Ok, so here I am posting a Silver Dollar City trip report after opening day at Kings Island. I can only tell the truth - my wife booked the vacation to Branson for Spring Break here in Mason. As a note, we pulled back into the driveway at 4:30pm this afternoon and I was on my first Diamondback ride before 6pm!

Back to Silver Dollar City, starting with my impressions of the rollercoasters:

- Powderkeg: Loved this ride. Great launch into a sweet airtime hill followed by smooth but forceful twists and turns. My little coaster buddy (5 year old) also got to ride due to the 42" minimum. He was a little scared of the launch, but enjoyed it none the less.

- Wildfire: With apologies to Vortex, this is my new favorite looper (5 inversions) with the first hill into the Immelman providing an awesome airtime to compression to turn out experience. Seats on this really help the feel of the ride (4 across and fairly open seating)

- Thunderation: Ok for me (somewhat typical rough mine ride style coaster) although was the favorite of little coaster buddy. The train had two cars where you rode backwards (oh I miss the backward racer) which was the better direction in my mind

- Fire in the Hole: Not a roller coaster, not worth the wait (even as a walk on)

- Grand Exposition Coaster: Slightly bigger and better than Little Bill's Giggle Coaster (I was something worse than stapled into the car next to my 3 year old on this)

Other impressions:

- Other Rides: Lots of variety with some good family rides, some good kiddie rides. Enough to keep you busy if you only wanted to ride rides. The list isn't extensive, but the kids never got bored and I actually enjoyed riding some of them - Racing Regatta is quite high speed for a family ride.

- Attractions and Theming: Theme is very well done and the attractions include many interesting shows and craftsmen

- Food: Expensive but decent with many, many options (we only ate lunch at the park), but could easily have had a nice meal for dinner (depending upon park hours - it closes at 6 or 7pm much of the year). For a family that deals with food allergies, they also have great allergy menu's on their web site (I wish KI could improve in this area!) so we could plan in advance.

- Festivals: We were there during the International festival (they have lots throughout the year) and it was extremely well done.

- Parking: This was the only downside to the place. The parking shuttles were horrendous - on a day when I walked on to roller coasters running single trains (ok, so much of the International Festival crowd was older), I spent more time waiting for a shuttle back to my car than I did walking to my car, getting out of the parking lot, and driving home from KI on opening day after the fireworks.

Final thought - worth a visit if you are in the area and enjoy theme parks or roller coasters. Ticket prices are fairly high (adult $50, 4-11 $40, 3 and under free), but not outrageous in a tourist spot like Branson. We were also able to get free adult tickets by going to a sales pitch at the timeshare place we stayed at (one hour, be ready to say "no thank you") which I understand is fairly common in the area.

Too bad there's no photos of this amazingly beautiful park....

This park is amazing and beautiful. Powder Keg's launch is very powerful to me. Then once you get over that first hill after the launch, you go flying out of your seat.