Saturday May 21 TR

[Flat Freak]

Life gets in the way of things that are important sometimes. Today it was an afternoon commitment interfering with our hopes to get some rides in. No matter, we had to leave the park at 2pm, but arrived at 840am and were third in line at the metal detectors.

A quick jog back to Diamondback got us on the second train (red train) of the day. Six people total. The station was too full for a re-ride, but we looped around and got back in time to be on the red train again. Loop around, red train again. Loop around, line was down the stairs but little wait. Four rides in by 0925. Looking good for 8-10 before the lines got long. On the final brake run of our fourth lap (my 10-year-old's 73rd Diamondback ride), the ride op started walking out to talk to us. Uh oh. We waited about 6-7 minutes before they rolled us in to the station. Trains went out empty a few times, and they weren't letting people into the queue.

Bailout, head to Beast. Two train wait the first lap. Second lap would have been a walk on, but we elected to wait three trains for the front row. Our train was half empty.

Head to BLSC. Twenty minute wait. (Side note: I like this ride. I would really like it if it had a better throughput.) Launch, nice ride. Get to the helicopter scene, no launch. Hear the mechanism make noise a few times, but no launch. Sunny, getting hot. After a few minutes, a ride op comes to the fence to tell us there's a delay. No kidding. Unfortunately, some jerks on our train mouth off to her. She was probably a rookie and didn't handle things the best, though. She says she'll be back in a few minutes. We wait, finally a supervisor comes out and tells us they'll try to launch shortly. Eventually it works and we roll in uneventfully after an approximately 10-15 minute delay.

We wanted to try Panda Express, so we headed to Festhaus. The selection at the time was horrible (it was still early), and Festhaus Larosa's was packed, so we went to I Street for pizza. Yummy as ever.

Back towards Rivertown, Diamondback line all through the queue. Vortex? Sorry, closed.

Peek at WindSeeker, no obvious work being done, but the carriage moved down the tower a few times throughout our day (it was at the top, stopped, when we arrived this morning) so they were doing something.

Since we only had a short time left, we decided to do some small flats. WindSeeker Jr. (Zephyr) was pretty fun, one ride wait. Dodgems were fun, walk on. We went to the Red Racer and had a four train wait. Exiting, we noticed that the line was now through four! rows of speed rails on both sides!!! It was just a four train wait ten minutes ago! I guess we were lucky. Back on the midway, it seemed like the park was trying for an attendance record by giving free admission to anyone wearing a music related t-shirt. People were EVERYWHERE. Carousel was fun.

By then it was 1240 and we had to leave at 2pm. We walked into Action Zone and the Drop Zone Tower and Delirium lines were both at least 40 minutes. Never mind, we'll be back later in the season. A pretty productive four hours (for a Saturday).

Exiting the park, there were people pouring in and the bus lot was packed. I made some lady's day when I left the first spot in the row in the Gold Pass lot. She was pulling into one of the last few spots in the row, when I flagged her down and told her she could get the first spot if she was lucky. I hope it was still open when she got there.

I'll say this - the park atmosphere is a lot better when it's full like that, but we as weekday regulars sure do get spoiled by short waits.

Nice weather today. About 80, sunny, clear, no hint of the predicted t-storms. No signs of the end of the world, yet.

My daughter and I got near home about 90 minutes before the party we were supposed to attend, so we stopped at a local Mexican restaurant, ate delicious fajitas on the patio and had some good laughs. That was the highlight of the day, in a good way. Kings Island really needs a Mexican food offering.

[KIfan73]

Great TR thanks for posting. I always try to avoid crowds, but when Ive been at the park at very crowded times, it's always fun.

[CoasterGeek101]

Thanks for posting.