Park 8: Kings Island

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Day 16: Kings Island

We finally made it… Park number eight and day number 16 on the Coasters for a Cure Roller Coaster Adventure Tour. Kings Island is our home park, and on Saturday, July 17 we made the short trek from our house to Mason, OH so we could ride the last few coasters on our journey. Just before the park opened to the general public, we met our friend Kevin at the front gate, who was ready to ride this last batch of coasters with us. At this point in our trip we were starting to get a little burned out…not so much with the rides, but burned out on the sun (no pun intended), the heat, and the crowds. Utilizing our Platinum passes to the fullest, we took advantage of the early entry perk and made our way back to KI’s newest roller coaster, Diamondback.

Diamondback opened in 2009 and has proven itself to be an absolutely fantastic addition to the park, and it really a pretty sweet ride. It’s tall, it’s fast, it’s smooth, it’s full of air time, and really provides a cool, unique ride experience with the new-style open-air trains and staggered seating. Diamondback has really given Kings Island that key attraction that generates positive buzz from the coaster enthusiasts, as opposed to whatever the latest piece of bad news was regarding Son of Beast. From what I’ve seen and experienced with other B&M coasters, Diamondback is also an extremely reliable ride, rarely breaking down and always providing tons of uptime. The ride also moves people through the line at a whopping 1600 riders per hour when running at full capacity, so even when all the queues are filled up it’s still only a 45 minute wait (and there’s your KI tip of the day!). 45 minutes when the Kings Island is packed is certainly worth it for a taste of Diamondback!

Upon arriving at the entrance to Diamondback we saw that for whatever reason, the ride was not up and ready to go…but they were running some test trains. A few hours earlier we had a nasty thunderstorm come through, complete with lightning and high winds, which we were told was at least one reason for the delay.The line was only about 20 people deep, so we decided it would be worth our time this early in the day to hold out for a little while until the ride opened. After waiting around for 5-10 minutes, the line opened up and we were able to mark off Diamond back from our list.

Our second ride of the day was The Beast, which still owns the world record for longest wooden roller coaster at 7400 feet. If you’ve never ridden The Beast, you need to stop what you’re doing, find an open weekend on your calendar, and get to Kings Island. Seriously, go do it now. Me trying to describe the ride won’t do it justice…you have to experience it for yourself! I recommend a ride in both daylight and at night when it’s pitch black. You will experience two completely different versions of the same ride, with my preference being the night version. The Beast has also been classified as an ACE Coaster Landmark, an award that has been given to less than 30 coasters in the whole world. Our ride on The Beast was as good as ever, and we continued our tour around the park.

We tackled Vortex, the first coaster in the world to have six inversions. It’s still one heck of a ride, although the poor thing is really starting to show its age when compared to newer looping coasters that offer a much smoother and equally crazy ride. Still, it’s a classic in the park and always has a bit of a wait because of its popularity.

Later we hopped on the originals of the duplicates that we had already ridden at Kings Dominion: Backlot Stunt Coaster and Flight of Fear. I enjoy riding both of these coasters, although I wish Backlot Stunt Coaster was longer…just as you start to get into the ride with its theming, it’s over! If the line is more than 10-15 minutes I generally skip it and find something else. Flight of Fear remains one of my favorite coasters, and I always try to hop on at least once when I visit the park. The spaghetti bowl is very impressive, and I love to look around a little (or as much as possible) during the ride.

Right next to Flight of Fear is Firehawk, which is a Vekoma flying coaster. Basically during the ride, instead of sitting down in a seat you are positioned and strapped in so it feels as though you are flying. In the loading station you strap on a heavy duty chest harness in addition to a restraint that presses up against your waist and legs. During this time you are sitting straight up, but just before the train leaves the station the cars are rocked backwards so you end up lying on your back. At the top of the lift hill before the first drop, the track twists 180 degrees which flips riders over onto their stomachs which gives that illusion of flying. It’s a really neat concept, but I’m actually not a huge fan of the ride. I generally ride it once per season, and this was it. However, if you’ve never been on a flying coaster before, it’s totally something to check out…some people love them and some people don’t.

Kings Island is the only park in the entire world that has two ACE Coaster Landmarks, the first being The Beast, and the second with The Racer. The Racer, as you might be able to deduce from the name of the ride, is a racing coaster. Red vs. Blue, this coaster is original to the park and opened in 1972. In the early 80’s the red train was flipped around to race backwards, and due to an overwhelming response from crowds was left that way until Cedar Fair took over the park and began making changes. In 2008 the red train was flipped around once again and currently races forward just like it did in 1972…when it does race. Cedar Fair claimed that a backwards train was not consistent with other Cedar Fair rides of that design, and also that since the train was designed to ride in the forward direction running it backwards was increasing wear and tear on the trains. Blah blah blah. While I can deal with the “wear and tear” issue, I really think it comes down to Cedar Fair saving money since shortly after flipping the train around Kings Island consistently would only run one side of The Racer. One thing that really irritates me is having a racing coaster that doesn’t race! What a waste…

At this point in our trip I don’t think that we were tired of riding roller coasters, but we were definitely done being out in the sun and heat all day, we were tired of waiting in long lines, and we we also had enough of large crowds. For whatever reason, Kings Island happened to be absolutely packed on that Saturday. We have had a season pass to Kings Island for the last five years, and the park was as busy as I have ever seen it. Normally on a day like this, we would simply go home. Since our goal on this trip was to ride every single roller coaster that we possibly could, we had to keep on keep on moving to hit all the rides at Kings Island. We frowned at the line for Invertigo, but hopped in line anyways.

After waiting for about 45 minutes, we finally were seated on the train, restraints fastened and checked, ready to go. The ride ops had their thumbs up and we thought we were in the clear…then all the sudden the ride was shutdown. We had to get out of our seats and step back in line. Apparently there was some foul weather moving in the direction of Mason and the entire park stopped running rides. The funny part was that the sky was still blue, it wasn’t raining, and there was no lightning. The foul weather was currently pounding Indianapolis, a solid 120 miles away. Seriously, they closed the ride. Knowing that Invertigo was our last large coaster at Kings Island, we stuck it out through the one hour delay…and never saw any rain or lightning. It would appear that on this day they closed down all the rides for a mere threat of rain. Our level of irritation had been growing all day, and this surely did not help…the crowds at KI were easily the largest that we had seen at any of the previous seven parks. The heat was draining, and we had already ridden every coaster at KI at least once this season (except Firehawk, but who cares?) After our quick ride on Invertigo we decided that we had enough and would leave KI for the day and return on Sunday to finish the kiddie rides.

Sunday afternoon we returned to Kings Island, energized and full of positive attitude. We met up with our friends Grant and Jill, and their two kids Sophia and Bennett. Sophia is 46” tall and we planned to exploit her lack of height to help get Abi and me on some of the kiddie roller coasters to help us boost the count. Our first ride was the Great Pumpkin Coaster. Bennett is actually tall enough for this ride as well, so Abi, Bennett, Sophia and I all got into line. Right when Abi and Bennett were about to hop into train, Bennett had a change of heart and bailed! It’s alright though, Sophia was a good sport about the whole ordeal and agreed to ride twice so that Abi and I could both count this coaster.

For two years now Sophia has been tall enough to ride Woodstock Express aka Fairly Odd Coaster aka Beastie, but for two years she has also been a little unsure about how much she would like it. For a ride in kiddie land, it is a bit overwhelming…and unfortunately Sophia was not up for any rides on Woodstock Express, so we missed out on that extra attraction! Maybe next year!

After the Lammi’s left, we took a quick ride on Flying Ace Aerial Chase and that was it…no more coasters. Between Saturday and Sunday we had ridden every possible roller coaster that we could at Kings Island, and our adventure had officially come to an end.

Thanks for following us this far…in the next post I’ll wrap up the whole trip!