Who's been to Kennywood?

[BoddaH1994]

I've been to a lot of parks in my day. Likely not more than many of you, but still quite a few. One park that we never seem to talk about is Kennywood Park in West Miffin, PA.

I love Kennywood.

I mean, I freakin LOVE Kennywood.

The last time I saw there was in 2007, and they've been through an ownership change since then. I really haven't heard much about changes to KW since then, but from what I've heard the park wasn't ruined, set on fire, or turned into a "taco stand."

I'm sure that many of you have heard of Phantom's Revenge - their unique Arrow-Morgan conversion-hybrid thingy. Amazing ride. It's their centerpiece, and for good reason. I'm not going to go into detail about how the ride came to be... that's what the link is for, but I thought I'd give it a shout out.

Now, the message that I'm trying to get across with this rant what a bang you get from each attraction at Kennywood, It's a little place, and it's a pain in the a$$ to get there (if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about!!!) but it's so worth it.

Here are my top favorite things about Kennywood that aren't Phantom's Revenge:

1. Dark rides, dark rides and MORE dark rides!!!

Kennywood is the dark ride capital of the world. They've had a dud here and there, like that whole Garfield ride thing, but everything else there is superb. They have an incredibly old fun house attraction themed to Noah's Ark. This thing has been putting Biblical fear in park-goers since 1936 - it's almost as old as Kings Island's Grand Carousel! With the exception of some Disney stuff, this is the best dark ride I've ever experienced. Due to its age (I assume) they are able to get away with things that you'd NEVER see in today's world. Imagine walking on a floor that violently rocks back and forth, a staircase that's on rollers, and a wall that explodes and water rushes in to get you! (Okay, that last one was actually part of the themeing)

Please take the time to check out this video of Noah's Ark:

2. Kennywood has flat rides that we don't have at Kings Island.

Kings Island's collection of flats is good, but it doesn't have everything. No park does. For regular park goers, it's hard to justify riding ANOTHER version of The Scrambler, or ANOTHER WindSeeker while visiting other parks, but Kennywood has some stuff that's different from what we're used to. I know that some of these can be found throughout the various Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks, but here are some of the ones that aren't featured at KI:

The Aero 360 is an insane ride experience.

Their Whip opened in 1918! Do you think your great grandparents were at its media day?

Musik-Express as a spinning ride that's found in classic amusement parks like Coney Island today.

Photo credit for all: Wikipedia

3. Every coaster is excellent.

Whenever anyone makes the argument against Holiday World that they "Only really have 3 rides," someone in the group inherently responds, "Even if they only have 3 major coasters, they're all awesome!" While some find that to be arguably true, the same goes for Kennywood - just on a much larger scale.

Let's begin, shall we?

Jack Rabbit:

Here's a ride that older than most of your grandparents. Opened in 1920, the Jack Rabbit was designed by John A Miller and features altered National Amusement Design trains. It's their "kiddy coaster" from what I gather. Yeah right. This thing packs quite a punch. It's one of those terrain designs where you whip through a bunch of turns before ever reaching the lift hill. A real hidden gem!

Racer:

The 1920's and 30's must have been a good time to design roller coasters. (Prohibition related?) This one was built in 1927 and was another John A Miller design. It's your typical out-and-back, but it has a twist to it... you come back in a different station. Yeah. Imaging riding the Blue Racer and returning into the Red Racer's station. It may sound like a lot, but it totally blows your mind the first time you ride it.

Exterminator:

Talk about a great ride that no one's heard of. You are a... how do I put this? You are a pest -- a vermin. You are trying to escape the evil exterminators as they try to end your short foraging life. This is an indoor spinning wild mouse design, so it's kind of a wild mouse-dark ride combo. At one point you are finally "sprayed" sending you into a tailspin until the conclusion of the ride. If you visit Kennywood, you must must must check this out!

Thunderbolt:

This airtime machine is only a baby compared to the other wooden roller coasters at Kennywood. Built in 1968 and designed by (you guessed it) the godfather of the roller coaster - John A Miller - this coaster is Kennywood's signature wood. It features incredible air time as well as a neat crossover with Phantom's Revenge. I'm not sure if this rule is still in effect or not, but the last time I rode it you weren't allowed to ride alone on a single bench because (I suppose) they felt you were saver through the dips and quick turns with two riders.

I haven't been back in order to ride Sky Rocket - which opened in 2010, but I've heard good things. Coaster lovers seem to be fond of the fact that, although it has inversions, it features lap bars instead of OTSRs.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. I just think it's time for Kennywood to be recognized in this market as the awesome park that it is. If you haven't been there, please go! Write a trip report! If you have, tell us about your experience here. Have you been there since the new ownership took over? Have you ridden the new coaster? I'd love to hear from you!

[Tanna]

I've always wanted to go for the main reason you stated; dark rides.

[BoddaH1994]

I've always wanted to go for the main reason you stated; dark rides.

You must! It's about 4 hours from Cincy, so it's equidistant to Cedar Point and Dollywood. It's SO worth it!

[JTW]

It's on my to do list. For sure.

[TombRaiderFTW]

Kennywood's amazing, and you listed just about every reason I love the place. I don't get why more people don't give it the recognition they give places like Holiday World, because there's really nothing like it anywhere else.

[The Interpreter]

Oh my.

Scrambler is a registered trademark. As such, it is always capitalized.

Jack Rabbit does not have NAD trains. It's a John Miller coaster and it is believed he designed the trains.

Thunderbolt was originally Pippin. THAT coaster was designed by John Miller and opened in 1924. Andy Vettel designed the new portions, which greatly expanded the ride, and replaced much of the ride in his design. Thunderbolt opened in 1968 to rave reviews.

Racer is the only möbius wood coaster in the USA. It has one single, continuous track. A ride covers only half of it. You end up back on the opposite side from which you boarded.

Kangaroo is the last surviving flat ride of its kind. It was marketed as a flying coaster.

The Traver Auto Race must be mentioned. Perhaps the best turnpike ride I've ever ridden.

And, oh yeah? Voyage? Add Thunderbolt and Jack Rabbit to the long list of wood coasters I prefer to it. In fact I vastly prefer Kennywood to Holiday World. It's a glorious park.

[Hendrick]

I went to Kennywood last year. It's an awesome park and I can't wait to go back! I love how their wooden coasters and Phantoms Revenge utilize the terrain so well!

[Tanna]

I've always wanted to go for the main reason you stated; dark rides.

You must! It's about 4 hours from Cincy, so it's equidistant to Cedar Point and Dollywood. It's SO worth it!

It's that close? The same amout of time as a trip to my uncle's country place that no one knows about.

[The Interpreter]

It's 4 and a half hours and 267 miles from Kings Island's parking lot to Kennywood's front gate. I've made that trip several times. That is with average traffic.

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

I don't know if I posted a TR for my Kennywood trip a few years ago, but I loved the park. The Whip was hands down, my favorite ride there.

[Aaron88stang]

It is a great park. I loved the Kangaroo. It became my favorite flat ride

[exscream team]

The Kangaroo is a must ride its super fun

[McSalsa]

I have never been to Kennywood, but everything I have read makes it a park I really do wish to visit one day. The great flat ride collection, combined with 3 excellent wooden coasters, would have been enough but no...they have to have awesome dark rides and a top-ranked steel hypercoaster too, as well as several other small-but-fun steel coasters...

[The Interpreter]

And no one has yet mentioned Potato Patch fries....

[McSalsa]

And no one has yet mentioned Potato Patch fries....

Ugh. Kennywood apparently has so much good stuff, you forget good stuff about them! I have heard about the fries- they are supposed to be so tasty, the line for them can often be longer than the line for the roller coasters...

[BoddaH1994]

Scrambler is a registered trademark. As such, it is always capitalized.

Awe, shucks. Fixed.

Jack Rabbit does not have NAD trains. It's a John Miller coaster and it is believed he designed the trains.

Are you sure? I actually asked the ride op who made the trains while I was there. They told me NAD. That's awful specific information for a ride op to have to be wrong. Miller opened his own company with Baker in 1920 - the same year the Jack Rabbit opened. Do you think he'd have a design ready out of pocket? Did they do stuff like that at the time?

Thunderbolt was originally Pippin. THAT coaster was designed by John Miller and opened in 1924. Andy Vettel designed the new portions, which greatly expanded the ride, and replaced much of the ride in his design. Thunderbolt opened in 1968 to rave reviews.

RCDB gave Miller credit for the design, so that's why I did. Insane little ride, right?

Racer is the only möbius wood coaster in the USA. It has one single, continuous track. A ride covers only half of it. You end up back on the opposite side from which you boarded.

I don't think I've ever been more... confused... as I returned to a station.

Kangaroo is the last surviving flat ride of its kind. It was marketed as a flying coaster.

The Traver Auto Race must be mentioned. Perhaps the best turnpike ride I've ever ridden.

Didn't ride any of these rides. Will next time. Looks like that John Norman Bartlett character from the Kangaroo is responsible for a lot of classic rides.

And, oh yeah? Voyage? Add Thunderbolt and Jack Rabbit to the long list of wood coasters I prefer to it. In fact I vastly prefer Kennywood to Holiday World. It's a glorious park.

Oh, definitely!!!!!

[The Interpreter]

NAD didn't even exist in 1920!

Hmmm. Ed Vettel designed the current trains, they were installed in 1951. And Ed Vettel did contract work for NAD. So, the ride op is probably right.

[Hank]

Kennywood - what a fun park! There is a little bit of everything there and it's all wonderful. It was the best time I ever had, with my entire family, at an amusement park.

[BoddaH1994]

If I had to choose another seasonal park to be my home park, it would be Kennywood.

[zombieninja]

Now you've done it... I'm all psyched now and can't hold still in my seat!

Zombiejane and I are going to Kennywood and Hershey Park through the second week of July. It's our first time for both parks and we're very excited.

Now I need to find a Kennywood wallpaper for my computer at work to help the time pass...

(Did I ever mention that I work for a Japanese company? Hello Kitty and cute anime characters as wallpaper are common, but roller coaster wallpaper makes me the strange one )

[PhantomTheater]

^If you have extra time on that trip, Idlewild Park lies between the two. Or only a little detour to Lakemont and Delgrosso's, and Knoebels is not far from Hershey either.

Meanwhile, I will be following the arrow on May 31st, so perhaps I will do a trip report, since it seems to be a request.

[PyroKinesis]

Considering I live awfully close you would think I have gone at least once in my life but I haven't. Plans with the other half of the family always fall through.

[homestar92]

I love Kennywood. I mean, I REALLY love Kennywood. More than I love Kings Island, Stricker's Grove, Holiday World, and Carowinds. Combined. Besides the blasphemous Garfield ride, I literally cannot find a single thing about that park that I don't absolutely LOVE. They have my favorite non-inverting steel coaster ever in Phantom's Revenge (Sorry, Maggie...). They have my favorite launched coaster ever in Sky Rocket (which I contend has TWO inversions, contrary to RCDB. That's an overbank, not a cutback. But I digress...). They have my first and second favorite dark rides with Noah's Ark (can I really call it a ride?) and Exterminator. The atmosphere is nothing short of mind-blowing. Their wooden coasters are unique, historically significant, and give you a taste of coaster design in a bygone era. Their river rapids ride is BY FAR the best I've EVER seen, and I love White Water Canyon, so that's a tall order. They have awesome flats, large and small: Kangaroo, the Turtles (AKA Tumble Bug), The Whip, Swing Shot, Black Widow, Musik Express, Bayern Kurve, and Bumper Cars with no center divider. I love this park. After going there last year, a trip to Kennywood has become a yearly tradition and I look forward to my return trip this summer (it helps that I know a guy in Pittsburgh and have a place to stay the night for free). It feels like a small park, but has the ride selection of a big park. In my opinion, Kennywood is THE perfect theme park. It has a wonderful balance of thrills and atmosphere. I really, really cannot recommend this park enough. If anyone on here has never been to Kennywood, get up and go as soon as you can. I literally think that ANYONE could enjoy this place, from the smallest toddlers, to your great-great grandmother. I could go on and on and on with my praise, but I'll spare you the earful because nothing I could say can do this park justice.

Oh, also, Potato Patch

[homestar92]

Since my post has already been up a while, read by some, and liked, I'm gonna go ahead and double post just so this doesn't get missed. I posted a trip report from my trip on July 27th of last year, if anyone is interested. I have lots of pictures, too. Can't wait to return with my DSLR to photograph this beautiful park!

http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php/topic/27887-kennywood-72713-ptr/

[VekomaRulz]

I went to Kennywood last year. I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting too. I had watched POV's of the coasters before and they were better than I had anticipated especially Sky Rocket and Thunderbolt. I was also impressed with the Auto Race not expecting the cars to move that fast and I also enjoyed the Turtle and Ghostwood Estates. If it wasn't so far away it would be a park I would try to get to more often.

[DegenRider]

I went back in 06 for their Haloween event. Phantoms Revenge on a cool fall night isnt to be missed!

[XGatorHead 8904]

Look at all this love for Kennywood... and I agree! Mrs. Gator has a family reunion in PA every year, and since there are so many great parks in that state, we decided a few years ago to go to a different one each year the day after the reunion. 2011 was Idlewild, 2012 was Kennywood & 2013 was Conneaut Lake Park.

I had first seen Kennywood on the excellent PBS program, Great Old Amusement Parks. That show features so many places that I want to go to. Idlewild was also featured in that show and we decided to go there first while GatorGirl was still small since it's considered a kiddie park, but next up was Kennywood.

I love all the classic rides that they have there. Kangaroo, Noah's Ark, Auto Race, Whip, Turtles & Bayern Kurve (miss those last two rides at KI) are a lot of fun. Ghostwood Estate is leaps and bounds better than Boo Blasters. As far as coasters, Phantom's Revenge was a little painful on the bunny hops (but still fun), Jack Rabbit's double dip sticks out as a high point for that ride, loved racing side by side against the Gatorettes on Racer, and the whole setting for Thunderbolt is amazing... how were they able to build coasters on the side of that hill?!?

When we went in 2012, there was a huge thunderstorm the day after the family reunion, so we postponed our plans for Kennywood and went to Carnegie Science Center instead on Sunday and went to Kennywood on Monday. Unfortunately, that was Cheerleading Day in the park, so it was extremely crowded. I was looking forward to my first spinning mouse in Exterminator, but after waiting 90 minutes for it, it wasn't worth it. Full queue on the outside, they were pulsing people into the building and I thought we would be right on once we got inside, but there was an even longer line in there. I'll definitely ride again if the line is shorter though.

A then-7-year-old GatorGirl summed up Garfield's Nightmare perfectly: "I wasn't impressed." I would have loved to have seen what it was like as The Old Mill. My coaster credit count currently stands at 127.5 because I only got to ride one side of Racer. The Gatorettes didn't want to wait another half hour just to ride the other side. Because of the crowd size, we didn't get to try Sky Rocket, Aero 360, or any of the water rides. We also didn't try the fries because those lines were as long as the rides (and we didn't want to wait in that line only to find that they use peanut oil, which we didn't know if they do or not. I just looked under their FAQ and it turns out they do not).

But despite all of that, we still left loving that park, looking forward to when we could visit again. If only all those teenage girls hadn't been there, it would have been a perfect day (of course, 25 years ago I would have said that having them there was a perfect day). When it came time to plan this year's vacation, we decided to tag it on to the reunion weekend and make a full week out of PA parks, Niagara Falls and Toronto/Canada's Wonderland. When he caught word of this, chugh43 Hydra asked if he could come along and it took Mrs. Gator no time at all to say "That would be fun!" So with input from him, we decided that for our PA portion we would revisit Kennywood & Conneaut Lake, and go to Waldameer for the first time. And hopefully I can finally get my coaster count to a whole number again!

[Creed Bratton]

Look at all this love for Kennywood... and I agree! Mrs. Gator has a family reunion in PA every year, and since there are so many great parks in that state, we decided a few years ago to go to a different one each year the day after the reunion. 2011 was Idlewild, 2012 was Kennywood & 2013 was Conneaut Lake Park.

I had first seen Kennywood on the excellent PBS program, Great Old Amusement Parks. That show features so many places that I want to go to. Idlewild was also featured in that show and we decided to go there first while GatorGirl was still small since it's considered a kiddie park, but next up was Kennywood.

I love all the classic rides that they have there. Kangaroo, Noah's Ark, Auto Race, Whip, Turtles & Bayern Kurve (miss those last two rides at KI) are a lot of fun. Ghostwood Estate is leaps and bounds better than Boo Blasters. As far as coasters, Phantom's Revenge was a little painful on the bunny hops (but still fun), Jack Rabbit's double dip sticks out as a high point for that ride, loved racing side by side against the Gatorettes on Racer, and the whole setting for Thunderbolt is amazing... how were they able to build coasters on the side of that hill?!?

When we went in 2012, there was a huge thunderstorm the day after the family reunion, so we postponed our plans for Kennywood and went to Carnegie Science Center instead on Sunday and went to Kennywood on Monday. Unfortunately, that was Cheerleading Day in the park, so it was extremely crowded. I was looking forward to my first spinning mouse in Exterminator, but after waiting 90 minutes for it, it wasn't worth it. Full queue on the outside, they were pulsing people into the building and I thought we would be right on once we got inside, but there was an even longer line in there. I'll definitely ride again if the line is shorter though.

A then-7-year-old GatorGirl summed up Garfield's Nightmare perfectly: "I wasn't impressed." I would have loved to have seen what it was like as The Old Mill. My coaster credit count currently stands at 127.5 because I only got to ride one side of Racer. The Gatorettes didn't want to wait another half hour just to ride the other side. Because of the crowd size, we didn't get to try Sky Rocket, Aero 360, or any of the water rides. We also didn't try the fries because those lines were as long as the rides (and we didn't want to wait in that line only to find that they use peanut oil, which we didn't know if they do or not. I just looked under their FAQ and it turns out they do not).

But despite all of that, we still left loving that park, looking forward to when we could visit again. If only all those teenage girls hadn't been there, it would have been a perfect day (of course, 25 years ago I would have said that having them there was a perfect day). When it came time to plan this year's vacation, we decided to tag it on to the reunion weekend and make a full week out of PA parks, Niagara Falls and Toronto/Canada's Wonderland. When he caught word of this, chugh43 asked if he could come along and it took Mrs. Gator no time at all to say "That would be fun!" So with input from him, we decided that for our PA portion we would revisit Kennywood & Conneaut Lake, and go to Waldameer for the first time. And hopefully I can finally get my coaster count to a whole number again!

Agreed with everything. I hope you get the .5 credit, I still can't believe I have that over you!

I can't wait to head back to Kennywood! Honestly, I loved Phantom's Revenge and Black Widow. The whole park was great.

[XGatorHead 8904]

^Another username change?!? I had to look up your username history to see who you were since you replied like you knew me!

[Creed Bratton]

^Another username change?!? I had to look up your username history to see who you were since you replied like you knew me!

You missed the other thread. I apparently am a king.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk