KI Kevin

The Crypt - changes? new music? bat operating? No changes at all as far as I could tell. Boo Blasters - beats Scooby? any surprises to look forward to? It pwns Scooby, by a lot. Tons of surprises. I won't give anything away. Backlot Stunt Coaster - how do the cars look? do we still have flames? Still flames, but the trains look ugly. Jackson, Josh and I all agreed. IS SOB sign removed or just covered? (Or just has a "Closed for the rest of the season" sign) Just covered up 5.) How does the overall Planet Snoopy area look, compared to Nick Universe? Great, very colorful

I'll probably be there Friday night to take a picture. If not ask either Adam (pkiboy) or Aaron (PKIVortex).

Haha, Adam told me this, but I confirmed it. The Coke vending machine costs $99.95! NO JOKE!

Mmmmmm it was great to be back. Diamondback-2 Beast-1 Boo Blasters-2 Woodstock Express-1 Crypt-1 Flight Deck-2 Xtreme Skyflyer-1 Very fun day, but the crowds pushed me to leave around 3. I was able to hang out/ ride with Beast1979, TheCryptRaider, pkiboy, PKIVortex, and KIFan1980, and I met Tom(numbers) haha sorry. Actually talking to you guys was really cool. Overall a good day. Can't wait til Friday night when it'll be about half or less the crowds

Somehow students in mydisctrict got lucky this year. For spring break, we got a week off, plus the Thursday and Friday before. April 1, 2010 LA Area and Knott’s BerryFarm: After driving to Louisville the night before, we got on our flight early Thursday morning Hooray for wing seats! I tried to get a picture of SFKK, I could see it but unfortunately I couldn’t get the camera at a good angle on it. We landed in LA around 2 PM Pacific Time (we had a layover in Chicago). Palm trees! We got the rental car and drove over to the closeby In-N-Out fast food restaurant. It’s a west-coast chain with excellent burgers. We cruised by Venice Beachand Santa Monica. Not that we actually got in the water (IT WAS COLD!!!), but the waves were considerably larger than, say, Myrtle Beach. That’s Pacific Park, an amusement park on a pier in Santa Monica. We were actually considering going, but we were sorta pressed for time. It’s neat seeing such large companies’ headquarters, for example we also saw MTV and Electronic Arts. We headed out for Knott’s. If I remember correctly we left around 6:15, and arrived outside the park around 7:15. People aren’t lying when they say traffic in LA is bad. However, in my opinion the parking lot isn’t exactly easy to find. Every logical lot for parking was blocked off by tire spikes. We drove the block around the park probably three times until finally going into the delivery entrance to ask the woman at the booth where the parking lot was. It’s across the street from the park, and you have to go under the road via a tunnel to get to the entrance. Anyway, really sorry, but it was dark by the time we got into the park (around 7:50!),so unfortunately the only pictures I was able to get were some dark ones of Ghostrider that really aren’t worth posting. Like I’ve said, Xcelerator was closed still from that accident last year. It’s torture seeing it there and not being able to ride. I had full intent on hitting Ghostrider first, so that’s what I did. The theming in this park is great. I like the Ghost Town area. Being in a crowded city, I was expecting to get only a few rides in the 2 hours allotted. Boy, was I wrong. I walked through the long queue for the ride to find a station wait. In all, I waited about 10minutes (turned out to be my longest wait of the day). Ghostrider was weird. It wasn’t really rough, but there wasn’t anything at all on it that wowed me.However, it was my first coaster since November 1, 2009, and I was looking forward to other rides more, but it still wasn’t anything to rave about by any means. 6/10 Next up was Silver Bullet. After finding it, I literally walked on to the second row. Whoa, this ride was good. Probably the smoothest coaster I’ve been on, bar Griffon. Easily the smoothest invert I’ve been on. It was plenty fast and intense. My favorite element was between the loop and cobra roll. It starts like a zero-G roll, but then turns you back the other way. The fact that you soar over a pond definitely helps. 9/10 After riding twice, I wanted to get to the other rides. I wanted to ride Boomerang (never ridden a sit-down one). Ugh, you guys know how this one goes. It’s a headbanger, it’s rough, and really there’s no fun factor here. I dislike the Invertigos, but I think I’d rate it above Boomerangs. 4/10 Next up was Pony Express….hahaha. I had been looking forward to this, just for fun. If you don’t know what it is, it’s like the Zamperla motocoaster, but instead of motorcycle-shaped seats, you’re riding on pony-shaped seats. It’s pretty lame, but sorta fun in a you-feel-like-a-little-kid-again way, if you know what I mean. The launch is less intense than BLSC’s, and it’s awfully short. 5/10 I was trying to get in as many credits as I could, so I went to Sierra Sidewinder. I was a bit disappointed. The spinning feature was almost inexistent. I really want to ride one of the Intamins or a Gerstlauers but I’m sorry that was just boring. 5/10 Next was Jaguar, a very well themed family coaster. You enter a Mayan looking pyramid with statues and skulls For a family coaster, it was pretty fun, about as good as Adventure Express. It's also pretty long. There are a good amount of moments where you can reach out and touch the trees, which was neat. Overall, I like it. 7/10. For my last credit, I went to Montezooma's Revenge. I really like Greezed Lightnin', and they're about the same, but I lean towards MR because you go under Jaguar and you travel through rings. I sat in the back, as I always would on GL. IMO thats the best seat because I can truthfully say that's the only coaster that makes me feel like I will fall out. 8/10. Overall, it was a good park. I won't say great for a few reasons: 1. The park is pretty badly laid out. I feel like they tried to cram most of the coasters in one area then 2 outside of that area. This results in longer stretches of walking. 2. The parking lot issue, I won't address that again. 3. Xcelerator was closed. 4. There wasn't too much variety as far as coasters go. What I think really rounds out many parks is a solid, sit-down, full circuit coaster, gravity coaster. Now this sounds specific, but lets see, go to my list here, and look at Favorite Parks. All of my top 6 parks besides Holiday World have that, some with multiple. Jaguar doesn't really fit this, I'm thinking major coasters here. Sure, it had a bit of charm, but not by any means even CLOSE to the other CF parks I've been to. 6/10. Final ride count: GhostRider: 1. Silver Bullet:2. Boomerang: 1. Pony Express: 2. Sierra Sidewinder: 1. Jaguar: 1. Montezooma's Revenge: 1. Stay tuned for SFMM!

Sorry to get you all excited. I wrote it on word with photos from files and its all messed up. I'll upload them to photobucket and copy and paste. EDIT: It's up! Sorry for the long delay, I had a particularly busy schoolweek and was at KI yesterday!

Dude....this idea is epic.

Got the Knott's section done....i need my mom's camera to add the remaining pictures on there.

Funny, I never have the problems other KICers do. My Pass has worked consistently at CP and KD, and also worked at Knott's. On a side note my SFKK pass worked fin at MM. Also I never experience linejumpers. Great PTR!

Not only was it "the first stand-up coaster to do a loop", it was the first stand up coaster period. Huh? Anyway, yeah nice photos. Technically a fact is a statement that can be proved or disproved. Not trying to be a smart aleck, just sayin. I personally think a few people here are a bit sensitive. Sure unaccurate posts are annoying but cut him some slack he just contributed to the site very much. The ride you linked to opened in 1992, King Cobra opened in 1984. Woops, wrong ride. But it was NOT the first stand up coaster. Scroll down to 1982 EDIT: Someone beat me to it

Not only was it "the first stand-up coaster to do a loop", it was the first stand up coaster period. Anyway, yeah nice photos. Technically a fact is a statement that can be proved or disproved. Not trying to be a smart aleck, just sayin. I personally think a few people here are a bit sensitive. Sure unaccurate posts are annoying but cut him some slack he just contributed to the site very much.

I took a similar trip last year. BGW is my favorite park. Must rides there are, well, all the major coasters (Griffon, Alpengeist, AC, Loch Ness). Unfortunately I didn't do anything else besides those due to time, so I'll let others give advice on dark rides. I would recommend going to Curse of DarKastle first, as that seemed to have the longest line throughout the day. Europe in the Air may have some pretty monstrous lines too, so you may want to wait for more info as it opens. Griffon has a single rider line that is a no-brainer. I went on a Saturday in August. Needless to say, it was packed. I went in the SRL and got on in 15 minutes or less every time. They don't offer free water, so for drinks you'll have to get bottles of soda or water. For eating, I like the Smokehouse, in the New France area, which is a barbeque restaraunt. The park is heavily themed and beautifully landscaped. KD is also very fun. I haven't been this year, but everything I've heard of Intimidator 305 is amazing. So I would head to that at the beginning of the day. Then Volcano (my favorite there), as that had longer lines than anything else. Must rides for me are Crypt, Dominator (front row is the only way to go, in my opinion), Drop Tower, Avalanche (one of the last of its kind), Ricochet, Shockwave (painful, but if you didn't ride King Cobra or another TOGO standup you should ride) and the Flying Eagles. We have clones at KI of FoF, Backlot Stunt Coaster, Rebel Yell, and the kids coasters. I haven't been to Six Flags America so I wouldn't know. Just my advice, but I've only been to each for a short amount of time, so other people probably have better. Anything I missed?

Ha! Though it is a fun ride, let's face it can't you at least paint over the lines on the ground? I've found that the whole floorless effect loses it's gusto unless you ride in the front. So now whenever I ride one, I make sure to ride front row.... Scream? Fun? Wow. I thought it was the least smooth B&M I had ever ridden...I could feel every track connection on the thing... Really? I found it do be no rougher than Dominator (which IMO got kinda rough near the corkscrews), and a lot more intense/ fun. The only spot I really noticed was between the loop and dive loop I think.

Ha! Though it is a fun ride, let's face it can't you at least paint over the lines on the ground? I've found that the whole floorless effect loses it's gusto unless you ride in the front. So now whenever I ride one, I make sure to ride front row. Congrats to Tom on #50! Anyways, as always, great TR so far, glad you had fun at KD. My favorite by far was Volcano when I was there. Can't wait to check out I305. And yes, I had Shoney's while I was there last summer before going to BGE. They had great food. Looking forward to the rest of the report!

So I´m sitting in an internet cafe in Puerto Vallarta...I took a fair amount of photos so I´ll be sure to post those Sundayish....or whenever I get a PTR up....Thanks!

Went to Magic Mountain yesterday and had the time of my life! This park is great! It was a clean and friendly. X2 is EPPP ICKKKKK. Terminator is a fantastic woodie, IMO only defeated by Voyage...I'll have a TR and photos hopefully by next Sunday (going on a cruise today, no internet access). Thank you guys for all the tips!

Pretty sure there's already a topic on this but....Which one do you like more? Kings Dominion or Kings Island The relocated coasters from Geagua Lake: Dominator or Firehawk Inverted: Volcano or Invertigo Family: Avalanche or Adventure Express Ricochet or Flying Ace (Runaway Reptar) Backlot Stunt Coaster: Theirs or Ours Arrow Megalooper: Anaconda or Vortex Flight of Fear: Theirs or Ours Racing Woodies Rebel Yell or The Racer Paramount's attempt at a Woodie: Hurler or Son of Beast Woodie in the Woods: Grizzly or The Beast The "Others": Shockwave or Flight Deck Drop Zone: Theirs or OursNot choosing sides on this one, too hard The Crypt: Theirs or Ours Swinging Ship: Beserker or Viking Fury White Water Canyon: Theirs or Ours Log Flume: Shenadoah Valley or Race For Your Life Charlie Brown New Coaster: Intimidator 305 or Diamondback Themed Area: The Grove or Coney Mall Old Virginia or Rivertown Congo or Action Zone KD International Street or KI International Street Former Coasters: Hypersonic XLC or King Cobra Waterpark: Waterworks or Boomerang Bay Hotels: Kings Quarters or Great Wolf Lodge EDIT: If I don't bold any, that means I haven't ridden one or I can't decide.

Thanks, guys! I believe the new plan is to go to MM, then if I've done everything, go to Knott's from about 6-10. EDIT: Scratch that plan. I went to Knott's last night.....fun park....more in the PTR. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take many pictures (it was dark), and I didn't ride any flats (I got there about 8 so I had 2 hours to enjoy the park). I got all of the coasters in except for Xcelerator (stupid accident.....I can't believe it's STILL closed), which killed me. You'd have to see that thing, towering above all the other coasters, knowing you can't ride it....it sucks. I also did not ride Timberline Twister, or whatever that Camp Snoopy coaster is called.

Hey guys, one more thing. It'll be a Friday in Lent, so I can't eat meat. Anyone know of some good restaurants I can go to? Pizza or something?

You guys have no idea how excited I am for this park. I've been wanting to ride X2, then X, for as long as I've known about it.

In other news, I paid the difference for the Platinum Flash Pass, which I believe is the same as the Gold, but you get to ride twice. Wow I feel really bad about paying to linejump haha.

While X2 is still an upcharge for the GFP, they've added Terminator to the list. How does this rank when stacked up against other GCI's?

Also, I haven't been up to date on Knott's or anything, but Ghostrider and Xcelerator are open from rehab and repairs, correct? Their starlight ticket is $26.99, so we may be going there as well (I have a KI Platinum Pass, but not my family), but if those two aren't open, my desire to go to KBF drops a ton. EDIT: Screamscape says Xcelerator will not open back up until April 30, so I won't be riding that.

Three major things: Six Flags Magic Mountain! Can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. KI Opening Day HoliWood Nights

And the best part? It's two minutes from my house! Yay!