thekidd33

Looks like you had a great time! I've never been to Beech Bend so I can't wait to see those pics. Thanks for sharing!

Glad you had such a good time! Hopefully you can get the pics up soon!

Awesome pics and report! Glad you had such a good time. Thanks for sharing!

Very back rows for both FoF at KI and Gemini at CP were two of my favorite coaster rides ever. Much farther from home, but equally as fun, a 1-1 rides on Expedition Everest and Rock n' Roller Coaster turned me on to the wonderful world of theme park and roller coaster fandom.

I think as long as it standing there will always be those who are sure it is coming back.

I didn't but the people I saw riding looked like they were having a blast. I'll add it to my 'to-ride' list for next time!

It's amazing isn't it? To me at least, Mean Streak is easily much rougher and more unenjoyable in it's current form than Son of Beast ever thought about being. But Mean Streak is still running... Great trip report! It sounds like you had a great time up at the Point! Yeah I just kept telling myself that there was no way it could really be as bad as everyone says...next time I'll listen lol. It was the first time I couldn't wait for a ride to be over. As for the crowds, it seemed like a great week to be there and the park really emptied in the evening when a lot of school groups left. I am already planning on coming back this same week next year.

It was closed the whole time we were there on Weds and unfortunately we were under some time constraints on Thurs and I was the only one that wanted to ride it. I will certainly make it a priority on my next trip, hopefully later this year.

Thanks for reading guys! Can't wait to hear about your trip Fanatic!

Cedar Point. Coaster enthusiast's Mecca. What better place for my first (non KI) trip as a member of that club? My girlfriend had been telling me for months that Millennium Force would change my perceptions of all things roller coaster. I have always heard great thigns about the park so I booked a room at Breakers and off we went. We were joined by my brother and his girlfriend as well. It took us 4 hours and 10 mins to get there from the northside of Indy. That first glimpse of Millie and Dragster from the causeway was enough to get my heart racing! What an awesome sight! We checked into the hotel and headed for the park. Gemini - The crowds were really light as we entered the resort gate by Magnum and headed over to Gemini. Only the red side was running but it was a station wait so we jumped in line and had to wait only two trains before our ride. I ended up in 3:1. What a surprise that first drop was! I was really caught off guard by how much air there was there. There wasn't a whole lot to get excited about after that on this ride, I would find later that was due to both seat choice and the fact that only one side was running, but it got us all pumped for the rest of the park. Cedar Creek Mine Ride - Getting off Gemini I wanted to see what the line looked like for Maverick because it was the coaster I was looking forward to riding most. We got there to find the wait at a little over an hour (which was about 40 min longer then my brother was going to be willing to wait for anything lol) so we hopped on the Cedar Creek Mine Ride. I have always liked Adventure Express and hoped that this ride would offer similar enjoyment. I ended up in seat 3:1 again. I have to say I was a left a lilttle disappointed by this ride. It offered nice views of the area around it and the drop over the water is neat but it just didn't seem to have the character of Adventure Express. Mean Streak - Despite what I had heard (which all turned out to be true) I had to give Mean Streak a try. I am a big fan of wooden coasters and there was only about a 10 minute wait. I took the advise I had always read and waited the extra 5 minutes for a front seat ride. I can see how when it first opened it was prolly a very thrilling ride. The first drop was fun and the view from the top is really good...but dear lord the jackhammering!! It was easily the most uncomfortable ride I have ever taken on a coaster. I honestly don't see how it hasn't injured anyone yet. Especially if I was in the seat that is supposed to make it 'bearable'. It was absolutely horrendous. Both my brother and his girlfriend went immeadiately to get some tylenol after riding (they rode in the front in the train after mine). Barring a major, overhaul that was my first and last Mean Streak ride. Magnum XL200 - Licking our wounds, we checked the line for Maverick again but found it still too long for my brother so we headed around the bend to Magnum. The line was just to the bottom of the stairs outside the station. Perfect! I stuck with my theme of the day so far and took seat...3:1. Let me just say that I LOVE THIS RIDE!! The first hill gives a great view, the drop is awesome, not overly steep but still gives great air. The pretzel turn is a lot of fun and not an element I had experienced before. The bunny hills on the way back gave great air. This was my brother's girlfriend's first hyper coaster (and only my second) and as we all talked later on that day we agreed that Magnum plays the roll of 'starter coaster' perfectly. It is a great introduction to the world of hyper/giga/strata coasters. Overall a great ride. Corkscrew - After a quick snack break (chili cheese nachos for me) we decided to give Corkscrew a try. They were only loading the front two and back two cars but we walked on to 5:1. Though short I had a lot of fun on Corkscrew. The drop gave decent air in back and the loop wasn't overly forceful. Corkscrewing over the midway was a great touch. All four of us thought this was a great little ride. Disaster Transport - We then made our way towards the front of the park stopping to check out Planet Snoopy. Wicked Twister was down (I actually never saw it running either day) so we got in line for Disaster transport. I have read a lot of 'skip it, not worth the time, etc.' comments about this ride but the whole bobsled idea seemed fun to me and who doesn't want to ride a coaster they haven't experienced before? We waited about ten minutes and the got in the front row of our car. The ride was short and sweet - I'm glad I rode it - I wouldn't wait more then 15-20 minutes for it again - but it certainly wasn't terrible. Blue Streak - Our destination at the front was Raptor but it too was down so it was Blue Streak to the rescue. This ride was also a walk on and my girlfriend and I took 1:1. As I said I am a big wooden coaster fan and this time I wasn't at all disappointed. This ride gave awesome airtime all the way around! I really liked the pacing of this ride too, never a dull moment and it seemed you spent as much time out of your seat as you did in it. Really a ton of fun and I stuck it right in front of Racer in my rankings. Iron Dragon - Raptor was still down as we got off Blue Streak so we headed down the midway. My brother's girlfriend wanted to ride the Cadillac Cars so we relaxed for a bit on those and then jumped over to Iron Dragon. I love Flight Deck at KI (esp. this season) so I was excited to ride this one. It was a fun ride with some great views and the helix at the end was very cool...but it is definitely much much tamer then its KI companion. Wildcat - By this point it was about 7:10pm and the park was really clearing out. My girlfriend was dying to get to Millie but Wildcat was calling my name as I got off Iron Dragon. None of us really expected much from this ride but boy were we surprised! We had a blast!! The drops were great the turns were a ton of fun and it never lets up the whole time. A real hidden gem in my opinion. One thing of note though, the lap bars on at least two of the cars running were not locking into position. A man in the group in front of ours asked why this was to which a ride op replied "It's been a long day" and sent them out. I never felt like I was in danger on the ride but it all did seem rather odd. Millennium Force - It was just a little after 7:20pm when we got done with Wildcat and Taylor was getting her way this time - we were going to ride Millie. We got to the line and saw it was almost completely empty! We walked all the way up to the unloading station before stopping. I love roller coasters and have never been on one (not named Mean Streak) that I haven't enjoyed...but I was scared! That first hill looks HUGE standing under it. There was some sort of problem with the train right before ours and it was held in the station for about 5 minutes after it was loaded before they finally sent it out. We got the blue train and I was in 3:2. Millie doesn't waste any time getting up the lift hill! The first drop was absolutely insane!! Easily the best I had ever been on. The airtime on both Millennium Island hills was great but paled in comparsion to the launch out of my seat I got as flew by the station! My brother's girlfriend greyed out on the first overbank but she still loved the ride! It was an incredible 2 minutes. I placed it third (at the time) overall for the simple fact that I feel that Diamondback and Voyage (the two I had ahead of it) just do more. Mille has an amazing first drop and great airtime and awesome speed but there seems to be break between elements that Voyage and Diamondback avoid. Still a fantastic ride! Maverick - With our adrenaline pumping we ran over to Maverick and got in line just before closing. This was the ride that I was looking forward to the most. We had a station wait and I got seat 2:1 and off we went! I think that one's first ride on Maverick is a learning experience. The first time over the first hill its hard to enjoy because you truely think you are about to fall out. You have to learn to go with the transitions and be ready for them and the power of the tunnel launch really catches you off guard. The headbanging was really bad since we didn't know what to expect. It was a neat ride but I think we all came off the first Maverick ride slightly disappointed. The park was closing so we headed back to the hotel for a quick dip in the pool before (a SLOW SLOW SLOW) dinner at Friday's where every single employee I saw had a badge that read "1st year of service." I know that these sorts of establishments have high turnover...but it was an inexperience staff that night and their service greatly suffered for it. Magnum Round Two - My girlfriend and I headed to the park the next morning about 10:15am and had some time to kill before the other two met up with us so we decided to start our day off on Magnum. We were in seat 2:3 this time and we got a trimless ride! That pretzel turn was really fun and really intense without that trim! It was a nice touch to see the "We Love Maggie" written in the sand by that turn as well. Perfect start to the day. Maverick - We rode the antique cars and walked around the museum for a little bit but when we still hadn't heard from my brother I decided I needed to give Maverick another chance. This time I knew what was coming and I could move with the train. What a difference! Maverick was a beast! It vaulted Millie and landed at thrid overall. This ride has it all, speed, a redic first drop, two great inversions and a LIM launch. Perfect. Raptor - We met up with the other two and headed down to Raptor happily seeing that it was indeed running today! The line was rather long already and we waited about 30 minutes but to the ride crews credit we were moving the whole time. They were doing a great job getting trains loaded and dispatched quickly. The four of us were in row two and I was in the middle right seat. I loved this ride and it was incredible how much they jammed into it. The drop, loop, and helix really stood out. Raptor actually ended up at the top of my brother's coaster rankings. Me and Taylor decided to walk around a bit and take in other parts of the park we hadn't seen. Gemini - On our way out I saw that Gemini had the Blue side running so Taylor and I headed over to try it out. We chose seat 5:1...holy airtime city!!! This was ten times better then the ride the day before as we got thrown out of our seats on each drop! The back is where its at on Gemini. It added a lot to the ride that the trains were racing too. A great ending to a great trip. Overall it was a FANTASTIC trip! I cannot wait to get back to Cedar Point again very very soon!

I am taking my first ever trip to Cedar Point tomorrow and Thursday! I hope you have a great time!

^^Oh I know. Hmmmm...were you simply referring to acreage? Or perhaps hinting at something involving Lake Rudolph?

That area seems pretty packed. Would they take out some of the trees by Raven? Or perhaps remove the High Dive Theater?

So...2017...guess we have a while to wait.

Good call on KK being a nice home for a few of those Freestyle rides. I kind of hope Holiday World starts (gasp!) smaller with their (family/adult) steel coaster collection when they decide to go that route. I think a mine train would be a great fit for the park myself. I got the feeling that Pilgrim's Plunge was the first step towards a steel coaster for Holiday World. Kind of a "lets see how a tall steel structure blends in here."

^^Hey now! The Dippin' Dots guy is a wealth of valuable info! The park runs all their major decisions through him first.

White Water Canyon! Its one of the few rides we actually manage to get everyone to ride on family KI trips.

I'm glad you guys had such a great day! Thanks for the TR!

Well some of us cry a little when remember how great it used to be...if that counts.

My second King's Island trip of the year started around 10:45am when we left my house on the north side of Indy and headed east to Cincy. The crew this time consisted of myself, my two brothers, my girlfriend, and a friend of hers. We took two cars since my brothers had to leave the park a little earlier than the rest of us. We made a quick stop to grab lunch in Batesville on the way down, then it was non stop through to KI. My brother's and I arrived at the park just before one and they both got their season passes processed. We still had about 20 minutes to kill before the girls arrived so we headed over to Adventure Express. The park seemed very crowded with school groups there for Math & Science Day but AE had a station wait. I rode 3:1 and had a nice ride. It was great to see the lava working in the last tunnel! I always enjoy this ride more then I think I am going to. Such a cool little coaster. After that we met the girls in line for Backlot Stunt Coaster. I am a sucker for any launched coaster and I am a big fan of this one. We ended up waiting about 25 minutes for this one and I ended up as the single rider from our group and ended up next to a kid named Eli who was there with his school in Fairfield (I think), Ohio. We rode 2:1 on the red train. It was a great ride as always. I even forgot about the lack of detail on the trains until after the ride. I was certainly very critical of the change to the trains, on here and elsewhere, and they certainly looked much better to me with all the decals...but it didn't bother me as much in person as I thought it would. (I feel gross admitting that lol). We headed over to LaRossa's for a quick snack before heading over to Beast. The line (what they were using of it anyway) was almost completely full and we debated coming back later but decided to stick it out. This was the only place all day we encountered this problem but the line jumping here was TERRIBLE!!! We saw at least 20 (not kidding) people line jumping. I had never seen anything like that. The waited ended up being about 45 minutes and I ended in 2:2. Not a seat I was looking to ride in but by the time we got to the station I was just ready to get on the ride. It was a bit tamer then my opening day ride and the trim on the second hill felt like it was really grabbing but I don't think anything can kill a ride on Beast for me. Such an iconic ride. We saw Firehawk was up and running and headed that way as it is my youngest brothers favorite coaster. However, we got there just in time to see the ride ops emptying out the station and quay. So we decided to cool off with a quick ride on White Water Canyon. I have always loved White Water Canyon because it is one of the few rides my mother always rides on our yearly family trips to KI. Its just one of those rides I feel like I have a lot of memories on. The line was fairly short, we stopped just before the covered bridge, but it took FOREVER to get to the loading station. I'm not sure what was going on but it was just shy of a 50 minutes before we got on. When we reached the rides platform there were two boats off to the side out of operation and we saw 5 or 6 boats leave the station empty. I am not sure if they were having some problems or what was going on. Once we got on though, we all had a blast. Four of the five of us most certainly fell into the 'soaked' category. Next the girls decided that they were done just staring at Diamondback and it was time to go ride it. This ride was a couple of firsts for me! My first hyper, my first B&M. I was very impressed with how quickly the line moved, we only had about a 25 minute wait. I was assigned to row 5 for my first ever Diamondback ride. I have always had a terrifying fear of heights so tackling this ride was a big deal for me. The was incredibly nervous on the trip up the lift hill! That first drop is insane! I was out of my seat the whole way down. The airtime throughout the ride was amazing and I could not believe how smooth of a ride it was. It instantly jumped into second place (behind Voyage) in my top ten. I cannot wait to get back this weekend for some more Diamondback goodness! We saw Firehawk was running again so we made our way to X-Base and hopped in line for Firehawk. Most of the school groups had left by this time and our wait was only about 15 minutes. I ended up in the very last row of the red train. There were some very noticeable forces coming out of the loop in the back that I hadn't felt on previous rides. This was the first time two of our group had ever ridden Firehawk and both loved it. It wasn't as fun as I remembered it being but still a fun ride and it was nice to have such a short wait. We then decided to go ahead and jump in line for Flight of Fear. We were greeted by the shortest line I have ever experienced for FoF and ended up only waiting about 10 minutes. As I said before I love launched coasters and FoF has never let me down. The MCBR was biting hard as usual but the first half of that ride is maybe my favorite of any coaster I have ridden up to this point (granted thats a pretty limited number). The feeling of flying out of that station and up into the cobra roll is awesome every single time. I like that the lights are on this year so you can see how much track is crammed into such a tight space. The group then headed down for a walk on ride on Flight Deck, though there was a slight delay to clean up a protein spill that a little girl had on one of the trains. I was 1:1 for this ride and this was my first ever front row ride on any coaster. I have found Flight Deck to be much more fun in the front then the back this year and this front row ride was great! The first drop is so much more fun when all that is in front of you is the ground. My brothers had to leave after this ride so they headed out and me and the girls headed over to Planet Snoopy since my girlfriend wanted to get some blue ice cream. We stopped for a quick ride on Boo Blasters (I scored a 820) and they both decided that Boo was an upgrade over Scooby. After enjoying our Ice Cream and watching Diamondback make a few runs we scored a walk on ride on Flying Ace's Aerial Chase (I had never ridden it) before heading home for the night. All in all a great day with great friends at a great park! Ride Count: Adventure Express: 1 Backlot Stunt Coaster: 1 Beast: 1 Boo Blasters: 1 Diamondback: 1 Firehawk: 1 Flight Deck: 1 Flight of Fear: 1 Flying Ace's Aerial Chase: 1 White Water Canyon: 1 Total Rides: 10

The only week day the park has been open yet this year have been Fridays...last Friday morning was crowded with school groups (it was a Math & Science day) but by 7pm I was able to walk on several rides in a row. Edit: ^Beat me to it!

Sounds like you had a great time! Seems as though the park was REALLY crowded Saturday.

Why would Intamin care? Shoot the Rapids is likely paid for in full so I don't think they care how CP markets it. Also don't forget that there is at least a decent chance that the ride Kinzel is refering to is an Intamin. Also as far as being ordered in advance I don't think its out of the ordinary to order any roller coaster this far in advance regardless of size. edit: thanks for posting the article, very intriguing. Last that I had heard STR had not yet been paid for in full (though that was at least a month ago). However I was thinking more along the lines of Kinzel's comments taking away from the hype surrounding STR's opening. Of course Intamin cares how their rides are marketed and received by the public. What company wouldn't? The comments just seemed, IMO, to say "well this year's new ride (that isn't even open yet!) might suck but wait until next year!"

I think if I were Intamin I'd be slightly angry that Kinzel is saying "wait til next year" when my new $10 million dollar ride hasn't even opened yet. I also think this will be a GCI in the demon drop location. I don't think he would hype up a non coaster so early unless there are major issues with Shoot The Rapids that haven't been made public yet. Plus the chain has installed a couple of these that have been well received and it fills a need at CP.

My first ride on Flight of Fear its opening year. I can remember being scared to death the whole three hours we waited for that first ride!