Thursday May 28, 2009

[Kawana]

So, I listen to the Season Pass podcast and Doug Barnes had said he'd be here on this day and if anyone wanted to join him, to let him know. I said I would try to join and after all the stars aligned we were together along with Urso Chappell of Expomuseum.com, Robert Coker of Thrillride.com, a couple that Doug knew from Florida and later in the day we met up with Chris Godsey of Rideworld.com and his family.

Everyone but Urso had been to the park at least once before so they knew what to expect and this was Urso's third different park in as many days.

The majority of the park was in a one train operation mode, including The Beast early on, but once the rain stopped, one train op continued, curiously.

I really enjoyed being the group's Kings Island "local" and answering any questions they had.

Some of the highlights were of course Diamondback, The Beast, FoF, Adventure Express, and The Racer. Everyone had a blast on each ride and getting to share a new experience with Urso and everyone else that hadn't ridden each ride was awesome.

Lowlights included SoB, the Crypt and one train operation. The consensus of the group was that SoB was painful, and the Crypt was a waste of time.

I ran into a ton of KICers, including, dare-to-fly, CoryButcher, Captain Nemo, Gordon Bombay, KI Man, markr, gigacoaster2k and pkiboy. Add to that the amount of ride ops that recognized me, and you get Doug telling me I'm a local celebrity. I doubt that very much, but I can see how they would think that seeing everyone say hi to me and chat with me.

That being said, I had a fantastic time at the park and had one of the best days I've had at the park in quite some time.

After close, the group went to Frisch's for dinner and then we all went to what would become the highlight of my day.

Immediately after dinner, we all met back at Doug's hotel and recorded an episode of the podcast right there live. I have to say that was a blast to do and I can't wait to listen to it when Doug gets it done. I invite all members of KIC to have a listen, it's pretty funny stuff and a good conversation to boot.

All in all, everyone got to do what they came to KI to do, and they had a blast doing it and the park came off, I think, very well in all their eyes.

My final ride count is as follows:

DB-4

Beast-2

Crypt-1

Vortex-1

Racer-1

AE-2

SoB-1

Flight Deck-1

BLSC-1

FoF-1

Firehawk-1