5-6-12 Kings Island TR

[Pillsberry123]

This was my first trip to Kings Island in a very long time. Though we had passes last year, starting at around August we stopped visiting due to other hobbies getting in the way of our Saturdays and Sundays, to the point that Kings Island became a second thought.

However, we renewed our passes this year, and I plan on making a ton of visits this year to make up for the lack of visits last year. We avoided opening day, and took our first trip today. I decided against taking pictures, since getting my pass and riding rides was at the time of my mind.

First off, it was an all around good day, but you can tell that there's still some things that need worked out. Staff wasn't exactly 100 percent efficient at releasing trains, and many rides were down before 1 o'clock when we left. The Beast wasn't even opened for ERT, which was disappointing. I'll say that the biggest downer of the day was the lack of the Gold Pass parking lot. I felt a lot more secure parking in the Gold Pass lot than out in the rest of the lot, and it felt a lot more exclusive in the morning as part of the whole deal. It just seemed that they tried to improve the way the parking lot was set up, but they didn't do a good job. Leaving was a tad bit confusing as well.

That's where the negativity about the day ends. I like how much more open the park feels now. I like how they got rid of the metal detectors, and really opened up the entrance plaza in the morning. Getting there, I was happy to see that we now have a full hour of ERT every morning instead of just on Saturdays.

Since Beast was down all ERT, I got 3 rides on Diamondback to wake me up from my coaster withdraw. The airtime was good, it was fast, but not quite as intense as I like. Overall, this is still a good coaster and for it's 4th(??) year open I'm glad to see that it's still the jewel steel coaster of the lineup.

After the park opened, The Beast opened soon after. Yes, they have improved it some more. There's new scenery by the entrance, and there has been some re-tracking. The righthand turn before the brake shed has been re-tracked, which is amazing because this part was extremely bumpy last year. From last offseason's improvements and this offseason's improvements, The Beast is a much smoother ride. I will no longer make it a point to sit in the middle seat of the car, and I will make it a point to ride this ride at night a lot more.

After this we went over to Vortex to get a spin on this. The Travel Channel was shooting an episode for a TV show, and recorded the train as we pulled into the station, the camera man got a close up of me giving thumbs up and winking at the camera for a good 5-7 seconds. Maybe I'll be on TV? I don't know.

Walking down the Coney Mall, I got my mandatory spin on The Racers, and ended the day with a ride on the newly painted Invertago, which looks absolutely spectacular. Overall, a good day and a good start to the season. I look forward to many more rides on the newly smoothed out Beast this year, and I look forward to more trips by myself and friends now that I am a licensed driver.

To my mind, Kings Island needs to stress Soak City and Planet Snoopy in their advertisements this year. I would like to see a lot of commercials trying to bring families back to the park, and a water park is exactly what does it.

[The Interpreter]

Beast is no longer a part of ERT.

Thanks for the great report.

[jcgoble3]

Yes, Terpy is correct. The Beast was replaced with Invertigo for ERT. Many people on opening day either didn't know that or didn't care, which made it very easy for me to get first train of the year on Invertigo as everyone else raced to Diamondback.

[Pillsberry123]

Invertigo for ERT? Makes a lot of sense considering it's such a low capacity ride. Maybe now our days will start with Diamondback, then instead of traveling counter-clockwise towards Invertago, we cut across the park and START with Invertago and work clockwise towards The Beast.