Unofficial KIC Road Trip Video TR

[violakat03]

When XGatorHead8904 posted a thread about a KIC Road Trip, I was immediately interested, as it was something I'd been thinking about posting for a while. Plans solidified over the weeks following, and a date was set for a trip to Holiday World. I've never been to Holiday World but had always heard nothing but wonderful things so I was definitely excited that this was the location chosen. I cleared my schedule for the first weekend in May and anxiously awaited it's arrival.

As Thursday rolled around, I realized that I had a math test due in the morning. I'm in online classes but have to take the tests on campus between certain set dates. I have a weekly hang-out date with good friends of mine on Thursday nights, so my intention was to come home, study, get a few hours of sleep, take the test early and head to the park immediately afterwards. The sleep never happened. After an abysmal night of studying and not understanding a word (nor number) of the material, I gave up on the whole test idea, got some errands taken care of and headed to KI around 1 pm. I got there around 2 and was running on no sleep and the 5-hour energy shot that I tossed back as I got to the park.

I decided not to take my camera in the park on Friday, because I didn't want to risk losing or damaging it before the Holiday World trip. I called Gator to see where to meet them and found Gator, kittenpooh and Kawana waiting for me out front of the Festhaus. I had been texting with Adam (pkiboy) earlier to plan a meetup and since he and Nick (dare-to-fly) were by Flight of Fear, we headed that direction. After an enjoyably walk-on ride on Flight of Fear (still a favorite of mine), we then headed over to Diamondback.

Two rides on Diamondback later, we got tired of waiting for them to clean trains out after people tossed their cookies (seriously, what was with 3 people in 10 minutes puking ON the train?!), so we hit up The Beast, and then headed toward Action Zone. Got my first laps of the year on Son of Beast and Invertigo, both of which I was once again unimpressed with. Invertigo was the only ride this weekend that almost claimed my sunglasses. I had to hold them on in the cobra roll. Kawana and I rode front seat/forward, which I consider to be one of 2 good seats on that train, the other being front seat/backward which I believe kittenpooh and dare-to-fly rode in.

After Invertigo, I declared it was lunch time and discovered I was not the only one starving. None of us wanted to pay park prices for food and decided to take 2 cars to Wendy's on 741. After loading up and heading off, we claimed 2 tables and watched the clouds outside getting ever darker and more ominous as we ate. We headed back to the park just as it was starting to rain, where kittenpooh headed home and Gator, Kawana and I and booked it for the Festhaus to wait it out. Good timing too, because not a moment after we got inside, there was a massive downpour.

We waited out the rain and then found out that Adam and company were stuck waiting it out by the Diamondback gift shop, so we headed that way when it had dried up a bit and ran into keiko_coaster and Phantom Theater. When the all-clear siren sounded for Diamondback, a huge line formed and so some of us decided that The Beast would be a better option than waiting for the Diamondback line. This turned out to be an excellent decision - not only was The Beast station empty (we walked on front seat), it was absolutely screaming in the rain. To give an idea how fast it was going, we didn't grab on the second chain hill until we were slightly past the first emergency staircase. I haven't seen it grab that high since pre-magnetic trim days.

Pulling back into the station, we were pleased to see that the station was still empty! All of us but Kawana, who for some reason exited the ride, got to ride again (thank you Beast crew, for allowing a re-ride!) and enjoy the chaos all over again. After collecting CoastersRZ along the way, we then saw that Diamondback had a fairly short line once again and booked it over that way. Keiko split with us here and headed toward Action Zone because of a bad experience the weekend before, and I resolved to get that injustice corrected by the end of the day.

After our first ride, I had a chat with the ride supervisor at Diamondback and he was just as interested in getting keiko back on DB as I was. With some trixy text messages and some conspiracy help from Gator, Chris and Gabriel (DB ride ops), and everyone else in the group, we got keiko in for her second ride on DB. There was still time for one more ride so we made lap number 4 right as it starting spitting some venemous rain.

For Kawana's info, it doesn't hurt only when it hits your eyeballs. It hurts when it hits your eyelids too. I discovered that DB gives a very, very different ride when you have your eyes closed. Especially when you're trying to hide behind your hands at the same time. Even with that minor difficulty, I wouldn't have missed that rain ride for the life of me, and was highly disappointed when we booked it back to The Beast for another night ride, only to find them closing it due to weather conditions. We watched the fireworks as we headed toward the exit.

At the point that we left the park, I had been up for around 30 hours and was suriving solely on adrenaline and 5-hour energy. I made it safely back home, big kudos to Phantom Theater for following me and making sure I got into my driveway safely. By the time my head was on the pillow, I'd been up for 32 hours straight, and had to be up in 5 hours to leave for Cincinnati and then Holiday World the next day!

[IndyGuy4KI]

Holy cow what a day you had Kat!

[violakat03]

Day two of the unofficial road trip, for me, began at 4:45 a.m. Don't ask me why, but at that time, I woke up. I looked at my phone, questioned why I was awake when my alarm was not due to go off for another hour, and laid back down. At 5:20, I realized there was no hope of me falling back asleep. I was too excited.

I left my house at 6:10 a.m. to head to the Tri-County Mall. After passing, no kidding, 15+ cops shooting radar on 675 and 75 (I don't speed, so I wasn't concerned, but still... 9 of them were all sitting within a mile of the Wilmington Pike exit on 675!), I got to the parking lot of Tri-County to discover I was, by some miracle, the first one there! I didn't see Gator's car, and didn't know what Beast Man's car looked like, but there were no other occupied cars in the area we planned to meet. I parked myself out in the middle of no where so that I'd be noticeable, had a chat with the security guard that stopped by to see if I was alright (it is rather unusual to find a random occupied car in the middle of the parking lot at 7 a.m. on a Saturday), and waited.

Beast Man showed up about 15 minutes after I got there, and I called Gator to find that he was about 5 minutes away. We decided we'd all go in Gator's car to save on gas money, and decided that maybe leaving our cars at the mall wasn't the best idea. There were no Wal-Marts in the vicinity that were going south rather than back north, so we plopped our cars in the Lowe's lot across the street (that night, I would discover I left my headlights on) and piled into Gator's roomy Impala. Hitting up McDonald's on the way out of Cincinnati for breakfast, we were soon on our way!

I had gotten a call from my husband late last night to say that it was clear to deposit his paycheck (trucker paychecks are kind of backwards - they're pre-filled with the information, but I can't deposit it until I get an authorization from the boss-man), so I asked that we stop at a branch of my bank in Louisville, since we'd be hitting the area around 9:30 and most of the branches should be open by then. Using my GPS, I rerouted us the wrong way (the first branch didn't open until 11, so I had to find another one), and then finally we were on our way to Indiana!

A few miles over the Indiana line, we met up with Corey (clbehymer) at a gas station, where Gator and I stocked up on 5-hour energy shots, carbonated beverages and munchies. I swear I was planning to sleep the entire ride there, because I'd only had about 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before, but that never happened. There was too much fun conversation and excitement.

When we turned off the highway to head towards Holiday World, it was a struggle for me to not dance in my seat. I don't normally get this excited about parks, but .. this is Holiday World we're talking about!! It didn't help that we started seeing signs 20 miles earlier, and another one greeted us at the exit.

I started snapping pictures as we were getting closer to the park. All the reports I've ever heard say that you pop over a hill and suddenly there are roller coasters in the middle of nowhere. It's definitely true .. over a hill we came and ... tada, roller coasters!

You get a great view of Pilgrim's Plunge with a backdrop of The Voyage behind it as you come down the road.

They also have several water towers painted with HW's logo.

The best surprise was waiting for us as we approached the parking lot .... it was empty!! We arrived very shortly after opening and there were maybe 30 cars and one bus in the lot. This boded very well for our hopes for multiple Voyage rides. As we came up to the front gate, we were greeted by Pat and had a nice chat with her. She really is as friendly as she comes across on the internet! We got our tickets, entered the park (the front gate employees were very chipper, unlike KI's employees who are usually rather blah) and were pleased to not be attacked by people wielding cameras demanding pictures. We did ask another patron to grab a shot of the four of us with Santa inside the entrance.

Left to right: Beast Man, clbehymer, Santa, XGatorHead8904, violakat03

Going to split this one as the next section will be very video-heavy.

[kiruler102]

it sounds like you had a great time! Looking forward to seeing the rest of it

[violakat03]

After our obligatory Santa picture, we looked at each other and said "what now?" Since we were standing next to the entrance for Halloween (home of the Raven and the Legend), we decided that was our first stop.

The Raven ended up being our longest wait of the day. They were only running one train, and the kids from the bus (who were LOUD and a bit obnoxious) had also made it their first stop, so we had to wait 3 cycles. Corey and I took backseat, Gator and Beast Man (I never actually caught his real name - he's very much the silent type) took the second to rear.

We continued our journey down the Halloween trail, enjoying the atmosphere.

Our next stop was Scarecrow Scrambler. Gator and I got one car and Corey and Beast Man got another. Somehow they got stuck and couldn't open the door to their car, so while we waited for them to get free, we joked about getting a reaction video for the Scrambler. Of course, I had to do it.

After the Scrambler, we discovered our first Pepsi Oasis!

It happened to be across from the entrance to the Legend, which we made our next stop. I love the minimalist theming on this ride. The ride is themed after the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the station house is designed to look like an old one-room schoolhouse. As the train leaves the station, they ring the schoolhouse bell. As you crest the first hill, a long wolf howl sounds before you take the first drop. It was very well done, gave the whole ride an eerie feeling from the very start.

From Halloween, we wandered to Thanksgiving, drawn inexplicably toward the beauty that is The Voyage. They didn't have the lower queue or exit blocked off so we kind of wandered around in the queue to figure out where we going. Finally we found the stairs ("aha! You go up!") and walked into ... an EMPTY STATION. By empty, I mean, the gates were hanging open, and Beast Man and I dove into the very front seat. Corey and Gator got in behind us. Halfway through this amazing ride, I hear Corey start screaming "my cell phone! I lost my cell phone!" Turns out she'd put it in a zipper pocket - and forgot to zip it. Right after she yelled this, I felt something bump my heel - it was her phone! I did my best to hold it against the front of the car through the rest of the ride and panic was averted as Beast Man handed Corey her phone back when we got off. Gator's sunglasses did disappear for good however.

At this point, Voyage had only been running for about 2 hours. We later learned it most definitely had not warmed up yet. We got 2 more rides on The Voyage (as Corey put it, she wanted a ride where she wasn't worried about her phone for the last half), so we tried the middle and rear of the train. I decided the rear was awesome, but I liked the front better. We went from Voyage to Turkey Whirl. Gator and I discovered that car 1 is broken. It doesn't spin. So we wanted a real ride and tried again. Car 7 was a good spinner and Corey and I got it going crazy fast. Then we went to Gobbler Getaway, where I wiped the floor with everyone else's scores. Gator's gun was broken and he ended with a score of 0, but I got 600, which was about 400 more than Beast Man's score.

We meandered through the parks and discovered that not only is their food good, it's dirt cheap! When the $2.49 funnel cakes were discovered, we each had one. Of course, we joked about the KIC tradition of taking a picture of your food, so I took a picture of my mostly demolished funnel cake.

These are at the entrance of 4th of July from Thanksgiving. In 4th of July, we rode Revolution (a round-up), the Eagles Flight (which cannot be snapped because of their designed - though Gator and I both tried anyway!), Liberty Launch (S&S Power launch ride, shorter version of the Power Tower up side), and decided we didn't want to wait in line for bumper cars. Going back through Christmas, we got our first real Santa sighting. We heard jingle bells behind us and as we turned to look, two little girls screamed "Santa!" and went running across the path to give him a hug. It was absolutely adorable.

We made another lap around the park, bypassing The Raven as it looked like it was still running a multiple train wait, and went back to The Legend. After a 1 train wait, we had another enjoyable ride, though I learned I do not like the hollow seat dividers - it bit my hip pretty badly. Then we went back around for another Voyage ride, and grabbed dinner at the Plymouth Rock Cafe. They have traditional Thanksgiving foods, of course, along with other good 'down home' choices. I got the kids portion and still couldn't even finish it. For $5, it was a ton of food. Good food, I might add!

Before hitting 4th of July, I had to stop to shoot a video of The Voyage where it goes under and then over the pathway.

We caught the flat rides we'd missed on our first trip through 4th of July. The bumper cars are insanely violent. You could get hurt on them if you tried hard enough. I loved it. Then the spider ride (Paul Revere's Midnight Ride) was much, much spinny-er than KI's Monster. Corey and I had ours really flying around. We stumbled dizzily over to the antique car ride, where Beast Man chauffeured us on our first ride and I chauffeured us on our second ride. After a quick run through the gift shop, where everyone but Gator bought ponchos, we decided it was water ride time.

Our first stop was Frightful Falls in Halloween. It was a fun little log flume and actually got us pretty wet. I managed to keep my shoes and socks dry, but my pants got wet even under the poncho. We took a quick spin on the HalloSwings to dry off and then it was time for the big one.

At Pilgrim's Plunge, we stopped and took our socks off, because nothing is worse than wet socks. Then when we got to the station, we got wonderful news - you can ride barefoot! After all of us took off our shoes and stuffed our socks into them, we crossed the foot bridge and climbed in. I tucked my poncho in everywhere I could to prevent my capris from getting wet again (I hate having wet pants on) and away we went! The elevator ride was a little unnerving, because where it bends to allow the elevator cars to pass, the car tips. That was a little frightening. We didn't have to wait at the top for the splash pool to clear, so without delay, it was down we go! It felt a lot like a roller coaster drop, but with a splash at the end. It was kind of odd, the splash is almost a delayed reaction. Right about the time I started thinking "where's the water?" in it came! Most of it just went over the side of the boat, so my bare feet got soaked, but the top half of me didn't get too much. That water was really friggin cold though. My biggest dislike on this ride is that ... there is nothing beyond the drop. You take a very, very, very slow ride back into the station. No water cannons. No bridge to splash down under and walk across after. No theming. No rapids. Nothing. Just a very very very slow progression that feels like it takes forever.

We finished the day off by drying ourselves off on The Voyage. We never had to leave the station. If there was no one waiting for the seat, we rerode. If there was someone waiting for the seat, we found a new seat and rerode. Four rides later, we were in the last train of the day and ended a great day at Holiday World with a great ride on The Voyage.

For our evening rides, The Voyage had warmed up and was at it's true potential. These rides pushed The Voyage over The Beast for my number 1 wooden coaster. It absolutely flies through the corners, air hills, 90° banking and tunnels. You cannot brace and try to lean with the corners, you have to let yourself go limp and let the coaster take you where it wants to. You will get to know your neighbor because it will throw you into them. This is the only ride I've ever felt like I was going to fall out of without the restraints because it is just non-stop air and corners. There is even air IN the corners! The way I described it to Angie was "you know how the last helix of The Beast feels out of control and crazy? Imagine the entire ride being like that." That's exactly how it was. I was beyond impressed. My feelings were confirmed when I rode Beast again the next day, it felt a lot tamer when compared to Voyage.

After our eighth and final ride on The Voyage for the day, Holiday World was closed. The fudge store was still open, so we took Terpy's advice and all bought fudge. I got peanut butter fudge and a caramel apple. The apple was wonderful, the fudge is divine. Then it was time to head home from a great day at a great park.

The last video is taking forever to upload so I'll add it in when it's done.

[clbehymer]

Great TR. You really summed it up. I had a great time hanging out with all of you, and it was definately worth the drive. What I was most impressed with was the customer service. As I think you put it, it was an attittude of "What can I do for you", instead of the usual I'm here because I get paid to be. A lot of places, including where I work, can certainly take a page out of their book. The ride ops took your loose articles while you were waiting for the next train to come in and even had FREE lockers at each of the ride stations. I also enjoyed that they had more diet drink options than just Diet Pepsi. Yay, Diet Mt. Dew!!!

The Voyage certainly lived up to the hype. Every seat that I rode in gave a great ride. I told Gator on our last ride of the day in the middle that I could probably use a tamer ride right before heading home. No luck with that. Even the middle of the train had massive airtime and gave you the "get to know your neighbor" effect.

Pilgrim's Plunge, however, was a bit dissapointing. From what I saw online, I thought that the drop would be steeper, but it really wasn't. The elevator lift was cool though, I was a little aprehensive about that part of it.

All in all it was an awesome time and great company. I'm glad that I wasn't one of the many cars that I saw getting pulled over on 65 and 64 on the way there and on the way home.

Thanks for posting the videos and pics for the day Kat!

[XGatorHead 8904]

Do I even need to post a TR now? I'd just be rehashing the same things, but without pictures and videos! I'll most likely do one anyway.

You know, oddly enough I have yet to break into the fudge I took home. I'll have to try it tonight.

It's too bad I don't have sound on my computer here at work. For some reason, I'm really interested in seeing that last video! That's all I'll say about that for now...

[violakat03]

Alright, last video finally uploaded so I can finish my TR!

As we left the park for the night, we shot one last video. The longest of the day.

Then we split with Corey. Gator, Beast Man and myself piled in for the trip home. We stopped at a gas station a few exits from Holiday World and when I wandered out of the restroom, I found Gator playing with .... puppets?

When we finally got back to our cars in Cincinnati, I couldn't figure out why my door wasn't unlocking with the key fob - until I noticed that the headlight switch was still in the "on" position. It was dark when I left my house but light when I got to Cincy so I completely forgot that I'd even had them on to start with. So our adventure didn't end where we thought it would! Beast Man and Gator both waited patiently with me for the AAA guy to come jump start my car and we finally were on our ways home.

[keiko_coaster]

We waited out the rain and then found out that Adam and company were stuck waiting it out by the Diamondback gift shop, so we headed that way when it had dried up a bit and ran into keiko_coaster and Phantom Theater. When the all-clear siren sounded for Diamondback, a huge line formed and so some of us decided that The Beast would be a better option than waiting for the Diamondback line. This turned out to be an excellent decision - not only was The Beast station empty (we walked on front seat), it was absolutely screaming in the rain. To give an idea how fast it was going, we didn't grab on the second chain hill until we were slightly past the first emergency staircase. I haven't seen it grab that high since pre-magnetic trim days.

Pulling back into the station, we were pleased to see that the station was still empty! All of us but Kawana, who for some reason exited the ride, got to ride again (thank you Beast crew, for allowing a re-ride!) and enjoy the chaos all over again. After collecting CoastersRZ along the way, we then saw that Diamondback had a fairly short line once again and booked it over that way. Keiko split with us here and headed toward Action Zone because of a bad experience the weekend before, and I resolved to get that injustice corrected by the end of the day.

After our first ride, I had a chat with the ride supervisor at Diamondback and he was just as interested in getting keiko back on DB as I was. With some trixy text messages and some conspiracy help from Gator, Chris and Gabriel (DB ride ops), and everyone else in the group, we got keiko in for her second ride on DB. There was still time for one more ride so we made lap number 4 right as it starting spitting some venemous rain.

...................................................... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Thats really all the words i have for what happened.

[TheCryptRaider]

Thanks Kat, you just reaaaally made me want to go to Holiday World. Haha, JK. I love your VTR's Thanks for posting. I'm glad you enjoyed your Voyage. ;D

[BavarianBeatle]

That brought back memories of my first trip last year with the kids. We went straight from the rope drop to The Voyage and got the back car on the second train of the day. After that ride we agreed that if we had to leave and go home right then, the trip was worth it..... Only one ride on Raven? I love that little coaster!!!! And the more I ride it the better it gets.

And Kat's "no trim brakes!!!!" comment was exactly what my kids said, and with the same look on their faces!

Thanks for a great TR, you captured a day at HW very well!!

[BoddaH1994]

What is this "KIC Land" that you speak of? Is it some bad neighborhood on the outskirts of the KICentral Universe?

[The Interpreter]

It's a precognition of what is to come. Just in the nick of time, no less...

[Gabe]

Nice TR Kat! I'll def look forward to going with you at some point this summer! I want to hit Splashin Safari too.

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

Great TR. This makes me long to go back to HW.

Aren't their bumper cars the best though? They're so fast and hit so hard. And they're really freaky with their light-up eyes.

[Beast Man]

Holiday World was awesome.What can I say that hasn't been said before?I think KI can learn a thing or two from HW.I don't know how much of the differences in policies are from(as Donnie Baker says)state law or from being boneheads.

The free drinks were fantastic.We all took full advantage of it.The food was better and cheaper than KI and the ride ops were very friendly.But it was little differences in policy that interested me.The ride ops would just cross the track while the train was out of the station.You could leave your belongings on shelves on the water rides and you could ride barefoot on Pilgrim's Plunge.Again I don't know if this is due to differences in state law or just being more sensible with policies.

The fudge was very good.I had the chocolate with nuts.It had a slight minty flavor which was very refreshing.(Oh and Kat,my name is Shawn )

[Justin_M17]

It looks like you guys had a blast. I wish I could've gone.

Maybe next time, eh?

[cassie_KY]

Wonderful trip report. I can't wait to go in three weeks!