Associated parks:
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TRAVEL ADVISORY:
I-40 is messed up in NC, avoid at all costs, no matter what. Let's just say I now the heart of my state better than I'd like to, especially Raleigh to Winston. I played four CDs during that long, interstate traffic jam, really put the hurt into the plans. I wished I had taken the route from Wilmington I wanted to. But I had to listen to outside input.
We got to Cincinnati late, late, late. After 4:30AM late, LOL. My wife had slept plenty in the car, JMHO. She was out in the room in minutes, but yours truely was jacked up on chewable Vivran. I slept until about 6:15, then I fell awake, realizing that on this very day, I would see the Beast I had heard so long of. I never sleep normal anyways, so it was to make no difference.
It was cool & rainy that morning. I say cool & not cold because we had just left very nice temperatures from our little beach environment. I was very happy with long sleeve tee & rain jacket. All day long, people were whinning about the cold, but I didn't think it was bad in the least.
The park offers a free kennel. Our second free Paramount kennel of the season, & a nice one at that. Indoor runs for my girl! She loves going with us to these places, LOL. After checking her in, getting our tickets from guest relations, inward we went.
Kings Island impressed me from the lot, I saw massive wood from the highway, I didn't know what the place would look like. The lot was, well, empty.
The fountains were nice, the little strip area there at the main gate was similar & different from PKD at the same time. Nice. From there, it was on to riding.
I had one thing in mind, the Beast, but when they put other rides in front of you, it's hard to resist.
Face/Off.....
Not only my first inverted Vekoma, but my first boomerang. You see, the parks around our parts are the ones without this kind of thing. The Invertigo was awesome. Walk-on to the first seat, the front/forwards first one. Not knowing what to expect, I wasn't even nervous or excited until we sat there for a few minutes before being hoisted out of the station. I had heard these things pulled some Gs, but the drop took me by suprise. I wasn't expecting the forces so soon, a real intense drop. That thing tears it up, the flips of the boomerang section followed by the loop with a hilarious rise, pause, then reverse. The wife was blown away, too.
From there, couldn't resist the wood we'd seen from the road. Sacriledge, I'm riding the baby first!
Son of Beast......
Rough? Beaten up, banged legs? After hearing those things, I just HAD to jump into the backseat first thing. We waited for one train, as they were only running one today. Amazing! Different strokes for different folks I guess. I'm tall, skinny, the trains, granted they do have little leg room, are quite decent once you start moving. The whole presentation of their ride was spectacular. From the highway you see it, when you get into the park first thing, you see it, from the station, you see the loop. Great design/planning on their parts. The trip to the lift is a barrel of monkies. The on-ride photo, the best I've been witness to, JMHO, it gives you the oppurtunity to get a quality photo op. The lift, well, it's big & loud. Once to the top, it does its' thing. You speed a little, slow down, & get ready for the drop. Both the wife & I enjoyed it very much. The hill crest with action & the helices, I can't give it enough kind words. Call me sick but I love that ride. The loop's strange, but the ride impressed me with its' layout. Rough? If that's rough at those speeds & that height, I must be into S&M, but it was smoother than I expected by far. We jumped immediately back on into the third seat. The ride was more, tossy/bumpy up front, but on this ride, it was misiting hard/raing real light, & it was a different world out there. It was sickly a fast ride, & the hands were red & hurt afterwards from the "coaster" chill factor.
I'm curious as to where during the ride this so-called pain to the legs occurs.
From there, I had to run to papa.
The Beast.......
The first thing I noticed about the Beast was the smell, it smelled like poo back there. Must've been all that multch & rain. But even my wife thought the trains smelled bad, too.
We walked right up to where we wanted to sit first, the front of the next to last car. Just for a taster run. It was very misty out still. When we pulled out of the station, we were on a cloud. Ever since I was a little boy, I've known about the Beast, now finally, after I missed a trip to KI back in '94, it was finally happening. I've seen it on TV, heard word of mouth, but still, I had no expectaions about what to expect, I'm not one to build things up for creating dissappointment.
Even with brakes, the Beast is a beast. Out of that first drop, the speed from where we were sitting was NICE, with force. The second you pass those magnetic trims, the speed's back. Just before & after that first tunnel section, she's hauling, especially that stretch before the second lift. I have never laughed so hard. That's a good sign. The second half, well, just about the bottom of thae drop off the second lift, supreme euphoric feeling. A blast of speed. I thought I was to die after that ride. We found it to be something from somebody's dreams, LOL, a true big woodie. Air? I don't need that stuff with what Beast was offering us.
The trains even suck! Worst indivdual bars ever! My poor legs were smashed on every ride, they keep coming down & don't stop! But with a ride like that going on, who needs trains? It'd be too much with prime trains, it'd put all other rides in thier places.
To the front for another ride, to the middle, to the backseat, which was MEAN. The back taught me a few lessons about where to sit on that coaster. We came back later in the day for more before leaving to come back for Fearfest.
Vortex.......
The scariest quee ever, full of yellowjackets. I freak out over bees, my wife wanted to get on, I tried to run the other way at the sight of the bees, people were amused to see me standing there "not to pass" over some bees. I finally darted through & we were rewarded with a quick one train wait for a third from the back seat. Amazing ride. Incredible air on the drop & the turns before the drop to the loops was well appreciated. There's one of those inversions that made our legs feel like they were being swept out from below, good stuff. Not rough, IOO.
From there to a "staple" of resonably reachable "Paramount Parks", the racing woodie.
Racer.......
Looks older than the other two, & not by a few years, either. A much different ride than Thunder Road & Rebel Yell, too. Only the forwards side was running. We grabbed the third seat of the red train & were greated by pain. That thing's rough! Those bars need to go, as the ride was trying to give air, but I was pinched deep into the seat by the bars. It was pogoing at a quicker than acceptable rate, too. I think I may have gotten my first headache from a ride, yuk!
"No sir, didn't like it, didn't like it at all."
Adventure Express........
I like rolling out of stations! The lift doesn't have to start the ride. Easily a favorite Mine of mine. The lift at the end is nawesome, nothing wrong with ending the ride with a lift, yo! See those rocky guys? Yeah, they're cool.
Flight of Fear.......
It wasn't but a two or three train wait for a seat about five in from the back. Once aboard, I thought the restraint made for smashing my foot, I don't recall this from PKD's FOF. It was tolerable, the ops were fun there. The older guy was being funny, funny, funny. A younger blonde guy was "at the controls", & as he did his "clear" thing, and pointed down the rows in the trains before launch, he saw us throwing up our hands, I think, which made the experience of sitting there more intense as he prolonged the activity, giving the launch possiblitly for suprise, making us wait because we were ready. The launch seemed to have a slight start then kick, I'd have to ride both FOFs again to compare, but I think PKD off the lauch is better. Knowing PKI doesn't hit the midcourse, we were ready to blast through some brakes. But the whole turns sections before the MCBR was far more intense, it was really flying before those brakes & erupted into that corkscrew like no other. Only ride we took Saturday, FOF was open for Fearfest but we missed it.
Top Gun.......
Fine ride. The speed & swing was tight, the pass of Son of Beast is visually good stuff. I was impressed. Seated four from the back, it was flying. I especially like the trip after the lift building up into the drop. The train looks so weird just ahead of you, IMO, like some strange fair plane contraption or something. No second lift, short but sweet. BBW's still my baby, though.
From there, it was lunchtime. Most resteraunts were closed, mainly that Festhaus thing was open. Nasty place, LOL. I stood there & waited for them to sit food down so I could grab it before the fruit flies got to it. The fruit flies were so thick near the condiments stand, I was afraid to breathe. They were all up the walls inside, gross! Almost as gross as that LaRosa's pizza. I hope LaRosa's is much better than inside the park. A good side to it, we were having a "late lunch", plus there was nobody in the park.
After lunch, it was time to hit the Beast and Son of Beast as much as we felt before we finally felt the road trip in around 4 & died. We got Fearfest tickets inside, but little did we know, the guy gave us the braclets. Since there was nobody else around, that's what they gave us, we figured they WERE the tickets. It made for a major pain, they thought we had been in, left, & tried to charge us again! Even though the time was right, why would we come in & leave, come back in at the start of Fearfest with obvious "NO REENETRY" signs up at the gates. Wish we'd been handed actual tickets.
One ten minute nap in the hotel ten minutes away, followed by lots of fun playing with the dog & eating Perkins in our room, we were ready for Fearfest.
I refer to the Fearfest experience as sweet & sour. It wasn't cold, in fact I almost broke a sweat, it near felt warmer that evening & dry.
We made an immediate rush back to the Beast. There were trains of people, but nobody waiting. Some kid was yelling about having a headache, everytime I saw him he started up, it was funny I can't explain it, my wife was like "that kid likes telling you about his headache!"
I can still picture his face looking at me real serious, then the informative "this ride's not helping!"
My wife told me she was glad to NOT get on that train because once the wheels start moving, my social craziness heats up, the yelling begins.
Any how, Beast was moving insane, I've NEVER had coastering like that before. A little rough, a tad of the pogo stick, but with speed & purpose.
We waited to get on one train, rerode, hopped off, moved up towrds the front, rerode four more times, moved back & rode again. It was about 9PM, there was still no people what so ever near the Beast.
That's when we decide to see how the Son is in the dark, & well, with two trains, it was about 40 minutes for us to get into the backseat. Oh, memories, I'd swear it was '81 with all the people standing around smoking. Glad I quit smoking cigarettes. The back in the dark was amazing. I loved cresting after the drop & falling off into helice blackness.
There were people, I mean people, in the park now, & every few minutes you'd hit a large, large concentration of 'em. The haunts had lines, the rides now had lines. I wanted on Vortex in the dark, but line was out of quee. It had to of been moving fast, but do the math! It was time to strtegically choose what was next, as we had near ERTed our evening away at the Beast.
The House of Darkness was at about 45 minutes wait. The longest 45 of me life. The house was alright, your chances of scaring me by saying hello to me are greater than your chances of scaring me with horror. The characters were nice. We were first in on our group, so that's the way you'd have wanted to do this one, LOL. The halls got freaky, one of the charcters even touched me, but from the looks of it, he fell over the wall jumping at us. The grown men behind us kept rushing up to try to catch us, well, because that was an alright haunt. The darkness does the job for itself.
Adventure Express ala dark was sweet. A girl getting off in the station with her boyfriend was laughing really hard. She points & says "You were scared! You were crying!" The poor guy, who was obviously on a date with this chick was very embarrased, she was laughing too hard! Then during the ride, this girl up front let loose with the funniest screams anybody's ever heard. The whole back of the train was laughing too hard. Thanks strangers for making us freaks laugh.
From there, we were going to do another haunt, but when the lines looked longer than the math with the clock, it was on for a 30 minute wait for an around midnight Beast run. The Fearfesters had found the Beast. When we walked out of there, all the rides, including Tomb Raider(which I wouldn't ride in 100 years, Top Spin+me=hell), the few coasters & the haunts. Oh, well, tommorrow again at hand, we split a few minutes before the whole thing was over.
Coney Mall & your trips into the various areas from the Tower at the fountains was amazing. I'm into darkness & fog, costumes rock, too. They did a good job in the transformation aspect. Trolling around the dark was nice, the place looked like it was meant to be that way, a Halloween park.
overall, I wished it would've been possible for us to do, well, at least half the haunts, the rides, you know what I'm saying! A partially open park full of people with limited hours, I'm sure there were people that could've easlily felt jipped some. The Beast had me wobbly, I really couldn't think about complaining, but it was crowded for what it was, JMHO.
Sunday, 10/20 was a cold morning. It took a little while for things to get started.
Once in the park, it was over to the scariest ride in the park, Beastie, I say this because of the yellowjackets that descended upon the lift, I was near attacked! I don't remember a time frame, but we took one Face/Off ride that kicked our butts. That thing's actually slightly freaky. The Beast felt like it was running a little tamer than the day before. We rode about three times before trying backseat, where our butts were soon kicked real hard. It was a mistake, the heat had been added & the fire was burning. A final ride near front was fairly wild, too.
By this time, just around noonish, Vortex was up. Gotta love that first drop! Then to FOF, TG, a front seat of Racer blue train ride that was alright, no pain, no complain, nothing but the nasty lapbar pinch of PKI. Another AE ride.
Then the stupid stuff, & I say stupid as in drop towers scare me, never again, it wouldn't be pretty. My wife HAD to ride Son of Beast one more time. So she rides Drop Zone twice. Her first ride, I stood too close to that thing, I was looking at something that near blew away when it came down.
I'm gueswsing it was about 1- 1:30 when the son opened up. So we grabbed our farewell PKI coaster ride on Son of Beast.
The rounds were made, souvenirs were bought, the dog was picked up, off we went back towards NC.
Overall, I dug PKI. I'd run back to Ohio for some fun at PKI before I'd run all the way back up to Cedar Point, which we also loved last year.
The Beast left me mind-numbed for several days. From all that riding, I swear I walked a little slower & thought a little less. Great fun to be had by all, I tell you, "LOOK! He likes it!"
I also avoided the I-40 version of the trip, which had us crossing the South Carolina border at about 9PM that night, getting homestead around 1AMish Monday morning. Not much sleep, but worth it.
I think that's about it. This week & last have been busy catching back up around here, but boredom built a TR, LOL, just sitting arounf=d the house awaiting tommorrow night's Tool show, which pits me back onto dreaded I-40.
~Phillip*** This post was edited by p_c_r on 11/1/2002. ***
*** This post was edited by p_c_r on 11/1/2002. ***
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