April 19 - Private Event

[MarketingExpress]

My wife and I arrived at the park about 10:30 with the rides scheduled to open at 11:00 for our company. We waited for our friends Rob and Amy since we had their tickets and they weren’t too far behind us. Heard the National Anthem at 11:00 and saw them raise the American flag outside the front gate while one of the performers sang…a nice touch. Once Rob an Amy got there right around 11, we made out way in.

Our first stop was of course Diamondback. I was already amazed by the shear size of the ride when you saw it towering in the distance when we got off of I-71 North. It definitely looks great in the KI skyline. We cut down the right side of International Street, which seemed like a lot of people were doing. The left side looked empty and I would imagine that Action Zone and Coney looked similar with everyone wanting to ride Diamondback as their first ride. A majority of the crowd cut was going down the path behind the Eiffel Tower between BLSC and DB. Of course being a former employee and knowing the quickest route told our group to head down the path going into NU next to the International Showplace. Definitely paid off right away, the line was out the entrance already, but they only had the bottom queues open for us (next to the splashdown pool). While waiting in line, I was mesmerized by the splashdown each time the train went through it and also the angle of the lift hill. After waiting about 20 – 30 mins we finally made it up to the top of the stairs to the station. I was met by the separator/supervisor (who happened to work on my crew on IJST), who then separated us into our rows. Glad to see that they are using a separator on this ride to achieve the maximum efficiency, but I was even more thrilled to see a “single rider line,” which I am sure will be very useful and make the separator’s job much easier. My wife and I were in the front of the car, Rob and Amy in the back. We made our way up the gigantic lift hill, just as we crested the top my hands immediately went into the air almost hitting my wife in the head with my elbow. The first drop…WOW!!! We made our way to the second drop and having heard Don say that you are out of your seat the entire way down the second drop, I was skeptical, but he was 100% accurate. We made our way through the ride with each turn being as exciting as the first and when we finally stopped after the splashdown (very cool!!) the train erupted in applause and cheering. It was at that point that I knew that KI had made the right decision with Diamondback and from this point when people thought of KI they would not only just think of The Beast, they would also now think Diamondback.

After riding Diamondback, we made our way over to The Beast, what better way to start the season than these 2 rides. We made our way up to the station only to find that they were only running 1 train due to the rain. I know from experience that running one train is just as brutal to the staff of the ride as it is to the guests. It’s at that moment that you realize just how long your ride actually is. We waited probably about 45 mins to ride The Beast, but we made sure that we made the wait worth it. My wife and I commanded from the front seat of the mighty Beast on that ride, with Rob and Amy co-piloting behind us. By that time a moderate rain had started falling and even though at times it felt like hail was pelting our faces, we couldn’t help but to laugh and cheer the entire time we were riding in the front. Definitely one of the smoothest rides I had on this great ride.

After riding, we decided that we would take a spin on the Wild Thornberry’s Log Flume. We walked up and there was no one in line or riding, I am sure the ride op was glad to see someone riding. I was disappointed that the elephant wasn’t turned on, but none the less still a great ride.

We then found our way over to the Festhaus where the 4 of us shared a large Cheese pizza while taking in the country show that started shortly after we got there. Once we were done eating we make our way over to Flight Deck since we needed something semi-easy after stuffing our faces with pizza. We noticed SOB was cycling but closed, the ride op said that it was the first time that they has cycled all day so it might mean good news. After riding FD, in the front row (which I swear is a completely different ride when you ride in the front car) we made our way over to Drop Tower. This is the only ride in the park that scares the h*ll out of me every time because I hate heights but leaves me wanting more when I get off.

A spin on Invertigo and Delirium by Amy and me (because our significant others wussed out on these rides) concluded our visit to AZ. We then made our way to my first baby when I worked at the park, AE. Sat in second last row, still a great ride, I did notice they either removed or turned off the brakes in the booby trap tunnel causing the train to take that turn before the lift much faster than before.

We made our way down Coney riding the red Racer and the Dodgems before heading into X-Base. Upon entering the FOF line we were told that the wait (which was out the door by this time) was 45 mins to an hour because they too were only running 1 train. Firehawk had a longer wait so it was apparent that we weren’t going to get to ride these 2. We then made our way to BLSC (yes I know we skipped Vortex which was making a hideous screeching all day which may have been caused by the rain bus definitely something I had never heard before) which also was running 1 train so we waited about 40 mins. We were able to get a good view of Diamondback while waiting and saw that the line was very short. So we made our way over for round 2 of Diamondback this time only waiting about 10 mins to ride. My theory is that everyone got their ride in at the beginning of the day and now they were branching our into the other areas of the park. I could not let myself pass up another opportunity to ride. This time Rob and I sat in the back of the car with Michelle and Amy in the front. Amy had said it freaked her out in the back being so far from the person next to her. Once again rode the entire way with my hands up and yell to Rob to out his hands up because he had a death grip on the lap bar. He did eventually put his hands up (for the picture) but then quickly put them back down. I did notice that in the back row, you did feel a little more out on the edge because you could just look down and see all the way to the ground while riding, but not enough to scare me.

The rains then came around 5:00 with no sign of letting up and we decided to end the day with a ride on the Crypt and on SDTHC in which my wife slaughtered me, but not before stopping for a funnel cake on our way out.

Given the fact that they called for showers all day, the day turned out well with 2 rides on Diamondback and getting to ride our other favorites. Yes the coasters all had one train running which lead to longer lines(Diamondback was one of the shortest waits), but there was nothing the ride ops could have done about it with it raining on and off most of the day. A great trip and I can’t wait to ride Diamondback again

[tigellinus]

^^Good TR!

At least they were running in the rain! I'm definitely with you on D-back being one to avoid in the morning, at least if you can defeat temptation and hold off!!