best parking lots. I wound up walking through a ton of horse pucky because the building I chose to go in was for livestock. None of it was clear at all.

We made a few stops in the livestock buildings at the fair on the way out, but that was about it. We were in the park from open until about 6:30, and with a 7:00pm closing decided to go chill by the pool and enjoy dinner. As for getting to the park... it was bizarre. We ended up making a lap around the entire fairgrounds because of the lack of understanding of where to park, and eventually just found a spot in the Circle of Champions lot. From there, it was hard to tell if we should walk through the buildings, had to go around... no idea. We asked a woman outside one of the buildings if she knew the best way to get to the park, to which she responded "oh it's that way" and pointed in the opposite direction of the park. LOL

The only flat we did was Professor John's Flying Machines. Frankly we just ran out of time. If we skipped the water park it would've been a different story.

As for the operations... I'm in Cincinnati. I can understand the challenge of the heat but it wasn't bad on Saturday, with low humidity. Trust me, I don't handle hot & humid well so I can empathize. My park visits are not as far and while as many folks here, but I've been to many, including "southern" parks like Holiday World and Dollywood in the last few years. I didn't expect KI operations or the heyday of CP operations at any of these parks. But KK was in a league of it's own of ridiculous.

Oh, and speaking of the fair... we apparently just missed this accidental shooting on the midway by a few minutes on our way out. https://www.whas11.com/arti...4e3f1b5d0f

Because 'merica.

Sounds very similar to my last visit. It's curious that Herschend own this place, it's at the right opposite end of the scale to Dollywood & SDC in almost every way and almost seems to be going backwards under their ownership - very odd.

I haven't been to Wild Adventures ...

Nice TR. My experience was about the same. A good selection of coasters for a small park. Kentucky Flyer opened the year after we visited, so we got a reason to return.

I am glad I never visited when it was a Six Flags park.

Kentucky Flyer is a fun coaster but by no means enough to move the needle for a revisit. If the park wasn't run so horribly I could see it, but in it's current state... pass. The park is two hours from me and it would take a very unique new coaster for me to go back. That's time and money that could be spent elsewhere.

But for anyone that hasn't been... Lightning Run and Storm Chaser are soooooo good.

Storm Chaser and Lightning Run are worth visiting for alone. Kentucky Flyer is the bonus credit. 😉

Our first visit we were there for about 4 to 5 hours. We didn't eat while we were there. It was the same way with single train operation. Our longest wait was Thunder Run because of the single train operation.

We are planning a trip next year to visit next year along with Kings Island for a long weekend trip.