King's Island 6/26 9pm to 10pm

Found easy parking in the "gold/plat" lot.

At 9:10, got in line for Diamondback. 10 minutes later, on row 16, the last row of the last train (water ride) and had a good trip. Metallik sat in the right seat and got the right side of his face wet.. I got my arm wet as I reached for the ploom at touchdown. I'll note that the ride in the back is a little more rough than a trip on the front which I did on Friday. upon exit, we went for the Beast.

We got to the Beast line at 9:30. There was an announcement saying that they will stop running the Beast in 15 minutes for the fireworks display. I decided on near the front of the train. I'm 6'7" so my position in PTCs are important. I really wanted the front row but the line didn't look like it would make it in the 15 minutes prior to the stoppage so we opted to try the 3rd row of the 1st car. I get an extra 1/2 inch there. The people in front of us decided to take that so we gave the middle row or 2nd row on the front car a whirl. Wow, smooth ride. With the retracking and the position in the car, I could honest try to keep my arms up without beating the rest of my body up on the ride. Definitely want to ride that again. The trims were active in all places and the "hole" in the turn into the tunnel breakrun didn't kill me either. It was pitch black in tunnel 1 which induced screaming throughout the train. The helix wasn't as dark but the ride was great overall.

Windseeker wasn't running so we didn't try for it but we wanted to ride Vortex in the back. It was walk on. In fact, we had to run to get the front row of the back car. I have to be in the front row of any of this style of train because of my height again. There were people in the absolute back and only the 1st 6 rows of the front were filled. The 1st hill drop packs a pretty decent punch in the back. The view of the rest of the train during the loops is a good feature of the back as well. I think that the back on this ride is the better spot than the front. The midcourse breakrun nearly stops the train so you go into the corkscrew "falling out" in them. I enjoy the shoulder massage since I'm pinned into the restraints anyway. When we came back into the station, all 3 trains were stacked up. They dispatched the one almost immediately and the next train was filled similar with everyone toward the front and a few in the rear. We got back into the station and no one was waiting for our spot so we stayed. They took a bit of time in the "letting people on" cycle that we almost had to move but the kids that wanted our row decided quickly to move closer to the front. The people in the back row were evicted by new patrons waiting for their seats. Off again. This time the fireworks were starting (after the lift hill). I got to see some fireworks inverted at times. When we pulled into the station, they dispatched an empty train and noted the train just getting into the station was being cleared of people as well so that ended up being all for the evening. 1 DB, 1 Beast, 2 Vortex. All this in 1 hour. Not bad. The exit out of the parking lot wasn't anything like a rock concert.

A good trip overall.

Pat.