kikid74

Following up on my Mother's day info question, I thought I'd give feedback for anyone else who was interested. Take into account also that there was a 50/50 threat of rain, temps started upper 40's/low 50's and was forecast to top out around 60, and there was a lot of rain during the day in SE Indiana and Northern KY. The radar also showed rain off-and-on downtown Cincinnati, though it only barely sprinkled once during the day at KI. The crowds were pretty light. The longest wait we had all day was maybe 15 minutes (on Banshee/Bat/Adv Express) around 2-4 in the afternoon. We did skip ride lines that seemed to be much longer than that(and traditionally slower), including Flying Ace Aerial Chase and Delirium. We got there with plans for ERT at 9:30, but were held up for 15-20 minutes at the security line check-in. We were in the Diamondback line for about 5 minutes and were riding for the first time at exactly 10am. When we exited the ride, the line was gone. It was a walk-on in the station, so we rode it again. Those morning hours were great! Diamondback 2x, Stunt Coaster 3x, Beast 2x, SRR 2x, Bumper Cars 2x all by 11:30am. Everything we wanted to ride was pretty much a "wait for the next cycle wait" in the morning. The food lines at around 1pm, though, ugh. We didn't think would be a problem given the ride lines up to that point. Chicken shack had a long line WAY past the door. Festhaus packed. LaRosa's on International the line looked ridiculous. So, we headed back to what has become our traditional short wait place to eat. LaRosa's by The Beast. No wait to grab your pizza. Only a slight wait to pay after I had my food.

We were at the park and went through the new entrance for the first time this year last weekend. As someone who comes of I-71, it seemed like a LONG drive to the gate and felt like a lot of backtracking to get back to the parking lot. I'm not complaining, it just felt weird of decades of using the entrance nearest the waterpark. I did like the self scan gold pass lanes.

We love going to BGT when we spend a week in Clearwater. Unfortunately, we haven't been in a few years. Maybe next spring. Does FL have looser height restrictions (or Ohio stricter) with respect to amusement rides? Coasters like Scorpion are only 40-42" and it goes upside down. While at KI, you have to be 48" to ride Adventure Express. The log ride at BGT has a shorter height limit, too. That was the only "bad" part about traveling to parks in other states with the kids...coming back to rides at KI. They could ride a lot of rides out of state that there were not permitted to ride at KI because of height.

If it is a coaster, I hope for a longer ride. The new coaster at Holiday World is fun but was really disappointed in how short the ride is.

Great trip report! I wonder if they would have done things differently (with respect to Skull Island instead of JP expansion) had they known the Jurassic World would have been as huge at the box office as it was. I agree with folks here. I love the ride and the area, and it feel completely underutilized. If you want to take advantage of the HP stuff on your return trip, I recommend getting there before rope drop, and heading to that area first. If you have a hotel that includes the early hour admission, you can ride the ride in diagon alley twice before the rest of the park opens. We did ride the train once, and thought it was "meh". And my wife and oldest are big HP fans. The overall wait and then lack of visuals I think does it for us, too. Overall, we really enjoy these parks. I think Spider-man is still my favorite of the park, and really love the log ride!

As someone who has historically taken advantage of the ERT, this is disappointing. I'm glad I found this thread though, as I didn't realize they had a rotating schedule this year. Looks like there is no reason (for our family) to show up for ERT in July. I did like that Diamondback was in the ERT lineup two years ago (the last time we had Gold pass), as we could get a ride (or two) in first thing before the line got longer later in the day. And I did pay for ERT. It isn't "free". It is one of the benefits of buying a Gold Pass. Just because there isn't an explicit cost savings associated with it, like say the parking benefit, it is a benefit of having the card. Any time they change or alter their passholder benefits, it is a viable discussion point of pros/cons of the change. Not sure why bringing this up as a con for some or discussion of how their changes impacted the lines is that big of a deal. Seems like a topic that should be discussed, IMO. And I appreciate the OP for bringing it up!

Anyone with Mother's Day KI wait time/crowd experiences that you'd wish to share relative to other Sunday's in May? TIA!

It was a BEAUTIFUL day. This was our first visit in 15 months after having a pass from 2012-2014. We got a pass for 2016 and used Nov 1 as our free visit. Our wait time experience was varied throughout the day. We entered when the gates opened at 10:30am. My oldest and I got in two rides on the Diamondback before 11am. We did surf dog (no wait) and Woodstock express (short wait) after 11am. However Planet Snoopy was starting to fill up quickly. I figure the Sunday family Halloween thing (and the beautiful weather) was drawing people to the park. We hiked over to Stunt Coaster knowing that those wait times can get bad on even the best of days. It was the shortest line I've ever had for that ride...it was just back past the bridge/chain linked area, but it still took a while. I'd say we were off the ride about 20 minutes after we got in line. The express passes for renewing members caused the short-looking regular line to take longer than normal. The Beast was a breeze. We rode it twice in 30 minutes. The walk off the ride, down the ramp, back through the maze to the station house was longer than the second wait. Then, we paused for lunch. There was no line at all at the LaRosa's by The Beast. Coney Island ride wait times were worse than anything we'd done so far that day. I guess it was mid-afternoon, beautiful day, and we usually find this part of the park most crowded this time of day. SRR wasn't too bad, Scrambler had a long wait (thanks again to the Fast Lane passes). We skipped the bumper cars and Monster. There were problems with The Racers. First, someone threw up on the blue train. Then there were about 3 times as many workers as necessary on the red side, and they were all debating who should be where. Someone was supposed to be on break, someone on another ride, etc. It's like it was the first day of the season and no one knew what they were doing. We got to the front of the stand-by line at the worst of this and the line behind us got all the way to the sign. On slower days, my kids like to repeat rides like we did with The Beast. But with this mess, we said that we'd check it out again in an hour or two. Adventure Express was a little bit of a long wait. The biggest issue here was a lady at the front of the standby line stopped to find a row to sit in and couldn't figure it out. So, the Fast Lane folks were just parading past her and picking the emptiest rows. There was no worker there to control the lines. We were too far back to help her along, though there was finally a pause in the Fast Lane traffic and she took a leap of faith into a row on the front half of the train. The Banshee was a short wait, as always. The Bat had another throw up issue. Someone must have chucked an entire LaRosa's pizza because the workers had serious trouble getting the car clean. They washed the last car of this train (they run two) and sent the whole train empty about 4 times before finally just closing the last car. The station wait became a line all the way down the stairs and across the bridge by the time we got off the ride. My youngest did get to ride it again (this was his second ride) as he rode it while my oldest and I rode the Banshee. The Viking ship had a 2-3 ride wait for the top 2 rows. When our ride was done, there was only a 1 ride wait for the top row. By the time we circled back to The Racers, it was a walk-on. This was around 5pm and we thought it was a good sign to get a couple of more rides in before our target departure time of 6pm. However, Planet Snoopy was more crowded than we expected at 5pm. On past fall Sundays, we typically go late September, I thought that the kids area cleared out around five, but Woodstock coaster line was close to 20 minutes. The Boo Blasters queue was full. We were hoping for another ride on Diamondback, but it was fairly long, too. All-in-all, it was a fun day at KI. The weather was great, and the kids are looking forward to visiting again next year!

Five minute wait for The Beast at the moment.

Does closing day typically provide an attendance bump over other Sundays during Haunt? I know there are a lot of other factors that go into it (weather, Bengals game, whether it is before or after Halloween...) My Sunday experiences have typically been last weekend in September or first weekend in October...not quite as crowded those weekends as the dates closer to Halloween.

How accurate are the wait times in the official KI app?

An increasing number of schools are taking off a full week for Fall break. My kids' school switched from a 4-day weekend last year to a full week this year.

I also saw the real version just three weeks ago in downtown Indianapolis at a store called Rocket Fizz.

I think we're going to risk it this Sunday. We'll be using the Ride Hopper app to list stand-by ride wait times. Last September, we had luck with going on the last Sunday of the month. However, I am concerned about the impact of the free Fast Lane passes and the Bengals bye week. I can post our experience here on Monday. We have Gold passes this year and the previous two seasons and have enjoyed using them. Sunday's visit will be our 7th trip to Kings Island this year. Next year, I think we are cutting back to just a late summer visit before schools start, and maybe a September visit if we buy 2016 Gold passes.

I didn't gather this from the previous news stories linked, but did this boy have/use any prosthetic limbs while at the amusement park? Without them, I'm not sure I understand how the "anything with a seatbelt and lap bar" would have been deemed safe last year. Also, without them, wouldn't he have trouble meeting the minimum height requirement for the ride, or is height requirement not apply in certain cases like this?

I'm here today until close using the Ride Hopper app. Banshee was 15 minutes. My youngest hit the 46" mark since out last visit and we rode the White Water Canyon for the first time (about 30 min wait.) Unfortunately, Congo Falls is down for some reason. (That's the other 46" ride that would be new to him.)

"Seniors" with a season pass who turn 62 years old mid-season should go to the guest services to request a partial refund.

I didn't know that season ticket prices varied by age. Looking back at my Gold Pass receipt from October, I was charged the same for Jr/Sr as I was for the adult pass. Looking at KI's website, I see that there is a current price difference for their regular season pass and the Platinum Pass. Gold Passes are no longer available for sale. That said, I think WCPO did a terrible job with presenting the facts of this case. In terms of the KI policy, I believe the most consumer friendly position would be to use whatever the height of the child is on their first visit. For renewing customers, you'd have to have the kids get a new picture/height check required on their first visit of the new season. I'm not sure how burdensome that would be on their pass processing team. For example, my youngest is about to turn 6 and his pass photo is still from shortly after he turned 3 in October 2011.

I appreciate all the responses, both serious and comical! Thanks, I'm well aware of the CFA Sunday closure and the Indiana Sunday alcohol laws. My point in referencing that in my original question was just that there are still some things in business that don't happen on Sundays & I wanted to check with frequent park visitors about Sunday night fireworks.

The line at Backlot Stunt Coaster has to be the hottest line in the park on a sunny day. My son loves this ride & I enjoy going on it with him, but it's the only coaster that I can think of that has a significant amount of wait time out in the open.

This may be an odd question, but given that Chik-fil-A and Indiana liquor sales are not allowed on Sundays, I thought I'd ask: does Kings Island do their fireworks show on Sunday nights (10pm closing time)? I also read here that The Beast stops running prior to closing time because of proximity to the fireworks. What time does The Beast usually close? TIA!

KI: My (admittedly illogical) thought process is "I hope there are no crowds when I go, but that they have plenty of visitors on days I don't attend." I like not waiting in lines just like I enjoy having the entire movie theater to myself. But if parks and theaters always operated like that, they wouldn't operate much longer. I think they've had a lot of these August deals over the past decade, and I seem to recall they are usually tied to the annual cancer research fundraiser. Before our kids started elementary school, I know the best times to go was a weekday in early-to-mid May or late August while most schools were still in session. We went once when most (if not all) of August was a $20/ticket month. All the snack stands are not open and often only one of The Racer trains is running, but it's still a great day at the park. Universal: We're planning a trip to Universal Orlando for later this Fall, and yes, they do (now) have an Unlimited Express ticket option that works like the hotel unlimited pass feature. They have it available online now.

I appreciate that. I did search this forum and read that thread, specific trip reports, and other thread on this type of topic before posting my question in this newer thread. I intentionally avoided asking about a specific date. I don't remember ever going on a Friday before, and was curious if, generally, Friday night crowds were similar to Saturday crowds or not. Tuesdays have worked great for us the past few years, and we've also gone on Sundays in early May and early October. I think for this particular purpose, we are planning to do a Sunday night visit in August instead of Friday night in July. We'll have an earlier sunset & more kids back to school (Indianapolis areas schools, for example, are generally back to school earlier in August this year, with a few starting next week.) Gabe - thanks for the Cirque Imagine tip. We watched that yesterday at 3pm on a 90 degree day. It was a fun show and the kids & adults in our group all liked it.

I was at the park yesterday & tested out the Ride Hopper app from 3:30-6:30. It seemed like at least one other person was using the app, which isn't much of a crowd sourcing effort when some jokers put "80 minutes" as the wait time for Banshee. That wait was only 10 minutes, which was obvious if you were at the ride and had been in its line before. Overall, the app seems like it would work pretty well with a larger group of participants.

If the Avengers can't take the heat, how are they going to defeat Ultron??