thegajone

Do they still have the rotating electric coil game where you have to move the ring down to the bottom of the coil without touching it? It looked something like this: ...except I think it had handles on 2 sides of the ring instead of just the 1 above. It has to be the hardest carnival game I've ever seen.

Just saw the thread on this topic that was closed and wanted to bump it for those who haven't seen it. I've been watching this the last few days over my lunch break. Very informative about KI's history. I though the coolest part was them sharing the historical significance of The Racer. I had no idea that it was the first roller coaster built in the US in roughly 15 years. It truly inspired a coaster revolution in the US. That's pretty neat.

Loved the theming on Top Gun back then! And they should definitely bring the fog back there, and on AE. For as much fog as they use during Haunt, I don't see why this would be much of a problem.

Do you really think anyone is going to say no? Of course everyone wants MOAR FLATS!!!

Thanks for the comments on the crowd size from the regulars. I thought that it might have been more crowded than a normal Saturday but I didn't want to seem like a drama queen, haha.

There's no question that a vast majority of the delays in operations I experienced were caused by the riders themselves. But on DB the guy with the mic requested the height stick to re-check the height of 2 short kids who got on, and in both instances they passed, and rather easily. And with WindSeeker, I had no idea what the hold-up seemed to be. But every other delay I witnessed was certainly caused by rider "ineptitude".

If I remember correctly, the Huckelberry Hound parking lanes were way the hell out there. Thankfully I only had to park there once.

Ya +1 to the DB crew stacking like no other. There also appeared to be considerable stacking on The Beast though too while I was in line which surprised me a bit.

I'm sorry you ran into a few "Garbagos DeBlanco", haha. I was expecting to see a lot more and witnessed surprisingly little Garbago DeBlanco behavior yesterday which was nice. I also expected to be annoyed by the high school crowd but actually found their behavior to be very pleasant throughout the day. This certainly made the experience even better. I will certainly make sure my next visit is on a weekday when I take a day off work :-)

Agreed on both counts.

And I thank many of you for sharing good information to help me plan my park visit!

I'm perfectly content with riding the Banshee for the first time 2-5 years from now. After all, yesterday was my first ride on Firehawk and Diamondback, so if I was in no rush to ride those 2 rides, I think I'll be fine waiting for Banshee. And I don't even know what Gatekeeper is. Believe it or not, not everyone who posts on here is a hardcore coaster enthusiast! I joined mainly to get information for my park visit and share my experience with everyone.

Yeah I've lived in the Cincinnati area my entire life (grew up in Colerain, moved to Cleves for 4 years and now live in Anderson). 2006 was my senior year of college and my list trip there was the week before I graduated. As I got older and entered the "real world" as they say, my interests in life changed, as well as those of my friends and brother. I stopped getting season passes a couple years before that, but I still planned on trying to get there once a year. It just never happened for whatever reason. And besides, I had been to the park so many times that I was burnt out! I did make it to Cedar Point twice in that span, but a Kings Island visit just never materialized. And like Terp said as you get older, the rides start to take more of a toll on you than they ever did as a kid! I held up ok yesterday but there were times where I started to get a headache, or felt a little nauseous. Thankfully my Beast right was about as smooth as it gets on that ride or I would have been hurting at that point of the day! Terp, I am actually not the guy who was coming up from Atlanta. I read his posts though so I know who you are talking about.

I saw the elephant ears in Rivertown but unfortunately we just ate at that time and didn't make our way back to that part of the park at any point where I was ready for a sweet snack! Too bad they don't still sell them on IS or I would have grabbed one on my way out of the park. I wrote up a nice long TR last night but if you don't feel like reading it I would summarize my trip as follows: I had a blast, it was the busiest I have ever seen the park, the Fast Lane passes were worth every penny, the "Admission & Meal combo" was a good deal if you plan on spending the entire day in the park, the staff overall seems to be friendlier and more helpful (first time I have gone under Cedar Fair ownership) and I thought they did a great job with the Halloween theming. As someone who went to the park at least 200 times from ages 6 through 19, I just thought it was the neatest thing to be able to stay in the park while it was dark for roughly SIX HOURS and have all the rides open. In the summer you only get about an hour or 2 of darkness, and when I went to Fear Fest WAY back in the day I think the only ride they had open was Son of Beast, and most of the haunted attractions were fairly lame. If you go to the park a lot and have never been to Halloween Haunt, I HIGHLY recommend it!

Today (or yesterday I guess by the time this gets posted) was my first Kings Island trip since May of 2006. That year the Italian Job coaster was new, and it was still under Paramount's ownership, so needless to say there's been quite a bit of change to the park since my last visit. I will apologize in advance for using old ride names but they are what I know and I didn't pay much attention to the new ride names! My wife and I bought tickets online with the meal plan for $42.99 each, and this was very much worth it. More on this later.... We got off the Western Row Road exit about 5 til 2:00, and I couldn't have been more excited. From '91 through '04 I had a season pass each year and have visited the park 200 times easily, so I was pumped to take a trip down memory lane. Thankfully I still remembered that staying in the furthest lane to the left was the quickest way into the parking lot, because there was quite a line in the right two lanes. We had a handicap parking pass since I am a bone cancer survivor and have had some pretty gnarly surgeries on my left leg (it's 98% healed now and the pass expires next month), but this proved to be useless since every single handicapped parking spot was already taken. No biggie as I have been getting around pretty well these days, and we found a fairly close spot anyway. Before entering the park we stopped in guest services since we didn't know exactly how the meal tickets would work, and the first person we talked to had no idea what we were talking about, which as you will see will be a re-occurring theme throughout the day. Thankfully someone there did and told us we just need to present our pre-printed ticket to the cashier and they would scan it, and she gave us a list of food stands that would honor the meal deal and a list of foods that qualified for the meal and for the snack (which I can share if anyone is curious). So she was extremely helpful and friendly. Upon entering the park I was very much looking forward to that initial viewing of the fountains, but to my dismay there was a giant Halloween-themed structure blocking the view. The structure was pretty cool though so no big deal, but it was a slight letdown to have that view blocked. Seeing as the parking lot was pretty full when we got there and there was a long line of cars to get in, we though the Fast Lane passes would be a good investment at $70 a piece. Boy, was this the right call... After buying the passes we got a normal locker for $12. We couldn't get it to work so an attendant helped us out and gave us a new one. She was extremely friendly too, and in fact throughout the day a vast majority of the park employees were WAY nicer and friendlier than I ever remember, so kudos to Cedar Fair on that. We worked our way around to Face/Off first, passing some pretty cool theming on the way. The park did an AWESOME job with their Halloween theming overall I thought. The fog was a bit much in some areas but outside of that they knocked it out of the park. I went to the first year of Fear Fest back in the day (when a separate admission was required) and I don't remember it being anywhere near that well done. As soon as we arrived to Face/Off I knew the Fast Pass was a fantastic idea. All the turnstiles were open in the queue (a VERY common theme throughout the day) and I bet it was at least an hour wait in the normal line as the end of the line spilled past the turnstiles. With the pass it was a 3-car wait. I sat in the 2nd car from the right if you are facing the station from the queue, while facing down on the lift hill in the seat on the left. Gotta face down on the lift hill, it's the best way to enjoy the ride IMO. As a side note, I once got stuck on the lift hill on this ride while facing down for at least 45 minutes if not an hour, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. The whole time I just kept thinking that if the restraints gave out I would be a goner, but that obviously was not the case, thankfully! Anyway, the ride was enjoyable and made me slightly more nauseated than I ever remember it making me in the past, and I feared that I might have a rough day if the first ride made me semi-nauseous but I ended up being fine thanks in part to some Dramamine and Tylenol! Next was Drop Zone. Again, all turnstiles were open and the line spilled out past the turnstiles for the normal line, but it was again a 3-car wait with our passes (they let about 12 Fast Lane riders on per ride). It still took a while to get on though since the first car was held up for 5 minutes as they kept measuring and re-measuring a youngster that was oh-so-close to being tall enough to ride but ultimately didn't make it, and the 2nd ride in front of us was held up by a large man who they kept trying to lock in there and ultimately DID get his restraint to click. I had seat 7 which was perfect for a view of Banshee and the rest of the park. As I remembered, Drop Zone is one of the best thrills in the park and I always ride with hands up for just that little bit of extra rush! We made our way to Top Gun after that which we knew was not a Fast Lane ride but we thought we'd give it a shot anyway. The line started roughly where Son of Beast's queue started, and of course all the turnstiles were open so we opted to check back later at night. It's a nice night ride anyway. Delirium was next, which my wife was not interested in riding, but I remember loving this ride so I had to give it a go. Falling in line with the previous rides, the normal line was as long as I ever remember it being, but this time the Fast Lane line seemed pretty long, too. I got in the queue anyway as the ride was coming to a stop. It took nearly 10 minutes for the next ride to load as another very large man attempted to squeeze in a seat. He didn't make the cut though and had to be booted off, then they had to re-check everyone's restraints. After this ride was up, the Fast Lane moved maybe 10 feet as the next car loaded, and it took darn near 10 minutes for the next ride to get going as well. I still couldn't see the end of the line for the Fast Pass lane so I said "screw it" and bailed, knowing that I would pass it on the way back to Top Gun anyway later in the day.... Up next was Adventure Express, which was yet another ride where the Fast Pass paid off bigtime. It would have been a 30-45 minute wait without it, and was a walk-on with it. The couple behind us claimed that they felt like people in the normal line were giving them dirty looks, but I did not get this feeling at all at any point during the day other than when some white trash guy yelled "bull s#*$" a few times in the FOF line when they let a few Fast Lane people ahead of him when the 2 lines merged. For AE I sat in 2-1 on the right on train 3. I always liked this little ride, though it was always better when the fog machines were on and the spears jutted in and out. And the ride is always better in the front of a car with more leg-room. Racer was next and appeared to also have a 30-45 minute wait to my eye and was a 2-train wait for us. Backwards Racer in the very back seat was one of my favorite rides of all-time so it was a bit disappointing to see them both facing forwards. We chose the Red Racer anyway and sat in the 2nd to last car in the middle row. I always felt like middle row on a wooden coaster was a little less rough, and that theory proved to hold up well in this instance. Racer to me is possibly the most underrated ride that I've ever been on. I could ride it all day and be satisfied. This was another wonderful experience, even though our train lost the race (despite having a lead on the lift hill, we lost by over half a train length!). At least the trains DO race though which was usually not the case in the latter years of my season pass streak. My wife was hungry and HAD to have the Potato Works thick fries, so we used one of our meals on a order with cheese and a large Coke. The retail on this was a little over $11 so it already paid for one of the meal ticket upgrades, and then some. And the fries were just as good as I remember! We kind of did a horrible job of planning out our routes, but we didn't mind a leisurely stroll every now and then. So we ended up at Diamondback next, which I had never ridden before. It took us 30 minutes to get through the line even with the pass, so I can't imagine how long the normal line took. We ended up on the green train in 1-2 which was sweet. Love the stadium-style seating. I was on the left and had some nice views of the park up the lift hill. I felt like we got some awesome air where we sat, so I can't imagine how the back of the train is! While on DB we noticed how long The Beast line was, so afterwards we stopped in a shop and asked if we could trade in our normal Fast Lane passes for the premium ones and pay the difference, and thankfully they obliged. That was $30 well spent, without question. Following this we needed to make a pit stop at our locker in the front of the park, so we strolled through kiddie-land just to see how things looked on that side of the park these days. What a madhouse! I wanted to ride the log flume but wifey said "I am NOT getting wet today" and I wasn't about to ride it by myself, so we chose to give Boo Blasters a shot instead and walked on with our passes (again, all the turnstiles were open and the line started outside of the building for the normal line). I'm not a huge fan because all I did was focus on the targets and barely paid attention to the ride itself. I did dominate my wife on the scoreboard (~1,900 to ~900), but at the same time I longed for the days of the Phantom Theater, which really was a pretty cool ride (I loved the Smurf ride too but didn't get to ride it nearly as much as PT). After a quick locker stop we decided to B-line it to Firehawk, which I wanted to ride before it got dark. The sign out front said it was a 120 minute wait but was only 3 cars for us. Wow. I have not read a lot of hype on this ride, and friends have said it was just "decent", but I thought it was incredible! We sat in 1-1 on the train nearest the queue and I was all the way on the right. You really do feel like you're flying at times on this ride. And how can you possibly ride this without sticking your arms out like Superman? This quickly became one of my favorite rides in the park! While we were there, we jumped in the Flight of Fear line, which also had a sign that said it was a 120 minute wait out front. This was confirmed by people we talked to once the lines merged who said they had waited for "at least 2 hours". Brutal. It was still a 30 minute wait for us, but certainly worth it. We were assigned to row 10 (the very back; I sat on the right) which I thought might get rough but ended up being fine. For the first time that I remember since the first year the coaster opened, it brings you to a complete stop at the halfway point which I absolutely LOVED. I always wondered why they stopped doing that. It makes that section immediately afterwards through those steep banks WAY better IMO. The take-off though is the highlight and still one of the best thrills in the park, especially with your hands up! It was also nice to see that they still use that same video in the queue, haha. Since they got rid of the overhead restraints, I think this has become one of the best rides in the park. Upon exiting we thought we would try our first (and as it turns out, last) haunted attraction and hopped in line for Board 2 Death. It was roughly a 20 minute wait and while the walkthrough was only about 6-7 minutes, it was fairly entertaining, but 1 haunted house is enough to hold us over for a while. We would have checked out more but the lines were just way, way too long. I'm sorry I can't give a better review but it's the only haunted house-type thing I've done in 10 years so I don't have a great comparison. The zombie picture was amusing though, haha. After this it was back to the lockers to grab our sweatshirts as the sun had gone down by now and the temperature was dropping FAST. We decided to head towards Beast at this point and stopped at Italian Job on the way. What a fun night ride. As usual, all the turnstiles were open and the line was backed up basically to right at the very start of the queue. But for us the wait was under 10 minutes. We were assigned to 1-2 and I sat on the left. I completely forgot that this ride had a launch start so that threw me off quite a bit, haha. The helicopter scene had pyro, which I thought I had read some people complaining about it NOT having so that was a pleasant surprise. The last indoor part was pitch-black which made for a fun ending to the ride. From there it was Beast time. Only a 20 minute wait with the wristband, compared to what likely would have been 1.5 to 2 hours based on my past history. While in the queue, seeing the light flashes in the distance at the bottom of the hill for the picture added a little bit extra mystique to the ride for me for whatever reason. We lined up at 1-2 and I sat on the left on train 1. Man, what a killer night ride. Like, THE best. It wasn't too rough either. I did not feel the breaks on the first drop like many have commented, but I definitely felt them shortly thereafter. Probably a good thing though since it would likely get pretty rough if they didn't have them there. And then you can feel them tug pretty hard as you enter the double-helix, though that is probably needed to prevent the train from flying off the track! Going down that hill leading into the double-helix is still one of the most exhilarating experiences I can think of. I wish they could put the camera there to capture my face going into that! And I also couldn't help but notice what to me is one of the most underrated traits of The Beast, which is its smell! God I love that smell! It never gets old! Afterwards we thought we would cash in another meal from our meal ticket and hit up the LaRosa's between Beast and Vortex. We got 2 slices with pepperoni, 2 breadsticks with cheese and another large Coke. This retailed at about $13-14, so the other meal ticket was now paid for, with a snack still left to be used on each one. After this is where the meal ticket got "interesting". I was still hungry as only 1 slice of pizza and 1 breadstick is not enough to satisfy my dinner needs, so I searched out a soft pretzel to get as my "snack". The first stand we went to had only 1 pretzel left and it got purchased while we were in line. The next stand in Coney Mall sold them, but they were out of cheese. So we found another one that had both pretzels and cheese, but the kid's scanner wasn't working so he couldn't ring my ticket up. Ahhhh! We begged him to let us have a cheese and he obliged after some coercing, so we headed back to the 2nd one we went to to get a pretzel. When we made it to the front of the line, the girl looked at me like I had 3 heads when I told her we had "meal tickets". Thankfully someone came over to help her and explained how they worked. I guess not many people buy them? I would think more would since it's a pretty good deal. However, THEIR scanner didn't work either, but mercifully they let me take a pretzel in exchange for my ticket, which I no longer needed anyway. ANYWHO....Vortex was next. Probably a 45-60 minute wait for the normal line, and a 3-train wait for us. This was the one ride my wife said she would not ride as we were on our way to the park, so I was surprised when she said she would give it a shot. "I heard 5-1 gives you the smoothest ride" I told her as I have seen like 10 different KIC members post. However, this seemed like completely bogus advice to me as I found 5-1 on train 2 to be no more or less rough/smooth than any of the other seats, and I've ridden the ride hundreds of times. No matter...it still was an awesome ride for me. The transitions are awkward, but those corkscrews are probably my favorite part of any coaster in the park. I like to lift my feet up and let go of the handles through those corkscrews. And that batwing at the end is SO cool, especially with it being so very close to the walkway next to it. While the ride was awesome for me, wifey had a bit of a more difficult go with it. At only 5'2", her head doesn't stick out above the overhead restraint, so she had to deal with a bit of noggin-pinball throughout the ride. I felt bad as I had given her faulty advice regarding our seat. At this point she had about reached her limit for the day, but I still had to to WindSeeker since I had never ridden it before. Wah-wah. This ride just didn't do it for me. It was a 1-round wait only (and easily 2 hours for the normal line), but still took us darn near 15 minutes to get going due to a loading process that took FAH-EV-AH. The complaints about the loading process for this ride certainly seem valid to me. As for the ride itself, I was in seat 17, which was on the outside. I think I would have enjoyed an inner seat more due to the angle of the tilt, because as it was I just wasn't feeling this one. If it went slower I'd probably be more into it so I could take in the views a bit more. But I am not a fan of it going at that speed. Even though I wanted to hit up Delirium, Top Gun and the Ed Alonzo show on the way out, the wife was just done and wanted the heck out of there, so I obliged. Happy wife, happy life :-) We found a place to get cotton candy to cash in our last snack on our meal plan, and of course the girl working there had absolutely no knowledge of the meal tickets. After some convincing on our part she let us exchange our ticket for a bag in hopes that she could get someone to scan it for her after at the end of her shift. We didn't want to get any employees in trouble but at the same time we didn't want to wander the park aimlessly looking for food stands that would let us use our meal tickets! After that we headed back to our car and arrived there at 10:15, so we had experienced 13 attractions in about 8 hours. Had we not had Fast Lane passes, we might have settled for no more than 5-6 in that same time frame. Overall, it was a fun nostalgic day for me, even though I believe it was the most crowded I had ever seen the park in my 200-some-odd visits. Granted it's probably only about the 5th time I've ever been on a Saturday but still, it was insane. The park handled the high volume of guests very well though I thought. Every time I went into a bathroom there was someone in there keeping things clean and orderly, and there was always someone making sure that the crazy-long lines for the rides that spilled out of their queue were not blocking the midway. The theming I thought was VERY well-done, and the meal deal is certainly worth it if you plan on spending an entire day in the park. As fun as it was, today's visit will be enough to hold me over for a few more years. I think that'll help KI seem more "special" to me. I don't want to over-do it at this point in my life. Next year we are hoping to make it back to Cedar Point. I haven't been there in 5 years, my wife in 10. I always thought CP had better thrill rides but I always liked the atmosphere better at KI. We'll see how it compares this time around. Cheers!

It'd be pretty darn cool if they put a sweet, long go kart track that rides under/around/through one of the park's coasters. Doubt that it would be cost-effective, but it would be awesome if they could pull it off.

Thanks for the response! I think we might go with 1 meal deal ticket and 1 normal, that way if it's a total bust we're only out 10 bucks instead of 20, haha. I will eat literally anything, but my wife is VERY dead-set on getting the potato wedges and a funnel cake while we're there! These are non-negotiable!

Too bad Skylab and Flight Commander weren't more reliable. Those were 2 fantastic flats.

I too am going to the park this Saturday, for the first time in 7+ years. First of all, I want to thank everyone for already answering questions that I was going to ask (how large of a crowd should I expect, can you buy fast passes after already entering the park, what is the re-entry policy, etc.). Instead of opening a new thread, I thought I would piggy-back off of this one and throw this question out there too: is it worth it to pay the extra $10 per ticket and get the tickets that include 1 meal and 1 snack? Does anyone know the limitations on this meal and snack? Like can I get a meal at the Reds themed restaurant, or do I have to settle for a slice of LaRosa's pizza or something like that as my "meal"? Additionally, what qualifies as a "snack"? My wife loves those thick cut fries that they sell near The Beast (I assume they still sell these....), so I was curious if that would count as a "snack" or a "meal", or either one. Since I'm guessing most of you are season pass/gold pass members, you might not be in the know on this one, but I thought I'd ask anyway! Edit: Forgot about a couple more questions: 1. Do they still have lockers that you can rent out for the day and if so, where are they located and how much do they cost? Since it's going to be in the upper 70's in the afternoon and drop down to the lower 60's/upper 50's by 9:00 or 10:00, it would be nice to bring warmer clothes and not have to drag them around when it's warmer out. 2. Do they still sell elephant ears on International Street?

I'm sure many of you have stumbled upon this site before, but in case you haven't, it has some cool pics of remnants. Granted most of these pics are 7 years old and the webpage hasn't been updated in years, but I thought it was neat nonetheless: http://www.kiextreme.com/historyphotos/index.php?cat=6