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Hello Coaster Fans Who Are Now Own Stock In Aloe,
Shawna and I went to Holiday World at the beginning of the day and made a 1 hour trip over to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom (SFKK) for the other half. I can tell you we both keep a VERY open mind no matter what type of park we visit, big or small. We have been to many parks that people thought were bad and we ended up loving them and vice-a-versa. But after my trip a famous saying comes to mind...actually two. First one would be, "Run a way! Run a way!" the other (mind you have never smoked anything in my life), "I would have _________(insert: ridden a coaster) but I was high" But don't worry, not all was bad.
We both knew very little about this park. I have heard that they haven't received anything new, or that it shares a parking lot but nothing much in the overall aspect of the park. I knew it was near the airport so that helped finding it. The best part about this park, $3 parking! SWEET! I haven't been to a SF park that cheap in years! It was kind of confusing since SFKK shares the same parking as Louisville's Expo Center. Way to many parking lots around the area, but you can see the park so we just kept heading towards it. We passed all the cars and practically pulled right up to the front gate.
First thing I noticed, the front gate. Can we say landscaping? In my own humble opinion, the front gate is your first chance to make a good impression. There are bricks and that is it. There are weeds EVERYWHERE growing up through them. How hard is to throw some weed killer on them? I would think that they could at least have an entrance like SFDL or SFWoA (since they were basically in the same situation when they were all bought.) We walked right in with no problem (the metal detectors here or SOLY for looks.) Ok, now who put a freaking drop ride right at the front gate? If I did that in RCT my guests would leave ;) Shawna and both agreed that this is the worst placed ride ANYWHERE at ANY park. I like the little fountain going around the front of it, but that's just it, it's little. Make the water shoot up or something. Off we went.
Shawna and I had no idea how to get around this park (we did have a map though which helped later.) but we did see coasters. We headed to the left towards the sight of Chang. During our walk we QUICKLY noticed we didn't fit the crowd type here. I don't want to get into any stereotyping here but it's next to impossible if you saw the stuff (and smelled the stuff) we did. More on that later. We looked at the flat rides but we wanted the coasters still. How the heck do you get to the coasters?! I looked at Shawna and saw some people coming out of the bushes. I told Shawna, "I think that's the bridge to the other side I read about." Mind you there were no signs anywhere telling about the SMALL bridge. We headed up that. What a strange bridge. This park is literally divided into two with only one way to get across. Why don't they add another bridge or tunnel? It was nuts trying to get across this thing...fight for your life! Mind it was Sat. but 300+ people trying to cross a bridge that is only 6ft. wide is NOT good. We did make it across though.
Chang was off to the left so we headed towards that. After a RUDE encounter with some "hicks" (I use that term of anyone having over 3 holes in their clothes and smoking more than 3 cigarettes in 20 min.) trying to line jump in front of us (Shawna blasted them down) we were in line. The ride does look awesome layout wise but suffers from upkeep. The paint job looks better than Mantis but not by far (someone PLEASE paint Mantis) The station was so dirty and nasty it wasn't even funny. Gum and chew was everywhere. We didn't care where we wanted to ride so we got into row 3 with a one train wait, we were on. Some guy and lady that got on next to us were SOOoo trashed with alcohol it backed up my reason even more why parks shouldn't have it. The problem with the guy was what he was saying. He went on talking and describing stuff that I wouldn't even say in an adult sex ed class! All throughout the ride he was doing this. Ok, now ignoring the rude things about the guy. I noticed that on the right of the lift hill there are genuine "Shacks" that was pretty funny. This ride is so nice since there are no trims on the first hill. I actually rank this 3rd on my standup coaster list (behind 1st King Cobra and 2nd Riddler's Revenge.) This ride has fast pacing, a lot of change in direction and intense G's. Yes it was a little rough but nothing bad. Standups need bunnyhops!!!!!!!!!!!
After running away from the guy Shawna and I found our selves in that store the ride empties out into. That's where it got even worse. We were greeted with what most call Gheto gangster rap music. I kid you not these were the lyrics, "F_ you N_ F_ your mother go F_ your F_ sister!" I almost fell over! I looked at Shawna and couldn't believe what we just heard. No one in the place even reacted to it. They acted like this is exceptable music at a theme park? I was in SHOCK. Yeah, I can easily listen to this music at home or in my car. But there are KIDS at this park. SF parks are suppose to be family oriented. I don't see any signs saying if you are under 18yr old don't come in. I would NEVER bring my family to this park after this and even more stuff Shawna and ran into.
Next up was Twister Sisters or what ever they call it now. We passed T2 (been there done that and way to long of line.) I can now tell why people think that ride is called Batman...what a stupid place for a sign. We made it over to Lola and Stella we walked to the right which is Stella...I think. There was a one train wait. I tried to watch them dual, but do they really dual? I counted one place where they really flew by each other (the first drop.) It was our turn to get on to the stylish trains. The ride operator said the would not be running the opposite side from us for a mechanical reason (aka they had to reset the sensors.) That's when all hell broke loose. Some black lady over there started throwing a fit at the operator. Cussing waving jumping up in down the whole works. What was even stranger the operator gave it right back to her. He didn't swear but he told her to exit if she didn't like his rules! Then some "Hick" white lady on our side said she let that black lady jump across the gates over to our side. The operator said she would have to walk around and then they black lady started yelling again?mind you all while Shawna and were sitting in the train. The guy ended it with, "Tough!" and we were off. So we didn't get to dual...no big deal we had a great ride anyway. I actually found this ride to be quite enjoyable and had some good pops of air and laterals followed by some surprising drops. I would have liked to reride this side or the other but it was starting to look VERY nasty outside.
I forgot to mention that REALLY strange path by the Penguin raft ride. What the heck is this? Anyone know to why this looks the way it does? It feels and looks like a back alley service drive. We walked around this watching the mirrors they had up so we didn't get jumped or anything ;) We walked over to Thunder Run. They stopped running it. Shawna and were both upset since this was one of the reasons we came down here. We have heard many good things about this ride. I guess it will be another year. It was starting to rain and lighting was every where. Oddly enough the only ride that closed was Thunder Run. They even kept the drop ride open. And I can tell you the lighting we saw sure was not fireworks. Almost all the stores, food places, and shops over on this half of the park were all closed. I didn't get to try any of the food places friends have told me about. Shawna and I couldn?t believe all the stuff closed. We liked the area with the Dutch village theming, which was pretty cute. I noticed, one of their big rides, Quake was closed. I was kind of hoping to ride this one. But other people told me it has been closed forever. The water park was closed but I assume it closed at 6pm like most water parks. After walking through and around 3 clouds of marijuana smoke and I can assure you that?s what it was. We fought our way back across the bridge again.
It was raining steadily so we decided to hit the gift shop. Shawna and I soon found a worse store than SFWoA. For those who travel to many SF parks you know that some have A LOT more neat stuff than other SF parks. SFMM and SFGA probably have the two best shops. SFWoA does have a lot of ride shirts but not much else. SFKK had pretty much nothing. One postcard, 3 SFKK shirts, and a few other things...very sad. We got the one postcard and a key chain.
We than headed right now at the front gate to see what's over there. We found out that the Music Express was playing even more F_ your Sister music. And a HUGE crowd was gathered around this ride. And let me say they were having a good time with the "happy stuff." After hacking my way past them we played a few games since the one BIG plus for this park is with a season pass you get two plays for the price of one. Shawna won a yellow lobster...interesting.
We headed over to this really big WB store. The building looked really cool and did have some nice WB stuff inside of it. There was a line on the side of the building with a few people in it, so we jumped in line. We found out while in line it was a simulator ride. After asking a few kids about that we found it was one like PKI's and was called Dino Island 2. I have never seen the first one so we?ll see how this is. After asking around 9 people to put out their cigarettes and an ½ wait that should have NEVER happened for reasons I'll get into we were in the staging area (this is where they show the preshow.) PKI does a good job getting people through their attraction. At SFKK they don't load people into the preshow while the ride itself is going so it dramatically increases the wait time. Not only that once we were in the guy said, "Hello? Hello? Hello?! I'm talking! Hello? Ok, How is everyone tonight...great. I'm a nice guy. So I'll make you a deal. I don't wantt to watch this LAME preshow, and bet you don't wantt to watch this LAME (yes he kept using the word lame) preshow. For those who don't know The LAME preshow just talks about how they want to catch this T-Rex. There you have it that was the preshow. Ok let's go in." I looked at Shawna and my jaw dropped again. I waited ½ for that? We got into the seats and the show started. I was pretty upset since I soon found out this was very bad computer animation. Simulators don't work for me unless the picture looks realistically or is in 3-D. Either way the crowd overall seemed to enjoy it and Shawna liked it (again I find more people who have been on a lot of simulators would hate this one and those who haven't would love this one...much like SFWoA's Mission Bermuda Triangle.) I really hope SFWoA changes theirs into something like Corkscrew Hill. Then we empty out into the WB store (I noticed a lot of SF parks now have you empty out into some short of store now.) At least this store had some family music and cartoons playing.
We went over and checked out the Looney Toons area and agreed that this is one of the poorest kid's area at a SF park. Mind you the kids loved it so it wasn?t all bad. I was just judging from Shawna's experience and mine. As long as the kids have fun which is the man goal than it's all good.
Shawna and I really understand now why SFKK people are mad at SFWoA. If this was my park and I watched another park so close get all this stuff...I'd be moving. On the other hand what is SF thinking? The only thing I can think of, is this is like SFGA who needs advertisement when you're so close to a city and don't need to worry about crowds. They are almost guaranteed people because of where they are located. But Shawna and I had a fun time telling everyone to take a 2 hour drive North to Ohio ;) In order for SFKK to keep growing they need:
1- MUCH MUCH more security
2- Landscaping...get rid of all the weeds!!! My county fair has better landscaping than this park.
3- Respect for everyone.
4- Clean up the family atmosphere...BIG TIME!!
5- Clean up the eyesores...gum, foul language writings, pathways.
6- Management that genuinely cares about the park, not just coperate.
7- A nice entrance.
Overall this park does have potential. I can't believe it has gone so far down hill after making a huge push when SF bought the park. SFDL and SFWoA look nothing like this park does. Granted it?s hard to compare them to SFKK but way back when they were in the same boat along with SFNE. I hope this park can pull out of it. By the way if they haven't built a big ride in a few years why haven?t they built a new landscaped entrance? That really seems like a no brainer to me? I don't know, but Shawna and I left with a not so good feeling in our stomachs and head. Just from the language, drugs, music, alcohol, etc. We got back in the car yelling, "Run A Way! Run A Way!" Ahhh to head back home to Ohio.
I was such an unpleasant trip that I have already called two SF directors and have e-mailed this trip report to 5 SF directors in hopes of changes. I know everyone has good days and bad days at parks first hand. But this park had just so many things that needed to be DESPERATELY addressed that I/we need to do something about it.
"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
http://OhioThemeParks.com
Are you serious? They were playing Gansta Rap in the store? I like you enjoy listening to it as well, but in no way would I let my daughter listen to it. That is definitely something I would make a complaint about.
Of course (and I hope) that this was something that an employee brought in and popped in the stereo. I REALLY hope management didnt approve this.
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""To be the man, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!, You got to beat the man""!!!
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