May 8, 9, and 10

[gabelogan99]

(This is an extremely long and wordy report. You have been warned. There are also no pictures. There were far more talented photographers there for RWW than myself, with far better equipment than my 2 megapixel camera phone.)

Now that I have finally caught up on my sleep and have a pretty clear head, I'm ready to report on my adventures. I'm remembering all of this to the best of my ability but the advantage is that everything that I did on Saturday and Sunday was centered around the Ride Warriors activities, so I have the schedule handy as a little bit of a cheat sheet. My adventure actually started on Friday night.

Friday, May 8 I live two hours away from Kings Island. As I've said a couple times here before, I have what I call a "halfway" point where I usually stay on nights before and after Kings Island--my grandparents own a house on Lake Shawnee in Jamestown and so does my aunt. This is roughly fifteen miles from Prime Outlets in Jeffersonville if any of you know where that is. However, I did not want to stay there this time because it takes nearly an hour to get to Kings Island from there and I just wanted to take driving out of the entire equation to make my trip as relaxing as possible. Although I originally made my reservation for the Kings Island Resort, I switched my plans and stayed at the Super 8 instead and saved $140 doing that. My brother had stayed there the week before and said that it was very decent for the price, so I made the switch a few days before the big day. (A review of my hotel stay will be posted later, but I will say that I have stayed at the KI Resort before and the Super 8 really wasn't all that different.)

I left Jamestown a little after 5 on Friday evening and got to the hotel a little after 6. It was raining very hard when I first arrived at the hotel so I just turned on the TV for about an hour and it didn't exactly clear up, but it at least stopped raining and so I headed to the park. As you can imagine, and as some of you know because you were there, the rained cleared a great number of people out of the park. I headed for Diamondback and held my breath. On Opening Day I had every intention of riding Diamondback. I got there with my family for the ERT that Saturday and had my concerns over whether or not I'd be able to fit on the ride. I tried the test seat and I failed. So, for the next three weeks I did a little exercise and employed some dieting techniques, including some crash dieting, and I lost about ten pounds. I figured that would be enough because it was so close to clicking three times on opening day but it just wouldn't do it. The other thing that was different on Friday was that I was wearing lighter clothes--short and a t-shirt. So, on this night, Friday May 8 2009, I sat in the test seat and passed and I used the Single Riders Line and waited roughly ten minutes for my first ever ride on Diamondback. Needless to say, it was worth all of the work I did to lose those few pounds. I required some extra assistance by one of the ride ops, but at least I got to ride. After Diamondback I went to The Beast for a second row ride. (This is my favorite row to ride in.) Then I went to Vortex and while on Vortex it started to sprinkle. I figured I had better head back to the hotel before it started to rain any harder so I did but it never started pouring again that night. Friday was over. I got maybe two hours of sleep that night.

Saturday, May After a virtually sleepless night, I got up and showered and went to the park and got there at about 6:15 for check-in. I got three or four rides in on The Beast during the ERT that morning. One of the front seat cars went down in train 3 so they took that train off, and that took about ten extra minutes. At the time, I was waiting for the front seat so that took some extra time too. 8:00 rolled around and I went over to Backlot and got two rides in, one in the very front row. I had never rode the front row of Backlot before so that was nice. Then after that I went over to Vortex and rode that 3-4 times. What almost everyone did at a certain point was gather around near The Crypt and wait to be taken over to Diamondback--which as I understand did actually end up happening. I didn't know that it was an option to get in Diamondback's normal ERT, and I didn't really care anyways. After my rides on Vortex I waited at the point where security was cutting everyone off near Juke Box Diner and then I headed through Coney Mall into X-Base for one of the first rides on Firehawk. By this time, of course, it's 10:00. So I rode Firehawk and rode it early which ended up being a smart thing to do, and then I walked on to Flight of Fear after that. I don't believe I rode anything after Flight of Fear, I headed back over to The Beast eventually for behind the scenes tour. Since so much of The Beast and its supports are hidden, this was really a great time to get some unique views that I had never seen before.

Now, I have to admit, I'm having a little trouble remember what I did after that. What the heck did I do between around 11:30 and the next Ride Warriors event at 6? Well, here's what I most certainly did do: right after The Beast tour, I went out to the car for lunch. I had three six-inch turkey subs from Subway to have at various points of the weekend and I ate one of them at this point and then I headed back into the park into Action Zone. I went to Flight Deck, which had a bit more of a line than I was expecting. But, I waited for the front seat which is the only seat I ever sit on when riding Flight Deck. I knew Son of Beast's line was at least 45 minutes so I opted out of that. Drop Tower and Delerium were both down at the time due to high winds, so that is why everyone was flocking to the coasters in AZ. I decided to save everything else in AZ for either later in the day or Sunday morning. I believe that I actually went to The Racer after leaving AZ. I wanted to ride it because I had not ridden it in a really long time. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had not ridden it since they turned the Red Racer forwards, so I rode Red Racer. I was also curious to see if I could still fit in it and I did and got two clicks out of it, so that was good. After that I believe I went into the arcade for a while, but I didn't really win a lot of tickets. At 3:00 I headed to the picnic grove the Backyard BBQ.

No complaints about the Backyard BBQ--it was good as usual and for $9.99 it was a great deal. The only thing about it was that it was a little windy and cups and plates were blowing all over the place. I got a drum stick (ice cream) and that made me thirsty so I got some water and while I was doing that I was motioned over by a fellow KIC member, who turned out to be none other than Avatar and he was with ZosoBeast. (There was also another guy there whose name I don't remember. Then another KIC member, who is actually more of a lurker joined us.) We sat there until 4:30 and then we all as a group headed to Adventure Express to check out the line, which was long, so we instead went to Red Racer and rode that. After that we went to AE again, which had a shorter line, and rode that. None of the guys in the last tunnel were working. After AE, we went to the KI Theater for the guest speakers at 6. I got some pretty good insights and obviously my favorite speaker was the guy who supervised the building of The Beast. (Not good with names.) The entire session lasted longer than I expected, and it there wasn't too much time to do much of anything before The Beast's party in the picnic grove. I separated from the others for a bit and walked into Coney Mall and sat down and just took in the environment for a bit, and then I headed to the party.

I have to say that they really put on a nice little party for The Beast. The cake was delicious and the special cake that had The Beast on it looked great. I also got some pretzels and some Coke in my nice little complimentary free cup that they were giving out, so that was a nice little souvenir. It was around this time, about the time that they started calling names for the raffle drawings that I encountered my first problem, and my first challenge, for the weekend. It was starting to get cold. I knew there was no way I was going to ride Diamondback in the shorts and the KIC t-shirt I was wearing at the time and it was ten after 9. So the challenge was to get from the picnic grove to the hotel and back near The Crypt's entrance for the Diamondback ERT in less than an hour. I did it--and I did it with even a little time to spare without ever once actually running. In retrospect, I obviously should have just brought my jeans and pullover with me that morning, but I didn't think about it. The thing that saved me a lot of time is that I paid for prefered parking that morning, so I didn't have a lot of walking to do in order to get to my car and didn't have hardly any walking to do when I got back either. Shortly after I arrived where I needed to be, the fireworks started. It was really neat seeing them from this location, as I never have seen them from there before. (Facing Beast's entrance plaza) Soon after the fireworks, we were walked over to Diamondback where I got in two "regular" rides and then it hit me that I had better get in a ride on the front since I might never get the chance to do that again. So I did--and the front of Diamondback at night was amazing. I knew I couldn't top that. I had my on-ride-photo for that ride e-mailed to me. That was another very nice service that they provided to us Ride Warriors--I liked that a lot. So, after a total of three rides on Diamondback I was ready to go back to the hotel. I slept fairly well that night.

Sunday, May 10 Festivities didn't start until 8 this morning, and so I liked getting up at 7 a lot better than getting up at 6. I knew there wasn't really any rush to get over there today because check-in wouldn't take as long as Saturday and I figured there wouldn't be as many people there and I was right. Once we were let in I headed over to Firehawk, as did most everyone else. I mentioned that it was a good thing I rode Firehaw on Saturday because Firehawk wasn't just down for the Ride Warriors' ERT, it was apparently down all day. I went to Flight of Fear instead and rode in the very back seat for my first ever lights on ride on that. Then I went to The Racer and that's where it got interesting for me. At first I rode Red Racer and I rode it in the very front. After that I got off and rode Blue Racer close to the middle/back. I marathoned Red Racer and I knew that if I kept riding it I would eventually lose count, and I did. However, I know it was either 14 or 15 times. The thing I loved about it was that The Racers were actually racing. I saw some of the other people on the blue train ride after ride as well. I chose to bow out after that marathon--my body wasn't really feeling it but my head was starting to swim a little bit. After that I walked over to Vortex. Vortex was dead also--by that time most of the Ride Warriors there were opting to take part in the normal 9:30 ERT on Diamondback, which was officially announced that we could do today if we wanted. Anyways, I walked onto Vortex and got in the front seat. I was the only one on the train that time. When I pulled back into the station there was still nobody there and they asked me if I wanted to go again. I said "sure." So I did it again. By this time my head was starting to swim even more. When I got back into the station the second time, the guy asked me how the ride was and I said "great." My next words were "I'm done."

So I took it easy for a while and sat down near Outer Hanks where security was once again blocking us all off so we couldn't go into Action Zone until 10. Since I missed out on most of the Action Zone rides yesterday, I rode Delerium first and then went on Son of Beast and Invertigo. After that I headed to The Racer tour. This was the shortest of the tours but I still liked it--I had never been in that area before. I noticed some haunt props which included the ambulence, as already mentioned, and two caskets. I wondered if the caskets in particular were confusing to anyone who didn't know why they were there.

After The Racer tour, I needed a break. I was operating under very little sleep and had just got in about 20 total rides on everything combined. Plus, I was starving at that point. So I walked down International Street and walked out to my car. Something funny happened--I was in prefered parking and on that day I was in the very first spot of the very first row. When I left, there were two guys who couldn't believe I was leaving that spot. So I went back to Burger King first and then went to my hotel room and ate my lunch and then took a short nap. I headed back over to the park a little after 2 and got to the CornStalkers area in time for the Son of Beast tour at 3 and I stopped at the ice cream place in AZ to get a complimentary Fanta before heading over there. This was a great tour also. You never realize just how much wood it takes to support that ride until you see it from that angle. This was the longest of the tours, but that was in part due to the fact that it was a pretty long walk back. Soon after that tour was over, I went to Flight Deck which had a pretty long line as it did yesterday. After that I got a soft pretzel and a Coke from the ice cream place in AZ. Then I walked to Diamondback and briefly spoke with my brother who was there with his girlfriend. Then I once again headed back to the hotel for a little rest.

I left the hotel at a little after 7, giving myself time for one ride on something else before going to the Diamondback ERT. I chose Adventure Express. Then I headed into Rivertown. I was looking for a place that was still serving drinks because I wanted another Coke in order to wake up a little bit. The only place still serving was Potato Works. So I got my last Coke of the trip and headed over to Diamondback for one final ride before leaving and going back to my hotel one final time. Needless to say, I slept great Sunday night and I left the hotel Monday morning.

This was one of the most incredible experiences that I have ever been a part of. The weather was absolutely amazing, which made it that much better. Don and the folks at Kings Island deserve major props for putting this thing together and it was well worth the wait.

Everyone I met from KIC was great also. I know I didn't call out a lot of names except for the two guys I actually did spend some time with, but it was really great to meet those of you who I did meet and I plan on wearing one of my "777" KIC shirts every day that I go to the park this year. I didn't get to talk or spend time with as many of you as I would have liked, but I know there will be more opprotunities for that sort of thing later on. I also feel a little bad that I didn't make it much of a point to come and introduce myself to some of you who I already knew who you were but you might not have necessarily known who I was, I focused more on the people who I wasn't sure who they were. It was great seeing everyone though, and I look forward to more events with you all. This was my first ever event of this type anywhere, and it was an absolute blast--it certainly won't be my last.

Thank you to everyone who made this event so remarkable and I will see you all next year.

[Tom76257]

Very nice TR. It was a pleasure to meet you even though it was brief!

[gabelogan99]

Very nice TR. It was a pleasure to meet you even though it was brief!

Hey Tom it was great to meet you too. I can't quite remember where exactly we met, but I want to say it was over near the Coney Mall sign on Saturday when you were with Giga and the gang. I definitely remember your face...as far as your name, though, I think I met about three or four people named Tom!

[Avatar]

gabelogan99 it looks like you had a nice long weekend full of fun. I was glad you came over so we could meet and it was nice to be able to go to experience a couple attractions. The one guy that joined us after you which said he was mainly a lurker I believe S/N is Cort and I am always glad when lurkers come over to say hi as we usually see more of them down the road.