cdrptrks

I got there at about 6pm and went on 9 different roller coasters (Diamondback 3x, Beast 2x, Flight of Fear, Firehawk, Back Lot Stunt Coaster, Invertigo, Flight Deck, Racer, Adventure Express) & 2 other rides (Delirium & Drop Tower). The longest I waited was about 3-4 minutes for Firehawk. I could have done more, but I spent some time just walking around, playing games, feeding the fish, eating a snack, and looking at the park from the Eiffel Tower. Overall it was a great visit and the least busy I have ever seen an amusement park. I would have gone on Vortex, but I got in line about a minute too late to ride The Beast before the fireworks so I just stayed in The Beast queue during the fireworks and got on the last train of the night. At 3pm on Friday the forecast was calling for rain by 8 or 9pm, but it never rained a drop while I was there.

I guess I will plan to go. I generally hope for a semi-bad forecast for day trips to amusement parks, but is is more nerve-racking when you only have 5 hours of time at the park and about 2.25 hours of driving each way.

I was thinking about going to KI tomorrow evening from about 5pm to 10pm, but now I am afraid that I will get there and not get to ride anything (50% chance of rain from 6pm on according to the forecast). Has anyone else had a good experience with a similar situation? What is your advice? Also, is there a place to get discount starlight tickets? They are $24.99 at the gate according to the KI website.

I was also there yesterday and had some similar experiences. I rode Vortex right before I had to leave and I didn't have time to wait for 5-1 or 1-1, so I ended up on 2-2 and it was a very painful ride. I rode Beast and I thought it was boring because of the increased braking. They either should have retracked the tunnels and left the breaks alone or changed the brakes and left the tunnels alone, but not both! I also thought 1-2 was pretty rough for the first half of Flight of Fear. I enjoyed Diamondback, especially Row 2, but my last (4th) ride I was assigned a seat towards the middle (Row 8?) on either the red or gold train and there were unusual rough vibrations at the bottom of each hill. That DB ride shook me up more than The Beast did. I did not notice unusual vibrations on my other 3 DB rides. Also, of my 4 rides, only once did the ride op assigning seats allow any requests from the people in the regular line. I agree that Flight Deck really needs to be painted.

Line jumping will only escalate to violence if you try to block the person or call them out. If you just quietly get a person near you to agree with you when you get to the station you can both tell the ride op about it without having to worry about violence, and the park should take care of the situation. To me, it is not worth risking my wellbeing over a wait of a few more minutes. My thoughts exactly. It just isn't worth the risk of directly confronting a line jumper when you consider that they will only add a minute or two to your wait time.

I was at the park today. Yes, there were lots of kids, and I personally saw 6 or 7 line jumpers, 2 or 3 smokers walking around, an offensive shirt, and multiple people using vulgar language, not to mention that Delirium, my all time favorite flat ride at any park, broke down before I got to ride it, but I still enjoyed my visit. It is your fault that you let a line jumper ruin your day. Seriously, you took over 2 hours to drive to KI and you left over 8 hours before closing because of a 5 minute or less delay caused by a line jumper? I understand your frustration, but leaving because of this is overreacting. If you would have arrived in time for ERT and the first hour of operation you would have found the lines to be much more reasonable. I literally walked on to The Beast at about 10:20am today. (However, they have now trimmed it so much that I actually got off thinking that it was boring.) Also, Boomerang Bay was not very crowded today and the water was fairly warm. All the slides that were open had a wait of 5 minutes or less (except for Tazmanian Typhoon, I would guess it was around a 15 minute wait). Next time you should make the best of the situation and just realize that you will still get to ride the ride, even if it takes a few minutes longer. Now if someone had cut in front of you and forced you exit the queue without riding the ride that would be a cause for your level of irritation. EDIT: My experience with Cedar Point is that there is less line jumping and it is dealt with better, so don't expect the line jumping at Cedar Point to be as bad as it is at Kings Island.

I will be going with a group, but I will probably break away from the group and be a single rider for some of the time, especially if they are riding rides that I don't want to ride. I will try to take advantage of Diamondback's single rider line if the other people in my group don't want to ride DB. Does anyone have seating recommendations for other rides/coasters besides 5-1 on Vortex? I was looking for the operating hours of Boomerang Bay on the Kings Island website and I couldn't find them. Does anyone know what they are for tomorrow or where I could find them? Also, are there a usually lot of passholders already in Boomerang Bay when it opens to the general public? Can you get through the ChicFilA/Central Grill/Ice Cream area to Diamondback or do you have to go around past BLSC & LaRosa's & Vortex and cross under DB's lift hill to get to Diamondback? Any other tips/recommendations? Thanks!

If you don't want to read my longwinded post, the basic questions are in bold. I am planning to go to Kings Island this Friday, May 29th. I have probably been to Kings Island at least 5 times in the last 12 years or so, but I don't know any of the "inside tips/strategies" that I have been reading about here. That is why I signed up to post. I have been reading this forum a lot lately because of Diamondback and I am eager to ride it. So, what suggestions/recommendations/tips do you have in general? Also, do you have suggestions/tips for the order & times to ride the rides (& the water rides) to get the shortest possible waits? "Unfortunately", Friday only has a 10% chance of rain and most of the days around it have a much higher chance of rain. Do you think this will cause the park to be a lot more crowded? Are the local schools still in session? I will not get to do early entry because I will be using a regular ticket. When do you recommend I ride Diamondback for the shortest wait? I would think first thing in the morning would be a good time if I get there in time to line up on International Street and run to it. Is this a good idea? I read in the opening day discussion that Diamondback has more airtime later in the day after it warms up. Is this still true now that the overnight lows are in the 60's? Unfortunately I will have to leave at about 7:30pm, so I won't get to do a night ride on Diamondback and/or Beast. (Last year I got my first night ride on Beast and it was WAY better at night.) I don't plan to ride The Crypt since the ride cycle has been toned down. I also don't plan to ride Invertigo because I have been on it in the past and it isn't a spectacular ride and it has terrible capacity (to be expected). I also don't plan to ride Firehawk. I ran to it first thing during my last trip and it was walk on, but I didn't think it was that great. I rode in the very back, so maybe that negatively impacted the ride experience. Plus I have read that the Firehawk line tends to get very long. I read that Vortex's best seat for airtime and smoothness is 5-1. Are there "best" seats on other rides that I should know about? It would be great to get some tips that the general public doesn't know about. I went last year on the first Friday in June (the 6th) and it was good weather but not very busy, especially in the morning. What kind of wait times should I be expecting for this time of year considering that the weather forecast is good? I have gathered that a bad weather forecast means very short waits, so I was kind of hoping for a semi-bad forecast that wasn't actually correct. Summary of my trip last year on Friday, June 6th: I arrived a little bit before 10am and ran to Firehawk (no wait), then walked right on to Flight of Fear with no wait, then went on Back Lot Stunt Coaster with a 3-4 train wait, then basically walked on to Vortex, then walked on to Beast twice in a row, and then it was 11:15am and I was ready for a little break . I was able to do every coaster except Invertigo (didn't want to) and Son of Beast (rattled me a lot on a previous visit and Delirium was a higher priority) as well as (nearly) every ride in the waterpark that day. Should I expect to be able to get the same amount of rides in this year? I really enjoyed that Beast was walk on in the morning and the evening (didn't check during the afternoon). I think the longest wait was around 35 minutes to ride Delirium at the end of the night. Last year there was no early entry, so I am not sure if my morning strategy will work as well as it did last year. Which rides open early and how long do their lines typically get before the non-passholders are allowed in? Are there any big rides that tend to have very little to no wait for the first hour or so? What morning ride order do you recommend for a non-passholder? For Boomerang Bay, is it best to get there right when it opens? When do the water rides usually have the shortest waits? I hope the water isn't too cold. Also, no cicadas this year. Last year the waterpark lines were very short just before closing (5 rides (& stair climbs) on Coolangatta Racer in about 20 minutes ). Cedar Point fansites recommend starting in the back of the park and working your way to the front so you end up at the front in the afternoon. Is there a recommended general strategy for Kings Island? Also, does KI have any specialty food items that I should try? Thanks in advance for your tips.