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Mystic Timbers has just been named Best New Ride in 2017 by Amusement Today! I am honestly so fortunate to live so close to a truly special ride. Congrats to Kings Island, GCI, and everyone invloved in the making and planing of this ride.

^ Here you go, it's in PDF Format and has the top 25 steel and wood coasters all listed. http://goldenticketawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-GTA-Results.pdf Looking over this, I have more thoughts. In addition to the best-new-for-2017 and #11 overall Mystic Timbers, Kings Island also had Beast ranked as the #6 wooden coaster...scoring 666 points. So I guess 666 truly is "the number of The Beast", at least this year. Just a ironic coincidence, or something disturbing...? As for my personal taste on Beast vs. Mystic Timbers, it depends. If it is cool & cloudy, or dark (like at night), Beast is better. However, on regular sunny daytime rides, I prefer Mystic Timbers. Mystic Timbers also obliterated everything else on the best new ride poll, getting over 40% of the votes. Then again, 2017 was a "down" year with Mystic Timbers being the closest thing to a major huge new coaster (most of the rest of the rides in 2017 were much smaller). 2018 will probably go to Steel Vengeance. Diamondback continues to be ranked well in the steel charts, placing 8th. Banshee also made the Top 25 this year at #22, which is made more impressive when you consider the golden tickets seem biased against coasters with inversions on the steel list. At nearby Holiday World, all 3 woodies once again made top 25: Voyage was ranked 4th, Raven was 23rd, and Legend 24th. I think this may be closest Legend has ever gotten to Raven. I wonder if Legend could possibly even make the upset and pass it one of these years. (My opinion on these 3: Legend over Voyage, then Raven...) Wildebeest and Mammoth were #1 and #2 waterpark ride again, and they were the cleanest and #2 friendliest park again. Fury 325 won best steel coaster again, but this time it beat Millennium Force by a larger margin. It's looking like it is the new coaster to beat in this category, at least in the golden tickets, and it's doing it in a park that I'd guess is far less popular than Cedar Point overall. Millennium did claim #2, and Superman: The Ride @ SFNE claimed 3rd place. Iron Rattler did well, finishing 4th overall. El Toro- winner of the last 4 Mitch Hawker polls a few years back before it suddenly stopped- can add a 2nd Golden Ticket to its career resume, further cementing its status as one of the most celebrated wooden coasters in the world right now. Pheonix took 2nd place, and Boulder Dash drops to 3rd- they apparently had a minor accident and only ran 1 train most of the year, and they may have lost the golden ticket award because of that. Also of note: Lightning Rod shoots from outside the top 10 to 5th, likely due to being open a bit more this year and more people riding it. If Dollywood manages to keep it running and open on a consistent basis, it could eventually even take the #1 spot. Europa Park is pulling away right now as best park, its lead over Cedar Point is growing. The days of Cedar Point winning that award non-stop also seem to be over. And that's about all I have to comment on for now.

Awesome!!! Congrats to Kings Island & GCI.

Today was the second GE day. I worked all day and Vortex was no more than a one train wait. In fact, we had a ten minute window during last hour when no one showed up and all three trains were empty. On a day as beautiful as today, I had never seen the park so not crowded. Then again, I had never been to the park during a private event.

Congrats to KI and Great Coasters. MT has truely become my favorite coaster at Kings Island and is getting some well deserved recognition.

So glad to see KI get some recognition outside of Planet Snoopy!

Well deserved. Also, I find it ironic that the relatively small GCI did something that big ol' Diamondback and Banshee both failed to do in 2009 & 2014. (Though I still think Banshee got screwed over since the ride that beat that opened in late 2013, not 2014) Also for those wondering, Mystic Timbers was 11th overall on the best wood coasters list. I was kinda expecting it to be closer or above Beast, given how most people compare the 2 coasters, but I think Beast had a lot more riders due to being open much longer (35+ more years) and thus more votes (This is one of the big reasons the Golden Ticket awards are not my main go-to for comparing how people view coasters- popular coasters, even if they suck- granted Beast clearly does not to most, will get more votes than a great coaster in the middle of nowhere.). I fully expect, so long as the ride quality does not decrease, Mystic Timbers will rise to a higher overall spot in the 2018 wood coaster results, possibly even passing Beast eventually since it is at the same popular park.

Woohoo! Well deserved!

My wife and I love love football so this year are fiances allowed us to get season tickets for the first time. We headed downtown and found parking for $5.00. We went to Jefferson Social and had two over priced beers before the game. We got to our seats just before kick off. Not only was the football bad to watch but so was the stadium. The escalators where broken and the credit card machines were down again so we were unable to get anything to drink or eat at the game. We still had a great time at the game but too bad we had to watch some horrible football with no beer!

So I don’t post on here anywhere as much as I used to, but when I was much more active on KIC, one of my favorite things to do was create Photo Trip Reports. I loved authoring travelogues on places ranging from Cedar Point to Camden Park to the occasional visit to my home park of Kings Island. Over the past ten years though, the allure of visiting parks somewhat faded (although, if you follow my site by chance, I still visited plenty of abandoned ones). That all changed recently when I went to Kentucky Kingdom. So I’ve got a photo trip report in two parts. Part 1: Before/After In 2011, I had the opportunity to tour the park when it was closed/abandoned. Multiple ownership groups grappled for control, but now the park is very much alive. Check out side by side, interactive images showing what’s changed here. Part 2: A review I also took some time to just enjoy the park, ride the coasters, and have a look around. Overall, I think KK is pretty good, but what’s the deal with the constant one train operation? Overall, I'm pretty surprised at just how good this park ended up being. I had my doubts, but it won me over. Read more here. Thanks for checking it out! I have to say, it felt good to write a PTR again!

Yes! That's exactly what I think. He could be doing so much to help this city/team/stadium , but he doesn't. He's the reason I don't support the Bengals.

Congratulations to Kings Island and GCI for teaming up and creating a masterpiece of a roller coaster. Now with The Beast and Mystic Timbers next to each other, it's a one two punch in Rivertown. By the way, is there a link from golden tickets to show the complete list of both steel and wooden roller coasters?

I think it was pretty bad that you couldn't even buy anything with a credit card!

If the stadium is as bad as the team, then it's time to demand that Mike Brown sell the team. He is the root of all of the Bengals' problems.

I love Kings Island because of the ambience of walking into International Street and hearing timeless instrumental music and movie themes. Oh, wait...

I LOVED Mystic Timbers, GCI and the team did a great job. one if not the best ride in the park for me! And on that day it was running smoother than Banshee and Diamondback

My first childhood memory. The Beast. Cirque shows. The Chicken Shack.

Thanks @jtro223! I have a second part to that one which deals with a review of the park itself: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2017/09/kentucky-kingdon-six-years-later-part-2.html

I think this is what you're talking about.

I personally like the Haunt-Mass decoration mash-up in the left of the picture