MaestroJr

Especially on the grown man in a certain place!

I never had the courage to ride Son of Beast as it's stories around the lunch table scared me and I was never that into coasters as a kid. In fact as a kid I had only a few coaster credits but my favorite was Adventure Express. I loved to watch Son of Beast from the Adventure Express lift hill, especially at night and it's massive structure and watching it run its course down the hill and up the loop is a personal favorite memory of my Paramounts Kings Island childhood. I continued to admire its massive wooden structure and went to Kings Island in 2012 while it's downfall and destruction was happening and it was quite a sight. I made a visit to the park in October 2012 to see Sonny's massive lift hill one final time and it was a very depressing visit for sure! Sonny's lift hill finally came down for good less then 1 month later. I got some great pictures on that trip of the rides structure and I even bought one of the Son of Beast structure bolts that came off the ride that went up for sale as soon as they came on the KI website. I received that as a Christmas present and it rest on my nightstand as a permanent reminder of a childhood memory. I hoped for an RMC treatment for Sonny, and I hated Banshee during its initial year for taking out a great childhood memory. But after riding and riding, I learned that Banshee is a better ride and I have it as my second favorite roller coaster next to The Beast. Regardless of its legacy, Son of Beast is a childhood memory I'll never forget and I'll always miss seeing it's lift hill from the interstate while pulling into the park. MaestroJr

There is a brand new smokehouse restaurant this year in Soak City which you might like to try. It has recieved quite positive reviews from fellow KICentral members and other KI visitors alike. It's quite tasty.

They no longer using the characters at all for Haunt, not even in burlap as they are in quite unpresentable condition. However in The Beast queue there is a barrel from Phantom and in both Slaughterhouse and Cavern of Terror (old Crypt building) several Phantom Theater props are used. I've taken a few photos of them the past few years during Haunt but besides that, the rest are either destroyed or in storage. I'm hoping for a Phantom Theater 2 in old Crypt building as well as I've ridden Haunted Mansion at WDW as well as Phantom Theater as a kid and hope to see a return and are both excellent, spooky dark rides. MaestroJr

Now that's an achievement in itself! I would say my highest score came during the rides Scooby days, although no idea what it may have been. My brother got 2200 this year during a stop that occurred during the ride so Id say that's the highest I've seen in a while at least. MaestroJr

Sounds good but be sure to pace yourself cause that 4 hour drive home I imagine seems forever being sleepy!

I'd say try and get there early as possible. Also if you have a ride that you want to be on more then others, I'd recommend getting on it early as you can before the people come in waves at about 1 or 2. Depending on how long y'all stay, people typically leave around 5 or 6 so you may want to wait and get a night ride in on some rides that have long lines during the day especially Mystic Timbers which should have a fairly long line to say the least. Have a great trip!

Thats how I feel! No matter the weather at Kings Island it never seems to bother me.

Most likely that's why, Mystic Timbers certainly has drawn some attention for sure!

Vortex is fun but I have never come off without getting a headache!

That'd be nice too!

For me I'd say it's the snakes although I have rode Mystic Timbers about 12 times and have only gotten the tree twice I believe.

Hoping for a new dark ride to go into the eyesore Crypt building, and or Boo Blasters although if I had my way, I'd put a Peanuts dark ride in Boo Blasters and a Phantom Theater type ride with similar story in Crypt. I think that even though I am a big fan of Boo Blasters mainly because of my love of Scooby, it has run its course however Boo looks very good this year with most props working all 4 times I have been on it this year. I hope it's used for Winterfest as it would be a great addition to the Winterfest lineup although Boo isn't that Christmas related. I hope for an announcement soon and if Boo has to be closed for Winterfest for future improvements, I'm fine with that too. I miss Phantom Theater as well and liked riding it as a kid so seeing a new version in Crypt would work well and be awesome! That's my guess, although I predict 1 dark ride most likely triotech but you never know! I doubt the other two will happen but a new Triotech could be cool as well. MaestroJr

Welcome to KIC! I think you'll like Mystic Timbers, and Banshee is a great replacement for Son of Beast. I had a chance to go to Haunt 2012 and see some of the demolition of Son of Beast and even got some pictures of it, at the time it was quite sad but Banshee is a personal favorite of mine, and I think you'll like it a lot. Mystic Timber has a cool theme and is great ob airtime so that should be fun too. Have a great trip!

Nice trip report, unfortunately since its opening in 2010 and even before in the Scooby days, its always for me at least been inconsistent. The ride looks fantastic this year, but last week while riding Boo Blasters with my brother and sister, he scored 2200, while I scored 750. Its a problem that has always been there with the ride and probably will continue throughout Boo Blasters life at Kings Island. And thats always why many people hope for its demise ASAP in order to get a more quality dark ride, but I always have fun on Boo Blasters, and hope it sticks around for a while!

Hi guys, I went to Kings Island last week with my brother and sister and we had a great time! We hadn't all been to the park together since about 2006 during its Paramount days so it was great to go back as just the 3 of us. We stayed late and rode lots but my main goal was to get some decent picture this time round so I'll just list some main highlights of the day. Basically rode everything I usually ride and it was a fairly slow day with minimal waits, also watched the dog show Kings Island does and it was really cute! Those dogs have a lot of talent! During the early afternoon everything closed for awhile but opened up soon and everything ran well pretty much the whole day with the exception of Invertigo. Longest wait of the day besides Beast after fireworks was Mystic Timbers and it was 30 minutes about. Got stuck on Boo Blasters for about 2 minutes and that gave my brother time to rack up 2200 points while my target didn't work. Interesting because Boocifer shut off and then they said over the loud speaker that we'd be stuck for a minute or two. Still though fun and memorable experience. Rode 2nd to last train on Beast after an 1 1/2 hour wait after the firework show which is always a fantastic experience. Vortex has still been my favorite this year and seems to be really running well for its 30th Birthday, had lots of fun on it this year so far! Now I'll post my photos and sorry some are blurry, my camera isn't great! Overall it was a really fun day and hopefully we can all three go again soon and possibly with my whole family for Winterfest this holiday season! I'll be back soon for another fun day at the Island! Thanks for reading and looking at my photographs and sorry for the blurry pictures! My camera doesn't perform well at night! MaestroJr Total ride count: Beast-2 Boo Blasters-2 Banshee-2 Bat-1 Adventure Express-2 Flight of Fear-2 Blue Racer-3 Mystic Timbers-1 Vortex-2

Welcome to KIC! I'll answer the questions I know and let others answer the rest. There is 3 main water rides and one dark ride in the park. White Water Canyon is a ride you would enjoy which is a nice trip through some nice scenery in a boat. And Race for your life Charlie Brown is a log flume ride with some cool drops. Also Congo Falls is a water ride you take a big plunge on and get fairly soaked. Boo Blasters is the main dark ride where you basically blast ghost for points through a haunted graveyard with a black light type scenery. Haven't had Tom + Chee but Skyline is great and fairs well with outside locations. As for roller coasters, Adventure Express is a well themed small coaster that you may enjoy. And the new coaster is called Mystic Timbers which is wooden and about 120 feet tall and 53 mph. It's a very fun and fast coaster and has a fairly good theme. The coaster ends in the "shed" which is a cool dark ride like feature. You may also like Racer or Bat and maybe a few flat rides along the way. Hope this helps get you started and I know others will pitch in some ideas too. MaestroJr

I was happy to see and hear the Thriller video by MJ in line for Boo Blasters the other day.

Our ride op on The Beast said "Have a great day here at Canada's Wonderland" and then when we got back to the station he said "Have a great day at Paramount's Kings Island"! He seemed to have quite a good sense of humor about him.

While in line for Mystic Timbers, someone behind me claimed that Top Gun was torn down and replaced with Mystic Timbers. I wanted to tell her that Top Gun is still very much in operation but now know as The Bat, but I just thought nah.

Hey guys, I had a good time at Kings Island about a week ago with my Brother, and would like to tell how my day went! Rode lots and stayed late, hope you enjoy reading. Left KY at about 9:30/10 and arrived in Mason at about Noon. Lines were mostly short so I first headed to get my gold pass processed and then to Flight of Fear as tradition would have it. A quick ride on Flight of Fear, fairly smooth and fast. Then we headed to Beast for an early ride which was pretty good, then Vortex which we rode the most of during the day which is great since last time we visited, it was unfortunately closed all day, so great to ride it again and the Vortex crew had it running very well and we got in a couple rides and Vortex has still got it and its nice to see it being treated good for its 30th birthday! We then got a quick ride on Racer which we rode blue train, my personal favorite! I think we won the race but I'm not sure. Fairly smooth and fast trip on Racer. Then we traveled to Action Zone for a walk-on ride on Adventure Express which I thought was a lot of fun, and also seemed to look really nice this year with all the animatronic bits running as intended. We then got a locker as Banshee was next on our list and we needed a place to stash our drawstring bag. A nice trip on Banshee after a quick 5 minute wait. The lines were still slow so we knew that The Bat probably wouldnt be that long so we headed to have a flight on it! A walk-on and would have been easy to ride multiple times but we took only one trip on The Bat. A fast paced ride on The Bat and we sat front seat which I think is best on The Bat. Lunch at Festhaus with some La'Rosa's was next and then headed to Viking Fury. A fast line and I am not a huge fan of Viking Fury, but its an old-school ride and always gives you a interesting feeling in your stomach. Then we headed to Boo Blasters to hunt down some ghost! We rode Boo Blasters twice, and both times were about 25 minute waits, and all the talk I've heard on KIC about its improvements was 100% true. Its like its almost brand new. Our blasters were good, but the ride looks great and everything works fantastic including the tourist, all 4 Boocifer's including the much infamous fog screen effect which is now projected onto the old money safe from its Scooby days. And even Boocifers grave worked. We rode it twice and its great to see Boo Blasters receive so much TLC in the off season and hopefully it will stay like this all season. Then Mystic Timbers was on our list so we headed over there for an afternoon ride on it. A 45 minute wait, sat near the middle. My Brother hadn't ridden it yet but I had for its First Rider event so I tried to give him some pointers and info on it! It was a great ride on Mystic Timbers with lots of airtime and he had a lot of fun on it as well. We got The Bat for the Shed ending, and his opinion on Mystic Timbers was that it is a great, fun coaster, but that the shed was lacking something. I think I kinda agree although I dont really mind the shed. We then rode Vortex twice more, Red Racer, and Flight of Fear which was a fairly rougher ride near the back of the train but a very quick wait considering they shut it down for a while shortly before we rode. One more ride on Banshee near the middle same as our first ride and had a fun, g-force thrilled ride on Banshee! Then as we entered The Beast queue, the time was 9:00, a quick ride at twilight and then we waited in line for a late night ride after the fireworks! A nice show and then we waited about 15 minutes to get to the front of the line. We then waited for the front seat however they announced they would only be running a few more trains so we stepped back a few seats and rode the final train of the night on The Beast! I had never experienced a last train ride before except Thunder Run at Kentucky Kingdom so it was very cool! Probably my favorite ride on Beast as you couldnt see anything and it was absolutely fantastic! We headed to the exit after a quick photo in front of the Eiffel Tower and then headed home after a great, fun day at the Island! I took a few photos and like usual they are mostly of Boo Blasters so sorry for no real great pictures! A Vortex afternoon! Boo Blasters and Eiffel Tower A Kings Island night! A fun day at the park and should be headed back real soon! Thanks for reading! MaestroJr Total ride count Beast-3 Bat-1 Banshee-2 Boo Blasters on Boo Hill-2 Mystic Timbers-1 Racer-2, Blue-1 Red-1 Adventure Express-1 Vortex-4 Viking Fury-1 Flight of Fear-2

That's me on Invertigo every time!

It's not rough now but the over the shoulder restraints banged your head around like a rag doll with very little you could do to prevent it. I think it's fairly smooth now but I can see why people may think it's rough.

It'd be cool to see a park similar to what we have here in Kentucky with Kentucky Kingdom or even Beech Bend. The problem is that Kings Island is in Ohio and Kings Dominion in Virginia so the competition is high and appeal would be hard to get unless you provide enough rides and at least three or four coasters. I would love to see a medium sized park come to West Virginia but I think Camden is it for now unfortunately. MaestroJr

Raiders of the Lost Ark theme was played throughout much of the Paramount era, used to love hearing that while in line for Adventure Express as a kid but Tomb Raider music works well too.