tlvtr

My wife and I were at KI until close a few nights ago and we wondered just how does the staff make sure everyone is out of such a big park when they close? I don't have any idea how the park is run or maintained so some insight from people that have worked there would be cool. What is entailed in wrangling all the stragglers out? We were imagining how one might hide themselves to stay in the park overnight. **Let me stress that I have NO interest in what I'm about to talk about, or even think it's possible. It's sort of like thinking about what type of ingenious way you would try to sneak into a bank vault at night to steal the ancient diamond collection...or maybe I just watch too many heist movies ** It seems like it would be easy to sneak a tiny sleeping bag in a backpack, and then around 10:05 finding a dark spot to hide in until the place clears out. Maybe somewhere near the entrance to Adventure Express since that has several trees. Or maybe hopping a fence in the Flight Deck cue since that is a bit secluded. I can't possibly be the first person to think about something like this. What does KI do to find people trying to stay after hours? Have there been many attempts? Are there any stories or rumors of someone actually pulling it off? I'd love to hear about how terrible my plan is and how fast I would get kicked out/banned from the park from those that actually help run the park. And maybe for fun, what would some of you think would be a better plan for hiding? I'm thinking if you were a Secret Agent/Ninja level badass. Not an actual plan to try out (which would be stupid).

Wow, that really surprises me. Unfortunately I totally ignored the sign on the second lift hill, assuming it just said not to stand up. Going up the first hill on this ride my wife actually said "why would they need to tell you not to stand up? is anyone really that dumb?" I said that there are probably plenty of people dumb enough to try something like that. Only to then ignore the warnings on the second hill. I'm glad I know better now.

I don't know if this is the right sub-forum for this, but last night I had my very first ride on The Beast, ever! My wife had unpleasant memories of it being uncomfortable from pre-teen years, and I think I've been a little biased against wooden coasters. My only prior experience with a wooden coaster is The Racer and while I love that ride, it can be rough and I've assumed that a ride as tall and fast as The Beast would be too rough for my liking. However, after reading these forums for a few weeks, I decided I needed to experience The Beast, and last night I convinced my wife to give it another try with me. After a short wait we get a seat on the middle of the train and begin the ascent up the hill. The first thing I start to realize is that this is a lot taller than I was expecting! As we neared the top I was anticipating what was ahead when I realized that i had NO idea what was about to happen! Most coasters you can see much if not all of the ride from some accessible part of the park. The only glimpses I've had of The Beast have been on the lift of The Vortex. When we crest the hill and start flying towards this tiny little tunnel, I got EXCITED! The first tunnel entrance looks so small and I brought my arms down a little out of fear of hitting my hands on the top (I know, not going to happen, but I wasn't in the mood for taking chances!). I can't remember every turn, but I was impressed with how fast and twisting the ride was. It felt so secluded from the rest of the park, and I couldn't stop thinking about what it must have been like to be on this ride back when it first opened, when KI and roller-coasters in general were so different. When we reached the second lift hill I was a little confused. The ride had already been a good length so I wondered if this was like Adventure Express where we were just getting to the right height to get back into the station. I was very excited to find out I was wrong and the following drop/helix was great! I definitely wasn't expecting the upcoming tunnels and I could not believe how fast we flew threw them! I had to lean over and cover my head because it felt like I was so close to the edge I was going to scrape my face on the walls!! That was an awesome sensation! There was a time that would have made me want to cry, but it was exhilarating now! My first ride was a really fun experience (my wife enjoyed it too!). I wasn't expecting it to scare me at all, so the moments in the tunnels that made me go "yikes!" were a real treat. It was a rough ride at times, and I don't know if it is one I want to keep my hands up at all times on, but I will definitely be making this ride part of my regular rotation when visiting the park. Any other newcomers to The Beast around here?

Wow, I had no idea. The KI coasters are the only ones I've ever been on, and I've heard enough of the stereotypes over the years I just took it as a given. Thanks for the education!

Sorry that I didn't search for the existing poll/post on this same topic, but it is good to know that it isn't all in my head!!

My wife and I love riding The Racer, but we're at a point where we will only ride the red train. Whenever we ride the blue train it feels like a much rougher and jerky ride. Being a wooden coaster I know there is going to be some roughness, but the blue track seems much more extreme. Is this in our heads, or have any of you noticed this as well? We also did our first ride in the front seat of the red racer last week and it was a really smooth, fun ride. I highly recommend it!

If there are legitimate safety concerns that's fine. I think they shouldn't encourage you to come on a rainy day if they need to reduce capacity so much. Thanks for replying and shedding some more light on the situation. I'm a lightweight compared to most people here. I only have 3 total rides on Diamondback so far. They've all been terrifying, but I can't wait for more.

This is my first post on this forum, and I hate to start off with a negative report, but I just wanted to vent. I took Monday June 21st off work with the plan to spend the entire day at KI and BB. My wife had to go into work for a couple hours unexpectedly so we weren't able to make it for ERT and it started raining around noon when we planned on leaving. We didn't arrive until about 3 as we waited for the rain to die down a bit. When we arrived there was just a little sprinkle and to our delight the parking lot seemed pretty empty. The Gold Pass parking lot has never been as empty as it was at that time and walking around the park it seemed clear that attendance was very light at the time. I've specifically read on KI's site that they recommend coming when the weather is bad because wait times will be shorter and we were expecting a lot of walk-on rides and short waits. To our shock, the line for The Racer was spilling out of the front gate, and wrapped around a couple of the cue lanes. We walked to Flight of Fear and the inside was PACKED. From what the quick look I took inside it looked like all the cue lanes were being used! We turned around to try Adventure Express, which was closed and then tried Fight deck, also closed. Frustrated, we went to Invertigo (which we had seen running from the parking lot) and waited in line. Unlike the other rides we had walked past, the line here was pretty normal—only about 30 minutes. After a fun ride in the front seat we walked around hoping things were opening up more (the rain had stopped by the time we got in line for Invertigo). Frustratingly Flight Deck, Adventure and Back Lot were all still closed. The Racer had just one train running on the red side, no blue train at all. When Adventure finally opened, they only had one train running. We rode a couple carnival rides, got a pretzel from KI Pretzel and finally the park started operating at a normal capacity. After 2 hours at the park The Racer and Adventure were finally running all trains and Back Lot opened up (we gave up on Flight Deck). We eventually made it over to Diamondback and had a surprisingly short wait for that. We were assigned row 16, our first time in the back and had a blast! The line for The Vortex never got shorter, so we skipped that altogether. Ultimately we got to ride several rides and enjoyed ourselves, but decided to call it a night at 7pm. I hate to sound negative, but I was surprised and frustrated by the first 2 hours. The rides that were actually running had such low capacity the lines were outrageous. These lines are with what seemed like half the normal amount of people in the park. The most frustrating part of this is that KI's website specifically says a day like yesterday is a good day to come for short wait times, but then when there are fewer people in the park they shut down rides and run fewer trains. If someone can enlighten me with a good reason for such a situation to give me some perspective, I welcome it. My wife and I are first time Gold Pass members this year and in all we've been loving it. This has been the only poor experience we've had at the park in the 10-12 short visits we've made so far this year. I was also happy to discover that the sewage smell in the tunnels on Adventure Express seems to have been addressed, so there are some positives to report.