Thoughts on Kings Island 8.15.09

I visited Kings Island on Saturday, August 15 2009 with my girlfriend, brother, and twin sister. Here are some of my observations and random thoughts about the day at the park:

I love that Jeff Foxworthy quote from the time he was on the Ellen show at Universal Studios: "If you're ever feeling bad about yerself or your family take a trip to an amusement park. Within the first fifteen minutes you'll be saying 'You know what, we're not so bad!'" That definitely applied at Kings Island on Saturday. I especially love the girl who had the tattoo of a razor with a swastika inside of it. Classy.

I think the seats on Firehawk need to be tilted like 15 degrees or so,that way you are not completely on your back or stomach and you would be able to see what is coming in front of you instead of being forced to look straight down.

As we were standing in line for the Beast I heard a teenage behind us say "we're going to be riding the Beast in 3-D!" One of his friends smartly corrected him "That says thirty you idiot!"(It's the Beast's thirty year anniversary). There is a difference between intense and rough. The Voyage = intense. The Beast = rough. Boy was it painful. The first of many one-and-done rides of the day. I can't imagine how much worse Son of Beast was.

I overheard quite a few folks in the park talking about the deaths on SOB/Firehawk earlier in the season.

I miss the knock off Indiana Jones music while waiting to ride Adventure Express.

One highlight of the day was when my brother stuck a huge balloon under his shirt and acted like he was pregnant. We got quite a few strange looks from people as we were walking around.

Flight Deck is in serious need of some paint. Like bad.

We saw a woman push a stroller with a baby in it all the way through the Diamondback queue. She carried it all the way up the stairs too. I'm not sure what her plan was- leave the stroller with her kid in it in the station while she rode? Even more baffling to me was how she got past the employee at the queue entrance.

The second hill on Diamondback is to die for! You float all the way over it. What an incredible feeling. Diamondback makes all of the other coasters in the park look and feel like crap because it's so smooth and comfortable. My non-enthusiast girlfriend made the comment while on Diamondback that she thought it was the quietest ride she has ever been on.

Nik Wallenda is insane. I didn't realize how high 262 feet is until I saw the high wire at the park. I figured he would be walking from the lower section of the Eiffel tower but it was attached to the bottom of the highest observation platform. The cable was as thick as a nickel, 800 feet long and he did it with no harnesses. That just blows my mind. It only took about twenty minutes too. We didn't plan on going to the park on the date of his walk, it was just one of those "oh this is going on at the park today, cool"kind of things, a very nice surprise.

We were leaving the park between 9 and 9:30pm. As we were walking past the guest services office at the front gate we saw a large male being escorted into the office. Once inside he proceeded to take some swings at some of the officers and make an escape. They subdued him,handcuffed, and took him out of sight. A woman (presumably his girlfriend) tried to follow him into the office and was screaming "he ain't done nothing" but the officers pushed her back and out of the office. Never did find out the cause of the fight but made for an interesting end of the day, like watching a trashy TV show or redneck theater.

Overall, other than Nik Wallenda and Diamondback everything else was just "ehh." It was a very hot and humid day, most of the rides were more headache than fun, expensive food, and large crowds. I don't see myself going back unless they build another quality ride or offer some other incentive such as free unlimited soft drinks.

Photos and video to follow.

http://www.firstgiving.com/nickweisenberger

Interesting confession on the part of the young lady. If her boyfriend "ain't done nothing", by the rule of double negatives he clearly "has done something".

Diamondback is a dreamboat of a ride. I hope beemer floaters like this get installed at every major market park in the chain.

Agreed. B&M hypers are above average rides, but Diamondback and Behemoth are big steps forward in the hyper department. Both provide much more airtime than their predecessors (Nitro, Goliath @ SFOG) and are both top 10 steel material. Those new trains make a big difference! The only "gripe" I have with Diamondback is that trim on the hill exiting the hammerhead, because without the trim that hill would provide the single best pop of air on any B&M hyper.

Diamondback does really put many of the other KI coasters to shame. I find myself getting off the ride and thinking "what else here do I really want to ride?" Having said that it was the perfect addition to the park. It has a great capacity, it's smooth (sans maybe the exit from the hammerhead in the back of the train), and it's just plain fun.

I also agree about that trimmed hill. One of the only things they could do to make the ride better is to turn that off.

I've heard the Indiana Jones music on the Adventure Express platform multiple times this year. They must not have been playing it when you visited. I haven't heard the original voice over work for years however.

I still personally like Beast a lot! It may be a little rough but I went to Holiday World this past Saturday and I thought the Voyage was pretty shaky. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the Voyage but you know it is a wooden coaster after you get off of it! However it does leave you wanting to ride more and more. I feel the same way with the Beast. Voyage is definitely more intense than the Beast that is for sure plus AWESOME airtime. They have just trimmed the Beast down way to much. I still enjoy my rides on it though. I also like Flight of Fear at KI. Great launch, in the dark, pretty cool coaster. Invertigo is a nice coaster except for the slow moving line due to the slow loading times. I actually enjoyed their water raft ride the last time we were there. (White Water Canyon ? not sure) I forget what it is called but it was all the way back in what seemed like outside the park! So many trees and it really didn't look like a ride more of an actual raging river! Plus the pay to shoot water cannons at people on the ride was very fun and amusing. Yes even though it was a quarter I still had a blast doing it! Oh, and I actually like the Racer roller coaster there as well. It is a fun ride. I still enjoy going to Kings Island and hope they continue to add great rides in the future.

The other funny thing is that Diamondback often has the shortest line in the whole park. When I was there on opening day Diamondback had a shorter line (once the initial crazy rush died down) than Beast, Son of Beast, Firehawk, and Flight of Fear. Capacity is a wonderful thing.

Yep. I wish more parks understood the benefits of capacity. I always ask myself "Why?" when a park builds a major new ride that can only handle less than a thousand people per hour.

DB's line move really fast.

Having been on a number of B&M hypers this year including DB & Behemoth, I fell that the fast moving line is directly related to the assigned seating.

When we were on Nitro the other day, there was a reported 2 hour wait (we had a GFP) yet the many trains went out with over 10 empty seats. While I can sorta understand single seat being empty with a group of 3, I don't get sending trains out with 2,3 or worse yet 4 empty seats in a row. This in IMO is completely due to having a massive crowd on the station with hoards of people at the front blocking the rest of the queue.

^ Have you been in line for DB when they're running the capacity power hour? The line never stops moving, and they run through a full queue in a little more than a half hour. It is terrific!

Yesterday the DB line was short enough for some of the day to allow there to be no seat assigner. The station, surprisingly, wasn't extremely congested during that time, but we counted multiple trains going out with 3-6 empty seats. On a day when the line is 5 minutes it's not a big deal, but when you're dealing with a half hour or longer queue it does start to add up really quickly.

In regards to the Nitro queue, the queue gets blocked from people waiting for the front and the point where Flashpass merges, causing a longer wait than normal for the back. We heard the spiel every single ride when they would announce to people to not block the entrance to the rest of the seats. This, ironically enough, was the easiest way to slide into row 2, as there were never people waiting for it in the station!

*Edit for quick spelling fix

On Nitro (SFGAdv) the Flash Pass enters at the back of the station right in front of the last row. You don't ever merge with the regular queue. We got 3 rides in 1/2 hour and had a 4th ride in GFP that was 2 minutes away when we looked down and there must have been 100 people in the flash pass line. This was caused because the ride was down for 2 1/2 hours. My thought was that when the flashed that the ride was now open, those with RFP put in Nitro. They all showed up at the same time. The nice thing about that was it allowed us to get 3-4 laps on El Toro in the next 1/2 hour or so.

As to DB, no I have not. We always get a ton of rides durning ERT then go back to it at night for a couple of night rides. If we want to ride it during the day we use the SRL.

I posted some pictures: http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/56319.aspx

^^ Dave, I didn't word my post like I should have regarding the Nitro queue. Because of where the Flashpass entrance is, the line for those last two rows does get clogged due to people waiting there. It doesn't technically block the main queue but once you're in the station it's something you have to account for. I'm really glad DB doesn't have any of those issues!

^ Loved the pic of Mr. Wallenda near the Eiffel Tower. It really gives you an appreciation for how crazy he is!

Nik Wallenda video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KC7iyZht1w

More video coming soon.

More video from Kings Island!

Nice trip report, I'll have to agree with getting off of Diamondback and saying "What else is there to ride" Diamondback is the single best ride at the park period! The Beast is starting to get rough, but no were near SOB rough. SOB is only nine years old, while Beast is 30. I also like riding the Racer red side, Drop Zone (Tower) and Delirium.